How People Pleasing Is Stopping Your Ascension
May 28, 2022
Looking back one of my earliest memories of intentional people pleasing (although I didn’t realize it at the time) was when I was 15. Up until then, all the people pleasing I did was inherent and automatic with my parents, trying to make sure they were happy so that I could get the love and attention from them I was so desperate for. When I was 15, I started working at the local shopping mall. I got a job at a cookie shop and there was a manager there a couple of years older than I was (that was a big deal to a teenager) and she was known to not like anyone. I remember telling myself, “I’ll get her to like me.” And from that moment, that was what I set out to accomplish and within a couple of weeks she became one of my best friends.
What does that story have to do with people pleasing? Well, the way I managed to attract her friendship was by tactics of conforming to what I knew she wanted in a friend. I didn’t realize at such a young age my empathetic abilities. She was insecure and didn’t trust many people, so I made sure to gain her trust by complimenting her, being agreeable, and making sure to ask her a lot of questions so she could talk about herself (which is what she wanted to do). Soon I was her confidante. But what I now realize is that our entire friendship from that point on was built on a foundation of becoming the person she needed to feel comfortable around, NOT the person I actually was.
This type of people pleasing took root in that relationship when I saw how well it worked and I used this tactic throughout personal relationships as well as professional ones. I always conformed to what others wanted and needed me to be. I wanted their approval. I wanted to feel liked and adored, so I used the methods I was gaining in winning people’s hearts. I thought winning people over and being the friend, daughter, employee, sister, wife, mother that everyone loved would satisfy me and be enough. But it wasn’t. I was never satisfied, and I always felt empty inside. I never knew who I really was. Because with one person, I was one way and with another I was totally different. The base of my morals and integrity were always strong, but the nuances of my personality were always dependent on who I was in the room with or talking to at that time. I felt like a superhero putting on a different costume with different abilities for whoever needed me at the time. What conforming for so many years did to me was put me in a place where I didn’t know who I was. I had no idea. I knew I was trustworthy and loveable and loyal, but I didn’t know the finite details of my personality, because I was always latching on to those around me to become a version of them that they wanted to see in me.
Fast forward to meeting my person. He was the first person to see me for who I was…even before I could see it myself. He saw me through the eyes of soul. When I would go into mind and try to people please (even with him), he felt that energy of push. Because, people pleasing is push because it is all from the mind. Soul doesn’t people please. Soul just is. So when I would go into that mode, hoping to win him over and settle some of the addictive energy of the moment, he would pull. He wanted me to be me. To please myself first and foremost. The problem was, I didn’t know how to do that or what it even looked like. This left me in an extremely tumultuous place within. I was trapped in a version that needed to win his affection like I had done everyone else over the years, but seeing that it actually repelled him rather than pleased him. I was lost and felt desperate. I didn’t know what to do and this back and forth cycle of trying to please and repel made me feel hopeless and utterly depressed. It is part of what led him to leave and a component of the start of my dark night.
When he left and my dark night occurred, I was lost. All of my tactics I had used throughout my life with other relationships had failed me. How do I win him back if I can’t PLEASE my way back into his heart? I didn’t know what to do. And then came JoAnne, with her words of love and wisdom telling me to focus on me and no one else. I understood the words she was saying, but I had no idea how to apply them to myself and my own life. How do I focus on what I want and need when I had no idea what those things were? So I started small. I still remember asking myself what food I wanted for take out that day. It took me awhile to figure out such a simple answer, because I was used to getting food that others would enjoy, and ignored my own sense of desires.
Little by little I started asking myself questions and learning how to please myself first. I asked myself, “What do I feel like doing now?” and then would do it. “What do I want to listen to when I go to bed?” And then I’d listen. “What do I want to wear today that will make me feel good”, then I’d put it on. “What are my goals in life that don’t involve others?” and then I would start pursuing those. These are the steps I took to please myself. If friends or family wanted to see me or talk on the phone, and I didn’t feel like it, I’d now decline instead of acquiescing. There was no more putting others feelings and their emotions first. Because I learned when I did that I was giving into mind and it put me in a place of past or future. When I started focusing on me and learning how to implement presence in my daily life, I felt what it was to be aligned with soul, and it was so magical that I never wanted to give that power away again. I have come to find out, that my soul is infinite. The more I love me and focus on me, that is enough for those around me. In fact, it’s more than enough because through me, they get a piece of soul that they don’t know how to get on their own. I am awakened now. I no longer people please, because I’m aligned, and I know soul never needs to seek others approval or validation.
And I AM SOUL!
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