Why People Pleasing is Such a Dangerous Endeavor

People pleasing is a dangerous endeavor. The more vigorously it is pursued the more our True Self gets effaced, until all that, seemingly, remains is a puppet whose strings are constantly being pulled by all the people we have trained to do so. “How did they get trained?” you ask. Why, we trained them step by step.

• We are always willing to compromise. Our compromise consists mostly of capitulating with a minimal amount of complaining from the other party. We make it relatively painless for things to go their way.
• We succumb to guilt tactics applied by our puppeteers. It doesn’t take much at all to get us to fold. They say and do things that somehow make us feel as if we don’t do enough. Our bad for falling for it. We call it ‘caring’ which is, in these instances, a euphemism for ‘doormat.’
• We continue to serve them even when they complain about the service. If you bring someone breakfast in bed and they complain the eggs weren’t cooked to their complete satisfaction, there’s a serious problem, and it isn’t with the eggs.
• We show by our actions and words that we care more about everyone else’s needs, desires and feelings more than we do about our own.

In doing this we are sending our traumatized child parts (TCPs) the message that there is still no one in their life who is on their side. We are reenacting our childhood where we were mostly treated as:

• Insignificant, our feelings were of little to no concern in the family circle. We typically had a parent who stood center stage, with us forever waiting in the wings.
• Our desires went unrecognized, our dreams unfulfilled.
• Our most basic of survival needs were met, but our need for fun, beauty, joy, appreciation, admiration, being cherished and treated as significant were rarely, if ever, considered worth addressing.
• You can and must stop waiting for someone to come and parent you in a nurturing, loving and encouraging way; because that person has already arrived . . . it’s YOU! You don’t feel guilty about driving your kids (parent, sibling, friend, neighbor) to the myriad lessons, practices, appointments and events they attend. You don’t feel guilty when you tuck your children into bed at a reasonable time. You don’t feel it’s a waste of time to prepare a nourishing and tasty meal for your children, partner, friends or family.

So now take that lovely nurturing, protective and truly caring behavior and shine it on your inner child, whose been waiting an awfully long time. Embrace, nourish and lavish that child with attention, take her/him out on a fun adventure, buy your wee one presents that delight them. This is how you let them know there is finally someone in their life who is completely on their side. It is safe for them to come out into the light of day. This is the most important love of your life; the love that heals; self-love.

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Copyright ©2018 Josephine Faulk, MPH. Excerpt from WORTHY A Personal Guide For Healing Your Childhood Trauma by Josephine Faulk,MPH.  Available, along with accompanying Workbook, on Amazon.