People Pleasing
And for our next musing, people pleasing. What is it? Essentially, it's putting other people above ourselves - but normally to the point that your own needs are no longer being met.
Have you ever had a time where you've gone above and beyond to help someone, to your own detriment? That could be people pleasing. Could be. I'm not saying for definite, because we all have different intentions behind our actions.
What do I mean by this? I mean, that when someone is people pleasing, they tend to feel compelled to help (don't we all) but they may experience strong emotions around this.
For example, if you knew someone was asking for help from you, but you didn't have time, energy or the resources to help them (and you actually needed to care for yourself first). You might feel unable to say "no" to this person, and there might be some strong feelings of guilt (as well as other feelings) around it.
As a former people pleaser myself, from my experience, I felt I couldn't say "no" to anyone. I felt that I had to help people so that they wouldn't reject me, and so that they would approve of me as a person.
Some of the people pleasing can come down to a core belief of yourself, that "I'm not good enough". So, naturally, we seek approval and acceptance from others - when really we need it from ourselves.
When I work with someone who struggles with people pleasing, I'm there to validate their feelings and concerns, but also to remind them that they can say "No". They can take that time to care for themself rather than helping everyone all the time. If you stretch yourself too thin, then you actually can't help people, because you end up needing support.
A lot of this is internal work with yourself. It's learning to care for yourself and to know deep down that doing this first, before helping others isn't a bad thing. It's necessary.
Are you struggling with people pleasing? And if you are, maybe it's worth thinking about why? What makes you put other people first often above yourself? Do you care for people but to your own detriment?
