The First Step is Acceptance (Part 1)
It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the city of Los Angeles, and I am on my balcony, writing this journal, drinking chai from a flask, thinking about how best to introduce you to the possibility that you, my dear girlie, may be a people pleaser.
Some of you may already be aware, and are on your 6th step of recovery, but the rest of you, please find a quiet area so I can break the news gently to you.
See the problem is, a people pleaser is very often characterized solely as doormat. When we imagine a people pleaser, we tend to conjure up the image of a person who is easily manipulated, and over agreeable, and with such a specific characterization, so many of us who are more bold, and vocal, cannot see how we may also be plagued.
In truth, people pleasing is not endemic to the meek girlies who are too scared to insist upon their needs, it’s a pandemic also afflicting the outspoken girlies who think being their full selves may be too much.
Perhaps somewhere along your many social life experiences, you picked up the idea that you as your full rainbow of self, was more preferred when you exhibited only certain hues, in more muted or even elevated degrees. The very human realization that adjustments will be made to ourselves, around different people, in different settings to attain a favorable perception.
However, there is a degree of adjustments we make to ourselves, that we begin to depend on as we socialize, that does signify a chronic case of people pleasing. There is an attachment we can make to wanting to be seen in only one or two hues of our color-wheel. And it can keep us anxious about any of our other colors showing, and being negatively perceived by the people whose approval we value.
If you can recall moments of tuning down yourself, muting your true opinions, overthinking the perception of your appearance, being the “easygoing” gal, all to make everyone else more comfortable. You are a people pleaser. If you are person more likely to “go with the flow” than rock the boat too much by being “too real”, neutrality being your safe space, even when you know you strongly agree or disagree. You are a people pleaser. If you see yourself as the vibrant entertainer of the group, the one who expends energy trying to lift everyone else’s spirits, the performer, who closes the show, but has no energy left after everyone leaves, you are a people pleaser. Even you the sharp tongued girlie, who is always quick with the witty, shady comebacks, a role you play up for the laughs and approval from your friends, a role you often feel is why you are valued, you too my dear, are a people pleaser.
We are very often people pleasing in the moments we find ourselves trying to fit in. We are people pleasing when we feel inclined to go with the group, rather than risk being the “different one”. We are people pleasing when we are attached to sharing a curated version of ourselves, the one we believe will gain us the most approval.
Based on experiences we have had in our different environments, a lot of us have been shaped to find safety in the collective. And what those experiences teach us, is that being ourselves is the unsafe place. It’s the place where we can get scolded and disliked by people we care about. It’s the place where we face the true sting of rejection. And with that, a lot of us become a whole lot more comfortable being a version of ourselves that we feel will attract us more goodwill. So we keep ourselves to ourselves, and learn to engage with the world, gauging and measuring how best to present ourselves for its approval. And frankly it feels like shit.
In the height of people pleasing, yes, you are surrounded by a lot more people who want to be around you. Of course a lot more people will enjoy your carefully curated persona that is tailored for their best enjoyment. Yes, you belong and fit in, and are approved of, but how do you really feel? How exhausted are you at being a version of yourself, best for everyone else but you? How tired of you of using your energy in such a draining way?
We always underestimate the energy cost of going against our full selves.
It was after the pandemic in 2020, that I truly realized how deep my people pleaser roots extended. Prior to shut down, I was so much more comfortable handling social settings. But after engaging, I would always be so drained. I never interrogated how much energy I put into being likable, how much of myself I held back to be. I always knew the right things to say, and what to withhold and I thought it made me a very good person. After all, to try to make others comfortable and feel good, are the actions of a good person. But with the pandemic upon us, and having so much time to sit with my emotions and sort through them. It dawned on me that at some point, I had internalized that my true self was unlikeable. If I spent so much time curating a version of myself to be a better experience for others? Did I even like myself? Because what was so wrong with being the version of me that I am. What parts of myself did I find so abhorrent, I had to reshuffle what areas to show.
I truly had to confront my own feelings so I could release myself from the idea that I couldn’t fully be me. After the world got back to a semblance of normal. The time I had spent truly seeing myself, made social engagement even more challenging. There was the prior version of me who was an expert at social situations, but she had been replaced by this new aware version of me who no longer wanted to do the likability shuffle. The social anxiety that arrived with this internal dissonance was overwhelming. I only wanted to be around people my social battery felt safe around. I didn’t want to feel the stirrings of my old self, rising up to meet the challenge of being an expert at what I believed people wanted from me. I knew I had to learn how to be safely myself in every social setting, or risk becoming a hermit who only interacted with a handful of people.
And this is what I had to teach myself.
(To be continued)
