People pleasing: The Urge to Be What Someone Else Wants You to Be in Order to Be Enough

I think of people pleasing as a pattern of minimizing your own needs for the sake of others, usually out of a desire to be liked. The confusing part is that while it seems to center others, it’s actually about ourselves about feeling like we have to ignore our needs in order to be loved. Putting others first is a way of feeling like we have control of how those people perceive us. When we don’t feel good about ourselves, that feedback either makes or breaks us. When we need to make sure everyone else is okay in order for us to feel okay, our whole sense of self gets wrapped up in whether or not others like us. That creates an unbalanced foundation to stand on, let alone grow from. People pleasing comes up in all areas of life even therapy. I have witnessed so many clients hesitating to be fully honest with me (I’ve done this with my own practitioners as well). They might skip sharing what’s actually happening within them to try to make sure the therapist is comfortable, or to try to manage how they are viewed because they’re so used to doing that in their daily lives. When I point out this pattern to clients, their reaction is always interesting, because the recognition tends to feel both embarrassing and affirming it can feel like being caught in the act of something in addition to finally being truly seen.

#stewartlifecoaching #beyourself #loveyourself