Day 7- Dara’s Life Liberated Challenge- People Pleasing

Day 7

People Pleasing 

Stay with me people!!

People pleasing is a really big deal because there are a lot of times in our lives that we are people pleasing and don’t even realize it!! 

This topic goes hand in hand with Day 6. Read what Vironika Tugaleva has to say about self-love and people pleasing.

“If you find yourself craving approval, you are low on self-love. Stop grasping for a few scraps wherever you can. Go home and make yourself a feast. Love yourself deeply today.” 

There are a lot of different ways that we seek approval from people. I am going to list off a few, as you are reading I invite you to think if any of these ring true for you- try not to feel shame, remember this is an activity of freeing ourselves from our former selves. We need to show up with vulnerability and a desire to change for transformation.

-so busy thinking about what you are going to say back to the person you are talking to that you really aren’t listening to what they are saying

-agree to do things that you don’t want to do in fear that you will displease them (i.e. sitting with three wet dogs in the back of the car)

-not correct someone when they say something incorrect in fear of offending

-changing yourself to please the other person (i.e. liking a certain hobby or song on the radio to be more like the person you are with)

-dressing a certain way to ‘hide or disguise’ something so they will think something different about you (i.e. your age, your weight)

-you exaggerate or lie when telling a story

Here is a really fabulous explanation of how people pleasing really limits us from truly feeling love by Byron Katie:

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result. Manipulation is separation, and separation is painful. Another person can love you totally in that moment, and you’d have no way of realizing it. If you act from fear, there’s no way you can receive love, because you are trapped in a thought about what you have to do for love. Every stressful thought separates you from people.

But once you question your thoughts, you discover that you don’t have to do anything for love. It was all an innocent misunderstanding. When you want to impress people and win their approval, you’re like a child who says, ‘Look a me! Look at me! It all comes down to a needy child. When you can love that child and embrace it yourself, the seeking is over’

Because I am reading Byron Katie’s book at the moment I really diving deep into the exercises she provides to work through various ways we can fall into the people pleasing trap. Her book is I Need Your Love- Is That True?

So going to the first quote that I shared about learning how to love ourself really is the answer.

When we spend so much time worrying about what other people think of us (‘Was that response clever enough? Maybe I should have said…) we are not paying attention to the moment and being open to the joy that could possibly be there.

Challenge for you.

  • Before you go to bed I want you to take out your book and write down the number of conversations you had that day. These can be in-person conversations and on-line conversations (i.e. commenting back and forth on social media). 
  • In those conversations how open were you to what they were saying or were you more focused on what you had to say?
  • Did you second guess what you said?
  • Do you wish you could back and clarify?
  • Or, do you feel comfortable with what you had to say and respect that everyone is entitled to interpreting your comments in any way they wish.

As always I am interested in what comes up for you. 

Here is the final quote about people pleasing I want to leave you with:

“We’ve become conditioned to compromise and shrink ourselves in order to be liked. The problem is, when you work so hard to get everyone to like you, you very often end up not liking yourself so much.” 

Reshma Saujani, Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder

Here is the video I created for you sharing some further insights.

https://zoom.us/rec/share/6fJOHrf63UZOconpyEvwe6oLHrb0X6a81SVM_fZfykidVgs-n1YgToZNHjJZXsv2

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