How to forgive the “people pleasing” self.

As I sit with my tea this morning, I am acutely aware of my people pleasing behaviors, peeking around the corners in my life recently. This is a common topic with my clients as well.

So, if you experience this, please keep reading. You’re not alone.

I’ve been scared of conflict for as long as I can remember. Afraid of what other people think of me. Desperately wanting to be accepted. Fearing I would be rejected if I disagreed or was assertive.

In my twenties and part of my thirties, I’m not even sure I knew what assertiveness looked like. Even in my forties, through the haze of perimenopause, still I struggle with asserting myself. Still, I hesitate, unsure. With that little voice in the back of my brain wondering if I am talking too much, am I listening enough, am I doing this right? Am I a good friend, a good wife, a good aunt, a good sister, a good daughter, a good dog mom.

Am I doing it all wrong? This little human who wants so badly to get it right, desperate to belong. When I close my eyes, I see her show up as the little girl in a pink dress that her mother made. The teenager with braces and acne, desperate to be seen and heard. The idealistic young adult battling with anger at the world around me. All these versions of myself that were just footprints leading me to now. The steps through my journey that have shaped, formed and molded my mind and body. A baby is unable to understand how to walk. It must learn by falling. Back then I fell a lot.

Motivated by my fear of rejection, I realized I was managing other peoples’ emotions and putting my needs aside. This behavior, otherwise known as “people pleasing,” I soon realized was one of the reasons I felt so resentful and angry. I never advocated for myself. I never spoke up about my needs.

What really threw me for a loop was the fact that my kindness and support in my relationships were heavily based on fear and needing to please people to survive. Instead of being based on simply compassion for others. Like a crack in the heart, it was an awakening for me. Sadly, to have this awakening, it took a very traumatic event. My mom Rena was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Through all of the typical back and forth mother-daughter, “you can’t tell me what to do” battles she and I had over the years, one thing remained the same, she was my best friend, my rock. The person I felt safest with. She cooled me down when I was over heated. She held me when I was heartbroken. She taught me how to sew and how to laugh at my mistakes. She was love at its most pure. Saving her was suddenly worth all of my survival mechanisms. Worries of rejection completely vanished. And instead, I became her warrior. I had no trouble challenging doctors, nurses and social workers. And I didn’t care a bit if they didn’t like me. I imagine this is a similar feeling as becoming a parent. When we are responsible for another person’s life, we are forced into a different perspective. We take on a new role.

But with all of my fighting, I lost her anyway. In the wake of her death, every nerve in my nervous system settled, as if my body knew I needed to rest and find comfort. It allowed me the space to grieve. I was still in that precious mode of not being afraid of rejection, and I let myself be there. However short lived.

As life moves forward, our old patterns haunt us. Like clouds waiting to burst. Eventually my need to be accepted came rushing back with vengeance. And since I lost the safest person in my life, my fear of rejection was in overdrive. But now I was more aware of it, which made it all the more frustrating. I became angry with myself. As you can imagine, and maybe empathize with your own experiences, this is not helpful. It creates a vicious cycle of guilt and shame.

I decided to lose myself in mindfulness, meditation and yoga, which helped me eventually break the cycle. I began to ask myself, what is the worst that could happen if this person didn’t like me? And then, I found out, there were people that didn’t like me. Yet here I still stand, intact and living. I also began to ask, does another person’s opinion of me make me worthless? What about my opinion? What someone thinks of you doesn’t change who you are. And you know you better than anyone.

Even though I still hesitate, the thoughts are quieter now. I realize they

are just thoughts. Like wisps in the air, while I am solid. I pull my power back by choosing. Because we sometimes forget that we have a choice.

I choose to turn and face that little girl, that struggling teen, and that guilty young adult. I choose to embrace them, love them, and witness their mistakes and successes. I choose to tell them it’s okay because we learned and we are here now. We are no longer there in the past. I choose to forgive them because now I understand. I know it had to be.

Forgiveness is a choice and is not something we do only once but instead choose to do it every day. It is the act of leaning in and discovering yourself as human. The baby that needs to fall. The adult that stumbles.