People-pleasing may be more than a personality trait. It can be a response to serious trauma, according to writer Alex Bachert. Growing up in a home, school, and church that emphasized good behavior, self-discipline, and corporal punishment, the writer described being a model child. She was quiet and pleasant, never sent to the principal’s office. Complaining and “ugly” emotions were not allowed. Although she was rambunctious and rebellious as a toddler, that part of her personality was cleansed by the time she was school-aged. She felt she had no other choice. At the slightest hint that someone was upset with her, she felt unsafe in her own body.
This pattern continued into adulthood. She found jobs with supervisors who would lose their temper often. She worked harder than anyone else to avoid getting in trouble. When colleagues were yelled at for mistakes, they laughed it off. But when anger was directed at her, she was ridden with anxiety. She wondered why coworkers could brush off a manager’s anger while she felt triggered for hours.
It took many years to learn the answer. Some people are conditioned from a young age to develop a deep-seated fear of losing their sense of belonging and safety in relationships. To cope, they develop strategies to safeguard themselves. For some, that turns into a habit of people-pleasing.
The common denominator for people-pleasers is feeling beholden to others. They put their own needs last and feel obligated to manage everyone else’s happiness. They are hypersensitive to being judged, shamed, and rejected. They worry about what others think. They overextend themselves to be helpful. When they dare to stand up for themselves, they suffer from anxiety and guilt.
When these patterns are not addressed, a person may eventually feel resentful, frustrated, and angry. It compromises emotional and physical well-being and contributes to a sense of powerlessness. Bachert writes that people are not responsible for juggling others’ emotions. They do not owe anyone comfort. They are not a charity receptacle for others’ emotional venting, unhealed trauma, or misdirected anger. Time, energy, and well-being are not up for negotiation. People do not deserve guilt-tripping manipulation. They cannot control how other people show up in relationships, but they can change their own patterns of powerlessness and take back their lives without giving up their genuine desire to care for others.
Brain Ruts
It is not a mystery what one should do instead of carrying the burden of people-pleasing. Set boundaries, speak your truth, be more confrontational, use your voice, separate your feelings from others, and put your needs first. The question is what gets in the way of taking those steps. Though a person may feel the need to change through sheer willpower or more self-discipline, that is not the answer. They do not need to read books about how to “grab life by the horns” or “grow some balls.” They do not need to muscle through debilitating anxiety or guilt. They do not need to give up generosity or empathy. They do not need to be “thicker-skinned” or less sensitive. Sensitivity is a gift.
The little-known truth about people-pleasing is that it is a learned pattern that gets turned on in the unconscious mind over and over again. Whether it is avoiding conflict, freezing up when needing to speak, or feeling guilty, people-pleasing is a survival strategy. All survival strategies are a set of automated behaviors, thoughts, and emotions that repeatedly get turned on unconsciously. The person is not fully in control of how these habits show up. That is why “trying harder” does not work. The unconscious mind turns on patterns faster than willpower can beat them.
Planting Seeds
Ninety percent of how people show up in life is unconscious and based on the past. The brain saves energy by automating decisions, behaviors, and feelings. Bad habits are like brain ruts. Every time a people-pleasing habit appears, the brain rides down the same neural pathway, deepening the grooves. That well-worn path feels safer and easier than walking through wild, unruly grass. The wild grass represents the life a person could be living, taking up space, putting needs first, and feeling amazing in emotional well-being.
To make the leap, a person can plant new seeds in the unconscious mind and water them regularly. If people-pleasing were not a problem anymore, what would be possible? Imagine a scenario where the unconscious pathways have been reconfigured and the person feels confident, powerful, and unapologetic. Whose rules would stop being followed? What boundaries would be put in place? Whose misdirected emotions would feel bulletproof? What responsibilities would be given up? What truths would come spilling out?
There is a reason fantasizing about an ideal life is intoxicating. The brain is wired to believe what it imagines because a part of it does not know the difference between real and imaginary. That is why people get emotionally pulled into TV and movies. When the critical thinking part of the mind goes quiet, the unconscious mind is accessed. That is where habits are formed and where people are most swayed and influenced. To get out of a people-pleasing brain rut, a person needs to plant seeds in the unconscious mind to influence themselves to show up the way they want. Done with repetition, these seeds build new neural pathways.
One powerful way to plant seeds is to visualize while in a deeply relaxed state. To start, get in the right frame of mind. Visualization works best when feeling relaxed and calm in the body. If actively triggered, self-regulate emotions before jumping into visualization. A quick method is to combine a breathing exercise with stimulation of acupressure points on the wrist. Grab one wrist with the opposite hand and squeeze. Take one big inhale, hold for a couple seconds, then exhale twice as long. Repeat two to three times. Once grounded, find a quiet place without interruptions to focus and go inward. Be specific. The brain works in finite ways. If a person wants to be a badass who lives life on their own terms, they need to imagine exactly what that looks like. Visualize in detail being in a situation that used to trigger people-pleasing and responding with confidence and ease.
