• Home
  • My Journey
  • How I Work
  • Poems and Blog
  • Reviews
  • Book a Session
  • Contact

Heart and Grit

great blue heron

What is a People Pleaser?

Celebrating Ourselves

27 Jul

The short version is: I enact an adaptation of myself designed to appeal to others. To entice them to like me, accept me, respect me. Not reject me. To ensure that I remain in their good graces by fitting into their world of perception and belief.

How do I know this? I’ve done it a thousand times.

For years, I became an award-winning actress each summer when I flew 3000 miles to visit my father and his second wife. Behaving as the daughter I thought he wanted me to be (and, as it turns out, he did). When I could no longer sustain this pretense, he cut me out of his life — sparing me the trouble.

On the surface, people-pleasing does appear to work. It maintains the relationship on an even keel. All appears to be well. But deeper down, what’s happened is an isolation. My authenticity has gone missing. I’ve isolated myself from myself. I have also separated away from you.

You may think you are seeing the real me, but it’s not so. Even if my people-pleasing has produced results and you seem to approve of me, I have lost myself in the bigger picture.

As empaths, we spend a lot of our time and energies meeting others where they live. Always visiting their home as our place of meeting. Perhaps we sense intuitively that a friend may lack capacity to receive us — to really take us in. Or, maybe we fear that if we were to show up as our big authentic self, they’d feel threatened. Sometimes, we do the dance to avoid domination or control.

We travel to the world of that other person, having left our suitcase behind — the one containing our deepest heart.

We travel to the world of that other person, having left our suitcase behind — the one containing our deepest heart.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this. We are always the perfect version of ourselves as we appear in the moment. We do the best we can with the resources available. Even if in the very next moment, life opens up and we see it another way — as a perfect set-up for the needed change that is ready to come forth.

Leave a Comment

If something I’ve written touches a chord in you, I invite you to explore it with me.

Contact Me
Previous Post: « The Rhythm of Now
Next Post: The Hot Breath of Conformity »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • The Melting Mask
  • Parse words Pierce veils
  • Girl in a Swirl
  • Shifting Sands
  • Miracles of Paradox
  • WordSwordsWords
  • Pitch Forks and Hot fire!
  • New Year in Winter
  • Call Me By Name
  • Midwinter in the Forest
  • Deeds Done
  • Faith
  • Dark Light
  • Words have Wings
  • Sit Silent
  • Living in the Bones – 2
  • Bless, Heal, Nurture
  • Head Lines
  • Postcards from the Pandemic
  • Sister
  • Saving Daylight
  • Circle of Life and Death
  • Water on the Boil
  • Shark Teeth and Angel Wings
  • After the Storm
  • Space
  • Shut Down, Clear Out
  • Walking her Mind Home
  • Other Side of Good Enough
  • Round and Round

Categories

  • Celebrating Ourselves
  • Communication Capers
  • Creative Spark
  • Digging Deep
  • Heart Beats
  • In These Times
  • Nature is Us
  • News Sparkler
  • Revelation
  • Shake it Up
  • Troubles
  • Uncategorized

Donate to Heart & Grit:

Copyright © 2023 · Dawn-Dyanna Dhyanna, M.A. · Heart & Grit

Website design & development by Lobstervine

Copywriting & artistic design by Dawn-Dyanna Dhyanna