June 27, 2025 • 48 mins
There's a difference between doing something nice for someone as a nice gesture of love or friendship and doing it hoping to influence the recipient. In the first situation, your reward is in the doing; in the second, the reward you hope for may not happen leading to anger, sadness or depression. That's called People Pleasing Behaviour and it often backfires spectacularly. Liana takes us through her own journey from PPB, what she learned along the way about herself and why she is happier without it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello listeners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services, This
is not therapy. I'm Leanna Kerzner, and I am not
(00:30):
a therapist, but I am your source for navigating the
madness of mental health using my top ten sayings for
going good crazy Now this week, if you hear me
lisping a little, is because I got in visile lines,
you know, the plastic braces on my lower teeth, and
I'm still adjusting. That's why there was no episode new
(00:51):
last week. I was in a lot of pain, and
I sounded worse than I do now. But we're gonna
keep going because the last week I was live, I
said we were gonna talk about people pleasing, and I'm
honoring that people praising, Oh dear, people pleasing. People pleasing
isn't just being nice to people for the sake of
(01:11):
being nice. The people pleaser doesn't want to please others.
The people pleaser feels the need to please others for reasons,
and there are often good reasons. But when we're constantly
in a state of I need to regarding other people,
(01:31):
we're rarely getting our own needs met. The people pleasing
is about preventing or getting some sort of outcome, and
it's not healthy because top ten phrase healthy goals are
based on things you can't control, and you can't control
other people you can't. And because of that, because you're
(01:52):
trying to do the impossible, you're in a state of
constantly transactional relationships. While the people pleaser never feels in control.
You don't feel like you're getting anything meaningful out of
the exchanges. You're just giving, giving, giving, and the only
thing you're getting out of it is Yeah, that's where
(02:13):
the reasons come in, right. The good reasons I talked
about include fear of rejection, you know, really deep rooted
in securities, the need to be well liked and you know,
in this who you know, not what you know economy,
that's that's valid, right, Fear of abandonment, fear of being
(02:33):
in love, fear of disappointing others, fear of punishment, fear
of negative consequences. That's the problem with people pleasing. It's
living in constant fear and anxiety, and simply being nice
inspires good feelings, not just constantly trying to fight off
negative ones. This is why I don't like the name
(02:56):
people pleasing. It's just a fact you have to do
a certain amount of maintenance on relationships, which means to
appoint the people you want to stick around need to
be pleased with you. Now, there's a difference between wanting
people to be pleased with you and needing people to
(03:18):
be pleased so that you can fend off some catastrophe
or you know, to guilt or coerce them into being
nice to you back or not leaving or whatever. It's
that coercion. It's the trickery that's the problem. People pleasers,
you know, create those environments of coercion. They spread it around. Well,
(03:41):
they're feeling like they need to, like they're being coerced. Right,
if someone arounds you just messes up and learn from it.
That's a solvable problem. Right, But if people feel coerced
into certain behaviors, and I've noticed that a lot of
people pleasers inadvertently send out messages that people need to
(04:01):
tiptoe around them or else because they're chronically anxious and
on the verge of explosion. That damages relation chips. Obviously, right,
this need or compulsion, this coercive dynamic where everyone is
doing allegedly nice things out of a perceived need instead
(04:23):
of because they want to. That's the core of the problem.
And to become less of a soul called people pleaser,
the first step is the very painful process of being
truly honest with yourself about what you're doing. And I
say this as a reform people pleaser. At its core,
(04:45):
people pleasing behavior is manipulative. Now, for the purposes of
this show, we're going to stay in the realm of
just vanilla people pleasing. Right, We're not gonna get into
any of the personality disorders where this is a potential
dynas you know, most notably borderline personality disorder and dependent
personality disorder. You know, dependent personality disorder is a lesser
(05:08):
known one. It's sometimes described as people pleasing on steroids. Now,
if you're a people pleaser, don't self diagnose with dependent
personality disorder. I grow more anti self diagnosis by the day.
If you think you have a serious condition, go to therapy,
(05:29):
get a diagnosis. Many of these conditions can look very
much alike. And I am saying this as someone with
a PTSD diagnosis that people call narcissist all the time
online right now? Is there a stigma attached to having
a diagnosis? Yeah, people like to call me crazy at
(05:52):
the drop of a hat. This is why I distinguishment
good crazy and bad crazy and say you're crazy is
only problem if it's hurting you. Right, at the end
of the day, the diagnosis was more helpful to me
than the nasty stuff people say hurts If people are
gonna come at me that way they're outing themselves, that
(06:14):
actually helped me in its own way too. Right, you're
crazy is only a problem if it's hurting you, and
people pleasing hurts you, it also hurts the people you're
trying to please if you know they're not just straight
up abusing you. People pleasing gets into a cycle of codependency,
of an expectation of mind reading, and at the end
(06:37):
of it, it's an indication that your self worth or
the self worth of the people pleaser in your life
is dependent on other people to an unhealthy degree. Underlining
unhealthy degree, right, we all need to lean on people
some of the time. We should not be terrified these
(06:57):
people are going to explode on us or abandon us.
The leaning on them should feel comforting, not like a dependence,
hence dependent personality disorder. Similarly, we all benefit from hearing
praise that we actually believe is true sometimes, right, all
(07:18):
of us do all of us. I don't care who
you are, and if you grew up with neglect, you
know that lack of meaningful approval from those early life caregivers, parents,
possibly teachers. There's a lot of school trauma out there
that isn't getting talked about enough either way. In early life,
if you can't recall hearing people say what you're good at,
(07:43):
what is good about you without it being conditional somehow,
without there being some sort of catch or expectation. You know,
if you felt like the love and safety that the
adults around you gave you was conditional on you making
them happy all the time, that's the perfect conditions for
(08:05):
people pleasing behavior as an adult rooted in trauma or neglect,
and it makes sense right when we're kids, our entire
identity is based on the opinions of the people around us,
our independent selves. You know, our view of ourselves as
individuals is not something we're born with. We're bibeous, we're dependent.
(08:26):
Right through those teenage years r you know, twelve fifteen,
pushing it up to eighteen. Those years the people love
to complain about teenagers suddenly becoming so difficult and defiant.
Guess what those teenagers are figuring out who they are,
(08:47):
so you know, of course they're going to be less
obedient than a kid whose entire life is about being
told whether or not they're a good kid, and that's
all they understand, unless that kid is a budding sociopath.
If they've told they're good, if the parents are loving
and not abusive and not that conditional kind of love
(09:09):
that comes and goes, then the kid grows up with
a sense that at least something about them is good. Right.
The problem is we tend to talk to kids like
be a good boy, be a good girl. Not do
good things because you're a good person, so show it right.
And it's really important to teach kids the difference between
(09:31):
doing a bad thing and being a bad person. And
if all that gets mixed up in childhood, there's a
core belief that forms that the minute someone gets upset
with you, some catastrophe is gonna happen. There's gonna be
some huge fights, someone's gonna walk out of your life forever.
They're gonna turn abusive, they're gonna call you a bunch
(09:52):
of names. And the thing is in life, yeah, sometimes
that happens. And those of us who've developed, you know,
a modicum of healthy self of esteem can be upset, hurt, angry, confused,
even a little scared that someone just turned like extremely okay,
(10:15):
a lot scared maybe, depending on how much they blew up.
But that's not the same as feeling like it was
my fault or feeling like I have no value because
somebody doesn't like me. And that's really the core of
the behavior we call people pleasing. That you know, it's
(10:36):
your responsibility for other people's moods. You have to or
you're nothing. And that's why people pleasing gets into that
cycle that I talked about last episode on ghosting. People
do nice things expecting, not hoping, but expecting, needing in fact,
to get something out of it, whether it's just peace
(10:57):
or a lack of conflict or you know, usually in
romantic relationships or friendships, they expect the other person to
do nice things back, as you know, an external source
of worth. The problem is what's considered a nice thing. Well,
that's highly subjective, right If buying someone clothes, for example,
(11:21):
one person might think that's a really nice thing. It's considerate.
I hate shopping. I hate shopping. No, really, I hate shopping.
Someone else might think, though, are you trying to tell
me how to dress? I can do that myself, thanks,
don't buy clothes for me. So in that latter case,
instead of you know, working it at advance, being hey,
(11:43):
do you actually like this? Yea, the people pleasing has
this sort of you know, anticipation, this mind reading, this
guessing and being wrong too often in a big way,
and that can be very very tiring on everyone involved,
not just the people pleaser, but also the people around
(12:08):
the pleaser. The people around the people pleaser get the
message loud and clear that if you tell the people
pleaser that they did something wrong, or you know, you
give the sense that you don't like what they're doing, well,
then there's going to be some sort of explosion there.
In this case, you know, running themselves down or self
(12:30):
pity or withdrawing or disappearing. You know, in some cases,
the people pleasers themselves turn nasty and tell you everything
they think is horrible about you and what you're doing wrong,
because you know, if they can't separate did a bad
thing versus I'm a bad person in themselves, or there's
some immediate meltdown of I'm a terrible person, I can't
(12:52):
do anything right. Well, that's normal for them. There's a
very good chance they're assuming everybody has some commentary like
that in their head, and that's not that's not true.
The other thing I hear is, you know, people think
everyone else has their stuff completely together and they don't,
(13:16):
and it's not true. But say it is. Everybody else
is walking on eggshells in that you know scenario, or
I'm a hot mess people pleaser who is always clearly
nervous and right at the end of their rope. Everyone
can see it. Do you notice that nobody feels like
(13:39):
they have a full range of choices in this relationship.
Everybody's behavior is restricted. Everything is some sort of you know,
based on need. That's the issue, right that, That's why
the whole people pleasing thing. I think the name's all wrong.
(13:59):
I call it manipulation via acts of service because nobody's
pleased in the long run when people, you know people,
people please so many people. Okay, people get upset when
I use the term manipulation, and so I think that
requires some time to unpack. Okay, we'll take a break
(14:21):
when I come back. Manipulation is something everyone does. I
consider it more of a neutral thing than inherently evil thing.
But it's very important to recognize that you're manipulating when
you're manipulating, so you can keep it in check. So
do you have a story you think good for the show?
Are you interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna at no
therapyshow dot com see this is something of Hey, sponsors,
(14:44):
give me money? Yeah, I like it. Well, I'm being
open about it. It's not a manipulation. Leanna at not
Therapy shut dot com is my email. Not Therapy shout
dot com is the website at not therapy on socials
people pleasing why I hate the name because it's actually
manipulation via acts of service. When we come back on
(15:04):
it's not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
Am dot C.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
and it's the therapy. I'm still then occursion, and I'm
still not a therapist. We're still talking about people pleasing,
(15:37):
and that's the commonly known name. It's not going away.
I know that, but it's wrong. I say so, because
no one's really pleased when someone is a chronic Air
quotes people pleaser again. People pleasing is not just doing
nice things. People pleasing is about manipulating other people through
(15:59):
those acts of ser is to get an outcome you
want or to avoid some outcome you don't want. And
the minute I say manipulation, oh it's a thing. The
thing is I say this because I had to recognize
I was doing it even though I felt completely powerless.
(16:19):
The feeling completely powerless was why I was doing it.
You know. It was a big symptom of my trauma
with a big side of how I was raised. Right,
Just an example, I was raised in one of those
families where it was a stereotypical mom would do a
lot of very considerate things for people. But instead of
communicating her own needs and asking for help when needed,
(16:41):
say hey, can someone help me with the dishes, she
would expect people to just know she wanted help with
the dishes, and when she didn't get it, she'd go
in the kitchen and then you hear the smashing around
muttering to herself, right, right, you know the scenario. Mm hmm.
That expectation that we would just know that she wanted help.
(17:09):
That was what I was raised to think was normal.
And that sense that anticipating needs was normal and something
everybody did unless they were just a selfish jerk. You
know that that was difficult to unlearn as opposed to
a family environment where's like, hey, there are a ton
of dishes out here, I need help. You did the eaton?
(17:32):
Help me clean up? Right, very very different paradigm. It
seems like a small thing, but it manifests in a
lot of ways. Right. We see this particular kind of
people pleasing more and girls and boys. The problem is
that the one of the big ways boys people please
(17:53):
this right now is through the use of their bodies.
There's this real problem now with boys thinking that sex
makes you have value sex with another person. You know,
girls liking them is the pinnacle of being a manly man.
You know. More on that next week in our Men's
Mental Health Month episode. The point here is that everyone
(18:15):
has a particular flavor of people pleasing that they're vulnerable,
because you know, that's what they were talk growing up.
And breaking those habits is tough because by the time
you realize it's a problem, at least in my case,
the people around you are so used to you behaving
(18:35):
that way that it becomes you know, the crabs in
the bucket phenomena. Crab tries to crawl up all the
other crabs pull them down. You know, it's a scenario
like this. The main person who's in therapy starts making
changes to better themselves, to be less symptomatic. Rationally, that's
better for everyone, but the family kind of freaks out,
(18:57):
even to the point they start maligning and undermining the therapist, going, well,
maybe I should see this person that my friends have
been too. I'd never pick out a therapist or a
family member. You know, you may mean, well, but it's
better to not have those family connections. Just let them
have someone who is theirs, who has you know, an
(19:19):
outsider perspective. And I know it's scary to think that
a person in your life is bad muffing you to
your therapist. You know, I'm a peer counselor. People are
critical of their partners and their sessions with me, and
I'll let you know I take that with a grain
of salt. It doesn't mean they're wrong, doesn't mean they're lying.
There's just other frames, right. A therapist with a license
(19:43):
should emphasis should be able to recognize the same thing.
Some things are just flat out abusive, and some things
are just manipulative, which is where I came to my
awareness that people pleasing is actually just manipulation via acts
of service. I didn't like it when my mother was
smashing cutlery around in the kitchen instead of just asking
(20:05):
someone to help her with the dishes. I didn't like it,
but I thought that's what proper women were supposed to do,
so I replicated the behavior until I realized what am
I doing? I have choices here, And yes, asking for
things is vulnerable because you ask and you get rejected. Yeah,
(20:26):
that hurts, you feel ignored, you feel unappreciated. But I
realized not asking you think you're avoiding rejection, but the
emotional impact is actually based on the assumption that you
would get rejected, So I just felt rejected already. And
once you realize these things, it makes it a lot
(20:48):
easier to change your behavior. In the case of people pleasing,
there is a big difference between just doing something nice
just to be nice. Sometimes doing something nice for other
people really helps your own old mood, right like, yeah,
you say that selfish all you want, it's a good
kind of selfish. There's a big difference between that and
(21:13):
doing something nice and then expecting other people to just know.
Now they're supposed to go above and beyond for you,
because that's the way it works because of some unwritten rule.
You know. Not only is that putting a value judgment
on however people treat you, it's expecting other people to
(21:35):
mind read you know they're expecting. You're expecting other people
to know without you clearly saying what's gonna make you happy,
And they might not be as observant as you regarding
you know, how they take their coffee or what sandwich
they like. That doesn't mean they don't care. It just
(21:55):
means clearer communication is gonna benefit everyone. There a mind
reading can back fire. You know. One of the things
I hear a lot from people in relationships is when
mind readings expected they thought they were doing nice things,
but none of them seemed to land properly. Everything seemed
(22:19):
to be wrong and just made their partner actively upset,
so they just stopped doing anything. It makes sense, doesn't it.
What would actually solve this problem is actual communication, no
more mind reading, talking thinking with using sounds right externally right.
(22:39):
So hey, people pleasers, hate to break it to you
from a reform people pleaser, that nice thing you might
be doing for someone, it might actually be freaking them
out and driving them crazy because they notice how nervous
you are all the time. So your nice je they
(23:01):
have an edge. They see the expectations, and they have
no idea what they are or how to meet them.
That is why it's manipulative. And this is a very
very hard mind shift to shift for a lot of people.
Mind shift mindset to shift. There we go a lot
(23:24):
of people think that this mind reading is just the
way of the world, and ideally everybody does nice things
for the people in their lives. But that's why this
whole love language is thing as cheesy as the terminology is,
you know, it can really help with this stuff. Right.
Just as an example, say somebody loves gifts because it's
(23:46):
a tangible thing. When they're feeling down, they can take
it out and look at it and think someone does
care about me because they gave me this thing. Right.
That is what I've heard from people who are our
gifters as a love language. Right, they like gifts. It's
not greed. It's something tangible that they can go somebody
gave me this, someone cares. But compare that to somebody
(24:11):
who's desperately trying to get rid of stuff. They have
too much stuff in their lives. They're trying to get
rid of stuff. They're not going to find gifts the
same boost, right, because gifts are just more stuff. And
that's true of any kindness. It really only works if
a person wants to be a part of it the
(24:33):
minute they're doing it on pain of God knows what
will happen if they don't. That's damaging the relationship, not
strengthening it. And that's the way people react to people pleasers.
There's some work that everyone needs to do in every
relationship so that other people feel comfortable. But that's something
(24:58):
you should go into on tink two, not feel like
you need to or else. If you're like, oh I
have to do this or oh that's a sign of
some work to do in the relationship. Okay, Now, the
idea of need is more complex than we give it
credit for, and I don't have time this episode to
get into it as something for another time, because no
(25:20):
specific other individual is required to give you the things
you emotionally need. That's why I focus on boundaries, not
needs as much. No, other people don't have to like
your boundaries, but they do have to respect them. Top
ten phrase. If you set good boundaries for yourself, you're
going to find that your needs are much better met
(25:41):
because you're not giving away so much all of the time.
When you're doing something just to keep the peace, it
doesn't feel good, does it. So when you're doing those
so called nice things expecting some sort of reciprocation, expect
that the people in your life are going to feel coerced,
(26:03):
like the smashing the dishes around. Right do you want that?
And some people say yeah, I do. Well, that's okay.
You're self aware, right, If you're setting up the scenario
you want, great, no problem we're done. Awesome. But if
the answer is no, you don't want people to feel
coerced around you, you know, including coerce to stay around you,
(26:23):
how do you change? How do you change people pleasing?
This is the part where articles online get very, very vague.
So we're going to start talking about these changes based
on the idea again that people pleasing is actually a
form of manipulation. Don't freak out, baby, you think you
have to manipulate, That's okay, we'll talk about that, but
(26:44):
it is manipulation. Question comments concerns Leanna at Thetherapyshow dot com.
Not therapyshow dot com is the website, not therapy show
is socials. When we come back more on why people
pleasing is actually a form of manipulation and how you
can start making changes based on that on it it's
not therapy.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot C.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
going to said therapy. I'm still in a cursor. I'm
still not a therapist. We're still talking about people pleasing,
(27:33):
and my theory will my realization stepping away from people
pleasing myself, is that it's a form of manipulation. It
isn't just being nice. It's being nice because you're terrified
not to be and there's some outcome you want. Now,
people get very very upset. I keep saying this at
the idea that it's manipulation, because manipulation is a charge word.
(27:55):
And if you were, you know, listening to the previous
segments on this, I said that I see manipulation as
a neutral thing. It's a tool, ideally that you minimize
the use of and restrict it to uses for good
instead of evil, you know, helping the people who just
need a little push to do the thing they really
want to do. You no problem, you know. But people
(28:21):
pleasing never pleases anyone in the long run, including yourself.
So it's not a manipulation used for good. Right. It's not, say,
a motivational phrase helping someone make better choices, right, it's
I'm gonna do this thing so they can never ever
leave me. That's plotting to keep someone a prisoner to
(28:42):
your issues, just like you already are it isn't good
for you, so it isn't good for them either. That
I'm gonna make them not leave me. That's think about
what you're saying. You know. The little manipulations, like the
crashing around the dishes thing I talked about before instead
(29:02):
of asking for help, Those little manipulations are the easiest
to change because they're just behavior modifications, right, They're habits.
I picked up being socialized, you know, female, feminine, whatever
you want to call it, This idea of always being
nice and kind and never asking for anything and always
being helpful. You know, that is part and parcel of
(29:24):
coming from one of those families that after dinner women
just instinctively know, get up and help or else. It's
the or else part that is the red fleck. You know,
everyone's so focused right now on what bathrooms trans women
pee in happy pride, But gendered socialization historically is a
(29:47):
very real thing, and the bathroom thing is just a
small part of it, and it comes out in ways
like women are more often taught that help in the
care is an expected thing, not nice thing for you
to do, than men are. We can't just ignore some
(30:10):
of these things because it's part of what leaves women
feeling profoundly lonely in monogamous, long term heterosexual relationships. You've
heard that, right. We talk a lot about the loneliness
epidemic in men lately, but women in long term monogamous relationships,
(30:31):
these women are lonely. The data on women, you know,
in this way, we don't see it in men. And
it's quite a stark contrast. And part of that comes
from this culturally trained people pleasing behavior that's specific to
women and similar to the people pleasing behavior that men
(30:53):
do around sex. No, really topic for another time. This
is the stuff you can't just do a behavioral correction.
You're gonna feel lost in the short term. People are
gonna think something's wrong with you. In the short term.
It's a hard change that temporarily breaks your life thing
(31:14):
as that life wasn't working for you. I advised clients
that if we're gonna do this, if we're gonna make
these big changes, you know, say in advance, look, this
is a behavior that you realized wasn't healthy. You know,
if you don't have the energy, if you don't have
the resilience at the end of the day, you don't
have the distress tolerance you really need, and you know,
(31:36):
you think it's better for everybody if you had fewer
blow ups or meltdowns and got overwhelmed and withdrew less. Right,
So you're gonna be making some changes, and if you
have specifics to those changes, outline them, let people know
and advance. That's way better than just changing, you know,
because when all of a sudden you stop the people pleasing,
(31:59):
people might think they've done something wrong, right, and that's,
oh God, what did I do again? Remember? People pleasing
creates a cycle of feeling coherced and like there's some
impending doom in everyone involved whenever there's the slightest change, right,
And that origination of feeling like you have to do
(32:23):
these nice things to appease some sort of sleeping dragon.
I don't know about you. Those assumptions were formed in
childhood for me, so you gotta go way back. I mean, granted, okay,
my father. My father was a human powder keg who
flat out told me that people didn't like me. Right,
And this is part of the reason I once dropped
(32:45):
a publicist because they're advice to me on something. You know,
A strategic point was make them like you. You cow
and I immediately was like, yeah, that publicist was saying
that to my face. What would she stay behind my back?
The truth is I had to unlearn this from childhood.
You can't just make people like you, and I think
(33:11):
that was really part of the reason. My father was
a human powder kick, right Like, he was a bully.
He really was, but my fury, and he's dead now,
so I can't prove it. I can't ask him, but
you know, he'd start feeling insecure and he had no
distress tolerance because he had that can't separate do a
(33:31):
bad thing versus I'm a bad person, So he blew
up to control everyone around him so there'd be no
consequences for the perceived bad thing slash bad person. Right.
The thing is because of this, because there was always
a threat of him blowing up, nobody terribly liked being
around him. But yes, people did do a lot of
(33:54):
things to just keep him happy so he didn't explode.
And again, when that's your parent, you just assume that's normal.
That's just how men are. Now. Obviously, I've come a
long way now based on what you've heard me say, right, Like,
I don't believe that about men anymore, because no, no,
people can be angry, people can even not like you
without blowing up, without plotting against you, and okay, real talk,
(34:20):
The idea that some people are not gonna like you
no matter what you do sometimes is a scary thing
to confront. As somebody who had to confront it, you know,
then it happens a few times somebody is just not
gonna like you no matter what you do. With some people,
you realize nothing you do is ever enough. And when
(34:40):
it isn't enough, because these people haven't learned to meet
their own emotional needs, it's your fault. These people have
spent their whole lives coercing people like my father did,
instead of learning how to earn it, learning how to
live with it. Sometimes, you know, in a very unfair
emotional landscape, you can totally earn it and not get
(35:02):
something from people. That's what makes the people who do
like you so precious, right, But ending people pleasing means
facing that fear of We call it cancelation now, and
it's a hard thing because, yeah, some people, they'll blow
(35:24):
up on you, they'll spread rumors about you, they'll lie
about you, and it happens to every single person who
works in anything connected to mental health. Trust me, it's
worse for people like me who work in the media.
You know, it's uncomfortable for me to come out hair
and tell y'all I used to people please, right, And
(35:46):
I even acknowledged it was manipulation. Oh God, I admitted
a bad thing, and some people will go and they'll
use that. And that is my cat making herself heard,
because people pleasing is a bad thing, not just for
yourself but for other people. Do being afraid doesn't give
(36:08):
you the excuse to do anything you want. And you know,
if you realize that you've been using being an afraid
as an excuse, you have to take a good, hard
look in the mirror or your camera phone. Now ask yourself,
what are you really afraid of? Are you afraid that
(36:30):
person's gonna freak out and become abusive? That was it
for me, right, And then the next question I had
to learn to ask myself is is that the person
right in front of you? Or is this like in
my case, you know, my biological father who died years ago.
It's very important to separate past from present because people
(36:52):
pleasing is often a habit with deep roots. Right, I
had to learn to give people chances to show they're
not like my father. I mean, if they blow up
on me in the first chance, like, all right, you
know in this way they are like my father. So
we're not doing that again. They deserve that one chance,
just out of fairness. That's about what it says about me.
(37:14):
That's me doing the work. Giving them another is my choice.
It's not mandatory. Now, people will blow up or scary, right,
even if it's blowing up in fear. The thing to
keep in mind is people don't have the right to
(37:35):
do anything they want to just because they're angry or scared,
or they have anxiety or they have trauma. Right, keep
telling yourself that, keep repeating that, you'll start to believe it.
With enough repetition, repetitionary transa brain. Now, this is, like
I said, a tough process. Sometimes, you know, you might
(37:59):
already be feeling pretty beaten down by life. You may
feel beaten down in the process of changing this very
major part of how you navigate the world. It's okay
to be afraid. Feelings are feedback. It's okay to have
any feeling you want, right, It doesn't give you the
(38:19):
right to do anything you want. If that fear is
causing you to scurry around anticipating needs, you know that
you're not even sure needs. You know, it's just doing
a bunch of things the person didn't ask you to do. Well,
it's time to take stock if you realize you're doing
they're doing that right, if they really are that kind
(38:42):
of bully, No matter how much scurwring around you do,
it's not gonna appease them. Okay, it doesn't matter if
you do two hundred things right, a thousand things right.
They're gonna find the one thing they think you did
wrong and they're gonna seize on that. That's gonna define
you because they're looking for it. They're a bully. Bullies bully.
(39:03):
You can't appease them, not for long. And if they're
not a bully, what you scurry around doing a whole
bunch of things that they didn't ask for, basically kissing
their butt, They're gonna think something is off right? Why
are you doing that? Stable people don't want people doing
(39:26):
things like that. For them, it's uncomfortable, at least it
is for me. I will actually say why are you
doing that? And a lot of the times people don't know,
and you know this is why I check in with
the why why are you doing this stuff? Why are
you doing this considerate thing? Is it just to be nice?
(39:50):
Is it really just if you got nothing in return
for this, would you still think this is a nice
thing to do because that is a great way to
live your life, right? Or are you doing it to
get something or to prevent something from happening? And people
are well, that's just normal, right, that's just that's just
(40:12):
your network. Right. I'm gonna let you in on something.
If you're trying to tightly control your environments like this,
I guarantee you people don't see you as nice. They
see you as controlling, even if you feel completely out
(40:35):
of control. And most people who behave this way do
they're offended to be called controlling because they don't feel it.
But think less about the feeling coming in and more
about your behavior coming out. If you are doing things
to get something or prevent something, you are trying to
control outcomes and it's not possible, will never be enough. Okay.
(41:03):
This is a really tough thing to face because it
means just finally stopping and letting that feeling of a
lack of control catch you it's awful. I've been there, right,
you have your reasons for doing what you're doing. I've
said this this whole show, and yes, the feeling, the
fear is real, that trauma is real, that anxiety is real.
(41:29):
That's why I'll start off saying that the first step
to ending people pleasing rooted in trauma is you gotta
face the trauma. But how can you have nice things right?
How can you get that feeling that you're valued to people,
for people to stay in your life and not leave
and all that stuff? Okay, that'll be our final segment.
(41:49):
It's simpler than you think. Questions, comments, any feedback whatsoever.
Leanna at nontherapyshow dot com. Not therapy show dot com
is the website at non therapy Show is social media.
How to get nice things without people pleasing on it.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
It's not therapy, No radio, no problem. Stream is live
on SAGA ninety six am dot CAA.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot ca. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm still in a cursoner. I'm still
not a therapist. We're still talking about people pleasing why
I believe it's uh manipulation by ACKs of service, and
(42:40):
how I stopped and in the final moments of the show,
I want to talk about the fact that, yeah, everybody
would like people to do nice things for them. The
thing about a nice thing is nobody has to the
minute they have to, or else it's no longer a
nice thing. And realize that if that's how people perceive you,
they're gonna think you're kind of a bully. Yep, no
(43:04):
way around that. So what do you do instead? Well,
you know, you ask any athlete or the musical Hamilton.
You know I am not giving away man shot. I
am not giving away man shot, right Like, you have
to make the opportunities knowing the puck isn't always gonna
(43:25):
go in the net. You're not always gonna hit a
home run. You know you're not gonna make every free throw.
That was a lot of sports metaphors, hopefully one landed.
If you're a video game player, right you you're not
gonna go through every game without like getting a fail
state a's a failure is a part of it failure
(43:47):
makes the successes feel good. Right, It's not just a
part of life. It really does make when it works
feel better. And so you have to accept ye that, Yeah,
you may hope someone does a nice thing for you, You
may hope someone likes you, but there are no guarantees
(44:10):
and sometimes it's just not gonna happen. And that's just
it's not about you. If you think there's behaviors you
need to change, great, If you know you don't, well
it was a mismatch, right. But the opposite of people
pleasing is you know, carefully observing and decoding your own
(44:37):
behavior and going what what does this say? What makes
me feel valued? What makes me feel cherished? What are
my values? Who am I as a person? What makes
me feel like I matter? And then hey actually say
to people like this, this is what makes me f
(45:00):
feel like I matter? Like for me as an example,
I think maybe because of what I do the whole
I understand unless there is some detail, No, no, I'm
not gonna believe you understand. Somebody trying to perspective, take
and put myself put themselves in my place, right, Somebody
(45:20):
having the hard conversation actually talking it out and admitting
feelings without trying to control. That means the world to me.
That is someone I am going to be fast friends with,
right you know. I I like things to be organized
(45:47):
right now. I know, not all the time. But people
who do the last minute chaos thing, that's not my
idea of a good time. So anything that somebody does
to tame the chaos, to have it not be last
minute so that I can plan, and you know, schedule,
schedule is a big thing that makes me feel valued.
(46:12):
There are other things, but these are just examples, right,
And that may mean nothing to somebody who likes to
be spontaneous. And that's the whole point. Okay, everybody's different.
That's what makes us individuals. That's the whole point. That's
why anticipating needs doesn't work. Everybody's needs are different. And
(46:35):
you know, if you don't know what your values are,
you can't know what your needs are. And if you
don't know what your needs are, you don't know how
to meet them. And nobody's gonna make you happy, but you.
Happiness is a choice, and it's also a series of choices.
(47:00):
Keeping not great people in your life is a choice
risking being alone so that you can meet better people
is also a choice. And ultimately the reason I came
up with the idea of happy ma is is this
a momentary thing, a tick, you know, a symptom of trauma,
or is this something that is either relatively harmless and
(47:24):
is gonna make me happy right now? Okay, no problem.
I once saw The Ballerina on the weekend. It was
a lot of fun, you know, not it's a John
Wick movie. Okay, if you like John Wick, you'll like
this movie. I did that just happy right. It was
just not or shattering, not life changing, but a good moment.
(47:44):
Other things are more long term, and to really meet
your own needs, you have to know what those needs are.
And sometimes I just need to see a movie where
people have a flamethrower duel. That is a very strange
and interesting place to stop. But I must watch the clock. Questions, comments,
(48:06):
concerns Leanna at not therapyshow dot com. Not therapyshow dot
com is the website with the contact form, or at
not Therapy on social media if you need some individual attention,
unpacking your potential people pleasing tendencies, remember you're crazy is
only a problem if it's hurting you. No matter what
anybody says, See you next time.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello listeners
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services, This
is not therapy. I'm Leanna Kerzner, and I am not
(00:30):
a therapist, but I am your source for navigating the
madness of mental health using my top ten sayings for
going good crazy Now this week, if you hear me
lisping a little, is because I got in visile lines,
you know, the plastic braces on my lower teeth, and
I'm still adjusting. That's why there was no episode new
(00:51):
last week. I was in a lot of pain, and
I sounded worse than I do now. But we're gonna
keep going because the last week I was live, I
said we were gonna talk about people pleasing, and I'm
honoring that people praising, Oh dear, people pleasing. People pleasing
isn't just being nice to people for the sake of
(01:11):
being nice. The people pleaser doesn't want to please others.
The people pleaser feels the need to please others for reasons,
and there are often good reasons. But when we're constantly
in a state of I need to regarding other people,
(01:31):
we're rarely getting our own needs met. The people pleasing
is about preventing or getting some sort of outcome, and
it's not healthy because top ten phrase healthy goals are
based on things you can't control, and you can't control
other people you can't. And because of that, because you're
(01:52):
trying to do the impossible, you're in a state of
constantly transactional relationships. While the people pleaser never feels in control.
You don't feel like you're getting anything meaningful out of
the exchanges. You're just giving, giving, giving, and the only
thing you're getting out of it is Yeah, that's where
(02:13):
the reasons come in, right. The good reasons I talked
about include fear of rejection, you know, really deep rooted
in securities, the need to be well liked and you know,
in this who you know, not what you know economy,
that's that's valid, right, Fear of abandonment, fear of being
(02:33):
in love, fear of disappointing others, fear of punishment, fear
of negative consequences. That's the problem with people pleasing. It's
living in constant fear and anxiety, and simply being nice
inspires good feelings, not just constantly trying to fight off
negative ones. This is why I don't like the name
(02:56):
people pleasing. It's just a fact you have to do
a certain amount of maintenance on relationships, which means to
appoint the people you want to stick around need to
be pleased with you. Now, there's a difference between wanting
people to be pleased with you and needing people to
(03:18):
be pleased so that you can fend off some catastrophe
or you know, to guilt or coerce them into being
nice to you back or not leaving or whatever. It's
that coercion. It's the trickery that's the problem. People pleasers,
you know, create those environments of coercion. They spread it around. Well,
(03:41):
they're feeling like they need to, like they're being coerced. Right,
if someone arounds you just messes up and learn from it.
That's a solvable problem. Right, But if people feel coerced
into certain behaviors, and I've noticed that a lot of
people pleasers inadvertently send out messages that people need to
(04:01):
tiptoe around them or else because they're chronically anxious and
on the verge of explosion. That damages relation chips. Obviously, right,
this need or compulsion, this coercive dynamic where everyone is
doing allegedly nice things out of a perceived need instead
(04:23):
of because they want to. That's the core of the problem.
And to become less of a soul called people pleaser,
the first step is the very painful process of being
truly honest with yourself about what you're doing. And I
say this as a reform people pleaser. At its core,
(04:45):
people pleasing behavior is manipulative. Now, for the purposes of
this show, we're going to stay in the realm of
just vanilla people pleasing. Right, We're not gonna get into
any of the personality disorders where this is a potential
dynas you know, most notably borderline personality disorder and dependent
personality disorder. You know, dependent personality disorder is a lesser
(05:08):
known one. It's sometimes described as people pleasing on steroids. Now,
if you're a people pleaser, don't self diagnose with dependent
personality disorder. I grow more anti self diagnosis by the day.
If you think you have a serious condition, go to therapy,
(05:29):
get a diagnosis. Many of these conditions can look very
much alike. And I am saying this as someone with
a PTSD diagnosis that people call narcissist all the time
online right now? Is there a stigma attached to having
a diagnosis? Yeah, people like to call me crazy at
(05:52):
the drop of a hat. This is why I distinguishment
good crazy and bad crazy and say you're crazy is
only problem if it's hurting you. Right, at the end
of the day, the diagnosis was more helpful to me
than the nasty stuff people say hurts If people are
gonna come at me that way they're outing themselves, that
(06:14):
actually helped me in its own way too. Right, you're
crazy is only a problem if it's hurting you, and
people pleasing hurts you, it also hurts the people you're
trying to please if you know they're not just straight
up abusing you. People pleasing gets into a cycle of codependency,
of an expectation of mind reading, and at the end
(06:37):
of it, it's an indication that your self worth or
the self worth of the people pleaser in your life
is dependent on other people to an unhealthy degree. Underlining
unhealthy degree, right, we all need to lean on people
some of the time. We should not be terrified these
(06:57):
people are going to explode on us or abandon us.
The leaning on them should feel comforting, not like a dependence,
hence dependent personality disorder. Similarly, we all benefit from hearing
praise that we actually believe is true sometimes, right, all
(07:18):
of us do all of us. I don't care who
you are, and if you grew up with neglect, you
know that lack of meaningful approval from those early life caregivers, parents,
possibly teachers. There's a lot of school trauma out there
that isn't getting talked about enough either way. In early life,
if you can't recall hearing people say what you're good at,
(07:43):
what is good about you without it being conditional somehow,
without there being some sort of catch or expectation. You know,
if you felt like the love and safety that the
adults around you gave you was conditional on you making
them happy all the time, that's the perfect conditions for
(08:05):
people pleasing behavior as an adult rooted in trauma or neglect,
and it makes sense right when we're kids, our entire
identity is based on the opinions of the people around us,
our independent selves. You know, our view of ourselves as
individuals is not something we're born with. We're bibeous, we're dependent.
(08:26):
Right through those teenage years r you know, twelve fifteen,
pushing it up to eighteen. Those years the people love
to complain about teenagers suddenly becoming so difficult and defiant.
Guess what those teenagers are figuring out who they are,
(08:47):
so you know, of course they're going to be less
obedient than a kid whose entire life is about being
told whether or not they're a good kid, and that's
all they understand, unless that kid is a budding sociopath.
If they've told they're good, if the parents are loving
and not abusive and not that conditional kind of love
(09:09):
that comes and goes, then the kid grows up with
a sense that at least something about them is good. Right.
The problem is we tend to talk to kids like
be a good boy, be a good girl. Not do
good things because you're a good person, so show it right.
And it's really important to teach kids the difference between
(09:31):
doing a bad thing and being a bad person. And
if all that gets mixed up in childhood, there's a
core belief that forms that the minute someone gets upset
with you, some catastrophe is gonna happen. There's gonna be
some huge fights, someone's gonna walk out of your life forever.
They're gonna turn abusive, they're gonna call you a bunch
(09:52):
of names. And the thing is in life, yeah, sometimes
that happens. And those of us who've developed, you know,
a modicum of healthy self of esteem can be upset, hurt, angry, confused,
even a little scared that someone just turned like extremely okay,
(10:15):
a lot scared maybe, depending on how much they blew up.
But that's not the same as feeling like it was
my fault or feeling like I have no value because
somebody doesn't like me. And that's really the core of
the behavior we call people pleasing. That you know, it's
(10:36):
your responsibility for other people's moods. You have to or
you're nothing. And that's why people pleasing gets into that
cycle that I talked about last episode on ghosting. People
do nice things expecting, not hoping, but expecting, needing in fact,
to get something out of it, whether it's just peace
(10:57):
or a lack of conflict or you know, usually in
romantic relationships or friendships, they expect the other person to
do nice things back, as you know, an external source
of worth. The problem is what's considered a nice thing. Well,
that's highly subjective, right If buying someone clothes, for example,
(11:21):
one person might think that's a really nice thing. It's considerate.
I hate shopping. I hate shopping. No, really, I hate shopping.
Someone else might think, though, are you trying to tell
me how to dress? I can do that myself, thanks,
don't buy clothes for me. So in that latter case,
instead of you know, working it at advance, being hey,
(11:43):
do you actually like this? Yea, the people pleasing has
this sort of you know, anticipation, this mind reading, this
guessing and being wrong too often in a big way,
and that can be very very tiring on everyone involved,
not just the people pleaser, but also the people around
(12:08):
the pleaser. The people around the people pleaser get the
message loud and clear that if you tell the people
pleaser that they did something wrong, or you know, you
give the sense that you don't like what they're doing, well,
then there's going to be some sort of explosion there.
In this case, you know, running themselves down or self
(12:30):
pity or withdrawing or disappearing. You know, in some cases,
the people pleasers themselves turn nasty and tell you everything
they think is horrible about you and what you're doing wrong,
because you know, if they can't separate did a bad
thing versus I'm a bad person in themselves, or there's
some immediate meltdown of I'm a terrible person, I can't
(12:52):
do anything right. Well, that's normal for them. There's a
very good chance they're assuming everybody has some commentary like
that in their head, and that's not that's not true.
The other thing I hear is, you know, people think
everyone else has their stuff completely together and they don't,
(13:16):
and it's not true. But say it is. Everybody else
is walking on eggshells in that you know scenario, or
I'm a hot mess people pleaser who is always clearly
nervous and right at the end of their rope. Everyone
can see it. Do you notice that nobody feels like
(13:39):
they have a full range of choices in this relationship.
Everybody's behavior is restricted. Everything is some sort of you know,
based on need. That's the issue, right that, That's why
the whole people pleasing thing. I think the name's all wrong.
(13:59):
I call it manipulation via acts of service because nobody's
pleased in the long run when people, you know people,
people please so many people. Okay, people get upset when
I use the term manipulation, and so I think that
requires some time to unpack. Okay, we'll take a break
(14:21):
when I come back. Manipulation is something everyone does. I
consider it more of a neutral thing than inherently evil thing.
But it's very important to recognize that you're manipulating when
you're manipulating, so you can keep it in check. So
do you have a story you think good for the show?
Are you interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna at no
therapyshow dot com see this is something of Hey, sponsors,
(14:44):
give me money? Yeah, I like it. Well, I'm being
open about it. It's not a manipulation. Leanna at not
Therapy shut dot com is my email. Not Therapy shout
dot com is the website at not therapy on socials
people pleasing why I hate the name because it's actually
manipulation via acts of service. When we come back on
(15:04):
it's not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
Am dot C.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
and it's the therapy. I'm still then occursion, and I'm
still not a therapist. We're still talking about people pleasing,
(15:37):
and that's the commonly known name. It's not going away.
I know that, but it's wrong. I say so, because
no one's really pleased when someone is a chronic Air
quotes people pleaser again. People pleasing is not just doing
nice things. People pleasing is about manipulating other people through
(15:59):
those acts of ser is to get an outcome you
want or to avoid some outcome you don't want. And
the minute I say manipulation, oh it's a thing. The
thing is I say this because I had to recognize
I was doing it even though I felt completely powerless.
(16:19):
The feeling completely powerless was why I was doing it.
You know. It was a big symptom of my trauma
with a big side of how I was raised. Right,
Just an example, I was raised in one of those
families where it was a stereotypical mom would do a
lot of very considerate things for people. But instead of
communicating her own needs and asking for help when needed,
(16:41):
say hey, can someone help me with the dishes, she
would expect people to just know she wanted help with
the dishes, and when she didn't get it, she'd go
in the kitchen and then you hear the smashing around
muttering to herself, right, right, you know the scenario. Mm hmm.
That expectation that we would just know that she wanted help.
(17:09):
That was what I was raised to think was normal.
And that sense that anticipating needs was normal and something
everybody did unless they were just a selfish jerk. You
know that that was difficult to unlearn as opposed to
a family environment where's like, hey, there are a ton
of dishes out here, I need help. You did the eaton?
(17:32):
Help me clean up? Right, very very different paradigm. It
seems like a small thing, but it manifests in a
lot of ways. Right. We see this particular kind of
people pleasing more and girls and boys. The problem is
that the one of the big ways boys people please
(17:53):
this right now is through the use of their bodies.
There's this real problem now with boys thinking that sex
makes you have value sex with another person. You know,
girls liking them is the pinnacle of being a manly man.
You know. More on that next week in our Men's
Mental Health Month episode. The point here is that everyone
(18:15):
has a particular flavor of people pleasing that they're vulnerable,
because you know, that's what they were talk growing up.
And breaking those habits is tough because by the time
you realize it's a problem, at least in my case,
the people around you are so used to you behaving
(18:35):
that way that it becomes you know, the crabs in
the bucket phenomena. Crab tries to crawl up all the
other crabs pull them down. You know, it's a scenario
like this. The main person who's in therapy starts making
changes to better themselves, to be less symptomatic. Rationally, that's
better for everyone, but the family kind of freaks out,
(18:57):
even to the point they start maligning and undermining the therapist, going, well,
maybe I should see this person that my friends have
been too. I'd never pick out a therapist or a
family member. You know, you may mean, well, but it's
better to not have those family connections. Just let them
have someone who is theirs, who has you know, an
(19:19):
outsider perspective. And I know it's scary to think that
a person in your life is bad muffing you to
your therapist. You know, I'm a peer counselor. People are
critical of their partners and their sessions with me, and
I'll let you know I take that with a grain
of salt. It doesn't mean they're wrong, doesn't mean they're lying.
There's just other frames, right. A therapist with a license
(19:43):
should emphasis should be able to recognize the same thing.
Some things are just flat out abusive, and some things
are just manipulative, which is where I came to my
awareness that people pleasing is actually just manipulation via acts
of service. I didn't like it when my mother was
smashing cutlery around in the kitchen instead of just asking
(20:05):
someone to help her with the dishes. I didn't like it,
but I thought that's what proper women were supposed to do,
so I replicated the behavior until I realized what am
I doing? I have choices here, And yes, asking for
things is vulnerable because you ask and you get rejected. Yeah,
(20:26):
that hurts, you feel ignored, you feel unappreciated. But I
realized not asking you think you're avoiding rejection, but the
emotional impact is actually based on the assumption that you
would get rejected, So I just felt rejected already. And
once you realize these things, it makes it a lot
(20:48):
easier to change your behavior. In the case of people pleasing,
there is a big difference between just doing something nice
just to be nice. Sometimes doing something nice for other
people really helps your own old mood, right like, yeah,
you say that selfish all you want, it's a good
kind of selfish. There's a big difference between that and
(21:13):
doing something nice and then expecting other people to just know.
Now they're supposed to go above and beyond for you,
because that's the way it works because of some unwritten rule.
You know. Not only is that putting a value judgment
on however people treat you, it's expecting other people to
(21:35):
mind read you know they're expecting. You're expecting other people
to know without you clearly saying what's gonna make you happy,
And they might not be as observant as you regarding
you know, how they take their coffee or what sandwich
they like. That doesn't mean they don't care. It just
(21:55):
means clearer communication is gonna benefit everyone. There a mind
reading can back fire. You know. One of the things
I hear a lot from people in relationships is when
mind readings expected they thought they were doing nice things,
but none of them seemed to land properly. Everything seemed
(22:19):
to be wrong and just made their partner actively upset,
so they just stopped doing anything. It makes sense, doesn't it.
What would actually solve this problem is actual communication, no
more mind reading, talking thinking with using sounds right externally right.
(22:39):
So hey, people pleasers, hate to break it to you
from a reform people pleaser, that nice thing you might
be doing for someone, it might actually be freaking them
out and driving them crazy because they notice how nervous
you are all the time. So your nice je they
(23:01):
have an edge. They see the expectations, and they have
no idea what they are or how to meet them.
That is why it's manipulative. And this is a very
very hard mind shift to shift for a lot of people.
Mind shift mindset to shift. There we go a lot
(23:24):
of people think that this mind reading is just the
way of the world, and ideally everybody does nice things
for the people in their lives. But that's why this
whole love language is thing as cheesy as the terminology is,
you know, it can really help with this stuff. Right.
Just as an example, say somebody loves gifts because it's
(23:46):
a tangible thing. When they're feeling down, they can take
it out and look at it and think someone does
care about me because they gave me this thing. Right.
That is what I've heard from people who are our
gifters as a love language. Right, they like gifts. It's
not greed. It's something tangible that they can go somebody
gave me this, someone cares. But compare that to somebody
(24:11):
who's desperately trying to get rid of stuff. They have
too much stuff in their lives. They're trying to get
rid of stuff. They're not going to find gifts the
same boost, right, because gifts are just more stuff. And
that's true of any kindness. It really only works if
a person wants to be a part of it the
(24:33):
minute they're doing it on pain of God knows what
will happen if they don't. That's damaging the relationship, not
strengthening it. And that's the way people react to people pleasers.
There's some work that everyone needs to do in every
relationship so that other people feel comfortable. But that's something
(24:58):
you should go into on tink two, not feel like
you need to or else. If you're like, oh I
have to do this or oh that's a sign of
some work to do in the relationship. Okay, Now, the
idea of need is more complex than we give it
credit for, and I don't have time this episode to
get into it as something for another time, because no
(25:20):
specific other individual is required to give you the things
you emotionally need. That's why I focus on boundaries, not
needs as much. No, other people don't have to like
your boundaries, but they do have to respect them. Top
ten phrase. If you set good boundaries for yourself, you're
going to find that your needs are much better met
(25:41):
because you're not giving away so much all of the time.
When you're doing something just to keep the peace, it
doesn't feel good, does it. So when you're doing those
so called nice things expecting some sort of reciprocation, expect
that the people in your life are going to feel coerced,
(26:03):
like the smashing the dishes around. Right do you want that?
And some people say yeah, I do. Well, that's okay.
You're self aware, right, If you're setting up the scenario
you want, great, no problem we're done. Awesome. But if
the answer is no, you don't want people to feel
coerced around you, you know, including coerce to stay around you,
(26:23):
how do you change? How do you change people pleasing?
This is the part where articles online get very, very vague.
So we're going to start talking about these changes based
on the idea again that people pleasing is actually a
form of manipulation. Don't freak out, baby, you think you
have to manipulate, That's okay, we'll talk about that, but
(26:44):
it is manipulation. Question comments concerns Leanna at Thetherapyshow dot com.
Not therapyshow dot com is the website, not therapy show
is socials. When we come back more on why people
pleasing is actually a form of manipulation and how you
can start making changes based on that on it it's
not therapy.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot C.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
going to said therapy. I'm still in a cursor. I'm
still not a therapist. We're still talking about people pleasing,
(27:33):
and my theory will my realization stepping away from people
pleasing myself, is that it's a form of manipulation. It
isn't just being nice. It's being nice because you're terrified
not to be and there's some outcome you want. Now,
people get very very upset. I keep saying this at
the idea that it's manipulation, because manipulation is a charge word.
(27:55):
And if you were, you know, listening to the previous
segments on this, I said that I see manipulation as
a neutral thing. It's a tool, ideally that you minimize
the use of and restrict it to uses for good
instead of evil, you know, helping the people who just
need a little push to do the thing they really
want to do. You no problem, you know. But people
(28:21):
pleasing never pleases anyone in the long run, including yourself.
So it's not a manipulation used for good. Right. It's not, say,
a motivational phrase helping someone make better choices, right, it's
I'm gonna do this thing so they can never ever
leave me. That's plotting to keep someone a prisoner to
(28:42):
your issues, just like you already are it isn't good
for you, so it isn't good for them either. That
I'm gonna make them not leave me. That's think about
what you're saying. You know. The little manipulations, like the
crashing around the dishes thing I talked about before instead
(29:02):
of asking for help, Those little manipulations are the easiest
to change because they're just behavior modifications, right, They're habits.
I picked up being socialized, you know, female, feminine, whatever
you want to call it, This idea of always being
nice and kind and never asking for anything and always
being helpful. You know, that is part and parcel of
(29:24):
coming from one of those families that after dinner women
just instinctively know, get up and help or else. It's
the or else part that is the red fleck. You know,
everyone's so focused right now on what bathrooms trans women
pee in happy pride, But gendered socialization historically is a
(29:47):
very real thing, and the bathroom thing is just a
small part of it, and it comes out in ways
like women are more often taught that help in the
care is an expected thing, not nice thing for you
to do, than men are. We can't just ignore some
(30:10):
of these things because it's part of what leaves women
feeling profoundly lonely in monogamous, long term heterosexual relationships. You've
heard that, right. We talk a lot about the loneliness
epidemic in men lately, but women in long term monogamous relationships,
(30:31):
these women are lonely. The data on women, you know,
in this way, we don't see it in men. And
it's quite a stark contrast. And part of that comes
from this culturally trained people pleasing behavior that's specific to
women and similar to the people pleasing behavior that men
(30:53):
do around sex. No, really topic for another time. This
is the stuff you can't just do a behavioral correction.
You're gonna feel lost in the short term. People are
gonna think something's wrong with you. In the short term.
It's a hard change that temporarily breaks your life thing
(31:14):
as that life wasn't working for you. I advised clients
that if we're gonna do this, if we're gonna make
these big changes, you know, say in advance, look, this
is a behavior that you realized wasn't healthy. You know,
if you don't have the energy, if you don't have
the resilience at the end of the day, you don't
have the distress tolerance you really need, and you know,
(31:36):
you think it's better for everybody if you had fewer
blow ups or meltdowns and got overwhelmed and withdrew less. Right,
So you're gonna be making some changes, and if you
have specifics to those changes, outline them, let people know
and advance. That's way better than just changing, you know,
because when all of a sudden you stop the people pleasing,
(31:59):
people might think they've done something wrong, right, and that's,
oh God, what did I do again? Remember? People pleasing
creates a cycle of feeling coherced and like there's some
impending doom in everyone involved whenever there's the slightest change, right,
And that origination of feeling like you have to do
(32:23):
these nice things to appease some sort of sleeping dragon.
I don't know about you. Those assumptions were formed in
childhood for me, so you gotta go way back. I mean, granted, okay,
my father. My father was a human powder keg who
flat out told me that people didn't like me. Right,
And this is part of the reason I once dropped
(32:45):
a publicist because they're advice to me on something. You know,
A strategic point was make them like you. You cow
and I immediately was like, yeah, that publicist was saying
that to my face. What would she stay behind my back?
The truth is I had to unlearn this from childhood.
You can't just make people like you, and I think
(33:11):
that was really part of the reason. My father was
a human powder kick, right Like, he was a bully.
He really was, but my fury, and he's dead now,
so I can't prove it. I can't ask him, but
you know, he'd start feeling insecure and he had no
distress tolerance because he had that can't separate do a
(33:31):
bad thing versus I'm a bad person, So he blew
up to control everyone around him so there'd be no
consequences for the perceived bad thing slash bad person. Right.
The thing is because of this, because there was always
a threat of him blowing up, nobody terribly liked being
around him. But yes, people did do a lot of
(33:54):
things to just keep him happy so he didn't explode.
And again, when that's your parent, you just assume that's normal.
That's just how men are. Now. Obviously, I've come a
long way now based on what you've heard me say, right, Like,
I don't believe that about men anymore, because no, no,
people can be angry, people can even not like you
without blowing up, without plotting against you, and okay, real talk,
(34:20):
The idea that some people are not gonna like you
no matter what you do sometimes is a scary thing
to confront. As somebody who had to confront it, you know,
then it happens a few times somebody is just not
gonna like you no matter what you do. With some people,
you realize nothing you do is ever enough. And when
(34:40):
it isn't enough, because these people haven't learned to meet
their own emotional needs, it's your fault. These people have
spent their whole lives coercing people like my father did,
instead of learning how to earn it, learning how to
live with it. Sometimes, you know, in a very unfair
emotional landscape, you can totally earn it and not get
(35:02):
something from people. That's what makes the people who do
like you so precious, right, But ending people pleasing means
facing that fear of We call it cancelation now, and
it's a hard thing because, yeah, some people, they'll blow
(35:24):
up on you, they'll spread rumors about you, they'll lie
about you, and it happens to every single person who
works in anything connected to mental health. Trust me, it's
worse for people like me who work in the media.
You know, it's uncomfortable for me to come out hair
and tell y'all I used to people please, right, And
(35:46):
I even acknowledged it was manipulation. Oh God, I admitted
a bad thing, and some people will go and they'll
use that. And that is my cat making herself heard,
because people pleasing is a bad thing, not just for
yourself but for other people. Do being afraid doesn't give
(36:08):
you the excuse to do anything you want. And you know,
if you realize that you've been using being an afraid
as an excuse, you have to take a good, hard
look in the mirror or your camera phone. Now ask yourself,
what are you really afraid of? Are you afraid that
(36:30):
person's gonna freak out and become abusive? That was it
for me, right, And then the next question I had
to learn to ask myself is is that the person
right in front of you? Or is this like in
my case, you know, my biological father who died years ago.
It's very important to separate past from present because people
(36:52):
pleasing is often a habit with deep roots. Right, I
had to learn to give people chances to show they're
not like my father. I mean, if they blow up
on me in the first chance, like, all right, you
know in this way they are like my father. So
we're not doing that again. They deserve that one chance,
just out of fairness. That's about what it says about me.
(37:14):
That's me doing the work. Giving them another is my choice.
It's not mandatory. Now, people will blow up or scary, right,
even if it's blowing up in fear. The thing to
keep in mind is people don't have the right to
(37:35):
do anything they want to just because they're angry or scared,
or they have anxiety or they have trauma. Right, keep
telling yourself that, keep repeating that, you'll start to believe it.
With enough repetition, repetitionary transa brain. Now, this is, like
I said, a tough process. Sometimes, you know, you might
(37:59):
already be feeling pretty beaten down by life. You may
feel beaten down in the process of changing this very
major part of how you navigate the world. It's okay
to be afraid. Feelings are feedback. It's okay to have
any feeling you want, right, It doesn't give you the
(38:19):
right to do anything you want. If that fear is
causing you to scurry around anticipating needs, you know that
you're not even sure needs. You know, it's just doing
a bunch of things the person didn't ask you to do. Well,
it's time to take stock if you realize you're doing
they're doing that right, if they really are that kind
(38:42):
of bully, No matter how much scurwring around you do,
it's not gonna appease them. Okay, it doesn't matter if
you do two hundred things right, a thousand things right.
They're gonna find the one thing they think you did
wrong and they're gonna seize on that. That's gonna define
you because they're looking for it. They're a bully. Bullies bully.
(39:03):
You can't appease them, not for long. And if they're
not a bully, what you scurry around doing a whole
bunch of things that they didn't ask for, basically kissing
their butt, They're gonna think something is off right? Why
are you doing that? Stable people don't want people doing
(39:26):
things like that. For them, it's uncomfortable, at least it
is for me. I will actually say why are you
doing that? And a lot of the times people don't know,
and you know this is why I check in with
the why why are you doing this stuff? Why are
you doing this considerate thing? Is it just to be nice?
(39:50):
Is it really just if you got nothing in return
for this, would you still think this is a nice
thing to do because that is a great way to
live your life, right? Or are you doing it to
get something or to prevent something from happening? And people
are well, that's just normal, right, that's just that's just
(40:12):
your network. Right. I'm gonna let you in on something.
If you're trying to tightly control your environments like this,
I guarantee you people don't see you as nice. They
see you as controlling, even if you feel completely out
(40:35):
of control. And most people who behave this way do
they're offended to be called controlling because they don't feel it.
But think less about the feeling coming in and more
about your behavior coming out. If you are doing things
to get something or prevent something, you are trying to
control outcomes and it's not possible, will never be enough. Okay.
(41:03):
This is a really tough thing to face because it
means just finally stopping and letting that feeling of a
lack of control catch you it's awful. I've been there, right,
you have your reasons for doing what you're doing. I've
said this this whole show, and yes, the feeling, the
fear is real, that trauma is real, that anxiety is real.
(41:29):
That's why I'll start off saying that the first step
to ending people pleasing rooted in trauma is you gotta
face the trauma. But how can you have nice things right?
How can you get that feeling that you're valued to people,
for people to stay in your life and not leave
and all that stuff? Okay, that'll be our final segment.
(41:49):
It's simpler than you think. Questions, comments, any feedback whatsoever.
Leanna at nontherapyshow dot com. Not therapy show dot com
is the website at non therapy Show is social media.
How to get nice things without people pleasing on it.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
It's not therapy, No radio, no problem. Stream is live
on SAGA ninety six am dot CAA.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot ca. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm still in a cursoner. I'm still
not a therapist. We're still talking about people pleasing why
I believe it's uh manipulation by ACKs of service, and
(42:40):
how I stopped and in the final moments of the show,
I want to talk about the fact that, yeah, everybody
would like people to do nice things for them. The
thing about a nice thing is nobody has to the
minute they have to, or else it's no longer a
nice thing. And realize that if that's how people perceive you,
they're gonna think you're kind of a bully. Yep, no
(43:04):
way around that. So what do you do instead? Well,
you know, you ask any athlete or the musical Hamilton.
You know I am not giving away man shot. I
am not giving away man shot, right Like, you have
to make the opportunities knowing the puck isn't always gonna
(43:25):
go in the net. You're not always gonna hit a
home run. You know you're not gonna make every free throw.
That was a lot of sports metaphors, hopefully one landed.
If you're a video game player, right you you're not
gonna go through every game without like getting a fail
state a's a failure is a part of it failure
(43:47):
makes the successes feel good. Right, It's not just a
part of life. It really does make when it works
feel better. And so you have to accept ye that, Yeah,
you may hope someone does a nice thing for you, You
may hope someone likes you, but there are no guarantees
(44:10):
and sometimes it's just not gonna happen. And that's just
it's not about you. If you think there's behaviors you
need to change, great, If you know you don't, well
it was a mismatch, right. But the opposite of people
pleasing is you know, carefully observing and decoding your own
(44:37):
behavior and going what what does this say? What makes
me feel valued? What makes me feel cherished? What are
my values? Who am I as a person? What makes
me feel like I matter? And then hey actually say
to people like this, this is what makes me f
(45:00):
feel like I matter? Like for me as an example,
I think maybe because of what I do the whole
I understand unless there is some detail, No, no, I'm
not gonna believe you understand. Somebody trying to perspective, take
and put myself put themselves in my place, right, Somebody
(45:20):
having the hard conversation actually talking it out and admitting
feelings without trying to control. That means the world to me.
That is someone I am going to be fast friends with,
right you know. I I like things to be organized
(45:47):
right now. I know, not all the time. But people
who do the last minute chaos thing, that's not my
idea of a good time. So anything that somebody does
to tame the chaos, to have it not be last
minute so that I can plan, and you know, schedule,
schedule is a big thing that makes me feel valued.
(46:12):
There are other things, but these are just examples, right,
And that may mean nothing to somebody who likes to
be spontaneous. And that's the whole point. Okay, everybody's different.
That's what makes us individuals. That's the whole point. That's
why anticipating needs doesn't work. Everybody's needs are different. And
(46:35):
you know, if you don't know what your values are,
you can't know what your needs are. And if you
don't know what your needs are, you don't know how
to meet them. And nobody's gonna make you happy, but you.
Happiness is a choice, and it's also a series of choices.
(47:00):
Keeping not great people in your life is a choice
risking being alone so that you can meet better people
is also a choice. And ultimately the reason I came
up with the idea of happy ma is is this
a momentary thing, a tick, you know, a symptom of trauma,
or is this something that is either relatively harmless and
(47:24):
is gonna make me happy right now? Okay, no problem.
I once saw The Ballerina on the weekend. It was
a lot of fun, you know, not it's a John
Wick movie. Okay, if you like John Wick, you'll like
this movie. I did that just happy right. It was
just not or shattering, not life changing, but a good moment.
(47:44):
Other things are more long term, and to really meet
your own needs, you have to know what those needs are.
And sometimes I just need to see a movie where
people have a flamethrower duel. That is a very strange
and interesting place to stop. But I must watch the clock. Questions, comments,
(48:06):
concerns Leanna at not therapyshow dot com. Not therapyshow dot
com is the website with the contact form, or at
not Therapy on social media if you need some individual attention,
unpacking your potential people pleasing tendencies, remember you're crazy is
only a problem if it's hurting you. No matter what
anybody says, See you next time.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
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