The Death of the People Pleaser
Once during a guided meditation experience, my guides told me that the people pleaser in me had to die so that my authentic self might live. This moment was the culmination of my transformation, and it showed me that I had really become the next version of myself. The most encouraging constant for me along this spiritual journey is that after each death of my current self, my new self is born. Tumbling through the cosmos experiencing death and rebirth continuously sounds daunting, but becoming my authentic self was worth every moment of pain and tear that I shed along the way. My future self came to me a few years ago during a painful myofascial release session to tell me that the pain was the trauma leaving my body, and that I must allow it to leave by feeling the pain. At the time, I didn’t know that my spirit guide was actually my future self. I saw her face for a moment and thought that I must have an old shaman woman on my spirit team who was helping me to heal.
Much later, I realized that I had come back from the future to heal myself, and that gave me a sense of solace because I knew that I would eventually become this final version of myself who had this masterful ability to travel through time and space to heal the past. I’m sure I’ll pick that story back up later, but for now, I want you to know that this is possible for you. You can revisit your inner child from this point in your journey and offer them loving support and encouragement. Whenever we send love back to ourselves at a younger age, that love ripples back through time until it reaches us here in the present. This life is made of loops and layers, and once you figure out how to traverse them you can accelerate your healing journey. If this sounds exciting to you, I would encourage you to begin where you are and let go of everything that’s no longer serving you. This is the first step, and the most important one.
If you find yourself putting the comfort of others above your needs, I would argue that is the first domino that must fall in order to begin your transformation. Many of my clients struggle with people pleasing, and that is because we were all conditioned from a very young age to serve others to our own detriment. Once we realize that this behavior is harmful to us, we must come to a decision to change this habit at a slow and steady pace. In my experience, small incremental changes make all the difference in our lives because change is difficult for our nervous systems. Transitions can be challenging because it seems like it would be much easier to go backward once we get started. Our comfort zones try to tempt us back into them for a long time before we’re beyond the tipping point. Once we realize how much better we feel after making the initial changes, it becomes easier to continue the work.
Whenever you feel tempted to betray yourself in order to placate someone else, I want you to take a moment to pause and ask yourself why you’re feeling this way. Feel your emotions and identify them (fear, doubt, guilt, shame, etc.) and sit with yourself until you find the source of these emotions. Bring your energy into your body and find a way to root down into your grounded connection to the Earth. Give yourself comfort in this moment to strengthen your resolve to put yourself first. Once you’ve decided that you’re no longer putting the wants and desires of others above your own needs, the people pleaser inside of you will begin to die. You can control the speed of this process by living moment to moment and making the best possible choice for yourself in each situation. The more you choose yourself, the faster this process will reach completion. By the same token, you can also choose to slow this process by repeating the cycle until you’re ready to change.
It is important to note that sometimes the fear will get the better of you, and you’ll inevitably crawl back into the warm arms of your comfort zone again. This is an opportunity to regain your strength and do better tomorrow. Self-forgiveness is essential in this process, and you must nurture yourself with love along the way. It’s impossible to have a perfect score during this process of choosing yourself over people pleasing. There will be bumps along the way, and some days you might feel like you’re backsliding. That’s why it’s important to take life moment to moment and to be gentle with yourself during this transition phase. Eventually, it’ll be much easier for you to say no when you need to and to prioritize yourself despite the fears and doubts. One day you will feel a deep sense of freedom and relief as a result of making this change, and you deserve to meet yourself there in this lifetime.