When we people please to placate others, we betray ourselves. We let fear rather than courage guide our decisions, and in the process we move out of integrity with our true nature. In this blog, I share my own lived experience of breaking free from this self-destructive pattern of people pleasing and how I began to courageously set boundaries, and then I circle it back to you.
Table of contents
I used to be a people pleaser – especially in my romantic relationships – and would shape-shift myself to meet others’ expectations, even when it meant betraying who I was. Of course, I wasn’t a people pleaser all the time – dropping out of college to become homeless and join an Indigenous land rights occupation comes to mind – but generally speaking, I was often afraid to rock the boat or set boundaries.
My story might sound familiar to you…that feeling of stuffing your truth to avoid conflict, or keeping the peace at the expense of your own wellbeing and spirit.
This post is about breaking the cycle of people pleasing by getting to the root of the issue: remembering who you are, living in integrity with your true nature, and setting boundaries.
I’ve found that it’s most aligned for me (and per my Human Design incarnation cross) to share the wisdom of lessons learned through story rather than to “teach” it. So, this is a rather long post. If you’d prefer jumping to the takeaway, click here.
My journey as a people pleaser
Some of the most egregious people pleasing I ever did involved my daughter’s father.
We’d met at the above-mentioned occupation in 1999 after I’d dropped out of college for the fourth time. We dated on and off from late 1999 to late 2001, and during that time I nearly completely changed who I was out of fear that he’d leave me if I didn’t.
Before meeting him, I was an environmental activist who was deeply committed to protecting Mama Earth. I did things like write opinion pieces, lead a student organization, and lobby members of Congress in Washington DC. My life revolved around environmental causes – especially old growth forest protection – and I truly lived and breathed my activism in ever facet of my life.
But my then-boyfriend didn’t share my passion. In fact, he ridiculed it. He believed that the labor movement was a worthier cause, and over time, I found myself following his lead.
I did things like became a union spy, where I engaged in a whole lot of unsavory activities for the union, and I attended a training program to become a union organizer.
And, I hated every single freaking minute of it.
The environmental activist in me was pretty much dead at this point, but at least I had my guy. Well, that is until he got a permanent job offer through the union…and I didn’t.
We sealed our diverging paths with breakup sex, and a few weeks later – on Christmas Eve, 2001 – I found out I was pregnant.
The price of people pleasing
I raised my daughter without him, aside from two (sometimes three) visits we’d alternate making each year.
But he’d call. A lot. And I would take his calls. He’d often get upset with me for whatever he thought I wasn’t doing right and seemed to get off on trampling my feelings. I vividly remember an incident in late 2004 or early 2005 where he raged at me for buying organic groceries and for not being willing to pick up a second job. [Note that I was already working full time.]
Fearing his wrath, I did a lot of things that went against my true nature. For example, I’d let him stay at my apartment and sometimes even borrow my car when he’d come to visit our daughter. I was a tidy person, yet he’d regularly leave me messes – it was like the Tasmanian Devil passed through my apartment! – and one time he spilled coffee all over my car…and left it for me to clean up. During these visits, he’d usually instigate at least one big fight, and at the end of the day, I always felt disrespected in my own space.
Oh, and my then-boyfriend wasn’t at all happy with this dynamic. For him, it wasn’t about me housing my daughter’s father; it was about me tolerating the disrespect. While he didn’t exactly give me an ultimatum, it was clear to me that I risked jeopardizing my relationship with him if I allowed the situation to continue.
Finally choosing myself
With this realization, I faced a monumental choice: upset my then-boyfriend or my daughter’s father.
With the help and support of my 12-step sponsor and despite my fear, I chose the latter.
The fallout was intense. My daughter’s father raged at me so badly that my whole body trembled. After taking all that I could take, I told him that I was going to hang up on him if he continued with his abusive behavior.
He continued. Click.
This was a turning point for me. It taught me to stop tolerating unacceptable behavior and to start setting boundaries.
The root of people pleasing
When I arrived at the land occupation in late 1999, I was raw and vulnerable.
I had just upended my life to follow my soul’s call, and it freaked TF out of my family, who vividly remembered my near fatal suicide attempt just three years earlier.
I had no real plan, very few possessions, and no safety net.
To borrow from Tony Robbins, I’d burned my boats.
Facing such massive uncertainty, not knowing anyone at the encampment, and being so utterly dependent on the grace and compassion of others heightened my need to be accepted.
And so when I met the person who would become my boyfriend, I would have done just about anything to keep him around.
Over time, I forgot who I was – the idealistic hippie activist who cared deeply about protecting the environment – in order to become the girlfriend I thought he wanted. There was this ever-present fear that he would leave me if I screwed up. And so, I lived out of alignment with my true nature, taking part in actions that felt wrong to me on every level.
Ironically enough, I knew that the way I was living wasn’t aligned with my true nature. But I’d fallen too deeply into our dysfunctional relationship to extract myself willingly…
Remembering who I am
My lived experience showed me that I was more inclined to people please when I felt fearful or vulnerable, and especially when I perceived a power imbalance.
In these moments, I focused my energies on keeping the peace, being a “good person,” or meeting others’ needs (and accommodating their feelings) at the expense of my own.
But eventually, an external force jolted me awake and forced me to make a choice that disrupted the status quo. That’s when I began to set boundaries.
Yes, it was hard – very hard – to do this at first. But I set the boundary anyway. And then I set another. And another. I did this for many years, and I’d often second-guess myself.
Somewhere along the way, I came to remember who I was. And when I did, everything changed. I began doing more than setting and enforcing boundaries.
I came to live in integrity with my truth. I discovered joy. And I have stopped second-guessing myself.
An invitation to reconnect with yourself
Can you see yourself in this story? Are there other ways you people please?
Maybe your mother-in-law is overbearing and you tolerate her behavior with a forced smile (or silent groan!). Maybe your boss ignored your emails all day but replied at 4:59 with an expectation that you’d finish the project tonight and so you changed your dinner plans. Or maybe you’re always defaulting to your partner’s interests and feelings and ignoring your own…
If my story feels a bit too familiar, my invitation to you includes doing the following:
Step 1: reconnect with your true nature
I invite you to rekindle a relationship with who your true nature, your true Self. In this video, I share ways you can start this journey.
Step 2: live in integrity with who you truly are
Once you reconnect with who you truly are, I invite you to live in alignment with that truth, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
Ongoing: set boundaries
And, this will involve setting boundaries. Again, I dive into this in the video. Just a note that if you follow Step 2, setting boundaries often comes as a natural byproduct.
I could expand on each step, but there’s no need – they are truly simple (albeit not easy), straightforward practices – so let’s not complicate things!
This is what we do when we Wayfind.
If you identified with this post and would like a seasoned guide to help you break the cycle of being a people pleaser, I invite you to schedule a call with me.
That is all.
Kristi Amdahl, Wayfinder Guide & Sacred Circle Facilitator
