Tips for Rootedness: Saying No to People Pleasing

In this epside Kiran shares about what people pleasing is, what causes it and how we can overcome it through assertive and boundary setting skills. She shares some examples from her own life and teaches us some strategies including how to say no.

RESOURCES

Doreen Virtue, Assertiveness for Earth Angels: How to Be Loving Instead of "Too Nice

 Jean Baer, How to be an Assertive (Not Aggressive) Woman in Life, in Love, and on the Job: A Total Guide to Self-Assertiveness 

 Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life 

Wayne Dyer, Pulling your Own Strings

Contact Soleil Bogan:

SoleilBorganSpeaks@gmail.com

 

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Transcript

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This podcast may contain sensitive material that may not be suitable for everyone. Information shared is based on personal experiences and not meant to replace medical or other professional help. Hi everyone! Welcome to the Uprooted by Unwanted Change podcast about managing life transitions. I'm your host, Kiran Prasad. Thanks for tuning in. And if you're new to the show, I want you to know that every other week I have a guest on the show. And in between that, when I don't have a guest, I have a solo episode where you get to hear a bit more about my own journey through unwanted change. This part of the show is my Tips for Rootedness series where I share insights into how to feel rooted again after the rug's being pulled from underneath your feet. Today's tips for rootedness are about saying no to people pleasing. When a few female listeners of my podcast heard what today's topic would be about, the reaction I got was, "I really need this!" or 'I can't wait!" Another said, "so many women are going to relate to this!" As if to say, this is our topic. It certainly is a topic close to my heart and I'll share why a little later. Much of what I'm going to share today is from personal experience or knowledge gained through the years. So I can't exactly remember where I got all this information from, but I could put in the show notes some of the resources I used, like books. Before we begin, I just want to give a quick disclaimer. I'm not by any means an authority on people pleasing. I'm simply sharing what I've learned to apply to my own life. While I advocate for people speaking up and asserting their needs, only if they can do so safely and responsibly. Safety comes above all else and only you know your current situation and whether it would be advisable for you to do so. Well, let's begin first of all with what is people pleasing anyway? Well, it's when we put the needs or opinions of others over our own, and we tend to do that to gain approval, to feel valued, or to avoid conflict. And you might be thinking, well, what's the harm in that? Maybe not for the person on the receiving end, but for the giver, it can be detrimental. According to Dr. Neha Sangwan, an internal medicine physician, bestselling author, and researcher, people pleasing can make us physically sick. And she says that it falls across the spectrum. So there's varying degrees of it from, and what I've heard is that it can go from tendencies, to habits, to even extreme end of having a full blown addiction that can take over your life. Overextending ourselves, she says, always giving, not respecting our own needs can not only cause resentment, it can cause anxiety, burnout, and even depression. I've even heard it referred to as the disease to please and there's even a book by that title. It can stop us being true to ourselves and living an authentic life. I would say that those are enough reasons to say no to people pleasing, especially during times of grief and loss when we're already overwhelmed with so much. Here are some typical signs of people pleasing. You usually agree with people and say yes to avoid conflict. You have a hard time saying no or setting boundaries. You worry what other people will think or say about you. Or you struggle with your self-worth and you feel like a doormat. And here are some examples of it. You might agree to dog sit for a neighbor while she's away for the weekend, even though you have a busy weekend yourself and her dog just drives you nuts. Another one is you keep tolerating a friend with anger issues, who's lashed out at you, and you're just too afraid to confront her. And finally you give in to parents wishes for you to become perhaps a doctor even though you're an aspiring writer. Can you relate to any of that? Well, I used to be a serial people pleaser and now I would say I'm a recovering one. And I thought we were a rare species, but it turns out we have a modern epidemic of it. So we're not alone. While men can be people pleasers too, there's a tendency for it to be mostly women and girls, and more so in some cultures rather than others. But why would people pleasing be so common or prevalent these days? Well, one of the reasons is social media and constant validation. You know, we all have that need for love, belonging, and to feel appreciated for who we are. Unfortunately, we look for that externally outside of ourselves through the acceptance and approval of others. Now with social media and instant gratification from likes, followers, comments, it's becoming like the validation drug of our choice. Yep, only recently I shared with one of my podcast guests how many views their episode got. We all do it. We have a need for validation of our physical appearance too. Who doesn't like a compliment? That can be in person or it could be through filter- enhanced selfies. And another reason is we might do it is because of fear of rejection or conflict. That need for validation along with a fear of conflict and rejection, it can leave us unable to say no when we need to say it to people. I know saying no is tough. Especially for women because we're socialized to be polite, be the helper, and often to sacrifice our own needs. that we might struggle with guilt or anxiety if we don't help or agree. Soleil Bogan, our guest in the cancer episode, expressed that this is how she felt as a young caregiver when her fiance Matt was sick. When I asked her if she was able to find time for her own self-care, this is what she said."You know, finding time for myself was really difficult, especially at that age. And again, like you, I'm a helper and a people pleaser to a fault at times. So any time I would do something for myself, like simply going for a walk to get some fresh air or something to eat, to sustenance for myself, I would feel guilty and try to rush back to make sure that Matt was okay. I felt this way even when there was somebody else with him because I didn't want to miss anything. I was afraid I wouldn't be there to provide what I could. Being away from Matt and having to focus on literally any other task was really anxiety inducing for me and very difficult to balance. One other reason for people pleasing is feeling responsible for others feelings or happiness. I think people pleasers are also rescuers and love to help fix the lives of others. At least that's the way I am. I'm always drawn to anyone going through a difficult time, especially emotionally. And I feel responsible for helping them feel happier using the tools and strategies that I've gained through the years. And friends say how they would have paid for that kind of help and how I'd make a great life coach. As much as I'd like to think I'm being altruistic, giving to others meets my own need to feel wanted. So what exactly is the root cause of this though? Where does it originate from people pleasing? According to Sarah Bybee Fisk, a Master Certified Coach and expert on people pleasing, it's a trauma response or coping behavior through life's experiences, like fawning. You may have heard of fight, flight, or freeze. Well, now there's a fourth one, fawning. Fawning is basically people pleasing, over accommodating or appeasing someone to maintain approval in relationships, avoid conflict, or even to feel safe from potential threat. She says people pleasing often begins in childhood as it did for me. As an Indian girl, I was raised up to be submissive, to unquestionably obey my parents, authority figures, and basically anyone. And given I was given little opportunity to say no, to disagree, or make any major decisions. I don't blame my parents. It was just how parenting was in that time. I was the third daughter in a culture that valued boys and I felt unwanted because I knew how desperate my parents had been for a son. So I tried to be no trouble to them. Wanting so much to be wanted, I became the good little girl doing what everyone needed me to do. And tried to take up as little space in the world as possible. I made myself small. That wasn't too difficult because I was literally tiny. And as a very shy kid, I became invisible, unseen and unheard. Don't worry, I've been making up for that ever since! My pivot point came when I turned 50, after having been compliant and subjected to bullying, manipulation, and abuse throughout my life. It wasn't until one day when I made a list of all the major changes in my life and who made those decisions, that it hit me in the face, that rarely had it been me to make those decisions. My life had not been mine. I was simply a puppet on a string. After years as a homemaker, devoted wife, and mother, I didn't know who I was anymore. I'm sure so many of you can relate. Then, like a defiant child, I wanted to stamp my feet and scream, "You're not the boss of me!" to anyone who dared tell me what to do anymore. Growing up, I'd never been rebellious or any trouble to my parents, as they pointed out. So at 50, this was my rebellion. I finally learned to assert my needs, find my voice, and when my kids were all grown, I left a marriage of 35 years that had never been right for me. I often wonder how different things could have been had I been equipped with assertiveness and boundary setting skills before. A future goal of mine is to empower young girls with these very same skills. It's something my generation, who was a sacrificial one, we never had. Words like self-care, self-esteem, while they existed, they weren't the buzzwords that they are now. Not much attention was paid to them. Well, I'm glad that I've raised my own kids very differently to care for their needs, have a voice, and to use it. Especially my daughter, who's quite vocal about anyone crossing her boundaries and asserts her needs. She's a giver like me, so it's essential that she does have those skills. I come from a family of givers, in fact over givers, And we jokingly say that we must have a gene for it! For so many years, I felt cursed with this. It wasn't until I read Doreen Virtue's book, Assertiveness for Earth Angels, How to be Loving Instead of Too Nice, that I started finally embracing the giver that I am. She describes Earth Angels as people with a big heart, who are usually people pleasers, empaths, compassionate givers, and are drawn to helping professions. She says that we're a blessing to the world and to not resent our caring nature. Instead, to see it as a gift. Only we do need to, she says, we do need to learn to be assertive and practice self-care so that we don't get depleted. After that, I started reading further assertiveness books and then taking baby steps to put these skills into practice, like making a simple request to someone to do something. I have a great example of this! Around the time of my divorce, I was in the counseling office and it was sweltering hot in there because my therapist had the heater on and it was just only the two of us sitting there. I needed the heat turned off, but the therapist who was an elderly man, he wasn't wearing a sweater. I thought, well, then he would get cold. So So I didn't say anything and put up with a heat thinking only of his needs. The following week when the same thing happened, I decided to speak up and asked if he could turn it off. He was so glad that I did! It turns out that he kept it on for clients, thinking the room might be too cold for them. How ironic that here I was in the counseling office in the first place because I put the needs of others before my own. It felt good to ask for what I needed. And most healthy people won't have a problem with us doing that. It felt so empowering to make that simple request. Next I want to share with you three of the most powerful tools that I found helpful for assertiveness and self-care. They are, The Three-Step Assertiveness Process, The Broken Record, and Setting Boundaries. Now the first two have probably been replaced with more updated ones. I wouldn't be surprised, but these are the ones that worked for me. I taught the first two techniques at a workshop I gave called, "Put on your visibility cloak, be seen and heard." It was part of an empowerment series for women of color that I was invited to speak at. I couldn't believe how many women came up to me at the end of that and said, "Me too!" How in their cultures they were raised in the same way and could relate. Prior to that, when I had practiced for this speech at my local Toastmasters club, a guy who was a physician had come up to me at the end of the speech and shared this. He said, "You wouldn't believe how many of my patients need these techniques, whether they're men or women." And he thanked me profusely. He said, that was a great thing I was doing teaching people. So I'm going to run through these with you now. Let's begin with The Three- Step Assertiveness Model. I'll use and I'm going to use one of my own real life experiences as an example of that. A few years ago when I was writing my book, I needed to just get out of the house, and work amongst other people because as some of you might know, writing can be isolating. So I went to my local library for a peaceful place to work. However, two guys in their 20s were on the next table, and they were loudly discussing their college work, studying for a test together. Now I've had similar experiences and you might have as well with people like listening to something loudly on their phone without the use of headphones forcing us all to endure it. Doesn't that just drive you crazy? In this case, I knew I could simply move to another part of the library and usually that's what I would have done, or I would have just tolerated the noise. But I was newly equipped with my assertiveness skills and was determined to put them to use. I'll show you how I did that using the Three-Step method. Whenever possible, I would encourage you to write down what you want to say first in each of these steps and then rehearse or roleplay them with someone first. Step one, state the facts. Summarize the facts of the situation and try to use only "I" statements throughout, because when we use "you" it can sound as though we're accusing them and people can get very defensive. I politely said, "I came to the library for a quiet place to write and with all this loud chatter, it's not quiet." One of them then quietened down. Then soon it was back up to the same noise level again. I gave them the stink eye and then I kicked in with step two, which you can you can miss the stink eye if you like, you don't have to do that. So step two you can also go straight into it if you like. Step two, state your feelings about the situation, indicate why it's a problem. While you want to express your feelings, it's best to try and do that without getting emotional. This is what I said to them, "Look I'm struggling to concentrate with all the loud talking and now it's really frustrating me.' Then onto step three. State your requirements or needs. I would like... including the reasons and benefits to the other party if appropriate. You could say in this way we'll both... whatever or because... I told them "I would like to work in peace and there are study rooms available for group work." They finally left. Now, if they hadn't, there's a fourth step that I might have had to add. This is usually only appropriate in certain situations and you know you have to make sure that you feel safe enough to do so. That's the case with any of these steps, safety is just paramount. Um, this is how step four goes. Step four, state what you will do if the situation doesn't change, starting with the words I will... maybe. If they had continued to ignore my request, I would have said,"If this continues, I'll be left with no option but to inform the librarian. I'd rather not because I prefer to resolve this between ourselves and I think we can." Luckily for me, they left and I didn't have to use that fourth stage. And it felt so empowering and I didn't feel guilty about them having to leave. It instead felt good to respect my own needs for a change instead of someone else's. And while I love libraries, I've got to say that they're not the quiet places they used to be and with the etiquette that we expected. But perhaps that's just me. The second technique is The Broken Record. At times, we might need to simply just say no. How do we do that? Which I know it's so tough for most people, but it's far healthier to be honest and true to ourselves. I'm sure you can think of plenty of times when you've said yes, when you really wanted to say no, just to keep the peace and maybe because it was easier. Well, The Broken Record technique is simple and it's a great way to do it. But some of our listeners might be too young to even know what a record is. Or maybe not! Because there's been a revival of vinyl records and younger folks are getting into all these all things vintage. Vintage.. that makes me feel old. For those of you who grew up playing records, remember how sometimes the needle would get stuck on a scratched part and it would keep repeating the same couple of words in the lyrics. It would drive us crazy. Well, we've got to be like that, like a stuck record and repeat our no, but politely in as different ways as possible. Because some people can be really persistent. You can even say, "No, I can't do that right now." or "Let me think about it." That can buy us uh a bit more time. Also to remember that no is a complete sentence and you don't need to explain why you chose to say no or even to apologize. Because as people pleasers we apologize too much as it is. It's best just to be direct and brief and perhaps give only one reason if you need to. Again, to make sure that you can do this safely, you're not in a situation where there could be any kind of issue. In most healthy relationships, if we're firm and persistent, people should back off and actually respect us more for saying no. However, there'll always be people who won't. Like someone who was a friend and neighbor of mine. She was going away for a few weeks and she wanted to give me the key to her mailbox so that I could take out her mail so that it wouldn't get too full while she was away. Well, I wasn't comfortable with that. I wasn't even sure if it was legal in California to enter someone else's mailbox. But anyway, I just wasn't comfortable. I didn't want to do it. So as neighbourly as I am, I refused to do it. Instead though, I offered to set up a hold on her mail for that period if she didn't know how to do that. Now, it would have been an easy solution, but she didn't want to do that. She refused to respect my no and screamed at me and used curse words saying I was a lousy friend and neighbour. All because this is the first time that I'd ever refused to do something she wanted. I didn't let her intimidate me. I stayed firm in my no. I was so proud of myself for doing that, even though I was shaking from how she had spoken to me. For me, assertiveness now includes not being around people who won't respect my no and lash out in a rage if I don't do what they want. So it's no surprise she's no longer a friend. Even though it was hard, I didn't relinquish my boundaries. That is the next technique I'd like to talk about, setting boundaries. I first learned about boundaries from the groundbreaking, New York Times bestselling book, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. While it's heavily Christian-based I was okay with that since the teachings in it were life-changing for me. It's a book that therapists, life coaches, and support groups often recommend. So what are boundaries? What is this all about? I'm sure these days we've heard this word so much, we've heard it a lot maybe though we don't have a full understanding of it. Well in this book they describe boundaries as personal property lines like a fence around a yard that defines this is my area and this is yours. What is you and what is not? What's your responsibility and what isn't? That boundaries are vital for healthy relationships. In the first chapter of the book it describes Sherrie, a woman with a boundaryless life, who consistently lets other people dictate her time, energy, and priorities because she can't set limits or say no. Her life is in disarray because of it. I was shocked, shocked, when I read it because I saw a reflection of myself in her. Instantly, I knew I needed to develop boundaries fast because I had none. Next part is of course, how to set them. How do we go about doing this? Setting boundaries involves clear communication of our expectations and limits, taking responsibility for our actions and emotions, and respecting the boundaries of others as well. It's important to do that too. A friend of mine is really great at setting boundaries. She's worked hard to get to that point. I'm always so inspired at how she does it by setting limits or conditions when she offers to help. Just take last weekend when our Dancing Queens group, we went out for a birthday party. She was quick to offer to drive any of us, but said that she would require a little gas money and specified how much, it wasn't very much. Said we would be picked up and dropped off at one location. And she said for us to know that we would be staying as long as she, the driver, chose to stay. I mean, nothing wrong with that. I love that. She's able to be the giver that she is while clearly stating and respecting her own needs. I think that's wonderful. I really learn from her. When we first set boundaries, we can be confronted with a fear of change, because stepping into the unknown is scary. And it's easier to just stick with the familiar and the known. To quote the authors of this book, they tell us that "Being controlled by others is a safe prison. We know where all the rooms Are." I love that. And I remember when I first started to put boundaries in place, well first I had to hit a place of real discomfort before I made any changes. And the transformation, it didn't happen overnight. It was gradual. At first I went a bit extreme, like the authors said would happen, and also like they warned I got backlash from people not used to the assertive me. But it was worth it and people got used to the new me. Gone was the compliant chameleon. As Doreen Virtue suggests, a healthy alternative for Earth Angels is to equip ourselves with assertiveness and self-care in order to continue being the compassionate givers that we are. That need is even greater at times of trauma since people pleasing often originates from traumatic experiences in life as we learned earlier. And so empowering ourselves helps us take back our control. I love the analogy that Dr. Neha Sangwan, a people pleaser herself uses. She says when we become this yes person, and I want to quote her, uh "we lose an anchor inside of ourselves and we become driftwood in the ocean like we're going in whatever direction the wind is blowing us and really it's overwhelming because we don't feel grounded, we don't feel centered, we don't know how we're making decisions." This makes me think of how when a tree is uprooted, it's vulnerable to becoming that driftwood out at sea. Dr Sangwan, she continues by saying, well, "the goal is to become a sailboat with a rudder, charting our own course, feeling we have some input into the direction in which we're moving," which as people pleasers we usually don't have. That pivot point for me happened when I turned 50, as I mentioned earlier, when I looked at the decisions made in my life and shockingly discovered that they were not my own, that I had little input into the direction I was going. That's when I realized that I could continue to choose what other people wanted for me or of me, or I could choose to chart my own course, make decisions for myself. Because choosing to go along with someone else's decision, it's still a decision. So I chose to become that sailboat with a rudder. And my wish for you is that you may also chart your own course and have smooth sailing. I hope that this episode has helped equip you for doing that. Next Tuesday, it would be great to see you again for part two of our two-part episode Uprooted by Cancer, Twice with guest Soleil Bogan, a courageous and positive young woman who talks about moving forward after losing her fiance Matt to cancer. And in the second part, she shares her own cancer journey as well. I recommend listening to part one first, if you can. As some of you might know, I'm a brand new podcaster and I'd love to keep improving. And here's where you come in. Please share, subscribe, and provide feedback via the Uprooted by Unwanted Change Facebook group. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, may you find peace and rootedness.