1. People Pleasing Isn't Who You Are

People Pleasing is a coping strategy you learned likely in childhood, to help keep you emotionally or maybe physically safe.  Maybe you saw this strategy modeled by a parent or care giver especially if you grew up in a dysfunctional family.  As an adult, you don't develop and share the REAL you by hiding behind the protective shield of PLEASING.  Replacing People Pleasing with your true self feels like freedom, peace, and self-acceptance.  You are who God says you are and that's enough approval.  

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Transcript

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Welcome to Forget People Pleasing, breaking free from overgiving, learning to build boundaries, and reclaiming your God-given work. I'm Rhonda Morales, your host, therapist, and emotional skills coach. This show helps women who feel unseen, unloved, resentful, or drained from carrying everyone's burdens. You will learn skills and strategies based on biblical truth to stop people pleasing and live without guilt, without fear, and without losing yourself. Let's begin your journey to peace. Welcome to People Pleasing Isn't Who You Are. I'm really glad you're here today. This first episode of Forget People Pleasing is dedicated to the women that are tired of meeting all the needs of others, managing and fixing emotions that were never yours to carry at the cost of your own identity and well-being. You're tired of being the strong one, tired of giving and giving, yet still feeling unseen and unchosen. And before we go any further, I want you to hear this clearly. People pleasing isn't your personality. It's a survival strategy. It's a response to growing up in a dysfunctional or emotionally neglectful home, to feeling responsible for everyone else, to believing you have to earn love or keep the peace to avoid rejection. I'm Ronda Morales, your host, a mental health therapist in Florida, and an emotional skills coach. And I've spent over 20 years working with women in private practice and coaching. And over those years, I've noticed something incredibly consistent. As people pleasers, you are kind, you're capable, you're faithful, you love God, and you love people. And you're exhausted. You want more fun, more peace, and self-acceptance. You want to be accepted for who you are, not because of your appeasing or performing. And that's why this podcast exists, because people pleasing isn't who you are, it's something you learned. And so how do I know this? Because I'm a people pleaser in recovery myself. You see, my mom modeled people pleasing to keep the peace with my emotionally volatile dad. No one in the family had a safe space to express their feelings or thoughts if they differed from dad. So I learned to turn off my feelings and keep my thoughts to myself. This lack of emotional development really messed up my young adult years. And I made some disastrous choices. And maybe some of you can relate. My heart hurts for people that didn't learn the emotional skills as kids, which would set us up for success in our adult years. That's why I'm passionate about helping others forget the people-pleasing habit and replace it with your God created, good enough for God, authentic masterpiece self. That's who you are, you know. I have lots of dysfunctional family experiences to share with you as we journey along. And here's what I want you to know: that if I can replace with boundaries, honesty, authenticity, and pleasing God first, then so can you. So let's talk about what people pleasing isn't. First of all, people pleasing is not kindness. It's not love. It's actually transactional, which we'll talk more about another time. And it's not Christ-like service because Jesus gave from love no strings attached. That leaves us with people pleasing is a fear-based survival strategy, a coping mechanism that makes you feel safe. It's what happens when somewhere along the way you learn that love, connection, or safety depended on being agreeable, helpful, or self-sacrificing. Many women learned this in emotionally neglectful or dysfunctional homes in childhood. Homes where negative feelings weren't allowed. Heck, I got in trouble for acting excited as a kid. All my feelings were just too much. Maybe you were told that too. I was an energetic, happy, dancing around the house kind of kid. And I don't think my parents knew what to do with that kind of energy. So my authentic self got stifled instead of fed. As I grew into my preteen years, my suppressed emotional self became angry in response to the family dysfunction. That's a pathway for passive aggressive behavior, and we'll talk more about that another time. Perhaps your emotional needs were overlooked too, since some parents believe that kids need food, clothing, and shelter. Maybe they think that they also just need lots of material things. But a lot of parents have little, if any, emotional support or nurture to offer. So consequently, conflict may have felt dangerous, and love felt conditional. So you adapted, you became easy, you became helpful, compliant, the strong one. Maybe you became the entertainer to disrupt the tension and keep the peace. Not because you were weak, but because you were wise. Your brain learned how to emotionally hurt less in a dysfunctional family system by leaving your true self behind and becoming the role that fit your family system. Your God-created self faded away and got lost. So there is a cost to people pleasing. And one of those costs, besides being lost, which I just mentioned, is resentment. People pleasers don't feel resentful because you're unloving. You feel resentful because you've been abandoning yourself. You overgive, avoid honesty, and silence your own needs. Then feel hurt when no one notices or reciprocates. Maybe that sounds really familiar and is landing for some of the listeners today. Resentment isn't a character flaw, it's a signal that your boundaries have been crossed. Often by you trying to keep the peace, saying yes when you really mean no. How many times have you done that? You also avoid conflict to avoid rejection. You carry emotional burdens that were never meant to be yours, and eventually something inside just gets tired, angry, resentful, and you don't laugh like you used to or enjoy life as much. You feel emotionally invisible. Life starts to feel unfair, one-sided, and lonely, like you're working so hard to be loved, yet still coming up empty. And you might be starting to wonder, why am I always the one giving? You ever asked that question? Why doesn't this feel reciprocal? Why do I feel invisible? Here comes a truth pill. Listen up. It's called self-betrayal. It's trying that self-betrayal is trying to get your attention. That's what all these yucky feelings are really all about. Your body is trying to get your attention and saying, hey, we don't like this coping mechanism. We don't like this game. We don't like this habit. It's not working for us anymore. It's trying to get your attention. Let's look at all of this through a Christian lens because this is oftentimes where some crew some confusion comes to play. So many people believe that people pleasing is loving, selfless, or even Christ-like. Some are told that not people pleasing others is actually selfish. Okay, but let's look at scripture because the Bible tells us a very different story. People pleasing is not biblical love. It's fear-based behavior rooted in approval seeking, not obedience to God. I'm going to repeat that. People pleasing is not biblical love. It's fear-based behavior rooted in approval seeking, not obedience to God. And the support for that is Galatians 1:10. There's more, but that's the one I'm using today. Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. That's pretty heavy. That's the support for people pleasing, is not biblical love. And again, kind of going back to that transactional love that I mentioned before. People pleasing is transactional, not just Jesus kind of love. And Jesus is our ultimate model of love. And he consistently demonstrated clear intentional boundaries. For example, he withdrew from crowds to pray, even when people wanted more from him. He said no to demands that did not align with his mission. He did not explain himself to everyone. He disappointed people regularly and did not try to manage their reactions. And then finally, Jesus spoke truth even when it cost him relationships. Jesus never sacrificed truth, identity, or obedience to keep others comfortable. There's our model, folks. And it's quite different from the habit of people pleasing. So what this tells us is something very important that boundaries are not selfish. They are a skill to protect us from burnout, resentment, and emotional exhaustion. There's the support for forgetting the people-pleasing habit and working towards replacing it with what is true, what is authentic, what Jesus truly modeled. So let me give you something very practical today to focus on. And this week, I don't want you to stop people pleasing, right? That's biting off more than we can really chew. What I want you to do is notice it. The first step in changing habits is awareness. So before you say yes, pause and ask yourself these three questions. Number one, am I choosing this honestly? Or from a place of fear or from a place of avoidance? Number two, will I re resentment later? And then number three, is this who God is inviting me to be right now? If you are growing to be more like Jesus, is your answer who God is inviting you to be? So those are the three questions. And this pause and these three questions is powerful because it leads us to honesty and alignment with God's values. So on this podcast, we're going to be talking about real struggles Christian women face: the exhaustion, the resentment, the loneliness, and the emotional patterns no one ever taught us how to understand or to resolve. You'll learn emotional and relational skills. We'll talk about boundaries without guilt, healing childhood patterns or habits, faith without fear, and how to live honestly, kindly, and purposefully without losing yourself. So if today's episode resonated with you, I've created a free reflection guide called People Pleasing Isn't Who You Are. It includes journaling questions and scripture to help you gently explore how people pleasing shows up in your life and what it's really costing you. You can download it in the show notes. And if you're ready to go a little deeper, don't miss my free one hour workshop The Cost of People Pleasing, What It's Really Costing You, and How to Start Letting It Go. You don't have to walk this journey alone. I am so honored to walk this journey with you.

Speaker 15:13

https://www.rhondamorales.com/1 for the Reflection Guide.

Speaker 15:13

https://www.rhondamorales.com/workshop to sign up for the free workshop