2. Why People Pleasing Leads to Resentment

When we chronically abandon ourselves and needs to appease others, resentment is bound to grow.  As Christians, our identity and value is given to us by God.  We can reduce of our performing and appeasing habits in exchange for acceptance because God has accepted us through Christ.  We've learned these coping mechanisms and have practiced them to make us feel safe and approved.  But, it isn't honest and doesn't express who we are, who God created us to be and it isn't honest love.  

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:01

Why people pleasing leads to resentment. Let's talk about something many Christian women feel but rarely admit out loud. It's resentment. If you've ever thought, I shouldn't feel this way, or I do all this out of love, so why am I so angry? I want you to know resentment is a symptom. It's a signal. Your body is trying to get your attention. It means something inside you has been ignored for too long. Resentment is what happens when your needs go unspoken, your limits go unhonored, and your giving becomes obligatory instead of freely given. I remember coming home from work, tired and emotionally spent. That was the energy left for my daughter's homework and making dinner. I tried my best to be patient and present, but failed many nights. I felt resentment that her dad wasn't helping. This led to tension, and my best self was gone. I was in survival mode. You see, my resentment was the result of trying to keep the peace, but I didn't have peace, not me on the inside. I was suffering. And I don't think the air in the house felt peaceful either. My body was signaling that I was overloaded and an honest conversation was needed. I understand the tiptoeing to keep from having an argument. I get that you don't want to poke the bear. I also believe that we are postponing resolve when we tolerate negative behavior. So here's something to make a note of. Let's use Matthew 18, 15 through 17 as a reconciliation process. So step one, if your brother sins against you or if you have resentment against him, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. So no need to go on to step two or three. Hopefully that is the resolve. However, lots of times we do need to go on to step two, which is if you won't listen, take one or two others along. So this might mean that we do a little chat uh with a respected mentor as a mediator. Maybe it means we have a couple sessions of therapy or coaching. And then step three, if he still refuses, tell the church. And this might mean going to the church pastor for guidance. So that's using the template, the reconciliation process found in Matthew 18. And I have to confess that I didn't do this well at all. With the situation I mentioned earlier in the podcast where my husband wasn't helping at home in the evening, I spoke to him from a place of resentment instead of emotional regulation. That's such an important skill to have our conversations with. Emotional regulation. And briefly, what that means is um I burst into statements that were dripping with resentment instead of processing the offense, calming my little self down and getting clear on what I wanted to say with words that communicated, I want to work this out, instead of I'm at war with you. Emotional regulation is skill. And it's something that we need to bring into a difficult conversation so that we are most likely to find a place of resolve. The healthier we can communicate in a conversational tone, the better the resolve will be. As humans, we don't want to listen to someone that's yelling at us, right? I mean, we've all probably experienced that. We tend to shut down or match their energy with our defenses and accusations. And off to the races we go. We are not finding resolve to that problem at that point. So let's connect the dots. People pleasing creates resentment because it requires chronic self-abandonment. Here's how it usually shows up: you say yes when you want to say no. You give hoping it will be noticed or reciprocated. You avoid hard conversations to keep the peace. And you tell yourself it's fine when it's not. And that reminds me of so many kitchen conversations. My husband would say, What's wrong? Oh, nothing. I'm fine. No, I can tell something's wrong. No, I'm just tired. I'm fine. I'm fine. No, it's nothing. That's not honest. And a better way to handle that, because all of this is about replacing that quiet suffering with honesty, is maybe a better response in that kitchen scenario I just presented is, you know, I am kind of bugged right now, and I need to figure out how to tell you and for me to clearly understand what's bothering me. Because I had a tough day too. So I need to separate the tough day with what's going on right now here in the kitchen and my needs. So let's have this conversation later when I get it clear within my own self. That's an honest response, besides fine, I'm just tired. No, everything's great. Or probably most of us are guilty of that type of response. So over time, though, our inner world starts to keep score, even when we don't want to keep score. And then resentment is often grief for what you needed, but you didn't get. You see, we've got to learn to be honest. So for many women, though, this pattern didn't start in adulthood. It started in childhood. And if you grew up in a home where emotions were dismissed or ignored, you just weren't allowed to have them. You were expected to be the good one or the compliant one. All my middle children out there in birth order, conflict felt unsafe. Even if it was just a difference of opinion that could be conceived as conflict or love felt conditional. You may have learned that keeping others happy kept you included and maybe safe. And I would say pseudo-safe. As an adult, you overfunction. Of course. That's what you brought forward from your childhood learning. You anticipate needs. Oh, I was so good at that one. And you carry emotional weight that isn't yours. And resentment builds, not because you're selfish, but because you never learned you were allowed to have needs too. If we didn't get to express our needs in childhood, then how in the world are we just going to magically start expressing our needs in adult years, right? We bring that childhood learning and training of abandoning ourselves to keep the peace. We bring that right into our adult years. So now let's kind of look at resentment through a Christian lens. The Bible does not call us to suppress truth, it calls us to live in truth. And Ephesians tells us to speak the truth in love. That goes back to that emotionally regulated conversational tone that I spoke about earlier, instead of a rant or yelling, but speak the truth in love. And sometimes we need to process ourselves so we can instead of just scream out our words, we're speaking the truth in love. Rather than avoiding it, not burying it, and not spiritualizing our truth away. Jesus did not live resentfully because he lived honestly. He didn't say yes out of fear. He didn't serve to be approved, and he acted from purpose, not pressure. Resentment fades when honesty enters the room. Resentment fades when honesty enters the room. That's a good takeaway. So here's something important to note resentment is a symptom, not the problem. What? I thought we were talking about resentment being the problem. Resentment rises to the surface. That's how we feel. That's the symptom. But the problem is our silence. Silencing your needs is the problem. You know, we want to get to the root of things, right? We don't want to put a band-aid on it. So the root to our to our resentment is actually our silence, our abandoning of ourselves. So when resentment shows up, here's three questions to pause and ask yourself. Number one, what did I agree to that I didn't truly want to do? So there's a pause, there's a self-reflection there. Number two, what boundary did I ignore? And maybe it's even a boundary that might need to be considered and created. Because you know, when we say yes to things, we are probably also saying no to other things. Like, I really needed those two hours to recoup and reset and get myself in my best place instead of giving out more. But anyway, number two, what boundary did I ignore? Maybe what boundary needs to be considered and created? And then number three, what am I hoping someone else will notice without me saying it? Oh boy, am I guilty of that one? Hoping that someone will just read my mind. Hoping that someone will notice that I have needs without having to speak them out loud. What am I hoping someone else will notice without me saying it? Maybe some of you can identify with some of these. So this helps us process. These questions help us process what's feeding the resentment. We need to understand ourselves before we can change our habits. This helps us to understand from a calm emotional place, identifying our talking points if someone else is involved, have an uncomfortable conversation, and of course, seek resolve. Remember to use the Matthew 18 reconciliation process if somebody else is involved. Maybe the person we resent is ourselves because we are the ones saying yes when the wise answer is no. We'll look at the fears that keep us stuck in this pattern in another episode. Resentment is information. Listen to it gently. You're not broken. You're waking up, you're smelling the coffee. So this podcast is about being honest because that's the answer. Honest with yourself so you can be honest with others. Love rooted in truth creates freedom in our relationships and freedom in our own inner world. Learning to understand what's going on with us before we go exploding onto others or continue to suffer in silence. Being honest leads us to healthy change and healthy, enjoyable relationships where we meet needs. We laugh, we do life with more ease, and we have more fun. Who doesn't want that? Because love that requires self-abandonment chronically eventually disintegrates. So the answer is honesty. I hope something in today's podcast landed for you today. Whether it was learning that you aren't alone, learning why you became a people pleaser, maybe learning that you have some skills to develop, like honest conversations, so you can replace the habit and bring wellness into your world. I've created a reflection guide to help you explore this a little more deeply, and you'll find it in the show notes. And if you're ready to go deeper, don't miss my free one-hour workshop: The Cost of People Pleasing, What's It Really Costing You, and How to Start Letting It Go. You'll find the registration for that in the show notes also. I celebrate you for wanting to learn how to grow more honest with yourself and others to learn who you really are without the performing and to accept that your value and your identity from God's perspective is more than enough. I'll see you next time.

Speaker: 14:34

Reflection Guide https://www.rhondamorales.com/2 

Speaker: 14:34

Workshop https://www.rhondamorales.com/workshop