The Disease to Please

Many women struggle with people-pleasing without even realizing it.

In this episode of Coffee Talk, Candace explores the emotional and spiritual toll of constantly trying to make everyone else happy while neglecting your own needs. Through personal reflection and biblical wisdom, she discusses how people-pleasing can lead to burnout, resentment, and a loss of identity.

If you’ve ever struggled to say no, set boundaries, or stop seeking approval from others, this conversation will challenge you to rethink what it truly means to live in a way that honors both yourself and God.

Transcript

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Good morning and welcome to Coffee Talk. Today we're talking about something many of us struggle with but rarely admit. People pleasing. Dun dun dun. Let me ask you a question. Do any of these sound familiar to you? I'm good with whatever you choose. I can't go because so and so can't go. I'll do whatever you want. Just don't leave me. Yeah, you can borrow that. It's okay. Don't worry about it. Or maybe this one. Lord, please intervene because I really don't want to go. I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings either. God doesn't intervene. So you start searching for a lie when all you really had to say was no. Or maybe your actions have said this. You can misuse me, you can manipulate me, you can disrespect me. You may never actually say those words loud, but your actions say them clearly. And that action is what I call the disease to please. Now, pleasing someone isn't always bad, but when pleasing others begin to cost you your peace, your boundaries, and your identity, it becomes unhealthy. The disease to please shows up in many ways. You worry constantly about what other people think about you. Help me, Jesus. You agree with opinions you don't actually believe. You apologize when you did nothing wrong. You take the blame that doesn't belong to you. You give your time, your energy, and your resources, even when it leaves you empty. And eventually, this leads to deeper issues with you. You can develop resentment, stress, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion. People pleasing can even lead to losing your authenticity because you begin hiding how you truly feel just to keep everyone else comfortable. And before you know it, you've become what I like to call a yes man. For a long time, I thought I was doing the Christ-like thing by constantly giving and sacrificing for others. But eventually I realized something. Losing myself in the process was never God's design. It was never his plan for my life. During my own struggles and my journey through people pleasing, I went from one extreme to the next. I went from being a 100% people pleaser to the opposite extreme. Let's just say I became what you might call a no-man. My kids would be like, Mama, I'm hungry. And I'd be like, ain't there cereal in there? My husband would ask for help and I'll be like, no, because when I asked you, you didn't help me. Friends would say they couldn't go somewhere, and I would be like, oh, well, I'm still going if it's just me, myself, and I. Looking back now, I realized something. My intentions to protect myself. They were right, but my methods were wrong. Because the goal isn't to swing from people pleasing to selfishness. The goal is balance. The Bible reminds us in Galatians 1 and 10, 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. In other words, our goal is not to please people. Our goal is to live in a way that pleases God. And that means learning to speak the truth of love. Even the Bible reminds us to speak the truth in love, Ephesians 4 and 15. So what does that look like? It means learning to say no when necessary. It means setting healthy boundaries. It means recognizing when relationships are draining you instead of supporting you and understanding something very important. If someone only values you when you are sacrificing yourself for them, that relationship was never healthy to begin with. As a woman, we give so much of ourselves. We give so much. We nurture, we support, we carry emotional weight for others. But when we do, without boundaries, eventually something breaks. And I don't want you to reach that point of breaking. I want you to reach the point of saying, not today, today I choose me. Not today, today I choose peace. It is okay to say no. It is okay to protect your time. It is okay to walk away from a situation that continually takes from you. That doesn't make you selfish. It makes you wise. So today, I want you to ask yourself one simple question. How much more of yourself are you willing to lose just to please others? I can tell you, as is stated in the previous episode, from when I was young, the disease please was birthing me at an early age. And my whole life has been spent around pleasing others, putting others' needs and wants and satisfactions before my own. While I thought that was the right thing to do, looking back, it only served those people. It really never served me. Although I was doing it from a good place, it never served me. It just made me ignore me and it made me forget to please myself. You know, in that disease to please, we always put others' joy and their satisfaction and their needs before our own, even their peace before our own. So as you walk through this journey of disconnecting from the disease to please, but learning to set healthy boundaries and learning to say no, I pray that you find yourself or meet yourself rather in the middle of it. It is okay to say no. It is okay to set those healthy boundaries. Because, like most diseases, if they're not treated, they turned out to be something bigger. So start your healing journey today by disconnecting from the disease to lease. Because in the end, the only person we should really be concerned with leasing is God and then yourself. Thank you for spending these 10 minutes, maybe less, with me today. If this conversation has encouraged you, please share Coffee Talk with another woman who might need to hear it too. Until next time, keep walking in faith, keep growing, and remember you're not alone on this journey. Be bliss.