People pleasing as a barrier to engagement

Earlier this year, we did a deep dive into people pleasing, and how people pleasing should not consistently traumatize the people you are trying to please.

We did several group sessions on people pleasing, and it seemed to open people up to thinking about people pleasing and its adverse impacts in new ways.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that people pleasing goes away overnight.

These patterns and habits are deeply ingrained in us, and are often rooted in strategies developed to respond to childhood trauma or harm.

People pleasing, for example, is a strategy for coping with emotionally or physically violent relationships. If I can keep this person happy, they will be less likely to be violent towards me.

It can also be a strategy for assimilation. If people like me, I will be more likely to fit in and be safe in an environment where I am not like everyone else.

We’ve talked about where trauma and power intersect. We carry these trauma-based coping mechanisms in our body. As fully grown adults with more power and agency than we had as children, our bodies still react in the same way.

Our bodies don’t understand when the power dynamics are different.

This is why mindfulness is so important in DEI work.

Mindfulness isn’t just about meditation and focusing on the breath.

Mindfulness is also about using tools like, but not limited to, meditation and focusing on the breath to pay attention to the present moment and the thoughts and feelings coming up so you can, if necessary, interrupt any default unconscious reactions that might not align with your intentions.

What is so wrong with wanting to please others? you might ask.

It’s not so much that there’s something wrong with wanting to please others (although we like to shift that to focusing on the self-identified needs of others as well as the entire community) but about wanting to be liked.

I go into more depth on this in the blog post referenced above but wanting to be liked often gets in the way of actually being liked, especially when you hold more contextual power and privilege - it’s self-centering and can feel manipulative to others because essentially you are trying to control how others feel about you.

There are also cultural and racial differences, fear of open conflict being a characteristic of white supremacy culture where for BIPOC folks, white folks wanting to be liked can actually be a barrier to trust and engagement.

We see white leaders especially struggling with authenticity.

Particularly with some DEI awareness, there can be a kind of analysis paralysis where there is a fear of saying the wrong thing (hello perfectionism) and “hurting feelings.”

Silence often feels like the better choice… and the fact is that sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. Being silent doesn’t guarantee that the silence itself won’t hurt feelings or cause harm.

It depends.

And I know that’s a frustrating answer when we are all socialized into wanting clear cut rules for what is ok and what isn’t ok, but the truth is it doesn’t work like that. It’s not either/or and binary thinking is unhelpful too.

I know. It can feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

It’s what we call the “messy middle” and the only way is through.

And by “through” what I mean is… we have to be willing to get out of our heads and to take action, however imperfectly. We have to be willing to mess up while also doing our best not to cause more harm. We can limit our harm by being in collaboration with others and inviting and accepting feedback. We can practice mindfulness by being aware of how our thoughts and feelings lead us to default reactions so we can interrupt those reactions and do something different instead. We can practice self-reflection so we are not just relying on feedback but we are noticing for ourselves how things are going and iterate accordingly.

We can be curious with ourselves and others because that is how we learn (not from flight/fight/freeze/appease) and keep ourselves de-escalated and in a place of discernment rather than reactivity.

No we don’t want to rush into action, but we also don’t want to let ourselves stay paralyzed, or hiding, or in denial.

I’m not saying it’s easy.

But authentic, deep and transformative relationships and solidarity across racial lines for real social change for the benefit of us all depend on it.

I think it’s important to remind ourselves that being liked or not has very little to do with whether or not we are causing harm.

And as the adults we are rather than the children we were, there are ways we can keep ourselves safe without trying to get people to like us.

Banner photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

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