Thinking about behaviors that hide us
Learned behaviors that can suck the life out of you
There’s ways to describe how we relate to other people. One is people pleaser. It means you’ll do anything to please others, typically at your own expense. I have been struggling with how to think about this- I understand what it means and I think I have part of the tendency but not all. I will do anything to please others, but not at my own expense. Kind of.
This has puzzled me for a long time. I will please others, but I think I figured out that it’s more in the spirit of approval seeking than people pleasing. It seems as if it might be a hybrid.
I’m trying to work out how these two things are related and yet different. I feel like they are, but I can’t quite wrap my head around it. I think about the qualities of codependency and how those are in there too.
The definition of a people pleaser is:
“A person who has an emotional need to please others often at the expense of his or her own needs or desires.”
The definition of an approval seeker is:
“When someone seeks approval, they're asking for others to accept who they are or what they've done. Seeking approval from others often means you haven't provided this to yourself.”
The definition of codependency is: (from Melodie Beatty)
“A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior.”
So, when you’re a people pleaser you are operating at the expense of your own wants, as an approval seeker you’re looking for outer acceptance. And when you’re codependent you allow other people’s behavior to affect you and you get fixated on being the person who can control the other person’s behavior. I really feel like these are all versions of similar things- maybe not potato/potahto but in the same neighborhood. To me it seems like they are all ways of regulating yourself from the outside in instead of the inside out. If you unlearn one do the rest follow?
When I look at these tendencies the thing I find they have most in common is the fact that these are unhealthy learned behaviors that have caused me a lot of suffering. If you are in a healthy relationship with someone (parent, child, lover, co-worker) there would be truth. Transparency.
That! The truth. The things we do that hide who we are, none of those are here with the truth. If I can be safely honest, then I don’t have to do things to please others that cost me my wants. I can also trust my own approval and acceptance because I am not defaulting to shame as the main type of feedback I receive from me about me. And I don’t have to control anyone else or let their behaviors have an unhealthy effect on me.
What is it about the truth that is so uncomfortable? We have all these complicated ways of working around having actual feelings. We can end up doing dances around the truth that last for years. Lifetimes. Ugh.
What if you could tell the people in your life the truth? If you could let them see who you actually are. And myself, what if instead of creating things like people pleasing, approval seeking, and codependency I was just a good source of information? If I am reliable, and kind, and I can make good decisions, then behaviors like these are better left behind.
It’s interesting how hard this work is though. I have been in therapy for eight years and I am just figuring this out as a thing I want to work through, after all the things I’ve already worked through. I never tire of the new things I can learn about myself and the depths of the human condition. Ha, that’s not true- I totally get tired of my humanity sometimes- that’s the truth. I get heartily sick of another lesson showing up when I just learned one, or one showing up a few years after a different one, but they’re connected somehow and now I see a bigger picture and scratch my head- how could I not have seen this at the same time I saw that?
Until next time,
Photo credits:
Faces Joanjo Pavon on Unsplash
Trophy Ezequiel Garrido on Unsplash
Trees Touann Gatouillat Vergos on Unsplash