Therapy can transform your People Pleaser
People Pleasing - a look at the Downside.
Did you start to realize that your People Pleasing personality pattern is ruining your life in many ways.
Your spouse or girl friend may become frustrated with their relationship with you - the People Pleaser.
Guide: If you want more self-confidence, emotional stability, courage, clear thinking and capacity for intimacy in your life, then consider setting up a meeting with an experienced psychotherapist. A therapist who cares, understands, listens with empathy and encourages communication and skill development in you will give you space to develop and gain confidence in your own identity.
Plan to meet every week either with a couple therapist, or attend a course focused on communication and listening or attend an individual session with an individual therapist. The Marriage Encounter organization is one example of a group focused on couple communication. The People Pleaser needs high quality individual psychotherapy to work toward long-term change and consolidation of one's identity. People Pleaser therapy can transform your life in many ways.
Psychotherapy: Life Transformation Group will provide individual psychotherapy that will help you to press forward toward marital intimacy through individual emotional healing of the People Pleasing Personality Pattern and support for the spouse during this long-term course correction.
To discuss these options phone George Hartwell at (416) 939-0544 or Anna Wolanczyk at (647) 712-4848.
People Pleasing - a Look at the Downside
So, what was the price of being nice? (Note People pleasing effects both men and women but this is written from the masculine perspective.)
Can Self-help Work?
People-Pleasers can’t just change themselves because they want to or decide to change because it is a personality type formed in early childhood. The experiences of childhood, the core beliefs associated with childhood memories and the feelings generated by the core beliefs don’t just disappear because you want to change.
Self-change is nearly completely ineffective against deeply rooted personality patterns. One can make changes for a period of time but when you let up the old patterns will be back.
It is not about thinking of yourself first. It is a matter of identity. The People Pleaser is meeting the expectations of others as a long-standing identity pattern from childhood. You need to get to the root of the pattern; let go of the old self and grow into something new. It will take time.
Changing one’s identity is a total transformation. It is like going from caterpillar to butterfly. If you want to do that on your own you need to find a method that works. It is more hopeful if you find a therapist who is an expert in one or more of the methods that facilitate life transformation.
There are a variety of options among effective methods: EMDR. Coherence Therapy, Listening Prayer Inner Healing, The Journey and others. These are just the ones that I have familiarity with. A more complete list is provided by Bruce Ecker on page 5 of Unlocking the Emotional Brain.
I was a People-Pleaser and I am still in the process of recovery from people pleasing. I did not identify the people pleasing pattern and the hold it had on my life until I was at a training in Christian prayer therapy lead by John and Paula Sandford. When they described the pattern they call Performance Orientation, I immediately recognized its application to my life. Prayers that I asked for at the conference got a fundamental transformation process going in my life.
After this, I looked to God and drew from within for my identity and was not always focused on what others expected. However getting in touch with my feelings, needs, likes, thoughts, and passion is what has taken years of recovery from my people pleasing.
Did you start to realize that your People Pleasing personality pattern is ruining your life in many ways.
- You may be feeling very confused about your identity.
- You cannot make decisions without confirmation from others.
- You may back down from your plans if significant people disagree.
- You may tend to passive and not take action in situations where you need to act.
- You may avoid conflict rather than fighting for your plans and purposes.
Your spouse or girl friend may become frustrated with their relationship with you - the People Pleaser.
- They are aware that you don't share your feelings.
- Intimacy, connection and emotional partnership is not developing with you.
- They notice you have trouble getting things done,
- They find you are not decisive.
- They notice you do not stand up for those you love.
Guide: If you want more self-confidence, emotional stability, courage, clear thinking and capacity for intimacy in your life, then consider setting up a meeting with an experienced psychotherapist. A therapist who cares, understands, listens with empathy and encourages communication and skill development in you will give you space to develop and gain confidence in your own identity.
Plan to meet every week either with a couple therapist, or attend a course focused on communication and listening or attend an individual session with an individual therapist. The Marriage Encounter organization is one example of a group focused on couple communication. The People Pleaser needs high quality individual psychotherapy to work toward long-term change and consolidation of one's identity. People Pleaser therapy can transform your life in many ways.
Psychotherapy: Life Transformation Group will provide individual psychotherapy that will help you to press forward toward marital intimacy through individual emotional healing of the People Pleasing Personality Pattern and support for the spouse during this long-term course correction.
To discuss these options phone George Hartwell at (416) 939-0544 or Anna Wolanczyk at (647) 712-4848.
People Pleasing - a Look at the Downside
So, what was the price of being nice? (Note People pleasing effects both men and women but this is written from the masculine perspective.)
- Once your identity is lost it is almost impossible to be a loving man, good leader or a courageous man of God. That is
- You lose your Real identity and get a substitute of the 'good boy' and 'Mr. Nice Guy' personality - a priceless loss.
- You give up being real and expressing your emotions which shuts down the possibility of love, bonding and adult intimacy.
- You lose your masculine side, will, backbone crippling your ability to protect your loved ones and fight injustice.
- You lose the ability to think clearly and make decisions. When one is confused about your identity, your thinking becomes confused; you become indecisive, and you will find it difficult to make decisions.
- You may develop a black and white perspective: You want to get the right answer. Being wrong triggers feelings of not being loved.
- You lose the right to be angry with healthy anger and that meant difficulty being firm or setting boundaries.
- Nor do you have the right to be aggressive with healthy aggression. So you become passive, even passive-aggressive.
- You lose the ability to lead with authority.
- You lose your voice.
- You lose the expectation that there would be people to love you, that conflicts could be resolved, that people would acknowledge how you felt.
- You become confused about love. You substitute being nice with loving and that can destroy a marriage. Love expresses one’s commitment to what is best for the other. Being nice is either the result of training in good manners or a desire to be liked by others.
Can Self-help Work?
People-Pleasers can’t just change themselves because they want to or decide to change because it is a personality type formed in early childhood. The experiences of childhood, the core beliefs associated with childhood memories and the feelings generated by the core beliefs don’t just disappear because you want to change.
Self-change is nearly completely ineffective against deeply rooted personality patterns. One can make changes for a period of time but when you let up the old patterns will be back.
It is not about thinking of yourself first. It is a matter of identity. The People Pleaser is meeting the expectations of others as a long-standing identity pattern from childhood. You need to get to the root of the pattern; let go of the old self and grow into something new. It will take time.
Changing one’s identity is a total transformation. It is like going from caterpillar to butterfly. If you want to do that on your own you need to find a method that works. It is more hopeful if you find a therapist who is an expert in one or more of the methods that facilitate life transformation.
There are a variety of options among effective methods: EMDR. Coherence Therapy, Listening Prayer Inner Healing, The Journey and others. These are just the ones that I have familiarity with. A more complete list is provided by Bruce Ecker on page 5 of Unlocking the Emotional Brain.
I was a People-Pleaser and I am still in the process of recovery from people pleasing. I did not identify the people pleasing pattern and the hold it had on my life until I was at a training in Christian prayer therapy lead by John and Paula Sandford. When they described the pattern they call Performance Orientation, I immediately recognized its application to my life. Prayers that I asked for at the conference got a fundamental transformation process going in my life.
After this, I looked to God and drew from within for my identity and was not always focused on what others expected. However getting in touch with my feelings, needs, likes, thoughts, and passion is what has taken years of recovery from my people pleasing.
What is the relationship between codependency and love addiction?
These are two different ‘addictions.’
The codependent has a personality that is best fulfilled in caring for those close to them. That is a repetitive pattern.
The love addict operates with a broken love system. They do not easily receive love, feel love or store love so they always go into a love deficit. Likely sexual relationships is when they feel loved for a short while. When they lose a love partner and they immediately find another to fill up their inner emptiness. Some People Pleasers may be love addicts.
In summary these are different patterns, different lives and not interchangeable.
These are two different ‘addictions.’
The codependent has a personality that is best fulfilled in caring for those close to them. That is a repetitive pattern.
The love addict operates with a broken love system. They do not easily receive love, feel love or store love so they always go into a love deficit. Likely sexual relationships is when they feel loved for a short while. When they lose a love partner and they immediately find another to fill up their inner emptiness. Some People Pleasers may be love addicts.
In summary these are different patterns, different lives and not interchangeable.