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Today, I'm talking about the nine ways you

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and I have been trained to be people

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pleasers. There is evidence that

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society creates and

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upholds the need for people pleasers. First, I want to say

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that being a people pleaser is not a bad

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thing. Today, I invite you to

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stop feeling bad about wanting others to be

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happy or wanting to have, a feel good,

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happy world. Because let's face it, when other

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people are happy, we're happy. It's a

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reciprocal kind of thing. Shaming you or blaming you for being too

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nice, too kind, a pushover, or

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worse, creates unnecessary mental

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and emotional trauma. The extreme form of people pleasing, where

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we sacrifice ourselves for others, is not

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the topic for today's show. I will

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share my thoughts about that at another

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time. But I do want to talk about how

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our systems and culture have created a

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damning picture of a, people pleaser.

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Here are ten ways, actually, nine ways

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you and I here are

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nine ways you and I have been trained to be

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people pleasers. First of all, in our parent child

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relationships, as a child, you're

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taught how to please your parents, and you're

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rewarded for it when you do. And when

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you don't, you're punished. So what do

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we do? We learn how to please

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our parents in

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teacher student relationships. In

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school, we're taught to be like everyone else

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because the education model is designed

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for conformity. It's one

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education model for every

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student. Regardless of your learning

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capabilities, your learning styles, the

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environment is the same. Everyone is put in

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this box. Students are taught to

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please the teacher, and those that do are

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rewarded and acknowledged. And those that

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don't, well, they get a bad

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grade or their parents hear about their

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bad behavior or lack

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of performance. And

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then the parents who hear good things for their child from

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their child's teachers are pleased.

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So, can you see how this instills a pleasing others

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mindset and behaviors, starting at

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a very young age? M welcome to episode 23 of the feel

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good Superpower podcast. I'm

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Dr. Dar your feel good alchemist, and

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today I'm talking about nine ways

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you and I have been trained to be a people

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pleaser, how that label was

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created, and evidence that society

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creates and upholds the need

3:10

for people pleasers to exist.

3:13

First, I want to say that being a people pleaser is

3:16

not a bad thing. Today, going forward,

3:19

I invite you to stop feeling bad about wanting others

3:22

to be happy or wanting to have a feel

3:25

good, happy world. After all, when

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everyone around us is happy, we're happy, and vice

3:31

versa. it's a reciprocal exchange and

3:33

relationship. And I'm going to

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share how most people have people pleasing

3:39

skills. Shaming you or

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blaming you for being too nice, too kind,

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a pushover, or worse, just

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creates unnecessary mental and emotional

3:50

trauma. The extreme form

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of people pleasing, where we sacrifice

3:56

ourselves for others, is not a topic that I'm

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going to talk about today. I will share my thoughts

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about that another time. But I think

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your perspective about people

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pleasing in the extreme form is going to change

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after you listen to what I have to

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say. I do want to talk

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about how our systems and culture have

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created a damning picture of a people

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pleaser. So here are nine ways that

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you and I have been trained from a

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very young age to be people pleasers. Without

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going into too much detail, because I

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believe you'll be able to relate, and you'll be

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able to identify examples of your own from

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your own life and relationships. For each

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one, the

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parent child relationship. As a

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child, we're taught how to please our parents, and

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we're rewarded for it when we do

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and we're punished when we don't,

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which reinforces the behavior of wanting to

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please our parents. When parents talk about someone else's child's

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achievements or behaviors in a favorable

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way, their own child may try to

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be like that other child to please

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their parent, which then starts this

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need to prove ourselves to our parents or

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to authority figures, and that

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becomes a form of people pleasing behavior.

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Let's now talk about the teacher student relationship

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and relationships at school. In school, you're taught to be like everyone

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else. The education model is

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designed for conformity. One model for every student.

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So, on, the off chance on that one day that you

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don't fit in, you try to find ways

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to fit in just to survive that

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day. Fitting in is a form

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of people pleasing behavior. And then students are taught to please the teacher.

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And those that do are rewarded and acknowledged. And those that

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don't are ignored, dismissed or

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admonished or threatened by a phone call or a

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meeting with the parents. And then parents who hear good things

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from their child's teachers are pleased,

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which instills the pleasing others

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mindset in their children. It is costly to not fit in.

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So we conform m because it doesn't feel good to

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not belong. So we learn how to be

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pleasing to other students and the adults

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around us. So that we're not bullied,

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mistreated, dismissed, ignored, or

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criticized. Or we just

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withdraw completely. The next one is body image. I don't think

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I need to say anything about this, do I?

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Women have been objectified so much over the years

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that I don't know any woman who does not

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have some self critical issue with their

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bodies. If you're not pretty or

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thin or lean, or this or that,

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well, it's the end of the world. So what do we

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as women do? We try that fad diet,

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or that fad exercise program, or that fad

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pill, or that one treatment to

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try and make ourselves look like the

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impossibly photoshopped image of

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models and actresses plastered on

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billboards. That's how we're

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trained to be pleasing to others and

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want to be pleasing to others. The manager or boss to employee relationship.

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We're set up to please the boss or manager from the first

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time we meet them, starting with our job

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application and resume, then the job

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interview. And then once we get

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the job, we have to maintain that throughout the time

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we're in the job. It's a constant,

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please my boss, please my coworkers, and

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please my customers environment. Then there's the performance of appraisal.

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In a job situation, managers usually hold

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performance appraisals with their employees.

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Sometimes they're monthly, quarterly, or

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annually. This is another structure

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designed to ensure we please our

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managers and our customers. So

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now we have boss pleasing and customer pleasing.

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And your customers and bosses and managers

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are people. So it's people

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pleasing. This whole domain of customer satisfaction, it's a

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whole thing in the business, and corporate

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world. If a business's customers are

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not satisfied, then the employee is going to get

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feedback and be asked to improve

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or maybe get written up or fired.

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So customer satisfaction,

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those are just another word or a combination of

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words for people pleasing, in this case,

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customer or manager pleasing.

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The 7th one is the service based

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economy. We live in a service

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based economy, and the number one quality

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that is needed by those who provide a service

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is customer service and satisfaction,

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which I've already said are just other words

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for people pleasing. Family dynamics. Whether it's

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your sibling, aunt, uncle grands,

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or even a distant relative or cousin,

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we're all performing in a way to make them

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happy or have them have a good

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time so that we can too. The

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key is the so that we can

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too is also included.

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This behavior is so prevalent during

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holiday family gatherings, for example.

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There's so much energy and effort that's put into

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creating a taste good

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meal and a peaceful, fun,

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helpful environment for everyone. It's

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people pleasing. In religion, it's a structure for

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people pleasing as well. Where we're following

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a set of conditions and norms, conforming

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again. And if you don't agree with it all, or

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Lord forbid, you ask questions,

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well, there's judgment, criticism and gossip, and

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that gets fueled in the community. So we do everything we can to

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follow that set of conditions and norms so

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that we can please everybody. Meal preparation and providing meals

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and, supporting the community, all of

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that. We do it to please ourselves and feel good

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for ourselves. But it's also to give to others and to

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please them. It's unfortunate that it's common to be shamed

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for being motivated by pleasing

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others. You may be surprised with

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what I have to share. Next you're going to learn

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that people pleasing is not a medically diagnosed

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disease, nor is it a diagnosed

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mental or emotional disorder,

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yet it is treated as such.

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I found the origins of the words

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people pleasing or people pleaser to

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be disturbing because

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it's become so mainstream. It's become

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a label with which to discriminate against those of

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us who are empaths, sensitive,

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kind, caring, giving and compassionate. These traits are

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a good thing as long as we don't

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sacrifice ourselves and lose

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ourselves in any of our relationships or

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environments. In

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the 1970s, medical treatment for

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alcoholism as a disease was solely

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focused on the alcoholic. Once

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treatment centers started becoming prolific,

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they found that involving family members

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and partners of the alcoholic in

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treatment, in the treatment and support

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process, actually generated lower

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incidence of relapse with a higher

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periods of sobriety. So they created the term

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coalcoholic. Then

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in the 1980s, drug treatment

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programs formed the term chemical

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dependent from the perspective of being

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addicted to alcohol or drugs.

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To create a m. More

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publicly unifying term, the word

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coalcoholism was

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updated to cochemically

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dependent. But my gosh, that's hard to say,

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right? It was even hard for me to say

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cochemically dependent, so it was shortened to

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codependent. From then on, codependency was used to

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describe a person who is in a relationship

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with an addict and who enables

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them in some way with their

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addiction. But all of a

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sudden, the term codependent became a

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term to describe someone who attracts and gets

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into relationships with narcissists or

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addicts. In my opinion, it was at

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this moment that the term people pleasing came into

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being. People pleasing at that time

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was used to describe codependents

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who would automatically make sacrifices

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to care for others who

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were incapable of giving back or

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incapable of reciprocity.

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Codependents have difficulty in resisting getting into

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relationships with people who are addicts,

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controlling or narcissistic. But

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by the 1990s, the term codependent and people

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plays pleaser became mainstream. I see

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therapists and coaches using

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these terms, all the

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time, really as mainstream terms,

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and they're not. I

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am grateful to Ross Rosenberg, the author of the human

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Magnet syndrome why we love people who hurt

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us. He concisely and clearly defines

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codependency in his book as follows.

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Codependency is a problematic

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relationship orientation that, ah,

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involves the relinquishing of power and

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control to individuals who are either

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addicted or who are pathologically

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narcissistic. Codependents are habitually attracted to people

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who neither seem interested nor

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motivated to participate in mutual

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or reciprocal relationships.

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Hence, the partners of codependence

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are often egotistical, selfcentered, or

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selfish. Typically,

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codependents feel unfulfilled,

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disrespected, and undervalued

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by their relationship partner. As

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much as they resent and complain about the inequity in their

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relationships, codependents feel powerless to

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change them. Now,

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Ross Rosenberg states in his definition, and you

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really can't take this statement out of context, but

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I want to say that his sentence about typically,

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codependents feel unfulfilled, disrespected,

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and undervalued by their relationship partner.

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If we took that sentence just from the feel

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part, feel unfulfilled, disrespected, and

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undervalued. We

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feel that moment to moment in our lives and in some

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of our relationships, they're not always

15:53

completely fulfilling and respectful and

15:56

valuing. We have our m

15:59

moments and they pass.

16:02

So technically, we all have this people

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pleasing behavior. we can feel

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unfulfilled, we can feel disrespected, and we can feel

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undervalued. It just is not

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excessive and to the extreme. And it may not

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be that the person that we're in relationship

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with is an addicted person

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or pathologically narcissistic.

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They may be egotistical and self centered and

16:27

selfish, or they may just have moments where they

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are. I know I have my moments when I am.

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So the key is these behaviors.

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They are constant, they are

16:39

consistent, they are more often than

16:42

not. So to me, it's inappropriate to

16:44

be cavalier with labels like codependent,

16:47

codependency, or people pleaser.

16:50

These are medical and mental health terms and should

16:53

be treated as such. But

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suffice as to say, I see these two

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terms being used by the general public all too often

17:02

without fully understanding the origins, meaning,

17:04

or ramifications of doing so.

17:07

Nor are they or we qualified as

17:10

medical or mental health professionals.

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So my invitation is to no longer use

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these terms in a cavalier way

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and start being more specific around the

17:22

behaviors that we are questioning or that we're

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honoring and respecting. Because words

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have meaning and they have energy. They can

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be weapons of destruction

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or tools of immense love

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and self growth and self expansion.

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So I invite you to be honoring of these words going

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forward. Having said all that,

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I help people pleasers thrive

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in their life and relationships and

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their work or business, because being

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a people pleaser requires different models

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than what's been created for the

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world.