A Creative Mama’s Story

In my last post I said, “Being a people pleaser can be both a blessing and a curse.” So let’s hash out, shall we, the ways in which it is a curse. I also want to answer this question: 

Does being responsible to/for someone else mean you have to please them? 

I’ll speak in the first person because I know this role so well. Being a chronic people pleaser often makes me feel as if everyone else is in charge of my behavior. It makes me feel that I have no control over my time. It makes me feel that I have very few choices. In reality - I KNOW I am the only one in charge of me. I KNOW I have numerous choices (sometimes limited by circumstances - but choices nonetheless) that only I can make for myself every moment of every day. I think art, theater, and writing remind me that I do have those choices and having these acts of creation in my life on a daily basis shakes me out of the people pleasing stupor. 

The desire to please others, the belief that I can please others and the perceptions I have about having pleased them well or having disappointed them are for the most part fictional. It is a story I make up in my head. Unchecked, this fictional narrative becomes my primary source of motivation. I hand over my free will and my personal creative power to my perception of another person’s perception of me. 

This feels yucky and powerless. So why do I do it? I think the first answer is survival. I think we learn it in the womb - okay maybe that’s going back a bit far, but I think you know what I mean. If we please the big people when we are little people, the big people reward us and protect us. The second answer is that I don’t want to grow up. I am not a little person anymore. I am responsible for my own rewards and my own self-care. Therefore I no longer need to please the big people in order to survive. But, instead of individuating (becoming the whole, self-governed individuals we are meant to be), I carry the little person’s operating system out into the big world with me and project big person status onto various people like my boss, my co-workers, my collaborators, some peers, teachers, doctors, police, the media … and my daughter. 

Wait a minute! Did I just say I project big person status onto my daughter and behave as if I am the little person who needs to please her in order to survive? Yes, I did. Now, that’s just backwards, isn’t it? So what would frontwards look like? I am me. My daughter is her own person. My boss is his own person. My mother is her own person. None of us has to please the other in order to survive. My mother may be disappointed in me, but those are her feelings based on her expectations. My daughter may be disappointed because I won’t let her have a second Popsicle. She may throw a fit because her expectation of a second Popsicle has been thwarted by mom - again. If she throws a fit, we will all survive. None of us has to please the other in order to live through a temper tantrum. And for the bigger picture - how do I raise my daughter to be a self-governed, powerful, creative human being. I know there is some magical parenting fairy dust out there somewhere that will allow me to set age appropriate limits for her without making her feel like a “little person”.

I think I just answered the question in paragraph 1.

There is so much more to talk about on this subject. In summary, people pleasing is a story we make up in our heads which unchecked can become our primary motivating force. When this happens we are giving our creative power and our daily choices away and acting as if we have none. It is funny, sometimes, when I catch myself people pleasing (sometimes I do it when I am ordering my dinner in a restaurant) and I think, “Wow, I just gave my free will to that poor fella over there and he has absolutely no idea what to do with it.” More to come. Next post: People Pleasing - The Blessing. 

Go out and enjoy your free will today - create something powerful for yourself! 

Many blessings,
Kirsten