Makeup Musings: My Journey with People Pleasing
I do my best thinking when I’m calm and when things are quiet. A lot of the time, that happens when I’m walking my dog. I do my best thinking in the shower. My favorite time to just think, though, is when I’m doing my makeup. I haven’t filmed a lot of content in 2023. I haven’t written a lot in 2023 either but a lot happened in my world and I finally turned around and looked at something in the face that I haven’t had to address: people pleasing.
Dealing with my people-pleasing
2023 was an exhausting year. The first reason is I just have more responsibility now. I had to learn new things and take care of new business. On top of that, I hit a point of no return when it came to my habit of people-pleasing. I went through the stages of grief: there was lots of anger, lots of bargaining, lots of sadness. For me, it didn’t come out of nowhere. I felt like all of the pandemic (and all the thinking I was doing during the pandemic) led to this.
For a long time, I laid at the feet of my parents everything I thought was wrong with me. I was the way that I was because of the way they raised me. Specifically, I was the way that I was because of what I considered their shortcomings. There was a lot of anger there for almost a whole year. I told myself that my life would be easier and my life would have been better if they hadn’t messed me up in different ways. It was a lot of effort to try to have them do (what I thought) better and have them think differently. Even now, I can’t give a straight answer on why I needed them to change for me so badly. Maybe it was because I had done so much for them and the family, I placed them above my needs, and I did what would make them happy that I felt they owed me change and they owed me love in the way I wanted it.
Life became easier and my relationship with my parents became easier and less contentious when I stopped trying to get them to act or think differently. The anger loosened once I accepted that, yes, the way that I turned out was not my fault but it is now my responsibility. Just because I stopped trying to get my parents to be different than who they are, that didn’t mean that I agreed with what they were doing, thinking, or saying. My values, my morals, my ethics became less fragile. I didn’t need it reflected to me, I didn’t need people to agree with me. I was who I was and it didn’t change just because I was dealing with someone who didn’t agree or thought differently than me. Staying silent and doing nothing when my Dad said something I felt was out of line didn’t mean I agreed. It meant I valued my peace of mind and it was not my job to make sure he did better.
In January of 2023, after a few months of trying to accept that my parents are who they are, I hit a wall with people-pleasing as it applies to everyone else in my life. I remember the day, too. I was sitting in a room by myself anxious and upset and asked a group of friends through text for encouragement. I needed a pep talk. I was told to take a walk, told to watch TV, and then got radio silence. Alone, it wouldn’t have bothered me much but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Up until that point, I felt like I made myself smaller and more digestible for everyone else’s comfort. I watered down my personality. I didn’t talk as much about the things I loved because other people thought it was a waste of time. I went along with things I honestly hated just to make other people happy. I gave endless empathy, endless love, and endless encouragement because I thought that if I gave and gave and gave, I would get empathy, love, and encouragement back.
That was the grief and anger that struck me that lonely night in January: you are not going to get back what you give. It was a lie that I had been living. Growing up, I thought that if I made sure people stayed happy, if I made sure they got what they needed, if I made sure that they were loved and taken care of that they would love me. If I initiated, if I cajoled, if I made plans, if I listened, if I checked in, and if I was the best friend, the best sister, the best daughter, these people would give me just a fraction of what I gave them. It wasn’t going to happen. I only got more nights alone dealing with my anxiousness even when I reached out for encouragement. Nobody was going to come and hold me up and help me feel better no matter how many hours I spent helping others feel better. I spent so much of my life making sure people were happy only to feel that they resented me in the end.
Life before and after
It’s nobody’s job to make sure I feel loved and seen and important so why did I feel it was my job? It’s because that’s how I thought I would get love. I thought I would get love if I was of service to other people. But if nobody is expected to go out of their way for me, that also means that I shouldn’t be expected to go out of my way for anyone, right?
Some people claim that there was life before a momentous occasion and life after. For me, there was life before reading The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and there was life after. I’m not going to go through the whole book here but the synopsis is that it is an introduction to Adlerian psychology told through a narrative style. That book was like a key unlock for me. It gave me the words and the tools to finally get up and start undoing some of the people-pleasing habits I had. The quotes that had the most effect on me are:
“…what kind of judgment do other people pass on that choice? That is the task of other people, and is not a matter you can do anything about.”
“…conducting oneself in such a way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living…”
“Even if I change, it is only ‘I’ who changes. I do not know what will happen to the other person as a result, and that is not an aspect I can take part in.”
The separation of tasks (determining what is your responsibility and what is other people’s responsibility) and then making a choice based on what you want and your own goals was such a lightbulb moment for me. The things I wanted to do or didn’t want to do were up to me and how everyone felt about it was not up to me. It’s such a simple statement but it was something I needed at that exact time.
What happens now?
I stopped doing what I didn’t want to do. If it made me feel worse afterward, if it felt like walking uphill carrying dead weight, if I just plain didn’t want to do it, I stopped. That included people, hobbies, clothing, whatever. If I didn’t want to try anymore, I didn’t. If I didn’t want to smile, I didn’t. If I didn’t want to go somewhere, I didn’t. If I didn’t want to be around you, I wasn’t. If I didn’t want to talk to you, I didn’t. It hasn’t been the most elegant transition. It hasn’t been the kindest transition. It hasn’t been the most gentle transition. I just stopped and I allowed myself to go through it like a wrecking ball instead of making sure I didn’t knock into anyone on the way out. I’m sure I alienated some people. I’m sure I hurt some people and I am sorry for the pain I caused but I am not sorry that I did it because what I gained is truly priceless to me.
This is the first time in my life I can truly say that I don’t deal with what I don’t want to and as a result, more of my days are happy and I spend more of my day content. I jump at opportunities because I can recognize the things that excite me now. I can recognize the things that excite me because I spend more time checking in with myself first. I spend less time worrying if my doing this exciting thing will make other people feel resentful of me. I reinvest the energy I have into friendships that have over the years poured into me easily and naturally. I drew closer to relationships that made me into a happier and more joyful person. I have friendships that feel more vibrant now. Whenever I do choose to do something for someone else, it’s because I want to. It’s not because I’m afraid of being alone if I don’t.
And in an ironic twist, I’m less lonely now than I had been when I was trying so hard to get people to love me. There are still moments when people walk away from me, when people don’t want to sit with me, be around me, or talk to me and those moments still hurt. I’m only human and connection is an important part of life. And still! I don’t hold on to those hurts for days or weeks anymore. I don’t want to be around anyone who doesn’t want to be around me. I’m not trying to change the minds of the people who don’t like me. I’m just trying to move y’all out of the way to make room for people that do.
I have bad days still. I get exhausted. I fall back into old habits and then judge myself for it (“I should be past this!”). I’m trying to make peace with the notion that dealing with people-pleasing may be a lifelong journey. I’ve lost people along this journey either by my own doing or because of external reasons I don’t have control over. I’m sure I’ll lose others as I continue on but I have faith that as I do, the people who stay are the people I want in my life.
