Stop People Pleasing: The Art of Boundaries and Balance

Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 140

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This one's for the people pleasers, the people who think that giving it all away secretly makes it a little bit noble and then turns them into good people, and we can hide all of the things that you might be saying to yourself that aren't quite so kind. This one is me telling you that I see you, I've taken note of you, and let's try to do something a little bit different, because I've a sneaking suspicion you're probably quite tired.

Most people I know who self-identify as empaths or describe themselves as people pleasers have an underlying notion that the more depleted they are, the more it shows that they care. They've given so much away. Look at how much I've done for other people; therefore, I must be a good person. And I would like to suggest the brain-breaking idea that, actually, maybe you could care about other people and not be exhausted all the time. And how tired you are and how under-resourced and exhausted you are does not correlate with how much you care about people, because to me, that does not sound like caring for yourself. And, spoiler alert, you're also a person.

So, I want to suggest that perhaps there's a more sustainable kind of empathy that we can draw from, one that we can resource ourselves with and gain as a form of power. And that is both by staying present with yourself whilst you're also able to tune into your values and your value system and work out what you want to give to other people. It's being able to care and love other people without absorbing everything as your responsibility.

Where might it be more powerful, for example, for you to be able to demonstrate to other people how clear boundaries enable you to protect your own energy, rather than rushing to them to help them when you've got nothing left yourself?

Where might it be more of an example to show somebody what self-care can look like when you're able to tell them a time when you could come and help them, rather than dropping everything and running immediately?

Where might it look more like demonstrating how self love and self care can give you more energy and look after someone who's important (that's you by the way), if you were to say to somebody, I really appreciate that you need the help right now, but actually I have so much on my plate, I'm afraid you're gonna have to ask somebody else for support for this instance or ask for someone else's help?

Some people are really good at asking, and if you are someone who's very good at giving, I bet that you're probably not very well versed in saying no. And if you're not well-versed in saying no, or stating clear boundaries, or stating what you need, it's not something that you're automatically not good at, and that just isn't within your wheelhouse, is something that you can practice, something that the more you practice, the more that you're going to get good at. And just asking if someone else could take on this bit of help, rather than you jumping every time someone asks, that can be an excellent way of communicating to someone else how you can communicate in a way that looks after everybody.

Sometimes people are asking because they can, rather than because it is specifically you are the only person in the world who is able to do this thing. And I wonder sometimes when our over-giving enables people to avoid stepping up for themselves and not explore other resources available to them, thereby building a wider net so that we're never making one person completely indispensable.

You don't have to give all of yourself away to become a good person. And I think that that's what most of us think, that the more that we give away, frankly, if we could give it all away, we'd finally be able to quieten down some of the noises that we have in our head that say that we're not good enough. But we can actually circumnavigate all of that. We can decide that we are good enough just because human beings are good enough, little babies are good enough the moment they're born, and there's nothing that you can really do to change that intrinsic value of humanity. All you can do is, well, sometimes try and exhaust yourself on the way there of trying to prove your point.

We can make active decisions along the way to remind ourselves of the things that align more with our values: that people are worthy of love, care, respect, integrity, and compassion. And you model that by the way that you treat yourself.

Sometimes we think that if we give all of this stuff to other people, it will eventually reflect back on ourselves. But if we're not including ourselves in the kind of kindness that we approach people with, we're missing out a fundamental part of how we are demonstrating to people how humans should be treated.

Treating ourselves with kindness shows people how people can be treated. We can be someone who models that for other people.

This is the way I believe that we can learn to support people without burning out.

I actually have a whole webinar called How to Support People without burning out, which was an amazing live session that we did. There's a replay up on www.selfcareschool.co.uk you can go and watch. It's a one-hour workshop and there are questions that you can look at and how to apply this stuff to your own life if this is something that you struggle with.

And if not, maybe going forward this week, I'll offer you to just, when someone asks you to do something that you don't have space for, just have a little body scan and check in with yourself and think, is this something that I have the availability for right now? Or is this something that I need to prioritise my own needs for and see if you can do that without bringing any kind of judgment or shame along with it. If that's something you'd like a little bit of help with. You know where I am over at www.selfcareschool.co.uk and I will speak to you next week. Good luck.

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