People Pleaser

"Official Jimmy Thomas Fan Page" 
Quote of the day: "People pleasing is exhausting & quite frankly a waste of time, start exercising that back bone & strive for common courtesy."

My sister, the writer, introduced me to her friends. One of them is Jimmy Thomas, a cover model for romance novels and a pleasant gentleman.  I enjoyed taking his picture last February at the Chocolate Affair in AZ.  I have so many amazing pictures.  On facebook, he has a fan page and yup I am a member.  I enjoy beauty.  :)  The ladies on that page come up with some amazing quotes.  This being one of them.  I became a people pleaser with the misguided belief that it works.  Well, it can, sort of.   I have had friendships where people help each other.  It is a real joy when you help them, then the next round, they help you.  KavinCoach calls this kind of healthy relationship symbiotic. (A cool allegory portraying this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_long_spoons)  I was familiar with the term thanks to Star Trek.  However, I wasn't raised in healthy relationships.  If you are familiar with the workings of a narcissistic relationship, you will know that one person gives and the other one takes.  Should the one giving come close to meeting expectations, expectations will be raised beyond reach...again.  Kind of like a carrot on a stick for a donkey and the donkey never is able to get the carrot no matter how hard it tries.  Using the carrot as the way to measure success means the donkey always fails.  I loved school because there was a set criteria in which to achieve certain expectations.  Plus, at school, the teacher still liked me if I got a B, didn't call me "Ding-a-ling" and was usually quite courteous to me.  Not the same at home.  I felt like a failure because the person I was trying to please made sure I would always fail.  It hurt, a lot.  In my quest to become the perfect people pleaser, I learned some interesting skills.  I learned how to anticipate the needs of the other person.  I learned how to drop everything to make sure the other person was comfortable.  I learned that I wasn't worth much other than meeting the other persons need.  I was an invisible provider, much like the upstairs maid in a Regency Romance, never seen but providing service to make sure their owners are comfortable.  I found that at work, bosses liked people pleasers.  I was rewarded for my efforts until the boss started demanding that I be something that I couldn't attain.  I was frustrated trying to be this person that only existed as a figment of my boss' imagination.  I became invisible again.  When I was laid off, I wasn't sad.  I am tired of being invisible.  Stepping into counseling was symbolic of finally stepping into the sun shine and feeling warmth.  KavinCoach taught me by example what it is like to be courteous to another person.  He respected me even after knowing my past.  He was forever trying to get me to find a backbone.  (I am sitting here chuckling because before counseling I used to call myself a worm, no backbone whatsoever. Changed 'the worm' to Marie.)  During counseling, I came to understand that my worm behavior kept me alive in a situation where others died.  Unfortunately, I learned at a young age that peace at all cost, cost everything, your integrity, your peace of mind, your soul.  The fate of a people pleaser in my opinion is invisibility and nothingness.  I stepped into the sunshine and discovered that I cast a shadow, therefore, I am not invisible.  I am working on baby steps.  I still use my skills for pleasing others with my family and my job, by my standards.  That way, I can get to the end of the day and munch my carrot. 

I was amazed when in my email I found this link on setting your own priorities.
http://powerofmoms.com/2012/08/seven-questions-for-clarifying-our-top-priorities/

I did a quick Google search on people pleaser and came up with this 'How to...' on stopping being a people pleaser.  http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Being-a-People-Pleaser
There are many other websites.