Ever find yourself saying "sorry" just to keep the peace, even when you've done nothing wrong? That's just one telltale sign of the people-pleaser's dance – a rhythm I know all too well, and one we're stepping out of in our latest podcast episode. We'll navigate the complex journey of setting boundaries and prioritizing self-care, sharing stories and strategies to help you shake off the shackles of people-pleasing. We'll laugh about the over-apologetic nature of it all, and I'll get real about how this behavior can drain your emotional reservoir, sparking resentment in relationships and therapy sessions alike.
Join us as we underline the profound impact of assertiveness and the transformative potential of cognitive behavioral therapy. Together, we'll underscore the vital importance of seeking support, whether from professional therapists, close friends, or loving partners, in cultivating a healthier, more authentic life.
Ever find yourself saying "sorry" just to keep the peace, even when you've done nothing wrong? That's just one telltale sign of the people-pleaser's dance – a rhythm I know all too well, and one we're stepping out of in our latest podcast episode. We'll navigate the complex journey of setting boundaries and prioritizing self-care, sharing stories and strategies to help you shake off the shackles of people-pleasing. We'll laugh about the over-apologetic nature of it all, and I'll get real about how this behavior can drain your emotional reservoir, sparking resentment in relationships and therapy sessions alike.
Join us as we underline the profound impact of assertiveness and the transformative potential of cognitive behavioral therapy. Together, we'll underscore the vital importance of seeking support, whether from professional therapists, close friends, or loving partners, in cultivating a healthier, more authentic life.
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the PsychCraft Network, the goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:
Alors, merci et bienvenue à Retrouver son chemin par la thérapie. Thank you and welcome back to Finding your Way Through Therapy. If you haven't listened to episode 153 yet, go back and listen. I talk about the third year anniversary, the ups and downs of doing podcasting, people I thank people I appreciate, and then the plans for the summer. So if you want to go back and listen, that way you know the plans for the summer, especially for this podcast Very important, so I'm not going to share it right now. Go listen.
Speaker 2:
And episode 154 is a request from someone who I've known for a while, who you know has been asking about. But you know what is people pleasing? And I really wanted to talk about people pleasing because I think it's important to, kind of like, recognize the signs, what the negative impacts are and how to deal with it. But before we do that, I want you to listen to this very important commercial for freedai Getfreedai. Yes, you've heard me talk about it previously in other episodes, but I'm going to talk about it again because, because GetFreeai is just a great service. Imagine being able to pay attention to your clients all the time instead of writing notes and making sure that the notes gonna sound good and how are you gonna write that note, and things like that. Getfreeai liberates you from making sure that you're writing what the client is saying, because it is keeping track of what you're writing what the client is saying. Because it is keeping track of what you're saying and will create, after the end of every session, a progress note. But it goes above and beyond that. Not only does it create a progress note, it also gives you suggestions for goals, gives you even a mental status if you've asked questions around that, as well as being able to write a letter for your client to know what you talked about. So that's the great, great thing. It saves me time, it saves me a lot of aggravation and it just speeds up the progress note process so well. And for $99 a month. I know that that's nothing. That's worth my time, that's worth my money, money, you know. The best part of it too is that if you want to go and put in the code steve50 when you get the service at the checkout code is steve50 you get 50 off your first month and if you get a whole year, you save a whole 10 for the whole year. So again, steve50 at checkout for getfreeai. We'll give you $50 off for the first month and, like I said, get a full year, get 10% off, get free from writing notes, get free from always scribbling while you're talking to a client and just paying attention to your client. So they win out, you win out, everybody wins, and I think that this is the greatest thing. And if you're up to a point where you've got to change the treatment plan, well, the goals are generated for you. So, getfreeai code Steve50 to save $50 on your first month. Well, thank you for listening to that.
Speaker 2:
Well, let's talk about people pleasing. What does people pleasing really mean? It's a common behavior that people have to satisfy other people's needs, even before their own, and while being kind and generally positive, those tends to be excessive. Uh, people pleasing can have very much negative effects. I'd like to talk more about, you know, looking for the sign and what it actually means, as well as other stuff. So so you'll hear that throughout this podcast, but a people pleaser is someone who consistently put others ahead of their own needs. So what does that mean? So you disagree or you don't want to do something? Well, let's do it, because in case someone gets upset that you didn't do it. So you know that's part of what that means and they're highly attuned to others, which makes them look agreeable, helpful and kind.
Speaker 2:
You know, one of the things that I kind of want to remind people is the reason why people are people pleasers in general and again, I don't want to say this for everyone, but a general statement is because of trauma, particularly trauma as a young person, whether you know I don't know what the age is, but basically if you didn't please you know your parents, or you didn't please friends at school or you didn't please others, then negative things happen. So you've learned through your trauma that, oh, if I'm a people pleaser, I, you know, I at least you know I got friends, I got people who don't argue with me and they like me. So I've had that problem at times in my life. And people pleasing is not something that you know is a chronic illness. There's no diagnosis for that. Just want to give you the heads up. So that is not a diagnosis, but it certainly has a lot of based on trauma, anxiety, a lot of the mood disorder stuff, because that's what you know makes you feel safe.
Speaker 2:
People pleasing also leads to issues with advocating for themselves. You know I have a lot of clients who come in, who are people pleasers, who need either time off or they need to set some boundaries with other people, and they struggle with that. Well, what's gonna happen? What's gonna happen? Well, you're gonna be happier. But you know I can't prove that right in the moment. It feels so uncomfortable and yucky, so that's why I talk about trauma a lot. That's you know, part of what my work is is when you see the trauma.
Speaker 2:
Then you see why people act a certain way, and so on and so forth. This behavior is associated with individuals who overly focus on pleasing others to maintain relationships. And you see that in marriages in particular, that I've been going on for way too long, and again, not because I'm divorced. I want people to be married for the rest of their lives if they can. But sometimes, you know, because of an event, because something happened or because of how they grew up, they're always pleasing their partner instead of thinking about what they can do for themselves. And I don't want to pick on couples only. This certainly happens in families, this happens in friendships, this happens at work. Frankly, which is my guilty thing about people pleasing is that at work, I people please until I snap, so I've had to learn how to not do that and I don't people please anymore because my boss is me, so you know my boss is kind of a dick, but good guy overall. But that's something to keep in mind is that you don't. If you maintain relationship by being a people pleaser, you're highly likely not in a healthy relationship.
Speaker 2:
You want to see some signs of people pleasing. The first one that I would recommend to look at is people who have trouble with the word no. When I say no in therapy, I actually see if people's eyes drop and stuff like that, and that's important for me because that you know you got to be able to say no. I don't want to always say yes. Obviously, as a therapist, I'll say yes to the request of my clients for the most part. But you know, if they say, hey, steve, how about we dance a little? Uh, I don't know some dance, I don't know, let's do a tick tock together, maybe I don't know. Uh, yeah, no, I'm not doing that and it's okay to say no, but for people pleasers, the word no is extremely uncomfortable and for those of you who are listening right now, who have had this issue, you're going to be like yep, that's right.
Speaker 2:
Preoccupation of what other people think. You know, when you have trauma, sometimes you got to predict other people's behavior in order to survive it. And when you are a people pleaser, you definitely want to make sure that the other person okay, are they? You know, I'm going to know what they're going to say. So if I say this, maybe they'll say that. And what are they thinking? So people who are people pleasers also do really poorly with silence Welcome to the club, for the record. Or if someone's angry, they automatically assume the anger is towards them, when in fact anger could be towards anybody else Bad day having physical symptoms, stuff like that. So learning to be that the world is not all about them, you know, is very important, but sometimes difficult for people to hear. So that's a people-pleasing sign.
Speaker 2:
Guilt when declining requests. So people who have, like you know, they coach in the morning, then they have um a couple meetings they want to go to with their for for colleagues that requested it. Then they got a wedding that night and and later on that night they gotta stop by and see their blank friend, family, whatever, and they can't say and they can't decline anything. So people are ultra busy Another good sign of people pleasing Fear that saying no will make appear mean or selfish. When I say no, most people are okay with that. When they say no to me, I really am happy. I'm actually very, very, very happy when they don't want to talk about certain things and all that, and being able to set those limits and the boundaries which we'll talk about later.
Speaker 2:
Agreeing to things you dislike or don't want to do. Again, the person who's like oh, I'm going to have two meetings with people on a Saturday when in fact, saturday would have been a great time for you to work on your garden or take care of the house or do something that you actually wanted to do. But because you can't say no, you tend to take them on and you dislike it and then you're in a bad mood. You try to hide it because you're a people pleaser, but ultimately people feel it. I've worked with people with you know they don't want to say no to me, but they're like very oh, no, that's okay, that's okay, no, that's not okay. You very much look like you're not okay, but I didn't really want you to get upset. I'm like I'm more upset that you didn't tell me the truth and that's maybe a therapist point of view, maybe it's a Canadian point of view or a Quebecer point of view, but for me that's very important. So if you have those traits, think about it.
Speaker 2:
Struggling with low self-esteem again, depression, trauma, anxiety, you know I'm not good enough. So, whoever is my friend, I better hold on to them because I'll never have other friends or a partner or anything like that. So you know, remembering that that's important to that. Their low self-esteem is like well, I'm not likable, I'm not lovable. Therefore, if someone likes me, I got to cling to them. No, that's not good for anyone, that's not healthy for everyone. So, definitely, thinking about that.
Speaker 2:
Apologizing excessively again, when people overly apologize to me, um, I joke around. I'm like I'm the canadian here, not you. And again, because I work in the united states and that's, you know, it's a good joke, I guess, but it's also kind of pointing out something that's they're doing. You know it's not. It's not easy for people to say you know, oh, I'm sorry, like people say I'm sorry, I'm late, you made it right, all right. If you're like 20 minutes late, then write me a message. But you know happens, I'm sorry, but I didn't tell you about this trauma. But I really want to talk about it. Why are you sorry? Why are you apologizing? I'm sorry, I gotta leave early. Okay, leave early I. It's not about me, it's about you. And you see that in therapy, when clients forget that the therapy is about them, not you. So something to keep in mind Taking blame when it's not in your fault, a good way to deflect, not to deal with stuff, and pretending to agree with others despite having a different opinion.
Speaker 2:
We don't see that as much, I guess, on social media, because keyboard warriors are very present, but I think that people who are people pleasers, they don't want to have a different opinion. So if someone says something controversial, they don't want to say anything. I don't say it all the time, but if it's a good friend of mine, I will call them on the VS and be okay with that. And it's okay to have discourse, I think, with that, and it's okay to have this course. I think that's one of the arts that has been lost in the last I don't know 10 to 15 years like, um, I believe, blank. Okay, well, I disagree. Well, you're against me. No, we have different views. Let's talk about it, don't people? Please just try to have a conversation that's very important.
Speaker 2:
Um, the long-term negative effects. Emotional depletion you know I go back to my first responders, right, right, they get tired, they get upset, but everyone else is handling it and if you go to YouTube, you'll see my little fingers in the air. No, that's not how that works. Again, you know, having your emotions and trying to really like push them down, that's never going to help anyone. So think about that when you're stressed and anxious. You know, look at who you're people pleasing. You know, for me, like I have a friend of mine that I will not name, and if that person recognizes themselves, that's great. If they don't, that's fine. Oh, let's do this. I don't know, but I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it. Yeah, you have other stuff to do. It's just that I don't want to really drive and I'm sorry. No, it's okay. There's days where I don't want to drive and that's okay and you can say no. So I'm learning to be able to say no and don't bottle your emotions. Really helpful.
Speaker 2:
The resentment. The resentment over time is brutal. I see that a lot in couples counseling. I haven't done much couples counseling in the last few years, but when I do it it's like oh, I have all these resentment and they bring them out in therapy because it's a safe environment, so to speak again putting it in quotation marks but they resent their partner for always doing that. So that creates a relationship strain.
Speaker 2:
When you have a relationship strain because you're creating resentment, you're not able to express yourself, you feel all alone and then you become a victim. And then sometimes people will point out hey, you're acting like a victim. And then the person said you're right, instead of like well, maybe I am the freaking victim here, let's talk about it. So, being able to talk about that, so how do we cure it? Oh, it's not curable, anyway. End of podcast. No, I'm kidding, it's not. There's no cure, really, right? There's no cure for anything anymore, right?
Speaker 2:
But there are strategies that you can use. So let's talk about those strategies. Set boundaries, if I wish. For those who may know a client of mine, go ask them about how I feel about boundaries and how important it is, not only for you but for other people, and I don't want to go into too much detail about the boundaries, but the boundaries are not for them, it's for you, so that you know where your boundaries lie. I think that people forget about that. You need to prioritize your wellbeing. There's days where like people are like oh, can you do this? No, I can't, what do you mean? I'm like I'm going to be doing X, y, z. I'm not personal, but I can't do ABC now.
Speaker 2:
And that's a way to be assertive, which is another strategy. Be assertive of asking for what you need. I've had clients where I had to convince them that you know, oh, I only have Thursdays at 11. Oh, I guess I'll make it work. Leaves work an hour away, screwing up their schedule. No, don't do any of that. Be assertive no, I'm working, let's see what we can do. And being able to do that.
Speaker 2:
And then my favorite one is cognitive behavioral therapy. It is challenging those negative thoughts. That's so important. Sometimes they're irrational. The fear of rejections, fear of disapproval that's really irrational, usually all or nothing thinking, disqualifying the positive, among other thing, and emotional reasoning those are cognitive distortions. But working on those and really writing them down, I tell people, write them down so that you can talk back to them on paper at least, and then you get better at doing it in your mind.
Speaker 2:
Self-care, you know, like you know, last week I was on vacation and people like, oh, can you do this, can you do that? Nope, nope, nope, I'm just taking care of me. Did I really do anything during my vacation? No, I dug holes in the backyard so I can fill them up. Put some grass down, take care of my backyard, take care of my house, do things I enjoy. And yes, for some people, working on the yard is not their fun. For me, it's like making my garden was so much fun I did with my daughters so much fun and that's more of a self-care for me. It's like making my garden was so much fun I did with my daughters so much fun, and that's more of a self-care for me than doing anything else and seek support.
Speaker 2:
So for those of you who recognize themselves, seek out support. Sometimes it's hard to talk to someone about it because, hey, you want to people please them, right, but seeking support from a therapist, seeking help anywhere else you can get it, so that you feel comfortable. You know there's limited barriers with your, the person that you're talking to. That's so important. So for me, I think that those are the things that you would do, and seeking support is so important. I have a therapist that I see anywhere from every other week to monthly. He's my support. I have a magnificent girlfriend that sometimes I got to tell her, hey, I'm struggling with this and she's really helpful. I have three lifetime friends, and shout out to Jaslyn, hélène and Franco and Frank, depending on what I call them Just great people. They support me and they have wonderful spouses. Shout out to Beatrice, dave and Natalie, because they are also kind of like my friends too by default and they've been very supportive. And making sure you take care of yourself, making sure you seek out the help, whether it's a professional or someone you trust, that's so important so you can address those people-pleasing skills or non-people-pleasing skills, so they can become skills, I should say anyway. So that's a little bit about people-pleasing.
Speaker 2:
Episode 155 will be with Keith Hanks. Keith's been on the episode before. Hope you guys go and listen to the old pocket podcast of it was episode 119 before that interview, because that will be important, because I he's gonna, because I he's going to talk about his book. He's a firefighter, a retired firefighter. He talks about his mental health very openly and really appreciate him talked about it during the podcast on episode 119. I'm sure he's going to talk about it episode 155. So I hope to see you then.
Speaker 1:
Please like, subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful and, as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States and Canada.
