How People-Pleasing Undermines Your Intuition

We all want to be able to increase  our intuitive abilities and much has been said about what we need to do to open up and enhance our intuition.

But the blocks posed by our own psychological conditioning are often not discussed and these blocks must be addressed also if we hope to really strengthen our intuitive muscle.

People pleasing is well understood these days as a psychological conditioning response to relational trauma and in this episode I explore just how it undermines our ability to develop and strengthen our intuition.

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Intro and Outro music: Inspiring Morning by Playsound

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Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

Transcript

Tatiana: 0:00

Welcome to the Integrated Wisdom Podcast. I am your host, Tatiana Da Silva. Join me as we discuss what it means to live an integrated life and explore ways for you to create a life filled with greater meaning, peace, and connection by integrating the wisdom of spirituality, psychology, Neuroscience, Epigenetics and Energy Psychology are hoped to empower you to create deeper and more loving connections with yourself and others, whilst also paving the way for humanity at large to be reimagined and inspired to become the very best version of itself. Hello, hello welcome to another episode of the integrated wisdom podcast. Thank you so much for joining me for yet another week. So those of you that are interested in harnessing and developing your intuition I'm sure you would've come across content that talks about how you can tap into your intuition and expand your abilities to connect. With that inner guidance. And in fact, I very early in the piece, I think it was episode four. I did an episode on exactly that harnessing your intuition in some tips and tricks. For how you can start to open up that channel. A little bit more and in strengthen your access to that wisdom. But what I wanted to speak to today is actually what are the things that get in the way. Of us. Being able to access our intuition. There was some things. That we do. And in fact, some programmings that we acquire throughout our life. Because of lived experience because of some of the challenges that we experienced growing up in our families. That will actually get in the way. Of us being able to connect with our intuition. And it's not enough just to do some of that work where you're learning how to access the intuition. If you have some of these blocks or these programs. It's really important to address that as well and understand the limitations that, that poses. So that you can actually start to truly listen to. To the guidance that comes. From your higher self. And be able to clear away any interference that will be clouding, the message that you're receiving. So there are many different types of programs that we can develop throughout. our life, based on these experiences. On challenging childhood experiences. But the one that I specifically want to focus on today, Because it's one of the most common. Challenges that people experience or programs that people develop. That will directly impede your ability. To access your intuition. And that is. The good old people pleasing program. I want to speak specifically to why people pleasing one is problematic as a program in general, like why it gets in the way of our life. But also specifically to how it interferes with our ability. To access our intuition clearly. Okay. So before we dive into that aspect of opportunity. It's episode. I want to go back and start to give a little bit of context to what do I mean by people pleasing program. How does it come about? Why it's problematic in general? now these days there's a lot more. Understanding and. There's a lot more knowledge around. Some core psychological concepts. That we get trained in, that, now have become more commonplace in. Normal discourse. So. Like through the advance of tik toks and Instagram, people are talking about these concepts much more openly and there, and there's a higher level of understanding. All of these blocks are programmings that are out there, Any particular, this idea of people pleasing. And why people pleasing is. A problem. So. People pleasing depending on the school so that you're looking at. In terms of. Psychological modalities. If we're talking about schemas, for example, the people pleasing behaviour comes through the self-sacrificing and subjugation. Schema. And what it means is often growing up, we experienced. Love and having our emotional needs, met in a very inconsistent manner. There's generally A lot of criticism. That we would have experienced growing up. And one of the adaptations that we develop in order to help us navigate. Those challenging interactions with caregivers. Is we learned that. Our acceptance, our. Ability to be loved to be seen is highly dependent on our ability to make other people happy. Or that we're responsible, we're made to feel responsible for other people's happiness. So when we do what people expect us to do, we're praised for it. And when we, we don't. Exactly. Meet their expectations. We are made to feel. Shame, criticized in some occasions we might even feel rejected through silent treatments and things like that. And so as an adaptation, we developed this highly attuned need to preempt what other people expect of us. And fulfill that need. So we, we, you know what another way of saying it is that we learned that other people's needs are more important than our own but also that our wellbeing and our sense of safety is highly dependent on other people's needs being met. And so what tends to happen is we will engage in behaviors that you are all about fulfilling the expectations and the needs of the other prioritizing the needs of the other. being led by the expectations of other people. So sometimes it's only even in relation to doing things for other people, sometimes it's even in the decisions that we make about our life. Right. We do things that we believe other people would want us to do. So it could show up in the career that we choose rather than doing the thing that I really, really love. It's following in the footpaths that my family expects of me. I pursuing a particular career or, or path. That they impose on me or that they expressed a clear expectation for me to do. As opposed to actually following my authentic desire. To do whatever it is. It could be in. Choosing partners that meet particular criteria that's being set. Again, by the family or by expectations of other people. and what happens with that is over time. Because we're always looking to the other to determine, what we should do, what we should. How we should respond. What we should. Not necessarily thinking what we should think, what we should. Feel. We start to actually disconnect from ourselves. Right. We start to disconnect from. Our inner wisdom, our body's signals. And it becomes harder and harder to know what it is that we actually want. What's authentically my thought what's authentically my feeling because the future in which everything is looked through is. What do I need to do feel, think. Et cetera. In order for this person to just see me as likable lovable. To accept me to want me around. So in. You know, so that's where we talk about the, the, the school thought of scheme of therapy, where people pleasing comes up in that way. And. Um, another way that we've come to understand people, pleasing behavior. And this becomes much more linked to the physiological level. Of human beings. Is that in the wisdom of our nervous system, there's different states to our nervous system. Right. So there's what we call the parasympathetic nervous system, which is where we should be most of the time. Where we're calm or relaxed. Our body feels completely safe. And all it needs to worry about is. The physiological processes that keep me alive. Digesting food. You know, breathing, like all the things that need that. I need to, to just get on. With living. When our body perceives a threat. Option. What happens is we're kicked into, what's known as the sympathetic nervous system. Which can also be known as the fight and flight response. And which often is experienced as anxiety. And. That again, it's a biological mechanism that is designed to keep us safe. It's a, it's basically an alarm system that tells us we're in a situation of danger. We need to do something. To deal with this dangerous situation to keep ourselves safe. And so that we can go back to. Rest and relaxed. Uh, But what often happens if we can't. Fight the danger. And we can't flee from the danger. Which is often the case when we're talking about. Childhood dynamics in our family. We've got all our family members who are our. Primary source of nurturing. Sustenance. You know, they provide us the shelter. They provide us food. They provide us all our basic physiological needs. We're also dependent on them prior. Emotional needs. But we also, the ER. Biologically our safety mechanism. But they can also be a source of dangerous signals because their ability to meet health needs is inconsistent or sometimes completely absent. Right. Um, Um, but because as children would depend on, on these family dynamics and belonging to that, To that environment, we can't run away from it. We can't fight them. And so our body has these additional adaptations. Our nervous system has these additional adaptations. Where it allows us to push through that situation. And find a way to try to reconcile this conflict of. I need you. But I'm scared of you. And one of those adaptations is what we call the fawn response. And that's where you try your best to appease. the source of the danger. So in the wild, you would see this as animals trying to. You know, to, to be really me, can really, um, to make themselves. As. Little as a threat as possible. And in, in relational terms. That's what we do. That's what people pleasing is. It's, uh, it's a response or an adaptation. Designed to appease. The potential source of danger. To make ourselves no longer a target and to keep ourself safe. And so. Again, on that physiological level. It's about shutting out all our internal cues. And focusing almost exclusively on the signals coming from the other person or people. Reading their needs, preempting their, their expectations and desires and going out of our way to meet them. So as to get out of their line of sight. Or out of the firing line. So to speak. And people pleasing can be, A really tough pattern to break out off because obviously we all want to be nice. and it gets labeled as that, right? Like they're just a really lovely person. They're just really nice person. There's so kind. They're so accommodating. And it can be quite. Rewarding. In the short term. To to operate from that mode because. People will reward us for it. Right. Everybody likes the super adaptable person. Who's willing to accommodate whatever and is always nice and agreeable. But for the person who's running that program. It can often leave them feeling depleted, and over time, even resentful. Because their needs are never getting met and it's not that we stop having needs. Right. We don't stop having these inner signals. Coming from our body that are saying to us. Hold on a second. This isn't right. Um, we still have them. We just kind of tune them out a little bit, but they find that the ways to. fight for our attention. And so even as I'm explaining what people pleasing behavior looks like, where it comes from and how it disconnects us from ourselves, you can start to see how it will actually interfere. With the way. We can access our intuition and our inner wisdom. Right. Because intuition comes from. Being able to connect with those physiological signals. Being able to know what's my voice. What's anxiety. What's you know, noise and. The more disconnected. I am from myself, which is what tends to happen. On people pleasing, right? I'm not really reading. My inner landscape at all. Then the harder it becomes to listen to that guidance. Right. Like you can't actually hear it. Because we're not really tuning in. And so in order for us to be able to. To strengthen our intuition or sometimes even in the first place to be able to access it. We need to be able to one identify that people pleasing pattern. And start to dismantle it at its core. And that can be really lengthy process because, like I said, we're so rewarded for. People pleasing behavior. And also. It can be very scary to first look into your own needs, right? Like when you're so used to not really thinking about yourself, And thinking about what you want and what you need and what your body is signaling to you. You can feel very, it can feel quite threatening itself. To turn your attention inwards in that way. And so. In order to break through the people pleasing. We have to very gently, very self compassionately. Start to allow ourselves to. Notice the different signals in our body. Because, like I said, the signals are there. We're just that just much more dialed down. Then the signals coming from other people. And so we want to start to, to really listen and feel into when our body is trying to show us. Right. Often when we're asked to do something that we don't really want to do. There'll be a little subtle sign in there. That's telling us no, I don't want to do this. Right. It might be like a little drop in the pit of our tummy. You might be a tightness in the chest or heaviness. It's a massive concrete slab. Place on our chest. Or it might feel like an actual sense of agitation in our body. It's a restless feeling. You know, like, I don't really want to do this. And as you start to notice this little specs of sensations. If you start to curiously, turn into them. And observe what they're telling you. You can start to learn to dial that up. And the more you start to listen and act on. These little signals from your body. Okay. The louder and clearer, they become. And the easier and easier it becomes to then act on those things. So it starts with saying no to things you want to say no to. Right. As an example, that's probably one of the easiest things. So often we get a sense of when we don't want to do something. Even if our reflex action to say yes is so strong. Almost immediately after we've said yes or soon after we start to get that very clear rising sensation in our bodies on discomfort. Of maybe even resentment. I don't, I really don't want to do these, like. Grudging feeling. So as soon as you become aware of that, you want to act on that. Right. And even if it's after the fact you've already committed, we can always change our mind. And it might look like going back to whoever the person is that we said yes to. That we really want to say no to. And said, look, I'm really sorry. I know I've said, I said that I would do X thing. But on reflection. I don't, I really don't think that that's going to work for me. Well, so I'm going to have to decline. Right. Sure it's going to be super uncomfortable to do that at first. And yes. Those are for the people around you who are not used to getting no are likely going to push back. But the purpose of this. This episode today. It's more to talk about your own inner exercise to start to break free from the shackles of people pleasing to be able to access your intuition more clearly. Because as you do this more and more. As you start to say no more clearly, or you start to say yes, more clearly. When, you know, you're following your own inner feeling, you're on your own inner signals. Then you're operating from a place of your authentic self. Yes, this is really what I feel. This is really what I want. This is really what I think. And as you're doing that, you're more and more connected. With this physiological signals coming from your body. You know when you feel expansive, you know when you feel constricted. You know when you feel light and excited. You know when you feel heavy and dreading what's coming up. Right. And it's in then connecting with those things that you can reach into your intuition. Because remember intuition is a still voice. It's always going to be a fairly neutral voice. Even when it's alerting us to. a warning to a dangerous situation. Uh, both possible risk. It's not going to be fearful. It's not going to come in in a, in an alarmist way. It's going to be super neutral. Matter of fact. And so even in order for us to be able to discern what's intuition, What's our anxiety. You need to be really clear on the signals. Right because you'll know. When it's that really calm, still voice coming through and when it's going to be this agitated, fearful response coming through. Sometimes our intuition is going to ask us to do things that don't make sense or. That may feel a little bit out of our comfort zone. Or that challenge the way that we've always done things. Because it's trying to lead us into the right path. And the right path isn't necessarily the path of our conditioning. Right. And so. It's important to be able to hear that very clearly. By being able to drown. The noise. Of other people. Of other people's expectations, other people's criticism, even. Right. There will be some criticism at first. No doubt. People don't like change. Especially when they're benefiting from something, right. If, if. Something that they're benefiting from all of a sudden is no longer available. People make their displeasure known. But as you start to become more and more centered in your authentic expression. And more and more guided by this clear intuition that comes through. So much of that noise. Just won't affect you. So that's one of the biggest benefits to be able to do this. Right. Is that you're able to just completely go. I don't care. About any of that? This is, this is the true path for me. And you feel supported in that. Right. You feel like no matter what, you're going to be ok. Because you are, your intuition will never lead you astray. As opposed to when we're making decisions from this place of fear, from this place of wanting to please other people, it's an act of self betrayal. Right. If I am doing something for the sake of somebody else that really doesn't align with what I want. With what I need. Or in fact undermines it, I'm betraying myself. Right. And often that will put us in a situation that is going to be. at the very least uncomfortable for us, but in some cases it might even be harmful for us. And so having. Walked through all of these concepts with you today. I want you to now reflect on whether you recognize some people pleasing. Patterns or tendencies within the way that you interact with other people, we might not be with all people in your life might be with one or two. It might not be with any, um, it might not be a program that you. You have developed or maybe you've already overcome it. So I, but I encourage you to reflect on that. And also to notice when your intuition or your ability to access that inner knowing feels strongest. And when it feels weakest, Start to become aware of what interferes with access. To the clarity. And what allows you to really hear it? Very clearly and consistently. That's all I have for you this week. I would love to hear your thoughts on this and now maybe some of your own exploration with. what gets in the way of your intuition? And, or even anything else that you'd like me to talk about? You can always reach me. On Instagram at integrated underscore wisdom. I welcome the DMS or welcome the comments. So feel free to reach out to me there. And I hope you all have a lovely week. And I'll speak to you all soon. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Integrated Wisdom. It is my sincere wish that today's episode may have intrigued and inspired you to reclaim your power and step into becoming more fully integrated spiritual beings. New episodes are published every Wednesday. And I hope you'll continue to join us as we dive deeper into what it means to live an integrated life. So if it feels aligned to you, I invite you to hit subscribe and share it with others who you feel may benefit too. You may also find me on Instagram at integrated underscore wisdom. Remember, each moment is an opportunity to embrace your divine potential and create a world that is more frequently inspired. So for now, stay connected, stay inspired and keep shining your light. Into the world.