BREAKING THE PEOPLE-PLEASING HABIT

Calling all my people pleasers out there!   You may think it's helping others or keeping the peace by sacrificing  your own happiness for another person or group of people, but trust me it's not.  And I speak from decades of experience.  It's actually quite harmful to everyone involved.  No shame, btw.  It's a pretty remarkable survival tactic and it probably helped you make it through a lot of your worst days  - especially as a kid with no control or agency over your life.  But now it's time to let it go. To show up authentically for YOU.  To speak and live your truth. To ask for what you need.  Easier said than done?  Maybe.  But worth it? Absolutely.  

Let's get into it. 

Transcript

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This is Unsided. Hey everybody, welcome back to Unsided, the podcast. This is Christopher McNeely. I don't know why I say the podcast. Clearly, it's a podcast. You're listening to a podcast right now. I need to rethink that. But welcome back. I you know, I kind of go back and forth before I sit down at this microphone with a thousand different ideas, but the one that keeps coming up for me right now is choosing yourself. You see, in the past couple of years especially, I have chosen myself, which is a very unusual thing for me to do. From a really early age, I learned that the best way to survive, the best way to get through life was to not choose myself, but in fact to choose everyone else around me. Some people call it people-pleasing. I called it survival. I sound like a victim when I'm saying that, and that's kind of appropriate because I spent a lot of my life thinking like a victim. But a couple of years ago, I decided I had had enough. I asked for a divorce, not for the first time, but for the final time. That request was rejected. And then I finally got the balls to actually file for divorce. In the process of doing that, I sunk to my lowest I have ever felt in my life. I didn't know what to do. I no longer was going to be a husband. I no longer was going to be a part of this nuclear family as unconventional as we were. I no longer was going to have the identity of being the one in my immediate family who had made a marriage work. I was no longer going to be able to please my ex by staying in a very unhealthy marriage. And along with that rock bottom, I had no choice but to lean into myself, to take full responsibility for every way that I had and had not shown up in my life, not just for other people, but most importantly for myself. I really had to look at myself. You know, I used to have a bit of a presence on social media, very small corner of the world on TikTok. I haven't had Facebook in a long time. My Instagram got hacked. I never got it back. But I had this place on TikTok where I would talk about my life, you know, like we do. And I had shared things, and I had a loyal, small but loyal group of followers and fellow travelers, if you will. And suddenly I had no desire to do that anymore. I felt very afraid. I didn't know who I was. So I would post a video every now and then, but I really just hermited up. So I pulled out of that. I pulled out of a lot of my relationships, not completely, but I really I was so embarrassed by the place that I found myself. Because here I was, 48 years old, looking down the barrel of divorce, living primarily in another country from my children and my ex because they didn't join me when they had when they were supposed to, and I was coming to terms with that. And you know, as a people pleaser, as someone who, you know, just speaking about myself, as someone who had spent his whole life waiting for someone to tell him whether he was good or whether he was bad, it was very odd to be in a position where I had to decide. And in that two-year span, I have made great leaps and strides towards understanding that I get to decide what kind of person I am. Uh, I get to choose to say that I'm a good person. I get to look at the parts of me that I want to improve. I get to look at my relationships, I get to look at the things that I've done wrong or I wish that I hadn't done differently, and I get to own them and I get to move on. But the most interesting thing to me has been that there are people in my life around me, and not just my ex, but more, you know, uh several other people that have basically refused to acknowledge that I have my own choice, my own freedom to choose myself. It became so evident to me that certain people in my life, once I chose myself, felt deeply offended, felt betrayed, felt that I had broken some sort of contract to put them and their needs first. Because here's what I've realized as a people pleaser, you know, I tell the story every now and then. I will, you know, give you what you need, I will make sure everything's okay. And then at a certain point, it's too much for me, and I blow up, and the other person says, That is not the contract that I signed with you. I signed the contract where you were going to let me get away with whatever I needed to get away with, and that was going to make you happy. And when I decided that I was done with that, which has, by the way, again, been quite a process. It's not like I just decided one day and everything was easy and done, but it started with demanding my freedom from this marriage that was making me incredibly unhappy. And if my ex were brave enough to admit it, it also made her incredibly unhappy. It was not a fulfilling marriage. However, I realized that she, along with a few friends, some of whom I considered very close, were not really jiving with this new version of me. This version that said, no, no, no, no, this is my boundary. You can't cross this boundary. You can't treat me that way, you can't talk to me that way. I'm not gonna have it. And you know, I actually I think the problem is I didn't actually say it. What I did is I just pulled way back. Because another survival tactic that I developed, for better or worse, was when I, in my life, when something really had hurt me enough, I would leave it entirely, which is another reason I stayed in the marriage so long, because I was not about to do that in my marriage, especially as a father. But I learned that if I could just get away from something, and I think this goes all the way back to my childhood because I was not in control of my surroundings as a child. So when I was 17, I left. And I learned, oh, you can leave things behind and you can leave those people over there, and then you can move on with your life. And they can bellow and moan and complain from afar, but they can't touch me anymore. Well, in a marriage and in close friendships, that's not always an option. And frankly, I don't know that in fact, I know that shouldn't be the go-to survival tactic. So I hung in with myself. I spent a lot of time alone, and I really started paying attention to how I was showing up, how I was living in a victim mentality, how I was looking at everyone and everything around me as doing something to me, how I was just perpetuating this story that I had had since childhood. How could you do that to me? How could that happen? Oh, I've got to keep you happy. Oh, it's always about you, which I'm gonna fully own right now is my story. And what I think is really interesting is it's completely foreign to me that there are people who walk through life because of whatever they've learned as a child, and they don't have that issue because it is so ingrained into my beingness. And it's not a flattering way to be. It's not something I'm proud of, but it's something I really had to come to look at. And as I came to look at that, I also had to learn really what it means to set a boundary, not just to run away as a boundary, but to be present, to stay put, especially in the marriage, because I have children and there's a lot of legality to getting divorced. You don't just run away, it's not the right thing to do. So, in fact, I actually moved closer to it. I moved closer to it for my children when because it became completely clear that that they were never gonna come to me. So I came back to the place where they live and I dug my heels in and I said, I'm going to figure this out and I'm gonna figure out who I am and I'm gonna create a better me for my children. And somehow I naively thought that people and not just my ex, but people around me would say, Great, fantastic, you're here. You're showing up, you're deciding what you want for your life, you're making yourself a better person. And by and large, it's what happened. But with a few people, it became, wait a minute, wait a minute, Christopher. The person that I know that I knew a couple years back, the person that I knew many years back, would never have set a boundary like this, would never have told me that's not okay, would have just made sure to keep me happy. And once I started setting these boundaries, and once I said, you know what, I choose me. You I'm sorry that you're going through what you're going through, but your life is not more important than my life. And let me tell you, that was really hard because even as I'm saying it now, it sounds so selfish. But what I have realized through therapy and through reading and listening to more books than I can count, and to just observing the world around me, it is of the utmost importance that we put ourselves first. And it almost sounds cliche because people talk about you gotta love yourself first, right? Well, it's true, but I have found that in practice, people don't like it very much because it either forces them to grow and let go of the old version they have of you, or they stay stuck, they stay angry, they stay mad, they wonder where the person they could control and manipulate went. Because they don't like the new boundaries. And along with that, has been a real unlearning and a brand new learning for me of what it means to sit with people being uncomfortable when I choose myself. And that I think is the reason that I people pleased. I didn't like to see people be uncomfortable. You know, as a kid, I was in an abusive household. And my stepfather at the time was very mean to me during the day, and at night, very inappropriately, disgustingly so, he would show me affection. Well, that started so young that that's how my brain became wired. And I learned that I was never gonna get any sort of affection other than the unwanted affection that I was getting at night. And that was confusing because I didn't want it, but it was the only time he paid any attention to me, uh, other than insulting me or thumping me on the head or whatever it may be. And then I also had uh a father, I love him dearly, but he had his own demons and he wasn't around all the time. I wasn't with him all the time, but he put himself first, but in a way that really put me in the back seat. So here I am looking at my father who's putting himself first, and I wonder why won't he just choose me? And here I have this stepfather who's like, yeah, I'll choose you, but only under circumstances gonna completely destroy who you are internally. You're gonna have to rebuild yourself. And then during the day, I'm gonna act like you're just a piece of shit. So I kind of had to maneuver this thing where I'm like, okay, how can I keep people happy? How can I make my dad choose me? How can I keep my stepfather from being such an asshole to me during the day? And how can I make him leave me alone at night? What do I have to do? How do I have to bend and shape shift? And I I went into my, I went into therapy in my 20s and I learned a lot about myself. But by the time it got to my marriage, I was just starting to feel a sense of who I am. If I think back on it, I was in a really happy place. But along comes a person who showed me all the love and affection that I thought I ever wanted. And I thought someone finally chose me. Now, here's another piece. I'm queer, and I was, I've been out since I was 19 years old. And I told my ex-wife, listen, here's the deal. I'm queer, I'm somewhere on the spectrum. This is 2006, so there wasn't really a big conversation around fluidity or any of that. I was confused. I had a lot of my own internalized homophobia, but I also knew I wanted kids. I also knew I thought this woman was exceedingly beautiful, and she was showing me all kinds of love and she said, I don't care. I accept you fully as you are. But I still felt this deep sense of shame. And I still felt like, ooh, I got it. Now I have to play a role because I can't really talk about it. So like I swiftly went kind of back into the closet, except with her. And I and I was in this marriage where, you know, without going into details that are none of mine to share, let's just say it got off course pretty fast. We had kids, the kids were beautiful. I finally got someone to throw myself into, with I someone I could be fully myself with, someone who was just happy to see me and I didn't have to please them two beautiful babies. And then those babies started to grow, and then the marriage started to fall apart. And then I thought, I'm not gonna be the guy who gets divorced. So what do I do? I become even more of a people pleaser. I'm not gonna choose myself, but I started feeling that there was something I wanted more, that in our relationship, the love wasn't the love that I had hoped for. Um, we just started growing apart, and a lot of choices were made on both of our sides. And so by the time it got to the divorce, we'd been separated a long time, and I I finally got to the place where I said, I'm done, I've had enough. And that was the beginning of this avalanche of choosing myself. Frankly, I consider my ex-wife to be one of my greatest teachers. Not somebody whom I particularly wanted to teach me in the way I'm being taught, but just held up a the whole situation, held up a big mirror to me. And then I was able to start looking at other relationships in my life, professional and personal and family and otherwise, and thinking, you know what? I'm done making you happy because I gotta figure out what the hell makes me happy. And in doing that, I can be a better father, I can be a better human. But the people, well, most people were okay with it. Like I said, but there were a few key people, another few teachers who really didn't like it. Really didn't like it. And I find it so baffling because here's how I see it. If I'm in a relationship with somebody and they start choosing themselves, and I see that, and I here's another thing I will tell you. I've never been unkind. I have certainly not communicated at all times, but I I'm not one to say unkind words, not in situations like that. Not that I never have in my life, but when it came to my ex, when it came to these friends, I tried logic, I tried kindness, I tried compassion, and it just didn't work. And then I realized that I had to let these people go. And then came the shame and the guilt of, oh my gosh, I didn't do enough to make them happy. And I really do feel very much like I made the best choice I possibly could have made, but it is such an ongoing process because every day I wake up, well, most every day, I wake up and I have to think, okay, is it okay that I chose myself today? And I'm still learning what that means in relation to my children, in relation to my friends. And the other night I went out to dinner with these beautiful people. My partner had arranged a surprise dinner for me, and I'm looking at all these people, and they're all going around talking about how they love me and why they love me. And I didn't even know how to take it in because I've been in such a place of confusion. Because once I started choosing myself, I had to start building brick by brick by brick an understanding of who I am. And it's not all pretty. And I'm not proud of everything that I've ever done in my life. Many things I'm not proud of, but also I realized all the things I could and should be proud of, I didn't know what to do with them. Because all the ways I had failed these people or all the ways I hadn't been able to maintain these relationships were just so loud in my head. And now as that starts to quiet down, I'm left in kind of this vulnerable space where every day I wake up and I think, okay, I'm gonna choose myself today, but I don't know exactly what that looks like. And I don't know who I'm gonna piss off today by choosing myself. I was in a contract negotiation and I knew they weren't gonna give me more money, but I I asked anyway, and it felt so uncomfortable. But at the same time, you know, my attorney said to me, You have to speak up for your worth. And there's that word worth that has been coming up for me so much, worth, self-worth. We hear it all the time in all these self-help books. But to really get to the heart of what that means, what am I worthy of? And within that worth, how do I define what I can choose for myself? And if it upsets other people, how do I be okay while those other people are kicking and screaming? And some of them have gotten louder and louder and louder, and some of them have kind of just faded into the distance because they got the message. And some of them are never gonna die down. I will always be the villain in their story because I chose myself. And so if you're choosing yourself in some way, whether it's after a divorce or in work or friendships, whatever the case may be, man, you are not alone. And it is not as easy as they talk about in the books, but it is the best thing that I have ever done. And I wish that I could have known how to do it before I had to hit this proverbial rock bottom. Before I had to go to the place where I thought, I don't know if I can put one foot in front of the other. But it's in that fire. You know, I'm not a I'm not a Christian, although I I was raised a Christian, but it reminds me of the book of Job. It's just when it feels like you've been tested more than you could possibly be tested. You can call it God, you can call it your higher self, you can call it whatever it is. I have found that there was somebody waiting there. And it was me. It was for me, I call it me, and my higher self, my spirit was waiting for me. And it's been really unrecognizable to me at first. And so now I'm in a place of getting to know that person. Getting to understand that person's boundaries, getting to understand who I am and what's okay for me. And for the first time in my life, just accepting the fact that there will forever be people who do not want that version of me and who will fight to get the other version back, and who will call me a villain and an enemy and a horrible, terrible human being because I chose myself. Because I chose to get to know myself, because I chose to protect myself. So that's been on my mind a lot lately. And if you're dealing with that, or maybe if you're on the other side and someone's choosing themselves, let them choose themselves. Because if you get stuck on the old version of them, then you're just going to be stuck and you can't choose anything. You're giving all your energy to this idea of holding on to something. If somebody needs to walk away, if someone needs to choose themselves, let them go and focus on yourself. You don't need to get vengeance. You don't need to be stuck in anger. You don't need to try to make them pay for something. If it's complicated because they chose themselves and you have to figure a few things out if you're in a marriage or in a business partnership, whatever it is, sure, figure it out. There's going to be feelings. But focusing on that old version of them and calling them a horrible person or believing they're a horrible person for choosing themselves, you're just staying stuck. And I guarantee you, just like me, they will move on. They will let you go. And they will continue forward in in choosing themselves, and they will find their happiness, and you will be stuck. And vice versa. If people are mad at you because you're choosing yourself, let them go. I don't have it all figured out, and I hate it when I listen to people who seem to have it all figured out, and they don't bother to put a little postscript that says, by the way, I'm still working on this. By the way, guys, I'm still working on this. And it's what's on my mind today. It's what's been on my heart and my mind a lot, and I don't know, felt like it was important to share. Because I know I'm not the only one. And I also know you got this. I got this. And um, there's truly nothing better you can do in your life than choosing yourself with kindness for yourself and kindness for others. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I hope you're well. And I'll uh talk to you next time. Bye. Uncited.