Jennifer Zamparelli chats with Rachel Cooke, RTÉ 2FM's resident relationship therapist, about the potential issues that come with being a people pleaser. Listen back above.
You may have heard the term 'people pleasing' being thrown around, but what exactly does the term mean?
According to Rachel, a people pleaser is someone who will constantly put others' needs ahead of their own and constantly go above and beyond to make other people feel good.
Signs that you are a people pleaser may include (but are not limited to) going to great lengths to avoid conflict, being overly preoccupied with what others think of you, having a deep fear of being seen as selfish, having poor boundaries, finding it difficult to say no, looking to others for validation, or being afraid to let people down - so much so that you may avoid taking sick days.
According to Rachel, the heart of the issue is when you are "neglecting yourself and abandoning yourself in order to try and keep the peace".
As with so many things, people pleasing is most likely rooted in a person's upbringing and how they were treated as a child.
Rachel explains that, as children, we always want to please our caregivers but if that caregiver was particularly hard to please, critical, overly reactive, distracted or abusive, the child might become overly dedicated to trying to please them.
"At heart, people who are people pleasers have very low self-esteem, you know, have a lot of insecurity and fear of being excluded, ostracised, rejected, and all of that."
Gender is also a factor in people pleasing tendencies as women are "much more socialised to be accommodating, to be nice, to not be angry" where as men are socialised to be more "individualistic and take what they want and what they need".
When it comes to relationships and friendships, unfortunately, it seems that people pleasers are often drawn to "self-pleasers".
"Usually we will seek out that familiar pattern, and so, have poor boundaries around people who are more likely to take from us, which also reinforces that sort of low self-esteem and insecurity that we don't deserve reciprocal caring relationships."
If this is sounding all too familiar, Rachel suggests taking time to reflect on your behaviours and acknowledge how they are affecting you and how you cope with the anxieties that may arise from your people pleasing tendencies.
Identify these problems without shaming yourself, and start to identify the patterns that you have created in certain relationships and environments. From there, its a good idea to start identifying where you need to set your limits and who you need to set boundaries with in order to cultivate healthier interactions.
For more information on people pleasing, listen back to Rachel's chat with Jen above.
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
