People Pleasing – and other ways you reject your needs

The people pleaser often has an idea of itself as a selfless giver, being there for other people. But if you scratch the surface you see it’s doing what it’s doing as a strategy to get what YOU need, in a rather manipulative way. When you grow awareness of the pleaser, it’s easy to start rejecting IT – which only keeps this structure in place.

To really shift this pattern you need to be willing to look deeper. Underneath the pleasing is a sense of unworthiness and that you need to do something for others to prove your value and get your needs met. It’s often created from NOT having your needs met growing up, and then rejecting this as “needy”, childish, and attention-seeking. Basically, you’ve passed your needs into the shadow, and instead, they play out sideways in patterns like this.

Instead of seeing the longing for appreciation, attention, and care as a necessary and healthy developmental stage (which would have taught you that your needs matter and how to care for them), the people pleaser directs attention onto other people’s needs, and your experience of being neglected stays.

So how can you meet your own needs and heal the people pleaser and other structures around unmet needs?

That’s exactly what I guide you into, in this week’s episode of the LOVE ALSO THIS series.

(Don’t worry if you haven’t listened to the other episodes in the series yet. You can start here and circle back to the others later.)

The fourth episode of this series uncovers how we have learned to reject our needs as “needy” – and the consequences of that. We look at the people pleaser and how you can heal the relationship with your needs. 

You find all episodes in this series, the workbook, and registration for the 2-day training here.