 Spiritual: August 13, 2008 Issue [#2550] |
  Spiritual
This week: Edited by: larryp
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Tread softly; listen to the whispers |
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Last week, in the Spiritual Newsletter, I discussed being a ‘people-pleaser’ and how this can steal our true identity. While I believe it is important to serve others, to cater to others and to draw our worth from others is dangerous. We were all made to be unique and not cloned images. Much loss of self-esteem is created when one lives simply to please or appease another.
If you have a People Pleaser Pattern, you often try to be who others want you to be, to agree with them, to fit in. You may not be consciously aware that you are doing this, but there is a part of your psyche that wants to please others in order to avoid reactions that you are afraid of…When this pattern is activated, we have a hard time saying No or setting limits. We tend to avoid conflict. We want other people’s approval, and even more importantly, we want to avoid other people’s disapproval. If someone asks us for something, we have a hard time not giving it.
People Pleasing can come from a need to get support from someone you trust because you don’t feel up to supporting yourself. You seek out a powerful, accomplished person to look up to. Then you comply with everything they say. This makes you feel safe and cared for… Some people are trained to be compliant and pleasing, by their families or by their culture. You may have been trained to put other people first, taught that it is your job to make them happy. You may have gotten the message that your feelings and needs don’t count. You may have been rewarded for being pleasing and punished for asserting yourself. Your parents may have trained all their children this way, or you may have been singled out to be the compliant one.
http://www.earley.org/Patterns/people_pleaser.htm
The above link gives effective ways to overcome being a people-pleaser. It is not an easy road, but it is one well worth traveling, and in the end makes us better, more creative people.
The problem, if one is not careful, is on the road to recovery, a deep sense of mistrust for people may be acquired. It may require that one begin to surround himself with different people – those who will be supportive and care-givers, not care-takers. Care-givers offer support and help one believe in his/her self-value. Care-takers want to take care of you and make you dependent upon them.
Choose to be around people who appreciate your being yourself, who don’t need to dominate or have their way, who can handle differences and challenges. Pick people who will support you in becoming autonomous. Protect yourself from being controlled. Don’t take on people who are very powerful until you are strong enough.
http://www.earley.org/Patterns/people_pleaser.htm
We should help others and try to make them happy. Give for the pleasure of giving. But, the need to please others at all cost at all times, and be everything to everyone are actions of a desperate person. People pleasers are desperate people. Compulsive pleasing is different from an altruistic desire. Such a compulsion has serious physical and emotional consequences in the long term.
http://www.mindpub.com/art429.htm
Along the road to recovery, mentors can be very helpful people. Only in recent years have I understood the value of mentors. Mentors help you on the road to wholeness and don’t want you to merely please them. They are genuinely concerned for you. Some of my mentors were school teachers. In my school days, I didn’t realize this, but as time moved on, I began to understand the lessons they taught and the lives they lived before me. A true mentor will not allow you to depend upon them, but will guide you into ways that will benefit you and increase your self-esteem. If the person you think is a mentor shows signs of controlling, he/she is not a true mentor, and will only set you back on the road to recovery and the road to trust. Currently I have about three mentors, and in the process of being mentored, I have learned to mentor others.
Trying to compulsively please others is like the donkey that chases the carrot hanging from a rope in front of his nose, barely out of reach. Just like the donkey, the people pleaser presses forward without any real satisfaction associated with her efforts. I’ve seen these sufferers finally stop chasing the proverbial carrot when they finally realize they’ve created an internal myth that they’ve been chasing forever. Then, and only then, do they stop motivating themselves with internal talk that “promises” something better in their future “if only they try enough or try harder.” When you stop saying to yourself, for instance, “I’ll finally feel secure in my marriage if I just make him feel happy,” you can then focus on your own feelings (“Am I happy in this relationship? What do I need to feel fulfilled? etc.). Once we’re in touch with our own genuine needs, then we can truly relate to another individual in a satisfying and intimate manner.
http://www.drgingerblume.com/scripts_hooked.htm
A mentor comes from many different areas of life. A psychological counselor was one of my mentors. My pastor is one of my mentors. (But, be careful here, for not all who bear titles are true mentors, genuinely concerned for you and your growth.) In writing, three poets are co-mentors, meaning, with a spirit of good-will, we mentor, support, and encourage one another.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
~~Mark Twain
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For your reading pleasure, stories and poems:
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Some of the highlighted items do not relate to the topic of the newsletter, but I think it helps to read light entertainment along with the more serious things. It helps us stay focused, I believe.
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faithjourney
Thanks for the great newsletter on compromise and betrayel. Five years ago, I was in a situation where I was asked to compromise my values for actions that were unethical. I refused, and went through several years of painful betrayel for standing up for my values. Yesterday something very powerful struck me: In the five years since that indicent, all but one of the people involved have passed completely out of my life (and my, how that one has changed since their "friends" turned on them and left). So you are right: Sometimes it's best to stand your ground. In the long run, it's worth it. Thanks for the great and inspirational newsletter!
peteranthony
KP,
Because of the label we give them we also give critics power over us, and because we view the world through our personalities, rather than our true selves, we react to positive and negative statements in relation to our world view, rather than what is true. All that I know about poetry I learned in HS English class (not much) yet I am a poet others agree ... pentambic imbeter ... what???
Great newsletter!
Thanks,
PA
Zeke 
Even if you were successful in pleasing everybody, your life would not be complete unless you were able to please yourself also.
Karen Bristow 
I just want to say, "Thank you."
This is probably the first Spiritual newsletter that struck such a deep chord for me.
Take care,
Karen
windac
Wonderful newsletter KP!
I distinctly remember the exact moment when I knew without a doubt that not everyone was going to like me. And in the very next moment, I realized that I was completely and totally okay with that. Finally. What a weight that had been for years.
Good job and keep it up!!!
Thanks so much to each one who reads the Spiritual Newsletter and to those who take the time to respond with feedback. The editing team values your feedback. If you have anything you would like to see discussed in the Spiritual Newsletter, send me an email and I will seriously consider your request.
larryp
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