Welcome to The Relationships With A Soul Podcast
Every Tuesday, I do a deep dive on a common relationship problem that more than likely, we’ve all experienced at one point or another. And some of us, are actively in these situations right now, which makes these episodes great support systems for you as you push through this problem and arrive on the other side. From observing human behavior over the last 15 years, I’ve seen a lot of the same relationship problems come up again and again. Those will be the ma in ones that we focus on here.
It is my goal that these episodes help you understand yourself better, as well as your relationships. Armed with this new info, you’ll be able to create stronger relationship dynamics with ALL your connections. Trust me, strong connections are worth more than anything money can buy. Once you understand the magic of just one of these connections, you’ll become obsessed. Now let’s get into today’s episode!
Ep: 29 Why Most People Don’t Value Themselves
Welcome to today’s episode. I decided to create this because there has been a lot of talk about people pleasing in the world recently, and I’ve noticed that most people have a good grasp on the surface level of what that means. But there’s also a problem that is being ignored.
If you only understand something at the surface level, you usually can’t change it. And thus begins the perpetual cycle of being trapped in a people pleasing mentality, despite being aware of it.
First, we must understand that just because you are aware of something doesn’t mean you are free from it. It’s actually only half the battle at best.
So in this episode we’re going to fix that so that by the end you have:
An understanding of HOW people become people pleasers (hint, you’re not born this way)
The thinking cycles that keep us trapped in this place, even if we desire change
How to do things differently so that you can not only break free from these chains, but actually FEEL good doing it.
Let me elaborate a little on that last one before we get started.
A lot of people secretly don’t want to stop people pleasing because they don’t want to feel guilty and judged for all of a sudden “doing less for others”. They are also afraid that this level of guilt will make them feel terrible about themselves at a core level, and they fear they won’t be able to get out of that pain.
So in this case, the pain you know is better than the pain you don’t— in believing this, they decide to stick with the pain they feel when they choose others over themselves. In most situations, if you’re pleasing others in a way where you are sacrificing your time doing something you really don’t want to do for someone else, you may be making them happy temporarily, but at the same time you are neglecting yourself, and that kind of neglect stacks up overtime.
It begins to tell you at a core level:
I’m not important
I don’t trust myself
I don’t value myself
My self-worth is determined by the temporary compliments that come from others when I do something nice for them.
So with all that being said, let’s begin with understanding the deeper layers of the onion—What creates people pleasing behavior in the first place.
Starting out with the family dynamic, when we are kids, our observation skills are through the roof—especially during the time before we learn how to speak. The people we see the most during this time are our parents, and if our parents are already exemplifying this behavior by:
Trying to please each other or keep the peace in their relationship at home
Tiptoeing on eggshells around difficult family members and trying to keep them happy so they don’t rock the boat
Seeking extra love and affection through their children from the underlying place that they didn’t receive that growing up.
For clarification on the last one, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to seek love and affection from your kids, I’m talking about the extreme cases where a parent will seek this from a place of desperation, and focus extra time on pleasing the kids for mainly their own benefit, because they are missing that piece within themselves. There are healthier more efficient ways to heal from this type of void, and it’s more common than you would think.
Going back to us being highly observant as children, the next place we learn how to please others is in the schooling system, which can be started as early as 3 years old to the best of my knowledge.
Have you ever heard of the term “teacher’s pet”?
Essentially it refers to a child who goes above and beyond to earn praise from the teacher, and this is seen a lot in elementary school, but also carries through the entire schooling process, and even into the working world with bosses later on.
If you think about how the schooling system runs, you are rewarded for good behavior in terms of praise, grades, and awards.
And you are punished for bad behavior in terms of: detention, bad grades, missing recess, and phone calls home to your parents.
Children quickly learn to dodge the options that lead to punishment and most “step in line” and would much rather obey the system to avoid the pain.
It’s designed to make you follow orders and to be rewarded when you follow them, and most get caught up in this system and don’t ask themselves how this will impact the way they think and act moving forward in life.
It’s one of the reasons why most people don’t really think for themselves (even if they think they do). School does not promote critical thinking. They tell you what to think and they reward you for it when you agree and don’t challenge what they say.
If you do something that is against the “norm” within the schooling system you are shamed by teachers, the principal, and even schoolyard bullies. This teaches us from a very young age to manipulate our way through life by pleasing others so that we’re not outcasted and shamed for being different.
School sets the tone for how you look, what you wear, and how you act. After the schooling years are complete, we look to celebrities, rich people in our network to further learn how to behave. We are hardwired to believe that if you’re rich, you’re doing it right, and we observe what the greater majority aligns with to find out:
what the newest clothing trend is
where to align politically
a reputable career that will be accepted among society
and how to act so that people will like us and include us.
By now you are probably starting to piece together how petrified people are of other’s not liking and approving of them.
THIS IS WHY.
The conditioning is stronger than you think.
To become free of this from a young age, you would have had to be raised in a completely different way, outside the system. And although there are some that have done it, the greater majority have not.
You may be asking yourself at this point: “Well what’s so bad about the system if everyone has to experience it?”
The main problem is that most of us are not acting the way that we want to. We’re not living the lives that we really want to live, and instead, tread on eggshells when it comes to our beliefs, opinions, what interests us, etc.
We would rather be liked by the greater majority of the people around us instead of truly being ourselves, enduring the pushback that comes with it, and eventually finding the group of people that best suit us.
There are so many hoops to jump through to just quote “Be yourself”, and that’s because the system we’ve been integrated in for the majority of our lives never lets up on the “reward / punishment marry go round” that keeps you in line, but at the high cost of being your true self.
The interesting thing about all this is that most people KNOW exactly who they want to be and what they like vs what they don’t like in life
But we are DEEPLY afraid that if we step into our true power and start to act the way we want, do the things we want to do, etc, that we will experience massive pushback, and ultimately end up alone and undesirable by all.
This is a fear that almost never comes true, but it’s really hard to surpass because of the deep level of conditioning we’ve experienced all these years within a system of limitations and absolute control.
I’ll give a short example to show this. Growing up, I loved musical artists like Limp Bizkit, Eminem, and TuPac. But I also secretly liked pop singers like Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, and Christina Aguilera. It’s just that no one knew about the last 3, because it was unacceptable for a straight male growing up to listen to these artists. And I would have been absolutely wrecked in school if people got word that I enjoyed that type of pop music. So I kept it a secret. And that’s just one example of how we’re trained to “stay in line”. So many people hide so many desires and over time it absolutely erodes us from the inside.
So now that we’ve outlined how we all got to this place and how heavy the conditioning really is, you’re probably wondering how to get out of this hole.
I can promise you that if you’re willing to do this type of work that you will succeed, but this isn’t going to be an overnight success. I will however point you in the right direction on how to get started and promise you that if you stay on this journey, it will be more than worth your while.
Coming from someone who used to be the ultimate people pleaser and started this work solidly 10 years ago, I have arrived at the point and please excuse my french where I do not give a “fuck” about what people think and humbly live in the way that I please.
If my choices don’t align with yours, you’re free to go your separate way and live the way you want. I no longer feel family guilt when im ridiculed by them for being different because I’ve truly grown to love being me. The friends in my network know me well. They can tell you exactly who I am because I can be myself around them freely.
The things that I now manifest in my life come much faster and in ways I would have never expected because I have trust in the universe to deliver on it’s own terms and not in the narrow pathways I once thought were the only roads to take. I’m sharing this short excerpt with you not to gloat, but to show you what is possible and hopefully earn your trust in the method I’m going to begin outlining for you below. If you decide down the roadm, that you want to dive deeper into this work, I’d be honored work with you to help get you to the point where you can express your true self out in the open.
Let me share with you exactly how I climbed out of this hole. ( It didn’t take 10 years by the way, I spent many years researching and going through a trial and error process to find out what worked and what didn’t. Once I got it down it was much faster, so I expect it will be a much quicker process for you)
You need to become ok with people disagreeing with you, and disliking you, even to the point where they may make fun of you in public. First off, if they continuously poke fun at you in public, it shows they they themselves are incredibly insecure. You can make 1 of 2 choices at this point if you’re dealing with this in your network.
Confront them and have a conversation with them about how this type of behavior will no longer be acceptable when they are in your presence. They’ll have the opportunity to realize that you’re no longer willing to tolerate their shit and they’ll either change or stop hanging out with you. Either choice there is a blessing.
Your second option here is to recognize that you don’t want someone like this in your life and if they refuse to change or you don’t think they can change, you have full authority to eject them from your life. In the state they’re acting in, they would be considered toxic and you have full right to get rid of them in any way that preserves your peace and stops causing you pain. There is no right way to do it regardless if you think doing it in person is better, over text message, sending an email, or completely ghosting them altogether. Odds are they will probably hate you either way no matter how much energy you put into trying to “do it right” because these types of people don’t want to take responsibility for their behavior and they will happily blame whoever is in the line of fire to protect what they know best. I’ve tried all these methods in the past by the way and have been met with hate regardless of how it’s done. Free yourself. Get out of it. Move on. Notes for the future that you can cosider would be that when you let new people into your network, develop some sort of a screening process where you don’t let anyone in who acts this way or doesn’t want to hang out with you for who you truly are.
You need to understand that everyone else is in the system with you, and they will defend it to the death, which means they will disagree with you and try to keep you there with them. Your ability to have absolute trust in what you know and what you have learned is crucial here. Most people are in fact, not happy and not satisfied with their lives regardless of what they tell you in public, so being willing to do something different from the majority needs to become your greatest asset. As difficult as it is to carve your own path, know that you are on a path to becoming happy with yourself from the inside and if you follow your heart, you WILL find it. You need to understand that your greatest fear of ending up alone and being exiled from all groups and communities is not true and never will be true. You will find people who feel the same way as you and who will generously support your growth journey as you learn to express yourself truthfully, as long as you keep putting yourself out there and act on opportunities which make it possible for you to meet people that resonate with your life journey. Let me say this one more time because this is a crucial part of this process. You need to keep putting yourself out there and act on opportunities which make it possible for you to meet people that resonate with your life journey.If you want me to do a piece on how to find people that resonate with you, let me know in the comments or send me a message— I would love to create that for you if you think it will be helpful.
The longer you’ve been in the people pleasing world, the harder it is to get out. You can either decide to do it slowly by first setting light boundaries with people and moving to heavier boundaries later on (there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this by the way). Or you can decide to rip the bandaid off in a manner which you explain. “This is who I am now, this is how I’m doing things, you can either accept that or not, but just know that I am not going back and will not tolerate any form of shaming or manipulation whatsoever moving forward.
You will not be able to explain your changes to most people. This is difficult work. Many take credit for already having done this and believe they have arrived at this place but most are lying to themselves. This takes extreme courage and whether that courage comes from being at your wits end in frustration, or from years of work to realize the chains that have bound us all into a system of nodding and obeying from birth, you have arrived at this point where you’re willing to make a change and for that I congratulate you.
This constitutes the basic framework of how you can change your life if you really want to.
So what’s the reward in doing this type of work?
You will feel SO much lighter being yourself and living in your own skin. You will have heightened compassion, empathy, and patience for others because you understand how hard it is to get to this point. You will have less anxiety and not feel as much pressure from imbalances that have been trying to tell you to get yourself in alignment with truth for so long.
A bonus recommendation would be to use the Human Design system which uses your birth data to tell you things about yourself that you may or may not already know. In fact, I can almost guarantee that you don’t know everything about yourself and having a human design reading is a great way to explore parts of yourself that you never knew existed. I used to think Astrology and Human Design were all fluff, but over the past 3 years, I’ve gone deep into the knowledge of the system and learned a ton about myself and how to better position myself for opportunity. How do you become more open to something like this? Deny your mind’s skepticism, get out of your own head, and follow your gut. The price of a reading is well worth it compared to what you will learn about yourself and I’ve never had a client once say anything along the lines of “that’s bullshit” or “that’s way off”. In fact, almost every client has been wowed by what they’ve found out about themselves.
Remember, no one teaches you about you, and this is a great way to explore yourself more.
I hope this episode gave you a beginners path to explore with this kind of work and maybe even inspired you to let go of some of the unnecessary things you’ve been holding onto in your life in order to please others.
As always, if you need clarification on anything or have additional questions, my door and DMS are always open. You can also visit my website by clicking the photo below. Substack subscribers get 20% off all my services for a limited time. DM me to get that discount.
THANK YOU for tuning in, supporting my work, and taking this journey with me to becoming a better you. Self-Growth is one of the best things we can gift ourselves with in this lifetime and I am honored that you recognize this podcast can and will help you do just that. Please feel free to leave a comment on what you thought of this episode. You’re welcome to share any struggles that you’re going through of clarification needed to better understand the episode. I respond to all comments and care about your opinions and experiences.
I’ll see you all next Tuesday where we will explore another common relationship problem and how to best approach it!
A happy week to you all!
Not subscribed? Subscribe now to get this podcast and many more self-growth info delivered right to your inbox!
Share this post