Goodbye People Pleasing

Growing up as an overachieving "good girl" has provided a lot of opportunity for me to unravel myself from the need to please and reconnect to my power.

When we fully accept that no one else is responsible for our happiness but ourselves, it can make it easier to end the pursuit of making others happy. When we focus on filling our own cup, we stop wasting energy on pouring into someone else's cracked cup. Liberation comes when we realize that it is actually impossible to make another person happy- that s*** is an inside job!

This has come up in many ways throughout my matrescence journey. When you add children, a partner, in-laws, etc. to the mix that weren't there when your people pleasing childhood began, it becomes much more complex and impossible to satisfy the competing desires of all of them. A complete overhaul is needed. A revolution from within that starts by simply asking the question, "What do I want?" After decades of focusing on others, asking yourself this question may result in crickets, confusion, and further frustration at not being able to identify what you actually want and need. Commit to the question no matter how much it may stir up. Practice, practice, practice. Tune into your breath and body in any quiet moments you are able to carve out and continue to listen for answers. Slowly, as you quiet the noise of external pressures, you will start to hear a new voice emerge: your Self!

We have heard the saying "Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak" (Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati). What happens when we don't quiet the mind and allow the voice of others from our social circle and cultural messaging to take over? Our Self will work with our body to send shouts (ie. illness, anxiety, depression) until we are forced to listen and respond. The "good girl" defense mechanism that groomed us to get through patriarchal systems before is not sustainable and will keep us from expanding into our full potential.

A few months ago, I had a vision of a theater billboard screen that said "The People Pleasing Puppet Show Has Come to An End." It began morphing into an imaginary press release, and I I allowed myself to play with it for a little while in-between making PBJ sandwiches, eating crusts, and cleaning sticky fingers:

Effective immediately: The People Pleasing Puppet Show has come to an end. We understand that you may have thought your tickets were for lifetime access, but the puppet has decided to star in her own play. She has cut the strings from the puppeteers and is enjoying her newfound freedom. Her limbs are no longer pulled by the competing forces of others’ expectations splitting her at the seams. Now that the cords are cut, she is dancing to the beat of her own drum. Stomping firmly into her values, flowing with unconditional love, singing out loud without fear of what others will think. 

The new show is not a performance but an improvisation where all audience members participate together, supporting one another in the dance of life: The Divine Play: Lila. In this process-based play, critics are not invited for there is nothing to evaluate as good/bad in the dance of nondualism. Every player is honored as whole unto herself and instrumental to the collective whole. This full-color series is more interesting than the black and white puppet show that had been repeated for many generations prior. Each star in Lila is just that- a light that traveled from the cosmos to the Earth to dance with the other stars contracted to be here now: living, learning, and growing together. Come play with us!

While this puppet show journal entry was light and playful, do not doubt that I have also spent plenty of time in the muck of it before being able to poke fun at it.

The entry would not be complete without the OG poem that began my unlearning and unraveling from the "good girl" over a decade ago:

"Wild Geese"

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your placein the family of things.