Living Your Life With Purpose
Stop People Pleasing — It’s Okay To Be You!
Create boundaries to protect your borders
Children need love and security
Growing up in a home with no parents led me to develop all types of insecurities very early on.
For many years I buried those insecurities in silence.
Thank God, I was not easily prone to suggestions, and I was never much of a follower, so I mostly stayed away from trouble.
When love is lacking early on, we usually go looking for it in all the wrong places.
Those places often lead us to men that are all wrong for us.
I am no different.
Even though I tried to make decisions based on conscious thinking, or so I thought at the time, I spent the best days of my youth with a man quite unworthy of my time and affections.
After more than two decades and two children together, I had to cut him loose.
He robbed me of our shared finances (more tales for another day).
I was distraught and bitter for a while, then I decided to pick myself up and I choose to move on …
I believe what is destined for me in life will always find me.
Likewise, I believe if you rob others of what is rightfully theirs, life will deal you with the appropriate cards in due time.
Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but everyone always gets their due.
The need to be liked
We also seem to develop that annoying habit of becoming people-pleasers.
While my sister was the “life of the party”, I mostly stayed out of trouble.
Being constantly reminded that I was the “spitting image” of my errant father was not meant to be a compliment.
The man had absconded from our lives, effectively leaving my grandfather’s legacy hanging in the balance.
My mother left hurriedly in his wake, partly because she had to work to repay the financial debts, he owed to the government for the schooling he received in Germany.
Upon his return, instead of working the agreed upon five years, he fled for greener pastures and unhampered skirts.
My mother left to the pity and wrath of the terrified family, hastily beat a path out of that jungle.
What she did not realize, or perhaps did not care was that someone had to take the fall — the someone would be her children.
And we heard plenty!
This created the perfect soil for low self-esteem to flourish.
Growing in yourself
It would take years to grow out of the mindset of “not being enough”.
As I began heading towards my middle years, I realized it was time to stop my habit of people-pleasing.
I do not like to see others hurt or struggle, so I feel the pull to help.
I make every effort not to hurt anyone's feelings if I can help it. I do not always succeed.
Do not be dismayed, I am no saint 😉.
If you come at me sideways, I can be ready, willing, and quite capable of cutting one down to size using words.
But it’s not the way I like or want to be.
My conscience rebukes me each time I veer away from my spiritual self.
Because it is never my desire to intentionally hurt anyone, I pay careful attention to the way I use words.
When kindness is seen as stupidity
What we understand as being kind, others misconstrue for stupidity.
Many of you know what I mean. Our kindness gets taken as a weakness.
I have even been told that I am too kind and easily taken by the same people requesting things of me.
I have since learned to build boundaries and say “no”.
Though sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants 💔. And we allow its’ wants to drown out the voice of our intuition.
Recently a work friend and I parted ways because my plans for the future would no longer serve HER purposes.
A one-sided relationship with someone I decided to assist to reach their goals. I saw her as a go-getter and admired her as an older person from whom I could possibly learn.
These past 2 weeks open my eyes to the fact that she did not perceive the relationship from the same point of view.
And so, it is done, the relationship has ended!
Takeaway
I have let it go and I was surprised at the release I felt, I no longer have to tell white lies to protect her at work.
I feel so light, free, and happy. I will no longer be caught up listening to drama in the name of “friendship”.
I truly do.
Sometimes we do not realize how things/relationships affect us until we are no longer in them and can look with a discerning eye.
Practice more mindful discernment, but not allow this to change the nature of your giving heart.
Choose to be kind.
As our friend Lanu Pitan writes, we help them for their sakes, not for ours.
Pene Hodge is a mom, a nurse, a writer. She writes because she must. She loves people and is committed to sharing and gleaning knowledge for the betterment of all.
