French philosopher Montaigne (1533-1592) wrote, "The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself." It may indeed be the greatest thing, but far more of us are better acquainted with its opposite, which is to belong to the opinions, expectations, hopes, and views of others. We take and make them our own, never realizing that we are trading away an important element of a good life.
Epictetus (c.50-c.138) understood this is a catastrophic loss. He wrote, "If it ever happens that you turn outward to please another person, certainly you have lost the plan of your life." Each of us should get to plan our own lives even as we understand that the results of those plans are far beyond our control. The results are not up to us alone.
Why some are people-pleasers
We may have been schooled early in life that pleasing people is what we should do. This may have been draped in the clothing of good manners. People-pleasing can give easier entry to social circles and work cohorts. Others realized that people-pleasing can be a very effective strategy for hiding in plain sight, giving us the benefit of doubt on all sorts of matters. Others realized that it can be a life-saving strategy: Fawning may defuse an explosive situation.
Turning outward to please others becomes deeply engrained behavior. It becomes so familiar that we do not even recognize it anymore; it is second nature.
For some, being a people-pleaser is a very effective way of deflecting attention away from substance use. You may seem so indispensable, pleasant, and accommodating that others would be hard pressed to believe you have a problem.
Some people struggling with addiction may also view their accommodating measures as a way to make up for or atone for their shortcomings and failures. The behavior can carry well into recovery. People may mistake people-pleasing for making amends and repairing relationships.
People-pleasing can be very damaging to a person's sense of worth and self-respect, which can have a devastating effect on recovery. It will also hinder the very relationships one wanted to repair.
People-pleasing as a habit
Pleasing others — most often at the expense of our own well-being — becomes habitual. Philosopher William James (1842-1910) describes habits as folds in a piece of paper. People-pleasers are always folding themselves into shapes that other people want from or expect of us.
People-pleasers are masterpieces of origami, which is the art of making multidimensional objects by folding pieces of paper. There's neither any glue nor any cutting; the shape emerges from the folding techniques used on the paper. Those shapes can be stunningly complex.
Others fold us at the same time we fold ourselves. So folded, we don't belong to ourselves; we belong to the expectations, wants, and demands that others have of us.
The people who benefit from others' habitual people-pleasing may not even notice it because it is so familiar to them. They have little respect for people-pleasers, as they expect or demand their compliance. Those who benefit from others' people-pleasing have no incentive for change because any change would interfere with their agendas.
Interrupting the people-pleasing habit
When people-pleasers interrupt the habitual and knee-jerk folding process, others may ask, Why are you being so difficult? The follow-up may be, Why are you being so selfish? Each of these is a judgment in the form of a question intended to bring a person back into alignment by sharpening a fold.
The charge of being selfish is often directed at people trying to change their using behaviors and in early recovery. Disrupting habitual people-pleasing is not selfish. Rather, by flattening some of the older folds, people come to belong to themselves and not to the expectations and demands of others.
Belonging to yourself is a remarkable achievement that will change the balance in many relationships. Some old relationships may end while others will recalibrate. New relationships will begin. This may be initially disorienting.
No longer operating under the yoke of people-pleasing makes it possible to create new habits, which are folds as well. In the context of good and healthy relationships, you can envision and create a stunningly complex you.