people pleasing plus *any theme* anyone?

The people pleasing issue with me is extremely difficult to manage as i have to manage a team at work.. Often I would make the wrong decision in favor of not falling out with a team member.. It really is frustrating for me :(

Oh my gosh, I struggle with people pleasing so much. :( All my life everyone has always known me as "the most polite person they've ever met." I really like being polite but as I grew up I lost sight of the impact it had on me and my relationships. In therapy I learned that a response to danger is not just fight, flight, and freeze, but also fawn, which I'd never heard of. Many, many times over, when people have taken advantage of me I fawn and over-apologize and over-explain why they could be "right" and why I actually am in the "wrong" even when the other person is being a bully. It's a part of who I am and of course it was ignited by my own decisions to fawn, but growing up my older sister was SO FREAKING MEAN and CONTROLLING and looked down on me and corrected and scolded and mocked me at every turn, so even though I was naturally nice, she further conditioned me to fawn and appease the danger so as to avoid conflict. I always "knew" that if I didn't submit to my older sister, all of those things she said about me being stupid, weird, messy, lazy, unskilled, etc. would be automatically TRUE. So that behavior carried over into all of my relationships. The worst thing is that I REGRET my intense fawning so much. I'm so glad I'm aware of it and working hard on it, but oh my gosh, just looking back on those arguments I abandoned by pampering the other side makes me wince so hard. I'm so sorry you are struggling with this. It really is difficult and there can be so much retained guilt and fear with it.

It’s hard, but possible to not become one anymore. I’ve always been a people pleaser for the sake of not wanting to argue with people close to me. My unconfrontational attitude towards many things in my life have manifested into things I now talk about in therapy. I know there’s a way to become better and rise above it, you just gotta be strong for yourself & patient. Just like any muscle we can practice and work on our brains too. Compassion for yourself goes a long way.