STOP With The People Pleasing!

Right up until the end my father was still people pleasing

My dad when I was about 5 years old, smiles really hide high functioning anxiety.

Even on his death bed my father was a people pleaser, hidden behind a curtain in a hospital cubicle I could hear him say to the surgeon “I’m sorry for the mess I am making”.

After bleeding from the early hours of the morning My darling dad had to have an endoscopy to see where the bleed was coming from however it punctured his aorta leading to quite an uncomfortable but quick death.

Those words I have remembered since the day before I turned 21, almost 19 years later do I truly understand them for what they were.

He died at 59 with oesophageal cancer but ultimately low grade, consistent stress and saying ‘yes’ to everyone that demanded his time and kindness is what killed him. The bending over backwards for everyone, resulted in less rest for him as he got older, impacting his immunity and his sleep therefore creating an environment in his body for the tumour to grow.

Thing is, I come from a long line of people pleasers and even though I’ve been shown so many lessons and moments to pause I’ve only just learnt how to value myself and my time. And to STOP with putting everyone first and ahead of my needs and happiness.

Saying NO comes from self confidence, it comes from understanding your worth and that your time here on earth is valuable and precious just the same as those around you.

I remember saying to my dad that there was an event on that I didn’t really want to go to, I was going to attend out of politeness and he said “sometimes there are things in this world that we don’t want to do but we have to, to make someone happy”.

My father was a very intelligent man but this was probably the worst piece of advice he could have ever given me, hand on my shoulder when he said it, I took that on board for years.

The point of me telling you this story is that I don’t want anyone else falling foul of this great desire to be liked. I see so many clients 1:1 that minimise themselves and their lives, they don’t have hobbies anymore, they don’t know what they enjoy anymore. They say ‘yes’ to everything fearing that the person asking won’t like them anymore if they don’t do as they ask. Their power, energy, self esteem is depleted.

When I work with clients in an intuitive healing session we look to build self esteem and understand what brings them joy, we discuss ways of protecting space and time and how to minimise taking part in toxic situations.

By finding true love within ourselves, acknowledging our strengths along with our weaknesses we can seek to stand back in our power.

I highly recommend The Courage To Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga for further reading.

To find out more about my treatments head to my page

Much love

Hannah