Ep 34: Breaking Cycles of People Pleasing: Attachment Theory Meets Power Analysis

“Pleasing those who have more power than you to keep yourself safe and protected requires a level of self-abandonment. When we’re forced to abandon ourselves to live for others, we decenter our own dignity to center others’ comfort. Instead of living our own values and living up to our full dignity and humanity, we only live inside other people’s narrow expectations of us and their desires for us.”

Episode Summary:

In this episode, you and I are going to unpack people pleasing or appeasement. We’ll unpack what’s going on in our body and nervous system when we people please. Then, we’ll zoom out and look at people pleasing in our social, cultural, and political contexts. And we’ll close out by discussing ways to address people pleasing in parenting. I hope we can shift the question from “am I raising my child to be a people pleaser?” to “how do I teach my child to use people pleasing when they need to be safe and then set it aside and be their whole self when they no longer need it?”

Full episode transcript here.

Episode Outline

Defining people pleasing and two examples of people pleasing.
Understanding the survival physiology and neurobiology of people pleasing in humans, bears, and horses.
Toxic stress from people pleasing in marginalized bodies.
People pleasing adds pressure for parents to value doing and teaching over being with and showing up emotionally.
Unlearning people pleasing can stir up fear of abandonment.
Power analysis & people pleasing: exploring “powerblindness” and “unconscious supremacy.”
People pleasing pipeline from home to school and school to workplace and intimate relationships.
People pleasing & attachment theories: children accommodate and appease their caregivers for survival.
Two reflection questions to unlearn people pleasing in parenting