I’d like to think that I can say what I need without concern, but the truth is that sometimes I keep quiet because I worry about how others will react. Am I a people pleaser? Sometimes!
Both men and women can be people pleasers but I think that, from an early age, women get subtle and not so subtle messages to put others’ needs first. That taking care of ourselves is selfish.
It’s okay to consider other people’s feelings when making decisions, but if your go-to response is to prioritize other people’s happiness over your own feelings, you’re not doing yourself any favors.
If your own needs weren’t valued or met when you were growing up, you internalize those messages. Maybe you were ignored when you cried or were hungry. Maybe you were told to be quiet or told that you complained too much. Maybe another family member’s needs were always a priority.
When family members struggle with mental health or substance use issues, the children in the family often end up taking care of the parent or sibling who’s struggling. Those kids learn very early that they must meet other people’s needs first in order to have peace and calm in the home. That message can become ingrained in the child’s psyche.
We then bring those early childhood messages into our adult relationships. We work hard at making sure everyone else is “happy” or taken care of and we ignore— or don’t even know—what we need.
What Happens When We
Always Care For Others First
Constantly caring for others’ needs can lead us to feel exhausted, unacknowledged, taken for granted, resentful and confused about why we struggle with anxiety or depression.
It can also create the feeling that we have to be perfect. There’s a part of us that feels if we can just get it all “right”—the house clean, others’ needs taken care of, the work done—then everyone will be happy. We might believe that if everyone is happy, then we can be happy, too. The reality is we’re probably not very happy if we’re not listening to our own needs.
I definitely struggle with trying to keep everyone else happy. I continue to work on recognizing when I’m ignoring what I need. The fear of making others angry or hurting their feelings drives my people-pleasing behaviors into high gear. And then the anxiety begins to bubble up….
The tension in my chest and constricted feeling in my throat are my body telling me that I have something that needs to be said. I have needs that parts of me really want me to share.
I know the feeling so well, and yet sometimes I still push it away. I busy myself to try to avoid feeling it until I can’t ignore it any longer because I’m lying awake at night when I’m exhausted and I should be sleeping.
What Happens When We’re Mindful Our Own Needs
I still worry about hurting others, making them angry or being ignored if I do share my feelings. But I’ve learned that tuning in to the parts of me that want to be heard, that need to be heard, helps me express my feelings.
When we give ourselves permission to be heard, we’re reinforcing that we can meet our own needs—that we don’t have to look to others to validate and voice our feelings. We learn that we can find joy, calm and contentment inside ourselves.
If you’ve struggled with figuring out what you need or trusting that you know what you need, therapy can help re-connect you with your Self. It provides a safe, non-judgmental place to look at the messages you internalized growing up. It gives you a space to hear your own voice and build the trust in your Self that might have gotten lost along the way.
Moms are often pushed to meet everyone else’s needs. This week on the Woman Worriers podcast I spoke with Doña Bumgarner, a life coach for moms, about how moms can learn how to meet their own needs while still meeting the needs of their family. You can find the interview here.
If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.
Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger, creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress, contact me!
