Inside Out 2: People-Pleasing as the Silent Emotion
If you’ve seen Inside Out 2 recently then you know that the main character, Riley, is going through puberty and with that she gets new emotions added to the other ones! Anxiety, ennui, envy, and embarrassment.
At first, anxiety presents as a harmless emotion. She wants Riley to be liked as they think about going to high school and she wants to stay close to her friends while also making new ones. Anxiety says its job is to “plan for the future and protect Riley from the stuff she can’t see” whereas fear protects her from things she can see.
In order to do that anxiety has to come up with a bunch of scenarios so they can be prepared for whatever might happen next. Does this sound familiar?
We’ve all gone through hard things in life and sometimes those hard situations leave us with feelings of cautiousness and anxiety about how to move forward. Some people might develop a tendency to people-please because of this anxiety.
How can we tell the difference?
Anxiety might say: “you’ve been rejected before by friends so you should do something different this time”
People-pleasing might say: “you’ve been rejected by friends so you need to figure out what they want/need in a friend and be that exact thing so they won’t leave you”
Anxiety might say: “be cautious around people you love/don’t show your full self in case you get rejected”
People-pleasing might say: “don’t share how you really feel–no one really wants to hear that! They want to hear what they want to hear”
In working with women who struggle with people-pleasing, I think people-pleasing is just a deeper-seated and more specific anxiety. Anxiety usually shows up in more than one area of life to protect you whereas people-pleasing is usually centered on making sure people like you so they will stay close to you. They’re very similar, but with a slightly different edge.
Anxiety is the umbrella and people-pleasing is one branch under the umbrella of anxiety.
Do you ever worry that people don’t really want to know you or want to hear what you think and feel? So many women go through life trying to anticipate what other people need and meet those needs before those people even ask. They do this because they might want to feel needed or because they think if they meet this need–those people will want to continue being friends with them.
But at the end of the day, those women feel pretty lonely because their friends don’t actually know them, their thoughts, feelings, and opinions about things. Their friends know a curated version of them.
What if you could trust that your friends are sticking around because they genuinely love and know you? I want you to imagine what life could be like if you were able to be vulnerable, and consciously open up to the people you care about so they could see the real you. I’m sure there are some fears around “what if they see that and don’t like me”. But what if some people stayed? I imagine you would feel even more safe with those people and you might start to believe that you’re worth knowing, that people will stay because they love you, and that it’s okay to be vulnerable and show these parts of yourself to others. More than okay! That the people you love actually want to see the vulnerable parts of you.
It’s possible to finally feel free from the pressure to perform so others stick around.
I work with women who struggle with people-pleasing and feeling out of tune with themselves and empower them to gain confidence, feel comfortable in their own skin, and improve their relationships with themselves and others.
I do this by helping women understand the root cause of their anxiety/people-pleasing.
-Is it because you know what it’s like to feel abandoned and you never want to feel that again?
-Is it because you remember feeling rejected as an awkward teenager and you just want to belong?
-Is it because you were taught growing up that in order to be a “good girl” you had to constantly put your needs on the back burner to take care of everyone else?
Then we look at patterns! Here’s an example:
It’s not my friend’s fault that she just wanted to hangout! But my people-pleasing tendencies make it hard for me to say no, hard for my friend to know me, and hard for the relationship because now I’m feeling resentful.
In therapy I’ll help you unpack why you get caught in your own cycle and what you can do to change it.
Whatever your reason for pleasing people–I want you to know that I see you, I hear you, and I’m sorry you’re struggling with this. It’s such an oddly lonely place to feel that people like you because of what you do for them, but no one knows (other than you) that they don’t know the deeper parts of you and that feels lonely.
You shouldn’t have to walk this journey alone.
I help women achieve freedom from people-pleasing by identifying the patterns they get caught in, the underlying need in those patterns, and help them learn how to meet those for themselves or find others who can meet those needs (or both). If you’re ready for that next step towards confidence and lowering your anxiety—schedule a complimentary consultation below!