Why Am I Like This?!
We are a therapist and a psychiatric nurse practitioner and we want to share a simplified view of these complex concepts that are often misunderstood, avoided, and even feared.
This is a podcast about being human, adapting to life, and learning from our unique experience.
We try to provide the answers to question: Why am I like this?
Why Am I Like This?!
Why Am I So Codependent?!
Ever been caught in the endless cycle of saying "yes" when you really mean "no"? Together with Michaela Beaver, we share a heart-to-heart on the subtle, yet powerful grip of people-pleasing and codependency in our latest episode of 'Why Am I Like This?'. From the roots of our eagerness to please that burrow deep into our childhood soil, to the dance of fawning that keeps the peace at the expense of self, we unpack the complexities of these behaviors with honesty and empathy.
Join us as we navigate the treacherous waters of losing one's identity in the quest to accommodate others, where the need to be seen as 'good' often overshadows our true desires and needs. Michaela and I reflect on our own moments of internal conflict, even over something as simple as choosing a restaurant, and we discuss how such everyday decisions are telling signs of a larger issue. We also delve into the dangerous liaisons between people-pleasers and narcissists, charting a course through the toxic fog with the beacon of boundary-setting and self-acceptance.
Our conversation is a candid exploration of what it means to assert ourselves, to claim space for our thoughts and feelings, and to revel in the joys of hobbies that reflect our true selves. From teenagers grappling with social pressures to adults unlearning a lifetime of self-neglect, we emphasize the transformative power of respecting our own voices. So tune in, as we offer a compelling look at how to step into a more authentic version of you, and remember to share this journey with those who might see themselves in our stories. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave us a review if our words strike a chord.
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Hello and welcome to. Why Am I Like this? The podcast for those who didn't get enough hugs as a child? I'm Laura Wood and I'm a trauma therapist.
Michaela:Hi and I'm Mishayla Beaver.
Laura:I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner, so Mishayla, why are we doing this podcast?
Michaela:I'm so glad you asked. We want to help you understand yourself a bit better how the things you learned about yourself and the world in childhood are still affecting you today. We want to figure out why are we like this, those random things about ourselves that we might wonder about, like why am I so jumpy? Why am I so anxious? Why do I take everything personally? Why are my thoughts so negative? Why do I feel like I have to fix everything all the time?
Laura:And we are talking about. Why are we always people pleasing? Today we're talking about codependence and people pleasing, and we are going to answer the following questions what is people pleasing Like? What are some examples? How does codependency affect us in our relationships and how can we recognize when we're doing it, and how do we set better boundaries? So good, let's get into it. What is people pleasing? What do we mean by that?
Michaela:So when I think of people pleasing, I think of the people who push away their own needs. They they put their needs aside and they do things to accommodate the needs of everybody else or a specific person.
Laura:Yeah, that sounds about right. I think one of the most important aspects of that definition is that pushing away yourself the sense of self-suppression to be accepted and acceptable by others.
Michaela:to be accepted and acceptable by others, so that doesn't seem like a very helpful thing. What is it about this that like why would we do this?
Laura:Well, I can think of a couple of examples of like when we're kids and we are feeling like we are not acceptable by our parents or caregivers, and so we suppress ourselves. Like, let's say, a good one is if your kid comes in with something that they made for you and they're just like oh hey, I made this for you. Like I'm so excited to show you what I made in art class. And then you're just like I don't have time right now, like just put it on the table. And then so now we're like oh so you're not excited about me. Like, so now that's like a reason to suppress myself. I'm my mom's not excited about it. So then I shouldn't be excited.
Laura:So now I'm like changing kind of my happiness in order to align better with what's going on for them, and so in the future I might learn to try to make my mom really happy before I go and show her something, like make sure she's in a good mood before I tell her something about myself, right?
Laura:So now I'm learning to put my mom's needs in front of my own. And so that's just like a tiny example, but then it blows up, it gets worse, right? So if you're a kid and you have a very different belief system than your parents do. Let's talk about like religion. If you start questioning things and they're like no, it's this, or you need to be a part of this particular culture or this particular community or this particular religion or whatever, and then you have a different idea about that, you kind of have to suppress yourself in order to be acceptable by your family, and so if you're a kid, you don't really have that much of a choice, and so you just sort of learn that other people's needs about you are more important than your needs for yourself.
Michaela:Yeah, and this would definitely have to be a certain kind of personality of kid, right? So they kind of have that, that genetic predisposition, or they have, like a certain part of their area of their brain that's maybe more active and that makes them want to seek to fit in Cause. Some kids will be like I don't care, right. So this has to be like not every kid is going to react in this way, but some kids are going to be more of that. People pleasing Um, I don't, I'm going to push my emotions down. I'm going to. I'm going to like I'm not going to like tell the world about my feelings. I'm going to push them in so that I can make everybody else happy.
Laura:Yeah, I think that's right.
Laura:And I think the other thing is if you're being told and validated for being like good, you know, like if you're oh now you're a good kid, like you're a good boy, a good girl, or if in some families this is really common where you know, like thinking about ourself is selfish and that's not really true. Thinking about ourself or being proud of ourself or, like you know, sharing our accomplishments, like that's not bragging, that's not being, you know, overly boastful, like I mean, I guess it can be, but just on its face it isn't. And so if you have somebody who is telling you like, oh, you know you're, like you're, oh, you're sure, pleased with yourself, or oh you, you know, you seem pretty proud of yourself about that, or you know, if you kind of, if you get this pushback on like being excited about yourself and your accomplishments, like that's going to push you down, that's going to push you down and make you suppress yourself. And even worse, if you have a family who is directly like oppositional towards the things that you like and the things that you think are cool, like for your, let's say, you're, you know you love the color red and you are talking to your parents about like man, when I'm 16, I'm going to buy a red car and I'm going to look so cool out there, you know. And your parents are like, well, if you buy a red car you're more likely to get pulled over, so that's a bad idea. They're just like raining on your parade. You know what I mean.
Laura:And some people are just like that right. Like some people are critical, some people are really pragmatic and just sort of like say what they think without thinking about how that person is affected, especially when it's kids. So like, if you're getting shut down all the time as a kid, you're going to stop realizing, like you're going to stop believing that your needs and your ideas are good and important and you're going to start really trying to just accommodate the needs of others, to be accepted and acceptable. And so you might stop getting excited about those things or start start tell yourself like, oh yeah, that's right. Like they're right, that's stupid, I should get a white car instead. Like, cause you know, the heat out here is like.
Laura:So now I'm like starting to think about this, like pragmatism, and you know what's logical and you know what's what's really important, and I want those people to love me. I want them to like me. I want them to spend time with me and feed me and buy me clothes that I need, and so I'm going to try to be more like them and I'm going to try to align with the people in my life who are telling me what's good and what's bad and what's okay and what's not, and so if I grew up in an environment like that it's really stifling I'm probably going to grow up ending up to be sort of a people pleaser and I'm not going to have a really strong sense of myself.
Michaela:Sure. And then you start to believe that if I stop pleasing others, then something bad's going to happen, like people are going to leave me, I'm going to be uncared for, unloved, I'm going to be a disappointment, and it could lead to like punishment or negative consequences. People leaving me, people me being alone.
Laura:Well, yeah, nobody will like you, obviously, if you show up as yourself and you don't like think about the needs of others all the time and you don't like suppress yourself and your own needs in order to like accommodate people. Definitely nobody's going to like you, Right. And so I mean I'm obviously joking and being sarcastic on that note, but you know, I think that's the fear. And then the other fear is like that's just bad, that's what bad people do. Bad people are selfish, and selfish people think of themselves. But I think we're misunderstanding and misidentifying the word selfish, because that's not really what that means. Like you can have a well-established, strong sense of yourself. You can have, you know, the sense that your needs matter and that your ideas are important, even if they're bad ideas, like they're still deserving of you know exploration, right, that's not selfish, that's just existing.
Michaela:Okay. So what kind of person are you? If we're like, okay, let's go to dinner, and I'm like, okay, what do you want to go eat? Where do you want to go? Are you going to be the person that's like, oh, I'm good with whatever. Or are you going to be like, I really want Mexican?
Laura:food. Oh my God, that's such a great question. So I use this kind of question with my, with my clients, all the time, actually to determine whether or not they're people pleasing. So this is hilarious. Have we ever done this before? Like, okay, so I'm a little bit of both and it depends on the day. It also depends on my company, right? So if I'm a brand new in a group and this could be, this applies to everybody, right?
Laura:When we think about how do we behave in different situations. Let's say, I'm brand new in a group and I don't know anybody that well, somebody invited me and it's. I'm sort of like I'm not really part of, like a member of this particular club, right, but I'm just tagging along. I might be more amenable, I might be more accommodating If somebody is like, oh, I want to go get sushi, and I'm like, yeah, whatever, I can get sushi. Now, if I'm like allergic or something you know what I mean Like I'm not going to do something that's going to put me in harm's way, but I may be a little bit more on the shy side, that could be a different story. Like, if, you know, my kids and I are like what should we have for dinner or something like that, and I'm like, oh, I really want this. I would maybe say that because they're my family and we're comfortable and everybody can agree or disagree or whatever, and that seems fine for me.
Laura:One of these questions is kind of a test when it comes to like romantic relationships. Right, because when I'm talking about my family, I'm talking about my children, I'm in charge here, so like who cares, right? I get to decide at the end of the day, like where we go to eat. But now, if it's a romantic relationship where there's some risk involved, that's when things get a little tricky and it's like, would I say, like no, I don't like that place, I want to go here. Well, now, yes, because I've been in my relationship for a very long time and you know, we're at that point where that's okay for me. Now on day one, I don't know, right. So we all kind of wrestle with this a little bit and I think I have some people pleasing tendencies in my, in myself. What about you?
Michaela:I probably tend to be more of a people pleaser. I was called the peacemaker as a kid. Like I'm like let's just all get along and I don't know. Some of it is that I don't really. Sometimes it's that I really don't have an opinion, like I don't know what I want which maybe is part of people pleasing and whatever. But yeah, a lot of times, like I want the other person to make the decision, like I'm going to go find something anywhere that I go. It's not that I'm going to make them tell me what to eat, but yeah, I'm probably going to be more on the side of just like go with the flow.
Laura:Okay, Now are you going with the flow because you think that you're a burden if you ask for what you want.
Michaela:Sometimes. Sometimes I don't want to be the one that, like, makes that call because, like, I don't want to like, I want the other person to be happy with where they choose, right. But other times I'm like I really want this thing. So it just depends. I don't know if it's always that I want to make them happy. I think sometimes it's that I really just don't have, I don't care and I just want somebody else to make a decision for once.
Laura:I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a big part of it too. It's like I just don't have the bandwidth like to choose, because I make thousands of choices every single day and they seem really important and this just doesn't. I'm also not a foodie, right? So when we're talking about dinner I'm like whatever. So I suppose it probably depends on what we care about. But as we're doing this little exploration, I am getting like some. I'm noticing like I guess I probably have some stronger people-pleasing tendencies than maybe I realized before this conversation.
Michaela:Yeah, I think you know, one of the other things I think of is, like, do you take the blame for things? Like, do you tend to be like, well, it could be me, I could be in the wrong, like, or even, if you know, it's really not your fault, you know, are you the one that kind of tends to take the blame for things?
Laura:Yeah, that's another good example is being overly accountable. Right, being like this is definitely my fault. I should have known better, I should have done something differently. I, you know, shouldn't have said what I thought, because now these everybody's going to think that I'm the dumbest or, you know, I made this mistake or I shouldn't have whatever right. I think, when we're overly accountable. That's a really good example of people pleasing and it really well describes the survival response of fawning. So we've all heard of fight, flight, freeze, right, those are the top ones, but what we forget about, or what we maybe never learned about, is fawn and then also submit.
Laura:Fawning in this context means to make other people feel comfortable, make other people like you so that they don't hurt you.
Laura:If you're about to be attacked by a lion, you have a handful of choices.
Laura:You can punch it in the face, you can run away, you can freeze and like play dead, or you can be like hey, lion, I see you Like. I'm going to try to make you like me. I'm going to be really friendly. I'm going to maybe pet you Like. I'm going to maybe act submissive and sort of like put my head down, I'm not going to be a threat. I'm going to be this version of myself that potentially could influence you to be less threatening towards me, right? And so I think this fawning behavior is a true survival need when we are kids, in certain situations, like if we're experiencing abuse in the home and our safety literally depends on whether or not our family members are, you know, angry with us or in a good mood or a bad mood or whatever you know we're going to be working really hard to change other people's behavior with our behavior pretty much all the time, and that's what people pleasing is, that's what codependency, and, you know, needing another person to be okay in order for us to be okay.
Michaela:Yeah, that's so interesting. I think that you know it's definitely being talked about more, but I think it's definitely the fawn type and submit. Are not, you know, well talked about, well known, and you know, like you said, it's a safety seeking behavior, so we're not confronted by lions every day. Now, right that we dealt with stuff in childhood that is making us want to seek safety, to comply with the wishes and needs of demands of other people. Um, and we need them to like us, yeah, and so when we become an adult, or I mean even with our friends and things like that, as kids we're going to be drawn to people that maybe exploit this in us. We might be comfortable with people that also, you know, want us to do things for them.
Laura:Well, they're competing personality types that can thrive together and feed off of each other in a really toxic way, like I think about the people pleaser and the narcissist right.
Laura:Like the people like, those are complimentary personality types. Somebody who needs to be admired all the time, somebody who is exerting command and control through this extreme lack of vulnerability, by never being vulnerable, by never showing their feelings and their pain, by always projecting this strength and this sense of like, dominance and this sense of power, and then somebody who is people pleasing to Fawn to get safety, then they're always going to be geared towards that person, they're always going to be feeding that person's need to be admired by and they're influencing that other person's behavior by, you know, feeding into their need for safety, which is that narcissistic behavior. And that can work really well for a while until it doesn't Right, because you're both suppressed. Ultimately, both sides are suppressing themselves Right. Both sides are hiding their true vulnerability and their true feelings. One is doing it by being overly vulnerable and overly accountable and the other is being by absolutely invulnerable and absolutely not accountable.
Michaela:Right. So they're the relationship and their own selves suffer because they stop meeting their own individual needs. They the you know, the, the people pleaser is going to not take care of themselves. They're going to put the other person's need first. So they're not going to eat healthfully, they're not going to exercise, they're not going to do things for themselves because that would be selfish. And I can't be selfish because that would make me not safe. That's right.
Laura:And they're going to both be codependent because they both have that strong need for someone else's connection. Because we don't develop these habits because we feel loved and accepted, do we? We develop these habits because we don't feel loved and we don't feel accepted and we don't feel acceptable, and so we're going to be seeking that out for the rest of our time, that continual enactment of our history of not getting our needs met. That's how we're going to try to continue to get our needs met forever and ever and ever, until we either get therapy and figure out that that's not how we need to get our needs met and that we can meet our own needs, or, you know, we find the perfectly imbalanced match for us that is going to, you know, support what we need, and sometimes that is good enough, because people have different personality types and they match and they do well for a reason.
Laura:Like I can be a healthy person and still have these tendencies right, I'm not overusing them, but they're a part of who I am and so I might be do well with somebody who does have a stronger sense of like interests or like have you know a lot of good. You know strong decision-making and leadership, because, well, nobody wants two people who are like well, I don't know, what do you want to do. I don't know what do you want to do Right.
Michaela:So the difference between disorder is just is the dysfunction right? It's not. It's not necessarily like healthy, but it's not also, on, completely unhealthy because it's not causing problems in your life. You're still able to speak up for yourself, you're still able to ask for what you want, um, in the relationship, so it's not detrimental to you. So those are just traits, but they're not, like you know, causing problems. So what's the difference between co-dependence and then dependence, because I know that these terms get thrown out a lot. Do you have a good like?
Laura:I don't have.
Laura:You know, I'm not going to like Webster's dictionary, the whole thing, but like I, I do think that like dependence is really more of a childish stance, like more of a childish stance, like a lack of capacity, a lack of capability, I think, whereas codependence is really more of that.
Laura:Like I need you to need me, I need to be needed. These like we feed off of each other. We sort of are working together in this unhealthy enmeshed way that makes it so that neither of us are fully whole humans outside of that right. Whereas a dependent person is somebody who is really just, has no sense of themselves from the perspective of I don't have choices, I have to just do what I'm told. I don't have the right to have choices, or I don't have the right to stand up to this particular person, and so we're dependent on certain people throughout our life, like we're dependent on our parents, but that doesn't make us codependent. Codependent is where that relationship is sort of symbiotic, and in a really unhealthy way most of the time, but where neither can be one whole without the other Right.
Michaela:Yes, and the dependent person kind of needs that validation from the person to know that they're doing the right things. Because they can't make those decisions, they can't know that they're doing the right thing on their own.
Laura:And they might not have control. They might not have. So you can become dependent in an abuse relationship, like financially dependent on somebody, where that person doesn't allow you to have access to money or know what you know finances are or whatever that could be. You can sort of have this forced dependency. So, like dependency on its own isn't necessarily a pathology, it's almost just like a status of, if you will like, and then I think of codependency a little bit more as like a lack of awareness of yourself, where you don't really recognize that you exist outside of this relationship, from you know, from an individualistic perspective.
Michaela:Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Think that you know people who have that people pleasing they, personality type they they really don't have a really good self-worth, like they don't have good self-esteem. They don't know who they are fully. They they a lot of times they just live to be, be there for other people yeah, and I think we can define ourselves in the context of our relationship.
Laura:So when I ask people sometimes to describe like things that they like about themselves, a lot of the time, especially in children it'll be like I'm kind to others, I'm thoughtful about others, like from the perspective, not like inquisitive thoughtful. Like thoughtful like I do nice things for people.
Laura:Um so like we were really taught to define ourself in the context of our relationship with others versus I'm inquisitive and I am compassionate, or, you know, I am interested in worldly things, or I'm, you know, I like art, like all of those things are great qualities, right, but the former are these like sort of feature qualities about like how we interact with other people and as the primary like goal, yeah, and we learn that that's what makes us good human beings is by being there for other people and making sure that we're taking care of other people's emotional responses to things.
Laura:Yeah, we're really taking on the emotional status of somebody else, and so if our parents or caregivers are emotionally immature, often they'll require us as children to behave a certain way in order for them to be okay enough, and so any kind of differences or any kind of like discrepancy from that expected behavior can be really dysregulating for the parent. In that case, you're going to end up suppressing yourself to support that other in a really unhealthy way, because a parent's job is really to do the opposite, is to have confident leadership and say oh, it's interesting that difference between you and me. Let's explore what your thoughts are. Let me understand you as a whole person and recognize that differences don't fracture a relationship and disagreement isn't the end of a relationship. I don't know that. We always get that as a child.
Michaela:Yeah, and I think that the hard thing about it is I think sometimes parents aren't doing this on purpose and I think that when the kid is having a disagreement, a difference of opinion, sometimes the hard thing is is that they're very emotional about how they're being, and so the parent feels a lot of helplessness of like I don't know how to have this conversation with you, you're so upset, like I don't know what to do with this, like just calm down, like you know, there's a lot of discomfort with those emotions and so then, even if they would want to explore that, they first need to help the kid get regulated and then they can. They can regulate themselves, then they can regulate the kids so that they can have that conversation, because they think that all of those feelings get in the way of them even being able to think to have that conversation, of, of being able to talk through it with the kid.
Laura:Well, that feels right. I think we are. Generally, when our kids disagree with us, we feel threatened in a lot of ways. We feel threatened from the perspective of especially if it's something that we know is like they're just making a really bad choice. And we know that it's a bad choice because we have insight and we have wisdom that we gained through life experiences, because perhaps we learned that the hard way and we don't want them to have to learn that the hard way, so, like so I think there's a big threat there.
Laura:And then also, like you said, the emotional toll is a lot of times when we're disagreeing with a kid, or especially a teenager, there's like some rudeness happening. There's some people like there's they're being nasty, and so it's like pick your fight. Are you going to fight about their attitude right now, or are you going to fight about the content of, like, what they're saying? It's like there's so many layers to that where it's like you really just don't even know what to do. And so you're, to your point, regulating yourself first, like get your, get yourself together, then get the kid in in line by either saying okay, it's okay to be upset, but it's not okay to talk that way, right. And then we can say I want to explore this with you, but not if we're yelling at each other, cause that's not okay. Right, we can sort of deescalate. I think deescalate is the key here, and when we are, let's say, disciplining our child, we often send incorrect messages. Like well, I wouldn't have to yell at you if you wouldn't act that way, right? So basically, I'm saying your behavior is in control of my behavior and I am excusing my bad behavior by saying, well, your behavior was worse and so I had to be like that in order to, you know, respond to your bad behavior. And so if you didn't have bad behavior, that's like saying, well, you started it. I was just going to say that I could see it in your face, yeah, so that's like saying, well, you started it.
Laura:And so I think, when we have really high emotional you know, tension and all of these things going on, we often say things that we don't really mean or that don't really make sense. But kids are so literal and they learn without very much content, like they learned so much from the context versus the content, right. And so, like they like if we say something in a context where, like, it's negatively emotional like they're, that experience is going to be like really worn into them. And then if we say specifically, well, if you weren't so bad, I wouldn't have had to yell Like, then they're going to take that literally like, well, I'm bad, there's something bad about me. Not my behavior was bad, I am bad. And so now I'm like I've got all these you know messages in this negative context that is making me never want to act that way again, because I never want anybody to be upset with me again, because if someone gets upset with me, it's obviously because I'm bad.
Laura:And so then I sort of have this intolerance of other people being upset and that kind of leads me into like codependency impacting our relationship. I was just, as I'm describing this, I was sort of thinking about this from the perspective of adult relationships, where somebody's like are you okay? Are you okay? You know, like you seem upset. Are you okay? Is everything okay?
Laura:I'm guilty of this as, like a therapist, I'm always wondering if everybody's okay, but when we're being constantly asked if we're okay or like we have to basically be okay for that other person to feel okay, like if I feel upset, if I seem upset, then you know, is that other person going to think that I'm upset about them?
Laura:Like that's where you've got this codependency, like the everybody basically needs to like project this like sense of okay all the time. Otherwise we're just rattled and we're sort of out of control and that's really well. It's obnoxious. Like to the other person right, like if I'm constantly like, is everything okay, are you okay? Like that's that's a lot, like that gets bothering because well, I'm not always okay, right, and so I need to be able to say, well, no, I'm not okay right now and it doesn't have anything to do, like it's not about you, and I need to be able to say that in a way that's not rude. And when this person is so feeding off of my emotion and my emotional state and their fragility is sort of threatening my ability to just experience my emotion, right, so like that's kind of an example of some of that codependency.
Michaela:Yeah, that's. That's. That's a good point. What I started thinking about when you were talking about things was you know how everybody like goes to the doctor and like they never remember what they were going to bring up at the doctor's office. Yes, almost like a little bit of a form of people pleasing, like they, they want to be, they want to appear a certain way, they want to have their stuff together, they want to please the person because they're you know, because they want to be okay, you know they want to be a good patient, yeah, and so then they kind of just like they just sit there and they go, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, I get it, I understand. And then they don't bring up what their needs are, they don't ask for what they need in those situations, because they kind of end up wanting to just please people Be okay, yeah, I think that's a good point.
Laura:We often want to meet other people's expectations and so we suppress ourselves in order to do that, and especially, that's especially harmful when we're in a situation where we're asking somebody for help. We need something from them, we need their advice, we need their information and we need to give them enough information about us in order for them to help meet those needs.
Michaela:So we're sort of getting in our own way of getting our needs met, yeah, but it's like it like goes back to that I don't know how to ask for help thing, because if I ask for help, then that means that I need something from somebody else and that's not okay. That's not safe. I need to like. Asking for help is going against my, like, core belief about myself.
Laura:Yeah, yeah. I think if we are feeling like maybe asking for help is like a weakness, or if asking for help is dangerous because people haven't helped us, that's another over-independence is like a reason why we don't want to ask for help, because we think that help isn't going to come and we're just going to be disappointed. And so we think, well, I have to just do everything on my own.
Michaela:Yeah, so how do we learn to stop people pleasing, stop being dependent on others?
Laura:The answer is boundaries. I think that what we really need to do is recognize that we have certain rights as a person who exists as an independent person. So I made this list recently during a boundary building workshop that I did, and so I'm just going to read a few of them. So one is you have the right to say no.
Laura:You have the right to stand up for yourself. You have the right to stop being friends with someone or stop interacting with someone who's mistreating you. You have the right to tell someone when you're hurt. You have the right to ask for help. You have the right to your opinion. You have the right to feel the way you feel. You have the right to seek justice. You have the right to use your voice. You have the right to not be okay with everything that someone else did, or just, in general, to not be okay. You have the right to be heard and loved, and you have the right to choose what's rest for you. These are rights that you need to know about in order to set boundaries right, because that could mean that someone else doesn't like what you're saying.
Michaela:I think one of the biggest fears in especially like the teen clients that I work with with setting boundaries is I don't have that many friends and if I set boundaries and I lose the friends that I have, I'm really going to be alone and I can't. That's, that's really hard for a teenager in a school setting where friendships is like what gets you through.
Laura:Yeah, I think that's so hard because a teenage brain is required to have social engagement. It is part of the developmental necessity, it's one of four key things that is required for teenage brains. And we have to have friends, we have to have a social system, and if we only have a couple and we haven't built the skills to make new friends, then we're putting we're in a real pickle. Some of the time we're surprised by people when we set a boundary and we realize that we can be okay even if another person is not feeling okay. We earn respect. So, just like the example before of like are you okay, are you okay? That person's going to maybe be exasperated by you, but if you're like, hey, I've got you and I'm still okay even though I can see that you're not okay, that earns respect. Yeah.
Michaela:Well, and I think starting with small things right, like testing the waters, you know, starting with something that's little to see how they respond to it, and then help them. You know, help them know that the relationship is okay. Even when we set that boundary, even when we ask for what we need in a situation, we kind of start slow, we dip our toe in the water and we kind of start to just learn that, hey, that, that I did that and it was successful and I didn't lose the friendship.
Laura:And also we have to be okay with people having different opinions as us. So if we're afraid to set a boundary because someone else doesn't like the same things that we like, or if we're having a hard time expressing ourselves because people don't think that what we think is cool like if I like this one show and everybody else thinks that it's silly you know, I need to be okay with people thinking that what I like is silly on like, on a level. They don't need to be bullying and belittling and demeaning me about it, right, right, but it's also just not that big of a deal if somebody doesn't like the thing you like, sure, so the again disagreement doesn't fragment and fracture relationship, right.
Michaela:Exactly, and in that you can appreciate that they don't like the same thing. But you can also set the boundary. I'm not going to let you talk to me like that. I'm not going to let you be mean to me and bully me about it, like, yeah, we can make jokes, we can laugh, that's one thing. But you can take we'll take things too far. You can set a boundary and say, hey, that was too much.
Laura:Yeah, I like that, like Hmm, that was too much. You know, if I'm with a friend and they say they make a joke or something like that and sometimes jokes can be, you know, mini insults or teasing or whatever and if the teasing goes too far, then we can say like, hmm, nope, that was too much, like that felt. Like, too, that was too deep, that cut too much. You know, and when we say that, most of the time our friends, people who are truly our friends, are going to be like, oh, sorry, okay, yeah, I took it too far, you know. But if they're going to be like, oh, you're just da, da, da, da, da, you know. If they're going to sort like, oh, you're just da-da-da-da-da, if they're going to attack you for feeling hurt, then that's a problem with them, not with you, right?
Michaela:One of the other things that comes up for me is that when we're a people pleaser, we're doing it not because we love them or whatever. It's because we're scared. That's right. So how do we? How do we help ourselves? Not like, how do we get through that fear so that we can set these boundaries?
Laura:One is we have to realize that I can be okay Even if they're not okay. We have to have a connection enough with ourself. I mean, how many times do I say that we have to have a connection with ourself in order to know that we matter and that we deserve to have fulfilling and meaningful connections, authentic connections. And in order to do that, we have to be vulnerable. And fear is not a fact. Yeah, Fear is a feeling, and so if we're afraid, we can do it anyway. So sometimes it's not about not being afraid, it's just about taking the risk. Relationships are not without risk. We have to at some point. It is impossible to be in a relationship with somebody without getting hurt at some point. It's also impossible to be in a relationship with somebody and expect that you never actually hurt them at some point. Sure.
Michaela:Well and I think you know you talking about this it's like these behaviors are done out of fear of losing the person. But that doesn't. You can't a hundred percent know that that stuff is going to make them not leave right, like you can't know the end. You can't control the other person, no matter what you do, and so it doesn't work.
Laura:That's right.
Laura:People are going to be who they are and they're going to be how they are and we want to accept them and them to accept us as we are, because that's true authenticity. Otherwise, we're just pretending and I think what you said about the fear being the reason why we do the people pleasing. I think that's important because, as a person who's in a relationship, both sides don't want that right. So if the person, if your friend, is just appeasing or pleasing you without actually showing their authentic self, like one, I don't want my friends to be so afraid of my like reaction that they don't feel comfortable being themselves. And two, I love my friend and I want them to be authentic, I want them to explore and I want to know who they truly are Right. So, for all reasons of connection, we want to know who they truly are right. So, for all reasons of connection, we want to encourage the people that we love to be their authentic self, and we can do that by regulating our own emotions to be able to tolerate exactly who that self is.
Michaela:Right, but that comes to the other point is that, like these people are, maybe have been in situations where they were forced to put to death their individual self right, that was, they couldn't have an individual self. So they also maybe don't know who they are or what they like or what they don't like.
Laura:Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good point. We have to have a sense of our self-development too. Right, we have our core self. We have our social development. We have our hobbies and our interests and things that we want to learn about. We have our career and our passions, for you know or maybe not passions, but our career how we make money, money. We have our vision for the future. We have goals. We have our family and our values and the way that we support our family and the things that matter to us. So really looking at that whole self, that whole wheel of your life, and putting all those pieces together is a good place to start.
Michaela:Yeah, and that can be hard. It can be really hard, and that was one of the other things that I think about like guilt and shame are going to be a part of this process. Like there's no way about it, because if I don't believe that I'm allowed to be somebody and have the have a sense of self, then I'm going to feel really guilty and shameful when I do, because then I must be bad if I want things for myself.
Laura:Yeah, I think that's a good point, and so a lot of the time doing this self-development in the presence of a therapist can help you work through that guilt and shame. As you're kind of trying to figure it out and you know, if you want to start with the exploration of yourself, like, take a look at those categories right. Take a look at you know your family and what are things that you care about. What are things that are important to you about your family life? What are things that are important to you about your career and things that you're doing to achieve you know those goals and things that you're doing to advance yourself.
Laura:What are some positive attributes that you see in yourself, like positive traits that you like about yourself? Like are you curious, are you you know? Are you sporty, are you artistic, are you focused on different things? Like just think about the things that you that make you up as a whole person. So your hobbies if you don't have a lot, like just write one thing down, right, like maybe it's going for a walk, maybe it's gardening, maybe it's um watching TV, maybe it's um cooking or cleaning or something like that. Like think about just what you do and who you are and kind of put them in those categories, and that's a good place to start.
Michaela:Yeah, and I think that when you have those thoughts of like, hey, this is selfish, I, I shouldn't like this, doesn't feel comfortable. I think it's just telling yourself that maybe that's not true, maybe that's just a thought, and that that maybe that's not true, and in that case, you're agreeing to disagree with yourself, and in that case, you're agreeing to disagree with yourself.
Laura:So good, yeah, I think that's a good place to end things today, and this was a really great conversation. I appreciate all of your insights and advice. I think this was really good.
Michaela:This was so good. I love this topic, thank you for listening to.
Laura:Why Am I Like this? If you like our show, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Follow the show and share it with your friends. This episode was written and produced by me, laura Wood and Michelle LeVever. Our theme song is Making Ends Meet by Thick as Feet, and a special thanks to Beneveri Counseling and Coaching and Active Healing Psychiatric Services for sponsoring our show.
