People Pleasing is Just Manipulation

Jennifer Nelson: Hello and welcome to episode four of Logos. I'm your host, Jennifer Nelson. Today I want to talk about people pleasing and how it's just a modern day term for manipulation. Yes, I know. Straight to the bone today. Let's not sugarcoat things. Our ego likes to give Nice little names to make ourselves feel better. But I'm just a people pleaser actually means I'm just a manipulator because I'm trying to make it so that everybody likes me. I'm not sitting here high mighty saying, shame on you for doing this. I'm sharing this because ⁓ I could probably take the award for doing this to such an extreme I unknowingly caused pain and hurt to the people I absolutely love the most in this world. I'm sharing this because I feel it is our responsibility to really know thyself and to really understand why we do the things we do, or why we say the things we say, or why we respond with certain emotional intensities, or why we are triggered by certain things that I feel. Are each of our responsibilities to take accountability for? If there's an emotional reaction or response that is interfering with you living a full and happy and peacefully grounded life, then that is your responsibility to look at. Why did that person saying that to me cause such a visceral reaction within me? This takes, again, radical responsibility for oneself, for one's actions, for one's thoughts. For one's behaviors, for one's conscious and unconscious choices, We begin to understand these patterns or these programs that are in background by observing ourselves, by loving ourselves more, not by being harder ⁓ or meaner or more critical to. ourselves and others, but by taking a witness point of view, taking a witness stance of ourselves, just watching ourselves as an observer without becoming so entangled in, that hurt my feelings, or well, they hurt me, so I'm gonna hurt them back. But to really begin to observe oneself from this witness perspective ⁓ observer's stance, it takes time and it takes practice and it takes a lot of love. and patience, but it's a really good way to start understanding what patterns and programs are unconsciously running in the background of your life. We are all running off of some sort of learned behavior that our brain learns at a very young age in order to thrive. It's a very normal human survival response. So again, there's no one to blame here. There's no one bad or good. There's no like right and wrong. What I'm trying to get at is by taking responsibility for yourself and your life, it's just stopping being a victim of your circumstances or blaming everything and everyone else for your unhappiness or your emotional outbursts. By taking responsibility for yourself and your life in the choices you make. You can stop blaming everything else outside of you for all the shit you're unhappy about. And I know it's really hard work, but it truly is the most meaningful work you'll ever do in your entire life. And it's the only way to emotional freedom, to sovereignty, to peace. And if you are peaceful from the inside out. That is going to begin to be reflected back in your day-to-day life. As above, so below, as within, so without. If you are peaceful from your inside sacred heart, you're going to be vibrating at a frequency that is going to magnetize in and attract in more peace, more love, more cohesiveness. We're all running on a pattern or a program or a condition that we learnt really early in our families of origin. Or in our childhood homes. And this is nobody's fault because everyone's just doing their best with what they were given in life. And it's really hard to identify these behaviors that are actually destructive when it's all you've ever known. So we're more inclined to protect these behaviors or cling on to them because we're wired for safety and survival. And that was how our brain always knew to live and to function. But that doesn't mean it's always the healthiest or the most aligned. Choice for you now, like who you are today in this moment. It might not still be the best option for you. That's the beauty of having free will. You have choice. You get to choose who's running your life, who's running your program, who is driving the bus. The beauty of becoming an adult and having sovereignty is we get to choose whether or not we want to keep consciously or unconsciously repeating patterns and programs that are so hardwired in our body, brain, and psyche. Get curious about why am I responding that way, or why am I choosing that style of communication? It's all about getting curious because if something is no longer in alignment, or if something is no longer bearing beautiful ripe fruit for your life, then you're being asked to get curious about it. You're being asked to witness it and observe it and maybe try to figure out. A new and healthier pattern or program that is more in alignment to who you are today, to your soul, to your heart. If something is no longer in alignment, or if something is actually causing harm in your relationships with the people you love, with your loved ones, then it's worthwhile becoming curious with it, sitting with it, really asking questions about it and understanding what is coming up for me, why is this occurring, why is that my first knee-jerk reaction? And again, doing this in a way that is so kind and so gentle and so loving. Because you're not gonna get anywhere by beating yourself up more. When I was diving deep into healing stored grief in my heart chakra, I came to the realization that I was unconsciously manipulating the people I love the most in my life, which was also harming these relationships. But I was dressing it up in a pretty little bow as ⁓ I'm just a people pleaser. I didn't understand that this was actually me manipulating my surroundings. And I was doing that in order to try and control my surroundings. Now again, I don't share this to take a bigger stick to myself. I share this because I was running off a pattern or a program of safety and survival. I was scanning the terrain for any potential harm or threats to either myself or my loved ones. was constantly looking ⁓ anything that could be harmful and I was trying to control what is actually uncontrollable. Not only was I scanning the terrain for potential harm or threats, I was also scanning it for moments of discomfort or moments of disharmony. Like I didn't want the argument. I didn't want to have to deal with the discomfort of the word I'm looking for, like conflict resolution. I was just avoiding growth. I was I was stuck. I was just in such a state of frozenness that I wasn't living actually fully at all because I was just trying to a false sense of security. So ⁓ As I was scanning the terrain for potential harm or threats, I wasn't really even fully consciously aware that this was what I was doing. My two strongest intuitive or psychic abilities are clairsentience, which means clear feeling, and then claircognizance, which means clear knowing. Clairsentience is an intuitive or psychic ability to sense the emotions. Energy or physical states of people, places, and things without using the standard five senses. It often shows up as a gut feeling, a sudden physical sensation or deep empathy. Claire cognizance is a psychic or intuitive ability where you suddenly know something is true without any logical proof, no prior learning or external evidence. Information or answers simply drop into your mind, fully formed. I have had these senses fully open and turned on since as far back as I can remember, and I was not aware that all other people didn't have these turned on. And I just assumed that this was what everyone else was experiencing too, and that all people were feeling this way. Until I had my spiritual awakening and began the long, slow process of remembering, I began to research and read and study everything there was to know about ⁓ anything and everything. The mysteries, religious, philosophy, occult studies, sciences. And again, y'all, occult just means hidden before you freak the fuck out. came to realize that my two strongest claires are lunar or hidden, which means for the first 39 years of my life while I was asleep, I just thought that everyone else had these same abilities and could feel to the extremes that I was feeling, or that they just knew stuff without knowing how in the hell. Do I know that? These are classified as lunar or hidden. there's other clairs that people have that are more, they're they're considered more solar clairs, I guess. and with these two hidden clairs, you can't really turn them on and off. Like I've had to get really good with my boundaries to ⁓ learn to not just take in everybody's shit. and again, I think that's why I was patterned and programmed to try keep the peace, try to keep the harmony. ⁓ I feel so much at such a visceral level that I was trying to avoid feeling just what I was feeling, but everyone else's feelings in the room. and it was very overwhelming. And I had to find ways in order to thrive in my own little brain. I'm not gonna do a deep dive into the Claire senses, but holler out in the comments if that's something you'd like me to focus on in an upcoming podcast episode. But basically, I want to tie this into that was why I was wired to people please. I'm not blaming myself. I just got so sick and tired of like this pattern my life. ⁓ it was actually not creating a happier, healthier Jennifer. And it was harming my relationships. And at some point I had to take responsibility for this. I couldn't keep blaming everything and everyone else around me. it's the hardest work I've ever done, but it's also the most freeing work I've ever done. And it's finally allowed me to to fully love myself and to fully accept myself and to fully be authentic and not really give a shit about people pleasing or what. other people think of me because I actually know my heart and my truth and I know I'm living from a place of love and deep wanting to help others and and provide love. But you know, we have to love ourselves first before we can love other people truly. it's just step one of the path. So tying this back, It also pointed out boundaries work for me. Like I had no boundaries. I didn't know a boundary if it bit me in the ass. Like I had an erasure of boundaries growing up. Like I didn't know what a boundary was. So was harming, I think, unknowingly, the people that I love by being clingy or jealous or self-sacrificing or people pleasing. And once became aware of this, like once I was sort of Capable of observing these patterns and these programs, then could no longer continue to do it. Like ⁓ it became conscious, once it became known, I had to take responsibility for it. ⁓ And like it's slow, tiny micro movements every day, working on this, ⁓ genuinely more love, more acceptance, more. kindness to this pattern in this program. And it it does change. It does change over time. And it is a practice. you do have to be really loving and forgiving of yourself because you're not going to fix it overnight. So that's not realistic either. ⁓ Because if you're a people pleaser, what you're actually trying to do is you're trying to make everybody like you. And by doing for everybody else whilst harboring so much resentment for them, what manipulation is. ⁓ not being true ⁓ yourself or others. You're not saying no. You're not saying, you know what, I actually don't want to do that today or no that that doesn't work for me or I'm not available. Like whatever your truth ⁓ is, allowed to own it. And if not actually ⁓ owning whatever truth ⁓ is and you're overwriting ⁓ your authentic truth, you're actually then manipulating The other person because you're not showing up as your true self. And then that is where the resentment grows over time and it builds and it builds. And you're basically upset at yourself. That's what happens. You end up being so resentful of yourself for not owning your authenticity or not being true to yourself. And that is what slowly is like soul sucking over time. you're like, why am I angry? Why am I snapping? Why am I this? For me, I was resentful because I wasn't actually owning my boundaries. And work is so important. I they're really closely related. Like ⁓ I've had do a lot of boundaries work through this journey because You, your energy is worth protecting. Your your light, your gift, your grace, it is worth protecting. And again, if you're just giving and giving ⁓ and not setting any healthy boundaries for yourself and your needs and your yeah, like if you're not resting enough or drinking enough water ⁓ or enough time for yourself to walk out in nature or do the yoga class or whatever it is that is your true self-care, self-nourishment, you're just depleting, like you're just pouring to everyone else. And it was slowly killing me. Like it was slowly suffocating me. And I was leaking life force and love ⁓ everywhere everyone outside of me and everything because I was trying To keep the peace or trying to please everyone else. And it catches up. It absolutely catches up. And it can show up in lots of different ways. It can cause burnout. It can cause actual disease in your body. it can cause a mental breakdown. it cause, you know, substance abuse, can find different ways to. Fill the void, fill the hole, because we need love ourselves and our life force or our energy ⁓ worthy protecting and worthy of setting healthy boundaries around. You're not being your true self. You're not saying, no, actually, I don't really want to do that. What you're doing is you're saying, okay, I'll do that to make you happy. And then I'll harbor resentment for that. So ultimately, you're lying. You're lying to yourself, and then you're lying to the other person. So if you genuinely want to do something and it's like a full yes, by all means go. Seek that joy. But if you're catching yourself Figuring out like why do I always want to be liked? Well, it's why do I always want people's approval? Because, like, if you're genuinely doing something to help other people, then that is the most beautiful thing. And there's nothing wrong with that. And that will bear ripe fruit. But what happens with people pleasing, it's not coming from a genuine place of I actually want to help that person. I'm doing this so that they will like me. Or I'm doing this so that I am a part of this group. So the energy behind it is different. The energy behind why you're saying yes to something when you really mean no. Do you get that? The intention and the energy behind the people pleasing is not gonna magnetize in more truth and alignment. It's gonna magnetize in ⁓ pleasing. Does that make sense? So you have to get really clear ⁓ ⁓ where intention behind something is coming f ⁓ from. Look, it's just being mindful of these things. Just start observing yourself and really trying to tune into. What do you really want? Do you really want to go to that lunch? Do you really want to that thing? And you know, everyone all over the place is like, find your joy, chase your joy. And I think for so many people, we don't even know what our joy is because we spend so long keeping everyone else joyful. And I get it, it's a really lonely, hard process back home to yourself to really sit with, God, what even is my joy? How do I like my eggs? Like, don't give up hope. I promise you will find your way back to that and it is worth it. That's all I can say. But you have to want it. It's also interesting because You know, manipulation is actually the extreme end of the feminine energy. So, like we can say anger and aggression is an extreme end of the masculine energy. All of us, no matter what sex you're assigned at birth, we all have masculine and feminine energy that we're working with. And the goal is to try to balance both the healthy divine masculine and the healthy divine feminine energies. But like anger and aggression are the extremes of masculine energy. manipulation is the extreme end of the feminine energy. And You know. we can use manipulation get what we want or to get outcome we want. ⁓ and yeah, that's an uncomfortable one to sit with, but it's important to be honest about it. you know, I'll manipulate to get my own way or manipulate so I can control you. You know, ultimately what you're trying to do is you're trying to control other people's perspectives of you. So I recommend boundaries work if you're finding that people pleasing is something that is running in the background, I did and I'm still working on. ⁓ boundaries work, boundaries work is big, super important. ⁓ if you don't know where to start, I recommend that app, the Shadow Project, and do the 15-day boundaries. Challenge because it'll start giving you some helpful tools to start working with. So yeah, I think that's it for today. I know it was a big one and it was a bit spicy, but I really wanted to share it's not easy to share vulnerabilities, but it's the truth. And if it helps someone, then it's worth it. So sending you all lots of love. Bye.