Shedding the people pleaser archetype

For the last 3-5 years, I’ve worked really hard to shed the good girl people pleaser archetype that I found myself in for most of my life. Like many before me, especially women - but this does also apply to men, we grow up with the belief and understanding that our needs come last. I'm not sure where exactly this belief stems from but from what I can tell just by looking at my local community, this archetype of the people pleaser is deeply ingrained in us. It's the energy behind not fully speaking or living our truth, fearing hurting other people's feelings and fearing what others think of us.

I chose to unlearn this archetype, and often time it felt like I took the hard way to do so, and on this journey of being a people pleaser I had family, friends and clients take advantage of me, my time, my kindness, my empathy, my work ethic, my money, my business and everything in between. I’ve tried countless times to set boundaries, even being as crystal clear as possible and bluntly calling it a boundary, but no matter what, I found I was still met with disrespect and conditional love whenever I chose to not be a people pleaser.

Maybe this sounds familiar to you? If it does, keep reading.

It would often, and sometimes still does, play out something like this: I set a boundary on my time or energy and I'm met with a range of emotions and reactions like aggression, lies, anger, frustration, verbal backlash, bitterness, avoidance, silent treatment, being gossiped about behind my back and being called a fraud to my face... and all this is for being honest and truthful instead of “just giving in” as I used to. That is the only thing that changed about me and how I was responding to everyone.

This is the difficult thing about change within a community or collective of people. Everyone takes it personally when you decide to shift frequencies because you’re breaking the mold that they’ve built in their mind about who you are and how you be. In intimate groups of people, we build up an energy or identity about who people are in our life or our circle and as a result, when something changes our subconscious mind perceives it as a threat to the overall health of the community. Something similar happens when you try to change - your mind say "That's not right! You can't do that" and then you revert back to the same conditioning you've had your entire life.

As a result, the ego mind does the one thing it knows very well how to do - react.

What we have to honour and remember is that the reactions of other people are not based on who we are, they are based on who they are. We all only perceive the world through our own lens and, try as hard as we might, we will never be able to see a different perspective than our own. This is why when we make big life changes, people fall away without any effort on our part. Just being in that energy pushes them out. Our role in that is not to take it personally, have compassion for their understanding of life and know that it's ok to break the mold they hold about you in their mind. You are not here to be for everyone forever.

Even me writing this... a friend, client or family member is going to take this personally, but I cannot do anything about that reaction except hold compassionate and loving space for their human experience. So, that is what I do.

I would love to say that it's been easy for me to do that the entire time, but it hasn't. If you've lived in this archetype long enough, you take it very personally when others take your life personally... it's just the way of things at first. I just allowed my emotions to be held just as strongly as I held theirs. I'm allowed to feel the full spectrum that comes with losing people because I choose to change, this too is part of the process.

In the last 5 years, this has made it difficult for me to truly feel that I can cultivate authentic connections with others. Imagine hiding your true self your whole life, feeling very loved and admired, and then you finally stop hiding and you receive the opposite. I have cried many times over how difficult it feels to be authentic.

Here’s what I learned though: in that time I had a choice in every interaction to believe that I wasn’t worthy of respect and love OR know that I am respected and loved whether this person in front of me believes from their perspective that I am or not.

I’m not going to lie, there was probably a dozen times or more that I gave into the belief that I wasn’t worthy, simply because I had not cleared the belief yet that other people loving me + respecting me = self worth (as all people pleasers come to believe).

But I kept going and continued the hard work of knowing I am worthy. Practicing forgiveness for me and them. Loving and respecting myself so fiercely that even in the face of disrespect and conditional love I can still drop into the frequency of my heart and say - “I understand what you’re feeling, and that’s ok” - cause no matter what, I love and respect myself. Even when I feel anything but love or respect around me, I am still loved and respected by my soul and God/source energy.

The practices that truly anchored this in for me were journeying, meditation, forgiveness and earth intuition. These are the same practices I recommend you try if you want to begin shedding this archetype. They are all grounded in deeply knowing and remembering the truth of who you are - which is eternally worthy, loved and respected - no matter what.

I’m always sharing this, but it rings true here:

When you feel that all is lost to you and hope is but an emotion in the shadows of your memories, you can always return to the earth... She will remember for you.

So, I leave that with you.

When you feel unloved, unwanted, disrespected, betrayed, lost or broken... turn to your greatest ally - the earth - to help you remember the truth.

You are fully and completely loved. No matter what.

With love,
Em