Letting go of over-giving and people pleasing (Part 1)

As someone who is breaking the cycle of over-giving and people pleasing in my life. In this blog post I’d be sharing some of the things I learnt and wisdom I gained in the process of my healing journey to becoming my authentic self.

For the part 1 of this blog post l, I’d be focusing only on sharing what over-giving and people pleasing is to me in my words and also why you get stuck in the cycle of over-giving or people pleasing.

What is over-giving? In my own words..

Over-giving is an act of giving your energy to others or things in your life more than you give yourself

Over-giving is giving, giving, giving but only receiving little or nothing from others or from yourself. It’s either you are giving your energy to someone and you aren’t receiving enough or you are giving your energy to otherbparts of your life and then neglecting yourself i.e. no balance in the give and take energy, you are giving more than you are recieving.

An example of over-giving in relationships (Romantic or not) is when you are the only one making most effort to make the relationship work and the other parties are making very little or no effort. Another example is when you pay more attention or give more energy to other parts of your life like your job, your business, your kids, family and friends than you give to yourself.

What is people pleasing? In my own words…

People pleasing is pleasing people at the expense of your truth, values and authentic self. Wanting to make everyone happy at the expense of your own joy and happiness or another example is choosing not to shine or grow so you won’t making others feel less.

Why do you find yourself stuck in the cycle of over-giving or people pleasing?

1. To gain love and acceptance from others : This is sign that your inner child is wounded. Our inner wounded child is a part of us that never felt loved and accepted for who she truly is, so she goes to the extent of over-giving and people pleasing so she gets the love, acceptance and wholeness she seeks.
2. To prove your worth : This is a sign that you have the unworthiness wound. Meaning a part of believes you are not worthy enough just as you are, so you try to prove you’re worth of receiving whatever you want or need by over giving or people pleasing. So when you get what you want you see it as a validation that you are worthy and when you don’t ,you feel unworthy.
3. Lack of self trust : We’ve brought up and taught to rely on guidance of others instead of ourselves. We grow up forgetting we are adults and now we can trust ourselves, our intuition/gut and our judgement. So this causes us to make decisions based of others opinions or what others would expect of us to do.
4. Fear of abandonment : We find ourselves people pleasing or over-giving because we fear being abandoned and feeling unloved by the others when we stand in our authentic truth.
5. Guilt: We feel guilt when we try to step of the cycle of over-giving or people pleasing because of that a part of us that believes we don’t deserve to be our authentic selves, our freedom, desires or to choose ourselves first because we’ll offend others. That feeling of guilt then stops us from getting out of that cycle of over-giving or people pleasing.

Read Part 2 to learn how you can let go of over-giving and people pleasing

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