Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.
Robin Sharma
I am terrible at asking for what I need. True story.
Some people call this imposter syndrome or over functioning or scarcity. I like to call it the mid life culmination of living as an empathic kid / teen / adult. And I really, really want everyone I meet to like me.
My emotions are big and I learned over time that I could control other people’s responses to them by just doing everything myself – and never really sharing how I felt.
And eventually what happens with my stuffing emotions and pretending I’m fine. That’s fine. Everything is fine is that I reach a point where I either break down crying OR lash out with extreme force. It also means when I do react, I catch EVERYONE off guard and they don’t quite know what to do with me. In my minds eye it is akin to an unexpected volcanic explosion or a dragon suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
Cue running and screaming.
That is just about as fun as it sounds.
Over the past few years, I have had to start looking at this defense mechanism between the eyes in order to keep moving forward. To keep creating the life I want because this behavior no longer serves me.
A previous professional role was not a good fit for me in about 1 million ways, but over the course of the year and a half I worked there, I kept putting on a good face.
Working harder.
Trying to please.
Doing everything I could to be perfect.
My boss often yelled in meetings, swore at people, and blatantly lied about everything from what we could reasonably deliver to customer interactions. He spoke poorly of anyone who had left the organization before and was known to sue people for anything he considered a transgression in the workplace. For some, it wasn’t a dealbreaker. For me, it was soul destroying.
When I resigned I shocked him to the point that he asked me to leave that very day with no additional compensation or health coverage. He told the rest of the team that I had blindsided him and left without warning. I spent the next week in a state of tears and disbelief.
It took me 6 months to tease through what had happened and to realize I was repeating the very same pattern at my next job.
Over compensating.
Not speaking up.
Stewing in anger.
So I decided to try a new approach.
I started to tell the truth. Not harshly or with malice.
Not with the intention of being “right”, but simply with the intention of owning my thoughts and opionions.
And the weirdest thing happened.
Work wasn’t as hard. I was happier. And I no longer felt like crawling out of my skin on a daily basis.
Am I 100% cured of my people pleasing? Nope. I am somewhere between the messy middle and the gorgeous end. When I am depleted or overwhelmed I find myself repeating those behaviors. But with much less frequency. And the volcano explosions are more like puffs of smoke than village destroying rivers of lava.