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why do you help everybody but yourself? · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  Picture this. It's 11:00 PM and your friend
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  texts you. They're spiraling and they
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  desperately need somebody to talk to.
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  And even though you have work tomorrow, you're exhausted, even
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  though you've been running on fumes for weeks, you pick up the
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  phone because that's the kind of person that you are.
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  And you stay on the line for two hours, 3 hours, talking them
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  down from where they are. You say all the right things,
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  you help them through it and you are truly there for them.
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  And then you hang up and you sit in the dark and you realize
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  nobody has asked you how you are doing in a very long time.
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  My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
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  Feelings. Today we're going to talk about
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  People Pleasing, but not in the surface level way that you've
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  probably heard before. We're going to go much deeper
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  than that, and we're going to talk about why some of us find
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  it physically easier to care for everyone around us than to
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  extend even a fraction of that same care to ourselves.
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  So if that scenario at the beginning of this episode
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  sounded familiar, then this one is for you.
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  I talk all the time on this podcast about treating yourself
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  the way you would a friend when you're struggling, instead of
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  talking down on yourself, reaching A handout, telling
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  yourself that you are there for you.
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  But so many of us find this so difficult, so impossible.
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  Why and where does this come from?
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  What does it cost us? And most importantly, how do we
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  come back and be there for ourselves?
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  Let's talk about it. First, I want to be clear about
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  what people pleasing actually is because I think it gets
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  dismissed a lot as just like being nice or caring or selfless
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  towards others. And those things aren't bad.
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  In fact, it's amazing to care for others.
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  It's one of the best things that makes us human.
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  But people pleasing isn't all about being being nice.
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  It's the compulsive need to prioritize other people's
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  comfort, needs and emotions, often at the direct expense of
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  your own. The keywords there are
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  compulsive and at the expense of your own emotions.
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  This isn't a choice that you're consciously making every single
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  time. It's a pattern.
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  It's your default, a way of moving through the world that
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  feels so automatic that you've probably never even questioned
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  it. There isn't a choice to make
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  between putting yourself first or putting others first.
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  You always are there. You are the person they can rely
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  on. You are the person that they can
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  lean their head on. You have always been the
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  shoulder to cry on for everyone but yourself.
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  It's just automatic. It's just who you are.
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  And it looks like saying yes when you want to say no.
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  It looks like apologizing when you haven't done anything wrong.
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  It looks like shrinking yourself in a room so other people can
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  take up more space. It's asking, are you OK 50 times
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  a day and never once turning that question on yourself.
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  I want to make it clear, people pleasing is not a character
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  flaw. It's not a weakness.
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  It is not proof that you're a pushover, that you don't respect
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  yourself. It's a strategy and it's one
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  that our brain learned for very good reason over a very long
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  time. And we're going to talk about
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  those reasons because understanding the why is the
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  first step to changing the pattern.
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  So why do some people find it so much easier to give than to
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  receive? Why does caring for others feel
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  natural and effortless, while caring for yourself feel self
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  indulgent, selfish, or even wrong?
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  A big part of the answer is relational.
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  It starts with how we connect with others.
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  For a lot of people, pleasers, love and approval were, at some
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  point in their lives, conditional.
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  Maybe not explicitly. Maybe nobody ever sat you down
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  and said I will only love you if you're useful.
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  But the message was there. It was woven and deeply
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  ingrained into the dynamics of these relationships.
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  You learned that when you helped, you were valued.
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  When you were accommodating, you were praised.
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  When you made yourself small and easy and low maintenance, things
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  went smoothly. And often when you expressed a
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  need, when you took a little bit of space for yourself, something
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  went wrong. It caused friction, or it was
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  completely ignored. So your brain did what brains
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  do. It adapted.
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  It connected your worth to your usefulness.
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  It built your entire identity around being the giver, the
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  helper, the one who holds it all together.
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  And over time, that identity became so ingrained and how you
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  see yourself that the idea of not helping, the idea of putting
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  yourself first, doesn't just feel uncomfortable, it feels
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  like a betrayal of who you are. You are the one who helps.
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  You are the one who keeps it together.
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  You are the one who keeps yourself small and in the
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  corner, who handles your own issues without bothering
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  anybody. Because there's a physiological
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  reason why some people are wired this way.
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  And I think that's also really important to understand.
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  Now, you may have heard of the fight or flight response, the
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  way your nervous system reacts to threat or danger.
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  But there's a third stress response that doesn't get talked
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  about nearly as much. And it's called fawning.
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  It was first named by therapist Pete Walker in his work on
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  complex trauma. Fawning is what happens when
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  fight and flight don't feel safe from the threat is coming from
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  someone you love. A parent, a caregiver partner.
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  You can't fight them, you can't run from them.
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  So your nervous system finds 1/3 option.
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  Appease them, make yourself useful, make them happy,
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  disappear your own needs completely so there is nothing
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  left for them to be upset about. And for some people, this
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  becomes their primary way of navigating not just one
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  relationship, but the world. And the thing about fawning is,
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  it works in the short term. It relieves the threat, it keeps
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  the peace. It earns you the love in the
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  approval and the safety that you're seeking.
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  So your nervous system files it away as the go to solution.
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  And long after the original threat is gone and long after
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  you're an adult with full autonomy and nobody is
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  threatening you, that pattern keeps running.
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  It's on autopilot in every relationship that you have.
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  You're still appeasing people who aren't even there.
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  It's become so ingrained within you.
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  This does not mean that you're doing something wrong.
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  This does not mean that you are a bad person or that you have
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  made a mistake. It means that you adapted to the
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  circumstances and the environment that you were raised
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  in. You were learning how to
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  survive. You were adapting to certain
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  situations. And that doesn't mean that
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  you're wrong. But now I want to talk about
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  what this actually does to you, because I think a lot of people
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  pleasers have gotten so good at minimizing their own experience
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  that they genuinely haven't let themselves think about what the
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  cost could be. The most obvious is exhaustion.
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  Emotional, physical, existential exhaustion.
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  You are running a full time operation for everybody else
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  around you. You are constantly worrying
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  about needs, wants, and other people's emotions, so much so
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  that you don't give yourself the time to feel your own people,
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  please, and quietly erodes your sense of self.
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  When you spend years making yourself into what other people
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  need you to be, when you reshape your opinions, your preferences,
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  your needs to fit the room, you can start to lose track of who
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  you actually are underneath all of that.
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  What do you want? What do you believe?
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  What do you need to feel OK? And for some people, these
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  questions become unanswerable. Not because they don't have a
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  sense of self, not because they don't know themselves, but
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  because they've spent so long ignoring their emotions,
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  ignoring the parts of themselves that feel too loud for others,
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  that they lose themselves, that they lose what they want and
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  what they need. And then there's the resentment.
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  That's a really real part of people pleasing when you're
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  constantly giving away parts of yourself, when you're constantly
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  looking out for other people. They become used to it.
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  That's just who you are. So you drop everything for
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  everyone, and it feels like they hardly even notice anymore.
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  You know? You rarely get a thank you.
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  You hold space for everyone's feelings except your own.
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  And eventually that can turn into resentment.
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  And you might feel guilty about that resentment, like it makes
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  you a bad person, but it doesn't.
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  It makes you a human being whose needs aren't being met.
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  That's not a character flaw. When was the last time that you
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  did something just for you? Not because it would help
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  somebody else. Not because it would make you
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  more useful or more lovable or worthy of taking up space just
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  for you. Because you wanted it.
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  Because you deserved it. Because you matter.
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  The version of you that you give up for everyone around you to
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  keep meeting their needs, their wants, their emotions.
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  That version of you deserves someone, too.
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  That version of you deserves love and care and attention too.
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  And that someone, the first one, the most important one, has to
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  be you. You have to be there for
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  yourself. Give yourself as much care as
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  you would for a friend that is struggling.
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  I personally struggled with this for a very long time.
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  As many of you know, my main job is making music.
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  I make mental health poetry. And when I first started this
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  music, my whole motivation was rooted in other people.
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  I wanted my music to help people.
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  I wanted it to reach someone who was struggling and make make
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  them feel less alone. And that is a genuinely
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  beautiful thing. And I still want that.
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  I still strive for that every single day.
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  But when I first started making music, I got completely lost in
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  that. I released my first album and
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  then my second album. I became so concerned about what
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  everyone else wanted, about what everyone else was feeling about
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  my music, about how it made them feel.
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  I was so concerned and wrapped up in that, that I forgot the
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  reason I started in the first place.
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  I started making music as a way to process emotions, how to
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  figure out the complicated feelings that I was having, and
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  when I became so concerned about everyone else to the point where
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  I was changing my art, I was changing my process.
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  I was changing my feelings in order to appease that.
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  It was no longer about healing, it was no longer about creating
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  a community around mental health.
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  I started to lose my connection to my music in the 1st place.
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  The joy of it, the freedom of it, this creation and expression
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  that so many people and myself found community within it
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  started feeling like obligation. I was giving so much of myself
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  through the art that I had nothing left to put in, and I
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  almost quit. There were several times over
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  this six year career that I've been so blessed to have that I
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  almost stopped making music entirely.
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  And the thing that brought me back, and I mean this simply was
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  making something just for me. I worked very, very hard to get
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  back to that point where I was expressing simply what I needed
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  to say with no consideration of whether it was useful or
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  impactful or relatable. And that small act ended up
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  having the opposite effect, because I wasn't worried about
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  if it was useful, because I wasn't worried about if it was
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  making an impact. It was way more impactful than
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  any of the other projects that I had put out there.
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  It reminded me that I was allowed to be the recipient of
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  my own creativity, that my feelings were worth expressing,
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  even if they were just helping one person.
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  I didn't worry about the big picture as much.
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  And I tell you this because I think a lot of you are doing the
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  same thing that I was doing, just in different areas of your
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  life, giving so completely to everyone around you that you've
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  forgotten that you are also someone worth giving to.
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  So how do we actually change this?
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  And I want to be real with you. This is not a quick fix.
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  I mean, this is a pattern that was built up over years, maybe
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  even decades. It doesn't unravel in a week,
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  but here are some places to start.
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  The first thing is to simply notice.
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  Before you can change a pattern, you have to be able to see it.
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  So start paying attention to when you say yes and what it
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  costs you. Start noticing when you ask
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  everyone in a room how they're doing, but skip yourself.
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  Start catching the moments when you shrink yourself, when you
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  apologize unnecessarily, when you reshape your needs to fit
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  somebody else's comfort. It always sounds cliche saying
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  that you have to start noticing that you have to start paying
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  attention to your mental health. But that is truly where we have
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  to start. You don't have to change
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  anything yet. Just notice the second thing is,
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  is practicing a pause. And when someone asks something
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  of you before you automatically say yes, try inserting just a
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  little gap of silence and just saying something like, let me
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  think about that and get back to you.
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  You know, let me figure out my own schedule, even my own
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  feelings, and figure out whether or not I have the space for
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  that. That pause is where your actual
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  answer lives. It's where you get to check in
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  with yourself before you check in with what other people need.
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  The third thing is doing one thing each day that is just for
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  you. And it doesn't have to be big.
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  It can just be 10 minutes of something you love and going for
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  a walk, listening to a song, making a meal that you really
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  like. These small acts of
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  self-directed care. Or how you begin to rebuild the
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  idea in your head that your own needs matter to.
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  And the fourth thing, the hardest thing, is letting
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  yourself receive. When someone offers you help,
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  try not to deflect it. You know when someone asks you
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  how you're doing, try to tell them something true.
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  You don't have to spill out all of your feelings.
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  You don't have to make some drastic change.
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  Just one thing at a time. When someone expresses care for
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  you, let it in. I know that's uncomfortable.
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  It feels vulnerable in a way that giving never does.
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  But receiving emotional support, being vulnerable is a muscle.
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  And you, you can build it. You're not doing anything wrong
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  by being a people pleaser. You're not doing something
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  incredibly harmful. You're not making a mistake
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  every day. And I don't want you to feel
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  guilty if you've realized that maybe you are caught up in these
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  patterns too. I just want to make you aware of
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  it. So maybe one day at a time, you
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  can start to focus a little bit more on yourself, and maybe
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  you're one of those people that can perfectly balance the two.
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  Maybe you are able to be there for everyone else and you also
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  take the time for yourself, in which case that is a beautiful
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  thing. This episode is not a message
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  telling you to not be there for other people.
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  It's not a message telling you to be selfish.
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  It is a message telling you to be aware, to remember that you
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  are important too. To give yourself the same care
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  that you would give your friends because you have spent so long
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  taking care of everyone else. And it is OK.
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  It is more than OK to let someone take care of you.
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  That's gonna wrap it up for today's episode.
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  Thank you so much for being here.
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  If you enjoy this podcast, one of the best ways to support me
• 15:21
  is by getting some merch. I'll link it in the description
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  below. Also, if you need help feeling
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  your feelings, you should check out my music on all platforms
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  under the name of Ethan Jewel. I almost guarantee it'll make
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  you cry. Thank you so much for being
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  here. Thank you for understanding the
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  importance of sometimes putting yourself 1st.
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  And as always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
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  I'll see you next time.