people pleasers have a rough time with setting boundaries

Where are my people pleasers at? This post is for you.

Boundaries have been coming up as a topic lately in a lot of my client work, as well as in my personal life. And am noticing how much confusion surrounds this topic.

I ended up getting into a discussion with my partner yesterday based on my Instagram post on setting boundaries to protect this new version of myself. In his share, he mentioned (something like) “keeping it at arms length” implying that boundaries can also block out anything good.

Let’s clear this up —

Boundaries are not about trying to control what is outside of us. They focus on our own behavior and what we will or will not tolerate as life keeps life-ing.

In other words, standards.

Standards are challenging for people pleasers.

People pleasers, by default, have learned to be uber-flexible.

So flexible that we’ll ignore red flag behaviors in dating and settle just to have a warm body at night.

So flexible that our friendships might feel lackluster or exhausting because we’re always saying yes.

So flexible that we’ll eat whatever, do whatever, say whatever, go wherever. Whatever you want, I don’t like conflict.

So flexible we’ll settle for, stay in and won’t leave jobs because ‘we love our manager.’

(and yes, ‘we’… because I’ve been there!)

Uber-flexibility is a response to fear and trauma, and the internalization of messages received in childhood that love is conditional. Flexibility gets confused with worthiness, when one has nothing to do with the other. Our worth is inherent. Period.

The more flexible we are, the more manipulative we can be.

Because people pleasing is manipulative. We unconsciously attempt to stay ‘safe’ by attempting to shape someone else’s perception of us, and therefore shape an outcome to our benefit.

If I do X, you will love me.

If I say yes, you will stay connected to me.

Following this thinking, it’s easy to understand why people pleasers often feel fear or guilt when setting a boundary.

If I say no, you will be upset/get angry/disconnect/leave me.

(And when they get upset, it becomes ‘evidence’ for the people pleaser that it was because of the boundary, thus discouraging them from setting boundaries, when in reality, the issue is not the boundary, but that you are so terrified of rejection and abandonment that you lacked standards to begin with.)

It’s this conditional, binary, black-and-white thinking that is a clue your inner child has the keys to your car and is sitting in the drivers seat.

At the root of this is a belief that people pleasers tend to have that they aren’t good enough. And it’s this belief that is ripe for challenging because it’s tied to your outcomes in life.

You aren’t good enough… for what?

…to know what you’re in the mood to eat?

…to watch the movie you want to watch?

…to date a man who knows how to do more than text on a phone?

…to be treated with respect and dignity?

Sounds ridiculous when it’s put like that, but by believing they aren’t good enough, people pleasers have unknowingly set the bar so low for themselves that raising it, claiming what they want or what’s important to them, feels scary. The line of thinking goes like this: If anyone could jump over that bar before, who will do it now that it’s one foot off the ground?

Which is thinking driven by a scarcity mindset vs. abundant one.

Because there are PLENTY of people in this world that would jump over a bar that’s been raised even one foot off the ground — their nervous systems even prefer it.

When we have standards and boundaries, it promotes our own inner security. They protect what is important to us. And the nervous system relaxes.

Whether or not you’re aware of it, our nervous systems are always communicating to each other. You can sense when someone is stressed, it makes your alarms go off, right? Same thing when someone is in a state of safety. When someone is relaxed, centered, and feeling secure, that inner safety can be sensed. It helps others relax and feel safe, too. This is co-regulation.

Want to weigh in on this? What is the hardest part for you about setting boundaries and having standards?