Why you should not fall into the trap of wanting to please everyone.

Always sacrificing ourselves for others not only doesn't make us more supportive: it enslaves us.

On a day-to-day basis, it is difficult to achieve all the goals we set for ourselves. However, it is even more difficult to make our needs compatible with what others constantly demand of us. In other words, to offer that version of ourselves that others expect from us..

It is clear that being there to support others is positive, but sometimes we internalize this dynamic of pleasing everyone so much that we end up sacrificing a good part of our lives in order to make others feel a little more comfortable. Knowing how to establish a balance between what is given and what is received is more complicated than it seems.

Being there for others does not mean enslaving oneself.

Some time ago I knew a person who, at a certain point in his life, decided to guide his actions through a very clear mission: to please others. guide her actions through a very clear mission: to please others..

This person, whom we will call Tania, did not have strong religious beliefs nor, in conversation, did she appear to see herself as a self-sacrificing defender of the good. She was a very normal and ordinary person, with little tendency to moralize or judge people, and she had her fears and concerns. The only difference between Tania and the majority of the population was that, in practice, she acted as if she owed something to everyone. She lived to please her fellow man, and she couldn't say no to that.

So, week after week, Tania gave dozens of reasons to be appreciated by others because of those efforts, whether minor or moderate, that she made to make the people around her a little happier. In return for this, she missed dozens of opportunities to say no to certain requests and to take time to take care of herself and to spend time taking care of himself, resting or simply doing whatever he felt like doing at the time.

At first, it all seemed very much like a simple transaction; after all, it is said that he who is richest is he who learns to give what he has without feeling the loss. Seeing the happiness and well-being of those we care about also has a positive impact on us. What Tania did not realize, however, is that the dynamics of personal relationships she entered into was not a matter of profit and loss; those sacrifices she was making were not working in her favor.in fact, they enslaved her even more.

Three months after formally resolving to always support others in everything and to help in any way she could, Tania claimed to be very happy. But a few weeks after the above, he suffered his first anxiety crisis. What had happened?

• You might be interested in: "37 ways not to hurt myself (emotionally and psychologically)".

The trap of eternal pleasing others.

During the months in which Tania decided to work hard for her friends and family, she learned a culture of effort to which she had remained oblivious for most of her life. However, in this process there was another learning that permeated her way of thinking even more deeply, albeit in a much more subtle and unconscious way. This learning was the habit of interpreting any personal desire as an excuse for not making an effort for the rest of his life..

But that feeling of guilt that comes out of nowhere, that which makes some people enter into a dynamic of asking for forgiveness for continuing to exist, becomes, curiously enough, something we use to evade the most important responsibility: deciding what to do with our own life. And the fact is that, believe it or not, always meeting the demands of others can become a patch that we put on to avoid having to see our own needs that frighten us. In Tania's case, a failed relationship had left her self-esteem so damaged that she didn't see herself with enough courage. she didn't see herself as having the courage to take herself seriously.. In such a situation, becoming a labor force to polish the finishing touches on other people's lives may seem like a demanding option, but at least it is something simple, something that can be done mechanically.

The worst thing was not that Tania began to judge herself in a crueler way for no apparent reason; the worst thing was that the people around her also "caught" this idea and began to assume that they deserved all the attention and efforts of her friend, her daughter, her sister or her partner, depending on the case.

A small community had formed which, at the same time, demanded to be attended to individually by a woman who could refuse virtually nothing. could refuse practically nothing. Gone was the possibility of doing anything other than constantly giving in. At first it would have been much less difficult for her to break out of this dynamic, but once everyone had internalized the image of Tania as "always helpful", it became a trap that she could only get out of with the help of therapy.

To always please the other is to please no one

Always sacrificing ourselves for others is a double loss. On the one hand, we lose ourselves, because we treat our own body as if it were a machine that must work until it breaks, and on the other hand, we lose the ability to decide whether we want to act and how we want to act; we simply, we are forced to always opt for the option that apparently benefits the other person the most, even if we try to make up for it later.even if we then try to make up the situation by inventing supposed advantages for ourselves.

However, if these people knew what was really going on in our heads, they would prefer that everything went back to the way it was.they would prefer everything to go back to normal. That no one would have decided to bet everything on the card of self-sacrifice.

In the long run, betting everything on the need to satisfy others consists of creating a false image of the expectations that others place on us in order to, through our actions, gradually make those expectations come true.

After all, those who act as if they feel guilty about something may actually be to blame for something and, consequently, we should demand more from them. On the other hand, whoever gets used to always acting like a martyr ends up believing in original sin, something for which he must pay eternally regardless of whether it really happened or not.

Training assertiveness and learning to respect oneself is the only way to avoid blurring the line between acceptable and unacceptable sacrifices. The true sacrifices, the most honest ones, are those that are made with the freedom that comes from being able to say "No".