Heresy to the People Pleasers

Just because you can't kill them, doesn't mean you have to make them happy

Some of us have made a career out of putting ourselves last.

I'm one of them.

The urge to make other people happy at our own expense can be a powerful one. It feels so good to see delight and joy in their faces, it gives us the warm fuzzies, and often it makes us feel useful, important, valuable, and wanted. Like, how good is that?! As an emotional/hormonal cocktail, that's pretty powerful stuff.

It's only an issue when we give up too much of our own energy, needs, desires, or peace of mind, in order to make things a little nicer for others. Compromise is healthy; martyrdom is not.

This time of year can be a big energy drain for those of us whose self-appointed job is to ensure the joy of the important people in our lives. Because it's the holidays, and the expectations are so high.

Even if our loved ones don't expect an insane candy-cane-colored wonderland of joy, presents, and Santa magic. We can still sometimes really want to give it to them, because there's this insane set of standards and expectations that Big Christmas (TM) has been selling us for decades about the Sanctity of the Christmas Spirit.

It can be easy to feel like a normal holiday is boring or failing, when judged on that kind of scale. Which is bonkers.

And you know what else is crazy? People are the same this time of year as any other time. They're just as annoying, just as oblivious or selfish or flawed as ever. They're the same people we fell in love with and/or still annoy us and/or we love but they also still annoy us. Now they're just wearing an ugly sweater.

Which just puts more pressure on us to overcome their grinch-ness, right? Ugh. It is exhausting to be the self-appointed peacekeeper, bright ray of sunshine, or provider of joy and Christmas miracles.

You don't have to be so tired out though. (Don't look at me like that, I'm serious.)

You don't have to be so tired.

You just need to protect your energy.

Protecting your energy is about staying in your lane, shielding yourself from other's attempts at sucking your energy down, and noticing when you're about to react to someone's behavior or words by giving when it doesn't serve you.

It's a simple set of techniques that build your mindfulness of how you are giving your energy away to other people, so you can stop doing it or bring it down to a manageable level. Simple.

And voila! More energy stays with you, so you don't feel drained.