People pleasers want to take on all of the issues and try to make everything better for everyone. They have a hard time saying no, letting go of the issue, and not taking on everyone else’s problems.
If you are a people pleaser, it’s such a relief to know that an issue another person has isn’t about you. Determining who’s issue is who’s isn’t easy, but it can be done.
Every time you feel a strong negative reaction to something another person has done or said, then that strong emotion is telling you something about yourself. I find that I want to blame, to lecture or preach to the other person because it’s made me so angry. That strong negative reaction is about me.
The other person is mirroring something to you that you don’t see in yourself. This could be selfishness, arrogance, or any number of things rooted in ego. It pays to take a good look inwards and sort out those emotions. It’s never helpful to blame, lecture, or preach at someone.
When the other person is coming at you, blaming, lecturing, or preaching at you… then it is not your issue and it’s not about you. They are projecting their own issue onto you. You don’t need to fix the problem or even be too concerned, the sooner you let it go, the better. As a matter of fact, the less you engage the more they have to grapple with it. They are trying to make their issue yours, it’s not helpful to accept that gift.
The better you can decipher what is yours and what isn’t, the more time you can spend sorting out what matters. Work on your own issues and let other people own theirs.
There comes a time where you have healed your major hot button fuses. At this point you can begin to live your life in peace and you aren’t easily rattled by what other people are doing. If you become rattled you have the skills to figure out what’s causing it.
You will still want to please people, but you won’t need to chase the dysfunction anymore. You just get to make happy people a little happier. It’s a much healthier place to live.