Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Denial of People Pleasing
Have you ever caught yourself saying yes when every fiber of your being screamed no? It's a trap many of us fall into, prioritizing the happiness of others at the expense of our own.
The reason our people pleasing traits remain hidden from us, is because we mask them as good qualities.
What are these qualities?
In this podcast we identify 10 such positive personality traits that sound really honorable on the surface but are actually harming you if they are covering up your people pleasing tendencies. These are the signals that indicate when you are overshooting the mark of generosity, leading to your own needs being undervalued.
Empowerment takes center stage as we explore the unique journey of the Muslim woman in reclaiming her sense of self. Today, we're not just peering into the psychology of people-pleasing; we're also offering a lifeline to those ready to make a change. Tune in as we talk about the importance of choice, the strength found in embracing change, and how to serve others without losing ourselves.
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Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognizably successful. Now your host, dr Kamal Atar. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you. If this podcast publishes when I'm predicting it will, then, inshallah, you've had a great month of Ramadan and you've enjoyed your Eid. May Allah protect everyone in this ummah. May Allah accept all of your acts of ibadah and worship. May this ummah see a time of peace and prosperity, ameen.
Speaker 1:So what I want to talk to you about today has to do with the topic of people pleasing, and I've recorded multiple previous podcasts on this. But I've been approaching people pleasing with a different angle in my coaching and it's been very effective. So I thought that you guys will benefit, so I decided to share. People pleasing is a behavior that is based on fawning response. This is very prevalent in women with a history of trauma and it works towards our survival because if you keep people around you happy, then there's a less chance of them harming you. But this protective response takes a heavy toll on the psyche because this adaptation requires a high level of self-sacrifice. It involves a relentless effort to achieve what is essentially impossible. You creating happiness of others. Other people's happiness is not your responsibility. It's theirs.
Speaker 1:A lot of times during your healing process, you might recognize your people-pleasing tendencies and you find it easy to acknowledge. You seek out resources to overcome and heal from them. But in many cases, these tendencies are very cleverly masked, taking on an appearance of a positive trait. So, as a result of you thinking you're doing something good, not only you're unlikely to want to shed these traits, but you may also find yourself valuing them highly regarding these qualities in yourself, even when these people-pleasing tendencies are causing you significant distress in your life. So in this podcast episode, I'm going to tell you all of these camouflages that effectively hide the real essence of people-pleasing, which leads many of you into an outright denial about these patterns. And, as always, this isn't about placing blame, as many of us, myself included, are unknowingly assigning creative labels and identities to cover up our people-pleasing behaviors, misinterpreting them as strengths. And, as you might imagine, it's not easy to spot an issue when it's dressed up as something admirable. So if any of it that I'm about to share with you is coming to your awareness for the first time, don't blame yourself. It is completely natural. So the most crucial point here is, despite of their deceptive appearance, these behaviors hinder the development of assertiveness and self-respect, and without these key qualities, living a balanced and empowered life will be elusive. So what we're doing here is trying to identify our people-pleasing tendencies that are masquerading as positive traits, so we can assert ourselves better and engage in more self-respect and self-love. As a result, we create more respect for the world and people around us.
Speaker 1:So I've discovered about 10 such camouflages or cover-ups, and I will list them out and I will explain each of them 1. Rationalization of over-commitment. 2. Attributing stress to factors other than the people who are directly involved. 3. Believing that you're just being kind. 4. Dismissing and suppressing your feelings of resentment. 5. Priding yourself in being the go-to person. 6. Denying the desire of approval. 7. Underplaying your sacrifices. 8. Confusing self-worth with other people's happiness. 9. Insisting that you're in control. 10. Claiming that being nice is a part of your personality. So I'm going to describe each of them and I might shuffle them around, and there might not be 10 of them in the description, but you're going to get a lot out of this podcast. To pay attention.
Speaker 1:These behaviors that I'm going to talk about are the invisibility cloak on your people-pleasing, making it difficult to recognize and further fueling your denial. If people-pleasing remains unaddressed, it will continue to inflict micro-trauma, not only on yourself but potentially on the future generations that you might be responsible for. Because denying your tendency of people pleasing is even more harmful than the behavior itself. Because this lack of self-awareness prevents you from identifying, addressing, healing or correcting from the behavior at all. This leads to a continuous drain on your emotional and mental well-being and ultimately, this is what's obstructing your path to developing a genuine self-confidence and healthy interpersonal relationships. Because, in my opinion, what remains hidden cannot be fixed. So let's start with proper diagnoses, shall we so?
Speaker 1:Number one was rationalizing overcommitment. Even when your schedule is overflowing, you're convinced that you're just doing it to be helpful and you're the reliable person. You're not recognizing that you're overextending yourself to please others. This is a rationalization of overcommitment and overworking. You might be thinking things like I'm just a hard worker, I get things done, I'm reliable. If you're already swamped with projects at work and if your boss asks you to take on one more task, this additional project, because so-and-so can't work late, if you have a tendency to say yes because you're too uncomfortable to say no, then you rationalize it by saying that I'm a team player. I contribute a lot to say yes because you're too uncomfortable to say no. Then you rationalize it by saying that I'm a team player. I contribute a lot to this. I have a lot to prove. This is you rationalizing your overcommitment.
Speaker 1:In the meanwhile, the home situation is that you're exhausted, irritable and you call it normal work stress. And you rationalize all of this as, of course, it's stressful. You have a very stressful and demanding job. You just have to understand here that it might be less stressful if you just say no to extra work, if you decide not to bring work home, if you create clear work-life balance. All of this is a direct result of your inability to decline additional work because you don't want to disappoint the boss or you don't want her to be uncomfortable with your refusal.
Speaker 1:The next one is you attributing your stress to everything else but your people-pleasing tendencies. Meaning you acknowledge that you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed, but you say it's because of the busy season at work. You say that it's because of the flu season and everyone else being sick. While all of that might be true, you still have the option of not overworking yourself If you're in denial of your people-pleasing. If you're unable to say no to additional requests and commitments, then you'll inevitably be piling up more work for yourself. If you find yourself working late hours, volunteering for tasks that nobody else wanted, and you take pride in being available for the family and friends, no matter how short of a notice, your perpetual tiredness is not because people are requesting all of these things from you. It's because you haven't learned how to say no with respect.
Speaker 1:The next cover-up for people pleasing is believing that you're just being kind. You view your constant agreement and acquiescence as simply being kind, while failing to see how you might be compromising your own needs and desires in the process. And then you might be falsely believing that this is your way of showing kindness to the world taking up responsibility for baking cupcakes for the PTA bake sale on top of the weekend project that you agreed to do for your sister, and you agreed to watch the neighbor's kid at last minute because you want to be kind. I'm not sure how much of kindness will be left in you once that weekend is over. I mean when you feel run down with an avalanche of tasks and responsibilities after a busy weekend and you have to get ready for Monday work. Kindness might not be your most dominant emotion in that moment. I know you might be thinking that I said yes to all of these things because I want to be kind to other people, but their perception of your kindness is completely independent of your efforts. Perception of your kindness depends only on their thoughts about you. You could be bending over backwards for anyone around you and they can still think that you're not kind enough. So be very careful.
Speaker 1:If you're overextending yourself in an unceasing quest of kindness towards others, this might just be your cover-up to people-pleasing. You can totally value being kind towards others and still preserve your own mental and physical wellness. In the Quran, surah Baqarah, chapter 2, ayah 195, it says and do not throw yourselves and your own hands into destruction by refraining, and do good. Indeed, allah loves the doers of good. So of course it's preferred to be kind. It is an amazing value to have. I myself pride myself on being kind to others and work very hard to keep that my priority. But nowhere in Islam does it say that you have to resort to self-harm just to maintain kindness, because people-pleasing is a significant form of self-harm. If kindness has crossed over to self-harm, then the interpersonal relationships are no longer a source of comfort to you, and when that happens, your kindness is harming you, and that is not what Islam teaches.
Speaker 1:The next cover-up and I believe we are on number four that has to do with dismissing feelings of resentment. If you feel resentment or frustration when you think about others who are constantly asking you for more, but you're in close relationships with them, then you have a tendency to disregard and ignore this resentment because you don't want to carry ill feelings towards others and again, this is an amazing value to carry. But that does not mean that you disregard your resentment altogether. This feeling tells you that you have overstepped your personal boundaries in an effort to make others happy. Take the lesson that resentment teaches you, and then you don't have to continually engage in it, because once you acknowledge your resentment, it becomes easier to let go of thoughts that create anger and judgment towards others. And you'll notice that it's difficult for you to create closeness in your relationships because of this simmering sense of resentment and irritation towards family, friends, colleagues. Your resentment is not from the demands they're placing on you. It's from your inability to hear your own capacity. It's from your own inability to listen to your body and mind's demands, you will have the tendency to dismiss this feeling of discontentment. You will have the tendency to classify it as trivial or unjustified, because at some level you're thinking if you don't classify this judgment and resentment as trivial, then you'll have to confront others for their behaviors, which absolutely is not the case. I mean, you can do that, but you'll have to work yourself up to that level of confidence. In the meanwhile, all that needs to happen is your acknowledgement of this resentment and working towards curbing your people-pleasing tendencies.
Speaker 1:The fifth cover-up is priding yourself in being indispensable, always available, the go-to problem solver for everyone. Interpreting this as a sign of your capability and reliability acts as a camouflage to your people-pleasing, because what this is doing is blocking you from realizing that you're overdoing it. In this case, you might be driving a significant sense of your self-worth by identifying as being indispensable and reliable. You might even boast about your ability to handle multiple tasks at one time and being there for everyone, and your brain will constantly interpret this evidence as your strength and character. But if this overlooks your mental and physical health and your other priorities, then it is harmful for you to insist on viewing this as a positive trait. Again, you can pride yourself as being available and the problem solver for your family, friends, community. But when it reaches and encroaches into your personal space and starts to take time away from the other activities that you also value, then it's absolutely acting as a cover-up for people-pleasing, alright. So the next one is extremely subtle, but it is very powerful, and this is denying the desire of approval.
Speaker 1:Most women come to me for coaching, starting their sentences by saying I'm not looking for anyone's approval, I don't care what anyone else thinks of me. But there's always a but, and anything that follows after that sentence has to do with people-pleasing. So let me tell you that caring what other people think about us is an extremely ingrained thought. It is a primal, subconscious, absolutely essential part of our survival mechanism. That's ingrained deeply in all of our brains. So there's no point running away from it. There's no point pretending that it doesn't exist. So what I'm inviting you to do here is just be curious about why you're doing what you're doing, because there's a high possibility that somehow, somewhere, your brain is telling you that the person you're doing this for will find out, and then you'll have a chance at their approval. You can do something for others from your own genuine willingness to do it. And I'm not going to say much more about this one, because this requires for you to have a genuine curiosity about your intentions. Ask yourself open-ended questions how is it possible that I'm doing this for the other person's happiness? And just remind yourself, their happiness is not your responsibility. You might want to choose to do what you're doing regardless of how the other person perceives it.
Speaker 1:The seventh one is underplaying your sacrifices, because you will have a tendency to downplay the importance of your own free time and hobbies, believing that putting others first is what you should be prioritizing. This is a very subtle neglect of your own priorities and it is very harmful to your long-term relationship with yourself, because then you're conditioning yourself to thinking that what you need and want does not matter, what you think is not important and what you value only comes after what other people want from you. If you're engaging in a cover-up like this, then you will be consistently putting aside your interests and hobbies to cater to the needs and demands of others. You'll cancel your own plans and then consider that sacrifice trivial or even necessary. In the meanwhile, you'll have a lingering sense of loss or missing out on activities that you otherwise love, but your conscious mind will continue to work on convincing you that it's normal to always put others first.
Speaker 1:So, to be able to cure from this cover-up, you just have to understand that the repeated sacrifice might be a pattern of people-pleasing behavior and there's no compulsion for you to view them as a part of your never-ending duties and responsibilities. So, for example, let's just say you want to prioritize communal prayer because you have a sense of unity and you perform much better in your prayers, with body doubling, which is a phenomena that helps people perform at tasks, knowing that other people are also concentrating on a task. So if this level of participation in a gathering helps you elevate your prayers, but you're constantly asked to stay behind because now you have a new baby and what will the masjid aunties think if the baby cries in the middle of the prayer Then call out this level of self-sacrifice for what it is. You are prioritizing other people's comfort over your own desire of praying in jama'at and congregation. At least call it out. You don't have to undermine your sacrifice, because that way you will only be harming yourself, which in turn spills over to being harmful in relationship with others. Be harming yourself, which in turn spills over to being harmful in relationship with others.
Speaker 1:Or another idea is that you can choose to go to the mosque and stay in the kids section, or have a dialogue with the aunties that have a problem with screaming children at the masjid. I mean, you should see me having these dialogues. It's definitely a sight to see. Or the opposite could be true for you. Maybe you come into a family after the marriage that prioritized going to the mosque and they like praying in congregation, while you've always been used to praying alone.
Speaker 1:If you're making that level of sacrifice, then at least just admit to yourself that you're doing it. You don't always have to sugarcoat it, because if you're always hiding from it and time comes that you actually want to change it, then you'll have no way left to recognize this behavior, because you've buried it so far deep in your subconscious that you don't even know you're doing it and it exists. You don't even recognize that you're sacrificing anymore. I mean, if you're going to sacrifice, then acknowledge it and ask for blessings in return. Insha'allah, allah SWT accepts all of your sacrifices and gives you uncountable blessings and hasanats in return. Don't just engage in self-sacrifice, because that is the acceptable culture. You can do it by choice. That gives you more authority and empowerment over your own life.
Speaker 1:The next one is confusing self-worth with other people's happiness, and this is a very common one, because nobody ever taught us that our feelings come from our thoughts and other people's feelings come from their thoughts. So we grow up wasting a massive amount of time and energy trying to make other people happy when we have no control over their feelings, and on top of that, we associate our worthiness to their level of happiness. Again a very gentle but strong reminder that your worthiness as a human being is always a hundred percent and it is always intact. That's how Allah created every soul. So if you are a woman who rests her sense of self-worth on how many of other people's expectations you can meet, then you will go to great lengths to people please, and this will come at the cost of your own well-being.
Speaker 1:The cure here lies with untethering the grip that meeting expectations has on your value. These two are completely independent variables with no connection and relationship with each other whatsoever. Your value is completely independent of meeting other people's expectations. Independent variables with no connection and relationship with each other whatsoever. Your value is completely independent of meeting other people's expectations. Memorize it, and I have done a whole podcast on this before. In regards to value and worth, allah will value you more if you choose to serve other people compared to if you're a person who chooses to ignore other people's rights over you. So you can choose to serve, but that does not add to your inherent worth. You cannot rely solely on meeting other people's expectations, because that's always a moving target. What you need to rely on is your capacity to serve others, with your own internal gauge of how much and how little you can do. If someone's demanding a service from you that exceeds your current ability and they're manipulating religious beliefs as a form of coercion, where they enforce the belief that you have to do it and you have no other choice, this constitutes a spiritual abuse.
Speaker 1:The next one, number nine, is claiming that it's just a part of your personality. You can't do anything about it. That's just how you've always been. You've always been accommodating, you've always been agreeable. Rather than admitting that learning to change these behaviors patterns is hard work, in this case, you just want to start by knowing that people-pleasing is a learned behavior. It is a coping mechanism and, just like that, it can be unlearned if you put a little bit of effort into it. It is not defined by your genes. It is not intrinsically programmed into you at birth. If you over-identify as somebody who is naturally accommodating and non-confrontational and you get along with anybody, there's a very large possibility that you're doing it to cover up your people-pleasing tendencies.
Speaker 1:Learning the courage to balance between assertiveness, maintaining your own rights as well as complying with a request is a life skill. It's fine if you don't want to learn it. It's fine if you find it too hard to learn it, which it's actually not. I will even accept that you haven't found the correct resources to unlearn it, even though you have this podcast right in front of you. But what I will not accept is that it's just how you are like. You're describing a fact to me. While there are some genetic basis to personality traits, people pleasing to the extent of self-harm is a learned behavior and you can unlearn it. So with that, I will invite you to come to coaching in the Empowered Muslim Woman program, because that's where all of this magic happens.
Speaker 1:So the next one is the last one, and this is more of a treatment rather than a cover-up, and that is insisting that you don't have control and autonomy over your choice. If you're making decisions that are a direct result of avoiding conflict and avoiding trying to make other people uncomfortable, maybe you're choosing that. Maybe you're choosing people-pleasing to keep yourself safe because you don't want to start a conflict, and this is a very good survival mechanism. I've had to rely on that multiple times and nobody here is shaming that tactic Again. Allah SWT created everything with a purpose and the purpose of this survival mechanism is to ensure safety when you can't use power or strength to subdue the offender. This totally works at your advantage. But don't insist that you don't have a choice Because you don't have the resources to survive, that If you're making decisions and choices that are the least controversial and will avoid conflict, then just allow yourself to make that choice. Give yourself that space. I'm not taking that decision-making capacity from you, and many times that will be the right choice to make.
Speaker 1:You don't always have to exercise uniqueness. You don't have to stand out, especially if you're trying to avoid attention for safety. You can make a conscious choice of putting other people's requests before yours because you have a fear of upsetting them and you have a fear of physical, emotional or spiritual harm. That is a completely acceptable safety mechanism, but just acknowledge that to yourself, because that comes from such a more empowered place than never learning that you have a choice in the matter. You don't want to be making this choice because of your fear of not living up to cultural expectations and you don't want to be that woman who sticks out like a sore thumb when everyone expects a Muslim woman to be self-sacrificing. If you're people pleasing for your own safety, which you are the judge of, then make peace with it, but choose it consciously From that place. You can choose to change it because that gives you strength. You can identify people, areas that are harming you and you can learn to lean in to change where it's helping you and going to help you grow strength.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that about wraps up my topic for today, and I think I know I've given you guys a lot of information and if something clicks, please come back and listen to it again, because this podcast will have a different impact on you when you're learning it for the first time compared to if you're learning it for the next time to create change for yourself.
Speaker 1:So come back to it as many times as you need and, inshallah, you will start to see a difference in your otherwise hidden people-pleasing tendencies. With that, I pray to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, the most merciful and compassionate. O Allah, help us find the balance between kindness to others and care for ourselves. Help us prioritize our deen over our base desires. Ya Allah, give us the strength to set boundaries and protect time, energy and my heart, while I remain compassionate and considerate to those around me. O Allah, allow me this path so I can use my resources to serve without burnout. Pray in my worship with the most sincere intention, o Allah, help us all heal from our traumas, replace our people-pleasing behavior with trust in your plan and respect for our own worth. Ameen, ya Rabbul Alameen, please keep me in your du'as. I will talk to you guys next time.