I read an article today that woke me up to a very stark reality…I’m am a recovering people pleaser. Sure, I knew that I like to make others happy or comfortable, but the wake up call was when I started assuaging others to my own detriment. Nodding along with the co-worker taking credit for something she had no hand in, pretending that the joke thinly disguised as a insult was no big deal…There have been more times than I would like to remember where I held back because I didn’t want to make someone feel bad or because I was too embarrassed to say something. My family would undoubtedly find it hard to believe, but in my outside relationships (platonic and otherwise), I was selling myself way too short. Crazy to say this now, considering that I’m in my 30s, but I had no clue how to speak up for myself and still be a good Christian. I was stuck in scripture that taught me to turn the other cheek, that celebrated self-control and doing onto others as you would have them do onto you, but at what cost? My self-esteem? I am much better than I was, but I am haunted by ghosts of years’ past, the things I should have said and done; I find myself reliving moments like if I was in a time machine, maybe I can go back and do things ‘right’. But these ghosts are dead, only occasionally revived by by twisted need to torture myself. And for what? People-pleasing doesn’t please me; it doesn’t please God; it doesn’t even please the people I’m trying to please…so now what?
USELESSLYRANDOM 