Most women are taught to make their existence a pleasant experience for the people around them. We’re raised to believe that it’s our responsibility to make and keep everyone around us happy, to regulate their emotions. And oftentimes, that results in a sacrifice of our desires and self-respect – we grow up to become serial people pleasers.
So, like most women, I was conditioned to do the same. I was taught to be extremely cautious of the emotional climate around me. Both in indirect and direct ways, I was taught to hold my tongue and never say anything offensive, to never frighten a man’s ego and to keep opinions to myself in the presence of authority.
Until one fine day, it struck me, I had ended up with very few boundaries and my social battery was dead, in fact, it was running in deficit (oh yeah, it’s possible alright). It took me a long time to learn to say ‘No,’ and to speak my mind.
And after all these years of working on myself, when I came across this Twitter thread by Dr. Nicole LePera, I realized why and how people pleasing is such a harmful thing to condition women into doing.
The psychologist and podcaster has broken it all down in several tweets. She’s talked about how people pleasing causes a disconnect from our gut instinct and how that leads women into abusive and toxic relationships and situations.
In a world that likes to belittle intuition as a way to gaslight women, Dr. Nicole LePera has bravely said that it’s imperative to listen to that inner guidance, to listen to what your body, mind and soul are telling you. Because that’ll keep you safe and out of harm’s way.
In this next tweet, she’s telling us that if we speak up because our intuition or gut instinct is nudging us to do so, we can create a safer environment for our self.
And here’s how others have responded to this incredibly accurate thread;
Drop the people pleasing, and speak up for yourself, please.