¿Por qué pedimos por favor?

Trying to please everyone is a sure way to lose energy and feel drained quickly. It can be exhausting trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations often at the expense of our own.

Helping others isn’t necessarily an issue, in or of itself. It means we’re empático y nos ayuda a mantenernos socialmente conectados. Sin embargo, una necesidad constante de agradar a los demás puede ser síntoma de una dolencia emocional más profunda. Sentir la necesidad de cumplir las expectativas de los demás para sentirnos dignos puede ser señal de una cuestión no resuelta en nuestro interior.

Es importante comprender que nunca podremos llenar un vacío interior comprando cosas materiales. No podemos llenar este vacío comprando formas de vernos bien por fuera. La única manera de sentir verdadera felicidad es llenando nuestra copa interior con amor, apoyo y aceptación.

De la misma manera, no podemos complacer a la gente en nuestro camino hacia la felicidad. Es otra forma de intentar llenar el vaso externamente en lugar de internamente. If we continually concentrate on what everyone else wants from us, we lose our sense of what we want – and need. Cuando reprimimos esta voz interna el tiempo suficiente, nos agotamos por completo.

El problema de agradar a la gente podría estar arraigado en alguna parte interna, o podría ser una signo de una relación tóxica with an individual who is an energy taker. Often, emotional abusers zap our energy by taking all of the “good stuff” and replacing it with projected feelings of incompleteness they would otherwise carry with them.

If you are always giving everything you have to a partnership and, yet, feel it’s not enough or you’re actually being told it’s not enough, this is a problem. If you are in a partnership in which you are constantly giving, and your partner doesn’t seem to appreciate your efforts, something is wrong.

By the same token, if you are constantly giving yourself to someone or to a certain situation without being asked to do so and the recipient is telling you enough is enough, you will need to take a long hard look at yourself to figure out why you have an inherent need for self-sacrifice. We may do this for some time before enough energy is zapped from us that we begin to realize it can’t continue. At this point, we have to try to figure out why we’re constantly giving and how we can change this behavior.

A veces, la causa es un traumatismo precoz. Todos llevamos el peso de nuestro pasado al presente, lo elijamos o no. If the past was unpleasant and we felt we were in a situation in which we couldn’t save ourselves or another person, this weight may have caused us to be burdened with a continual desire to help. It may have ingrained in us a need to come to the rescue.

A need to please can be a result of the way we were raised as well. Maybe we’re mirroring behaviors we watched when we were younger. We tend to emulate the actions of those who raised us if the experience was positive. We want to give back, and this is healthy as long as it doesn’t get to a point where we’re giving far too much.

Balance is key. Knowing when to cut back a bit and concentrate our energy internally is important. We have to understand when we’re too readily depleting the positive, so we can pause for a refill.

There are numerous signs to look out for that could indicate we’re giving too much of ourselves. You may feel overburdened with responsibilities and feel you have to accomplish things that others could easily have taken off your shoulders. You may find yourself unable to say ‘no’ even when your plate is far too full. You may find yourself absorbing the traits of others even if they are counterintuitive to how you self-identify and who you are.

Si sientes una necesidad constante de que los demás reconozcan tus esfuerzos y te encuentras buscando aprobación en las redes sociales o en tus círculos sociales, puede que te estés extralimitando. Puede que estés buscando la atención y la aprobación de los demás para sentirte bien por dentro. Recuerda que la verdadera felicidad no puede provenir de recursos externos. Sólo puede venir de dentro.

If you feel like you’re exhausted and completely depleted, take some time to really review your circumstances and consider making some changes wherever necessary. You don’t need to continue to self-sacrifice. When you’re okay, everyone else around you will be, too.