Pleasen: Why it's not healthy and how hypnosis helps

Edwin Selij
July 31, 2018

Helping people is a good thing, but it should not be at the expense of yourself. If you think pleasing people is very important because you think you are helping them, then it is time to take a critical look at that. Some people please other people until they (sometimes) literally drop dead. This is a shame because it means you are not actually living your own life and before you know it you have health problems

Pleaser meaning

A people-pleaser is someone who likes to make others happy. You want to have a good time and want people to like you. Above all, you want to make other people happy. That’s why you’re happy to do what’s asked of you and find it hard to say “no.” For some people, saying “yes” to everything is a habit.

Other people think you have to say "yes" to a question, that it is actually a rhetorical question to politely receive an order.

Pleasing people can also be an addiction that feeds the feeling that you are needed. You get a kind of kick out of feeling like you are doing something for other people.

Some people who like to please even get nauseous when they have to say no, and that's a moment to watch out for.

Health issues and pleasing

Because being a people pleaser (as this is called in science) is seen as someone who does not take good care of themselves. This can also be seen in the consequences or correlations that exist with pleasing people.

For example, people who foster are more likely to suffer from:

Does pleasuring have anything to do with anxiety?

If you look at the root cause of people-pleasing, in some cases it is indeed related to fear— the fear of not being liked.

By saying yes to almost everything and making sure you are seen as relaxed and laid back, a people pleaser hopes to be liked. Unfortunately, you then often gather people around you who take advantage of your please behavior and there will always be someone who doesn't like you.

People-pleasing isn’t just about wanting to be liked. For example, if you feel the need to be seen as indispensable, people-pleasing is also linked to your self-confidence. By offering help, you gain more self-confidence. However, if this is the only source of your self-confidence, you have a problem.

Fear and/or low self-esteem are therefore often at the root of becoming a pleaser.

In some cases, it may also be due to upbringing. For example, if your parents asked you to clean your room and you said “no,” only to be told afterward that you still had to clean it, you don’t actually learn that saying “no” is an option.

Hypnosis helps against being a pleaser

Because being a pleaser has to do with anxiety and self-confidence, hypnosis can do a lot to stop the pleasuring.

Initially, it is important to find out if it is not due to an upbringing in which saying "no" was not an option. This may be something you just remember, but if you're not sure, this is something that can be figured out with regression.

Through regression, you go back to the moment when the belief that it’s good to please others first arose. This also applies if the belief arose that pleasing others is something that gives you more self-confidence.

By going back to that moment, you can look at it with the knowledge of now, and this alone can completely change the belief, making it easier to stop saying "yes."

Other fears, such as the fear of not being liked or the fear of rejection, can also emerge during regression as causes of the please behavior.

In addition, hypnosis can also be very effective in combating anxiety and in building self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-assurance.

Stop pleasuring visualizing

Do you find it hard to say “no”? If so, that’s something you can practice with hypnosis. During a visualization exercise about saying “no,” for example, you might notice a certain tension building in your body the closer you get to the moment when you say “no.” With hypnosis, you can immediately learn techniques to stay calm so that you don’t end up saying “yes” at the last minute, even though you had made up your mind otherwise.

Practical tips to stop pleasuring

In addition to hypnosis, there are also a number of practical tips you can apply to stop pleasuring yourself. Applying these tips is also something you can visualize beforehand. Do you find this difficult to do yourself? Then a hypnotist can help you with this, including through visualizations or by examining what is blocking you from implementing the tips and then removing those blockages with hypnosis techniques.

Tip 1: Consider what you want for yourself

You have your own life, so you don't have to let others' requests dictate your life. Does the request help your goals or not. If the answer to the request is "no," you can also say no more easily.

Also consider for yourself what kind of person you want to be. Do you want to be walked over? What does it say about you if you are always overworking while your family is yearning for your attention? Does saying "yes" help your self-image or not?

Tip 2: Take time to reflect

When someone asks you to participate in a project just a little while longer and you said "yes" without thinking carefully about the consequences of the conversation. If someone has a request, the best thing you can do is to say you need to think about it for a while.

If you're lucky they forget, and if not, you've been able to think well which makes it easier to say no.

Tip 3: Set your priorities

Do you have tasks to complete and someone thinks another task would be best done first? Then set your priorities. Your work or social life should not suffer because of someone else's. Putting yourself first makes it easier to say "no" when something just isn't convenient.

Tip 4: Determine your service times

Helping people is actually nothing against it, but it's hard to do that 24 hours a day. That's why it's important to set boundaries for yourself. Like that you don't answer the phone after 8 p.m. and stop checking your mail. If you don't see the requests, you can't agree to them either. This has the advantage of bringing a lot of peace and allowing you to devote more time to your own life.

Tip 5: Don't start listing reasons why something can't be done

It’s very tempting to say, “No, I can’t do that because I have to go to the dentistlater .”Or something similar. Some people then jump in by helping you plan: “Then you can do this right after your dentist appointment.”

Instead, try referring people to someone else who can do the request just as well. At least then they will start thinking along those lines instead of filling your schedule for you.

Tip 6: Find out if you are being manipulated

People only have 24/7 of time. This means that some people use other people for their own purposes, even if it is not in the best interest of those other people. So if something is not in your best interest, find out if you are being manipulated. For example, some people use the excuse that you are being advised to do something to get you to do something.

"If I were you...". These kinds of phrases smack of manipulation if you don't see the benefit of this yourself.

Pleasen quit hypnosis

So there are all kinds of ways to stop pleasuring and thus avoid health disadvantages. It is important to figure out why you are a pleaser, because if you eliminate the cause you won't even have to implement the last 6 tips.

Still finding it difficult? Then a hypnotherapist can help you remove blockages and visualize performing the tips.

Would you like to know if you, too, can become a hypnotist and how you can help others (or yourself)? Then come to a workshop where you’ll learn the basics of hypnosis, and check out our other events in the calendar.

Sources:

https://search.proquest.com/openview/05a3531f1f91d59e583ed3bf350570a4/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1446336

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1038/oby.2009.376

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-dahl/the-health-risks-of-being_b_9045812.html?guccounter=1

https://psychcentral.com/lib/21-tips-to-stop-being-a-people-pleaser/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-emotional-meter/201803/how-i-learned-stop-being-people-pleaser