Do you ever have those days when you are certain you have done something wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on it? It’s a feeling of…”wrongness”. I woke up in the middle of the night with that feeling and I just can’t shake it. I’m a recovering co-dependent people-pleaser. When I step into realms and bring honesty and transparency sometimes I feel all icky inside. I tell my clients this is normal. When our strongest neural pathway is to please and we step out of pleasing, it’s going to feel bad…it does.
What do I do when I feel this ickiness inside? The wrongness? The bad? I usually try to figure out if I actually did something wrong. This task can get tricky because my view or filter may be skewed toward people-pleasing. From that perspective, nearly everything I did was wrong. I can ask trusted, wise people in my life what they think. I can look at people-pleasing behaviors and see if my words or actions were about 90 degrees away from people-pleasing (I think of 180 degrees, the total opposite on the spectrum of people-pleasing, as narcissistic/self-pleasing to an extreme). I sometimes process during a walk outside. And, as a God-believing person, I pray and seek God’s guidance.
I think the icky feeling is a good sign that I have taken big steps away from people-pleasing. It’s rarely comfortable when we are changing. Seeking comfort will keep me stuck.

Free!

Free!