I have come to believe that the word “no” is one of hardest words for most humans to use. I am certainly one of those humans. At the root of the human soul is a desire to please others. For some of us this desire to please actually controls much of what we do and don’t do during the day. The desire to please others goes from a natural state of human kindness, to the overwhelming reason we pack each hour of the day with activities we are doing simply because someone asked us to. We have crossed over the line into the dangerous zone of people pleasing.
Hello, my name is Danielle Shoots and I am a people pleaser. I use this sentence to describe myself as a people pleaser very intentionally. People pleasing, for me and so many others is as deeply rooted in our mindset as would be an addiction to alcohol or gambling. I have a physical reaction in my stomach when I must tell people no. I am addicted to the distracting rush of doing things for others, for being the one to step in to save the day; addicted to having people need me. On the surface this addiction is seemingly harmless but when we dig underneath it, we find that this people pleasing addiction is dangerous for physical and mental health.
