Hello, my loves. Today’s topic actually came about because as I was sitting there trying to come up with what I wanted to talk about, I kept getting caught in a loop. I’ve been talking about confidence for the past few weeks now because we’re in Main Character Energy season, so I was trying to fit my message into that box, but like…why? Fuck that. Why do I need to speak about one thing if I’m feeling led toward something else? Why am I trying to fit myself into a box that isn’t even mine?

Surprise, Michelle: you can talk about whatever the fuck you want. And today, I want to talk about our addiction to pleasing others.

Pleasing Others, Not Yourself

As I was trying to puzzle out the topic I wanted to share about today, I had to stop and think, “Who am I trying to please here?”

I love you guys, and I love that you listen to this, and I love all the messages that you send me, but if I lived my entire life trying to please others, I would be fucking miserable. And that’s what so many women actually come to work with me on.

They’re doing everything they can to keep pleasing others. They’re trying to please their mom, their dad, their my partner, their friends, their mentor, their fucking dog…everyone except themselves. And that’s where we really get into trouble, because we end up living our lives for other people rather than living for ourselves.

When we’re living our lives focusing on pleasing others, we end up making decisions that are out of alignment with our true essence, with our internal genius, with our higher self, with God’s plan, whatever you want to call it. We make decisions and act out behaviors that are out of alignment with who we truly are, and then we end up being in this place where we actually have no idea who we are.

Do you relate to that, actually having no fucking idea of who you are? That’s because you’ve concocted this external reality to fit what other people want you to be. You’ve crafted a single-layered construct made for pleasing others.

Maybe you’re the good girl; you’re someone who’s very nice, and you’re fun to be around. Or maybe you’re super successful; you’re independent, you’re strong, and you don’t need anybody. Maybe you’re super sexual, super expressive, and all of those things.

But…are those things actually you?

They may be a part of you, but too often we over-express certain parts of ourselves and under-express other parts when pleasing others. By trying to live for somebody else, we forget all the pieces of ourselves. If we’re only playing into the soft, gentle, light feminine, we forget our darker essence, and vice versa.

Restoring Wholeness

My entire business is built on helping you connect to yourself and restoring wholeness.

Not creating wholeness, but restoring it. You’re already whole as you are; that’s not up for debate. It’s just that you’ve forgotten because you’re trying to fit yourself into a box in order to keep pleasing others.

The reality is, humans do not fit inside of a box. Humans, at the core of their essence, are multidimensional. And we often forget that because on social media, we see people mostly being one thing.

If you look at a particular influencer and their whole brand is about being sexy and attractive and expressing femme energy, we forget that she’s a human who is also sensitive and vulnerable. She sometimes feels shame. She sometimes feels confused. Sometimes she doesn’t feel attractive.

Or—and this is so present in the online coaching space—you take someone who’s a business coach, and they’re only speaking about sales and marketing and branding, so you forget that they have partners and other people in their lives that they may be arguing with. They have friendships that may be falling apart. Just because they’re successful in one space doesn’t mean they’re successful in all spaces.

We forget the multidimensionality of people because we only see one thing in these extremely curated spaces.

This is what happens when we’re trying to preserve a concept of self and keep pleasing others. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about when I speak about concept of self, it’s basically how you see yourself and how you want others to see you.

(If you want to dive into that more, join Main Character Energy and/or Connected Woman. I would highly suggest both The Connected Woman Experience and Main Character Energy, because we dive very, very, very deeply into the concept of self, which is a shadow work thing.)

If you think about how you’re trying to keep pleasing others by putting yourself in a box, you’ll understand that other people are doing the exact same thing. And once you realize that, you’ll start to have more compassion for them.

Everybody wants to be seen a certain way. That’s part of human nature. That’s part of the ego’s job: “What can I do that’s going to get me love, safety, and belonging?”

Too often, we think the answer is pleasing others before ourselves. But that can’t work forever.

Who Are You Trying to Please?

At the end of the day, who are you trying to please?

If you’re trying to please your friends…are they really such good friends if you believe you have to act a certain way for them to like you? That if you actually show all parts of yourself, they’re going to leave? If someone’s going to leave because you express yourself, is that someone you want around?  

You can’t control how you’re going to be received by others, even if you put all your energy into pleasing others. And yes, if you change, there’s going to be an adjustment for people around you.

You need to let people have their process with your expression, especially if you’ve been a good girl or a good boy your entire life. People might have an issue with you acting outside of the scope of how they know you, so there might be a little bit of a tug of war there.

But what are you going to give into? Are you going to give into your old identity, or are you going to anchor in this new identity?

More Myself, More Everything

What do you think would happen if you stopped pouring everything into pleasing others?

One of my beliefs is that the more myself I am, the more money I make. The more myself I am, the more joy I experience. The more myself I am, the more abundance I receive. The more myself I am, the more I receive in general. The more myself I am, the more I am in the vortex where good shit happens. 

I believe that when I’m being just myself, that’s when I attract what I want to attract. That’s why I have the friendships that I have, because I’m not trying to be anything else with any of my friends.

My friends and I experience all sides of each other. One of my best friends Kelsie, who’s interviewed here before, she’ll come over and we’ll just sit without talking for a while. That’s perfectly comfortable for us. And then other times, we’re laughing and joking and being hysterical with each other. And sometimes, we end up so deep in a vortex of conversation that it’s hard to pull ourselves out of it.

There’s no hiding. I’m completely myself. I’m trying to be more positive than I am, or be more negative than I am. There’s no superiority or inferiority there; it just is.

So for you, I would really question who you’re trying to fucking please. Because if the people that you’re around the most are people that you feel you need to please, I would really question that. Is that a you thing, or is that a them thing?

Everything Will Shift

Ultimately, I want you to actually land in this question: what do you think would happen if you stopped focusing on pleasing others and started focusing on pleasing yourself? What would you do? How much would shift? Who would you be? What choices would you make differently? What behaviors would you do differently? What conversations would you have? What conversations would you no longer entertain?

It’s big shit. When you actually land in this, that’s when things start to shift.

WORK WITH MICHELLE: 

Join Main Character Energy, a 6-week course on becoming the main character of your life and stepping into delusional confidence: https://michellepanning.com/main-character-energy 

Join The Connected Woman EXPERIENCE: https://michellepanning.com/the-connected-woman-experience

Ready to do the work? You can find all courses, masterclasses, and more right here: https://michellepanning.com/all-offers

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/michellepanning

Website: http://www.michellepanning.com