And we think that’s a negative phrase, right? We say, oh, she’s a people pleaser. Oh, I’m a people pleaser. And we say it like there’s warts on our feets. And instead I was thinking about  Mary and the just beautiful gift of service of serving others. And the feminine genius of caring about people’s hearts, right? Women are so good at it. Just thinking about someone else’s heart.  

And the core people pleasing is I want your heart to be happy. And so I was wondering, you know, where does the good and holy desire to care for people’s hearts and to be of service to people become distorted into this negative concept that we have of a people pleaser. Because again, I don’t think we ever say that to someone like it’s great. I’m like, oh, you’re great at reading and you have a great fashion sense and you’re a people pleaser, no. We don’t like that. And yet we go around using this phrase.

I don’t know that I call people, people pleasers very much. If my client labels themselves that way I will coach them about it within that context, but I think a lot of women called themselves people pleasers. And I think they say it like I’m introverted and I’m a people pleaser. And when we have those identity statements, when we have those, I am statements it’s as if you’re telling me your eye color, I’m Sterling, I have red hair, I have blue eyes and I am a people pleaser. Like it’s unchangeable. But the truth is People pleasing, which we haven’t even defined yet, but people pleasing is just a behavior that you have practiced and maybe you have practiced that for a long time.  

And since we’re having trouble defining it, we know that it falls on a spectrum. Right? I either have blue eyes or you don’t right. There’s no Spectrum for that. I mean, obviously there are shades of blue, but you know, what I mean? You just like having blue eyes or green eyes or brown eyes. But people pleasing, there’s probably a healthy middle. And then I was really trying to challenge myself about a personality type or a type of woman. And in my mind, she was strong and assertive. And ask for what she wants. And maybe even we have a negative view of this woman and she bulldozes people and she doesn’t care about what people think.  

And I was, first of all, I couldn’t think of any actual woman I knew who was like that. I couldn’t think of anything I could think of characters like, you know, Miranda priestly in the devil wears Prada like a villain character who, you know, I don’t think we would call her people pleaser. But even so, but then I was thinking even for that type of person, where we perceive that they’re kind of self-involved and self-centered. They are pleasing someone. She was so hard on the people around her because she wanted to please the readers of Vogue.  

And so that was a self-serving desire, but she was pleasing someone. And so I think everyone falls on the people pleasing spectrum. And like most things we probably want to have a tempered place in the middle where it is such a good and holy thing to care about people’s hearts and to serve them. But we don’t want it to become disordered where we lose our peace over it. Where we become anxious over pleasing other people. So maybe a mom just had a baby and you make a meal and you’re going to take it to her. Such a beautiful act of service. I wouldn’t hear, have a mom doing that and think, oh, she’s a people pleaser, right? She’s just a woman providing an active service. But if you freaked out about making that meal for three days. If you are consumed with having to, let’s say this mom that you’re making the meal for is kind of health conscious and she loves baking. 

And you know that she hand makes most of their food, then you might think I need to do that because that’s what she does. And so, that must be what she wants and now you’re trying to make scones that you’ve never made before, because you saw a recipe and it sounded good. And you’re making like a Shepherd’s pie. And I don’t know, in my mind, you’re just freaking out about it. And you’re yelling at your kids. And you’re trying to get this meal done. And you feel anxious, you’ve lost your peace over serving this mom. And I think we all know that when you have a baby, you do not care about the meals that people bring. You have almost no thoughts about that.  

All right. It is only the mom bringing the meal that thinks it’s a big deal, the mom receiving the meal, it’s just grateful and so I think we can look at a single act of service. And ask ourselves, am I losing my peace over this. And I don’t even know that we want to keep using the term people pleaser, because again, I think of Marian and she had such a heart for service, and that was such a beautiful thing. And I don’t think we should call her a people pleaser.  

At least in our culture, I think that that phrase has a negative connotation and so if we want to think of ourselves as a woman who loves serving others. And we can do that with peace, which I believe that Mary, in her acts of service maintained that spirit of peace should not let it cross over into spirit of anxiety. Let us use that as the rubric for how we want to serve others. Let’s stamp out this phrase. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a good use of this phrase. When I’m coaching a woman who maybe struggles with anxiety and wanting people to like her be happy, I want to tell her that’s such a beautiful thing. I love your heart for these people. I love your heart for serving and let’s make sure we just keep it within the bounds of you not losing your peace. Because God does not want us to be anxious for anything. He doesn’t say, go serve the poor even if you lose your mind doing it.  

He says, be anxious for nothing. And again, I don’t really think, at least in my experience, that many of us are calling other people, people pleasers. I think women are calling themselves that. And they’re so worried that it’s true. Like I have blue eyes and I’m a, I’m a people pleaser. I’m trapped here. I’m never going to get out of this. I can’t help it. When we have those identity statements we’re also saying I can’t change this. But you can, all we’re saying is that you have a habit of serving people while being anxious about it. And we can change how you think about serving people and we can change the way that you serve them. If that helps you also decrease anxiety. I remember there were a couple of go-to meals I really like to make for moms who have babies and there was a time, this was back when I was in Boise, and we had a Costco close to us. 

We do not have a Costco close to us. anymore. But I just had this moment where I could feel this anxiety about, oh, I want to make the thing learn what I normally make. And I just went, you know what? It doesn’t matter. And I went to Costco. And I got a rotisserie chicken and a bag of Caesar salad and grapes, probably some bread too. But anyway, I remember those three things that I got. And I just thought, this is fantastic. This is great. She’s going to love this. And she did. That’s what I want us to catch. I want us to catch our acts of service feel when we’re starting to be anxious about them and just recognize, hey, this is not serving me. This is not serving that person.  

This is not how God wants me to be his hands in the world. He does not want my good and holy desire to care for other people’s hearts and to serve them. To steal my peace or create unrest in my family. I just think women have a heart for service and certainly some men do too. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard someone calling man and people pleaser though. That’s super interesting isn’t it? And this doesn’t surprise me because the devil twists good and holy things into disordered things.  

So it makes a lot of sense to me that he would be like, hmm, God, may all these women and they have this beautiful desire, this natural desire to serve people, how can I ruin it? And he’s like, let’s make them obsessed with hand-making Shepherd’s pie from scratch. So the act of serving becomes a burden. So I want you to ponder these things. What do you think about yourself? I think all moms have a heart for service. So if we want to call them all people pleasers, if we want to reclaim that phrase and make it positive let’s do it, but honestly, I just think we can instead say I have a heart for serving others. I care about other people’s hearts and I want to do that. I really value that. But I want to learn how to do that without losing my own peace. I think that’s a beautiful reframe for all of us as a culture. 

All right my friends, if you are people pleasing. Yourself, your mom, the teachers, your co-op, your kids. If you were trying to serve your children in their education, whatever form that is. I want you to consider grabbing my new 30 day audio series. It’s called Catholics, cultivating peace Back to school. I want you to explore serving those kids, serving the people around you, your family, the community, anything that you’re part of but not letting yourself be anxious about it. And if you want to grab that it’s currently half off until August 15th and you can grab it at catholicmomcalm.com/school. All right my friends I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.