People Pleasing is Not Love

Dr. Nandi Hetenyi
Aug 24, 2018

People pleasing, along with cultivating an “ideal” persona that will be appropriate for the world and others, comes at the cost of lying.

Lying to oneself. Lying to others. Or, both. It comes at the cost of disconnection from truth. There is no love if there is no truth because truth is one of the love’s languages.

Love, growth and evolution thrives in an environment of truth and authenticity, along with compassion, thoughtfulness and kindness.

Considering the impact our truth (what is truth for us is not universal truth) on others is not the same as being responsible for how other people feel. Our truth is our own truth and it, like our actions, has an impact on people around us. Our perceptions and reads on energy, are ours, they are not universal truths or necessarily the thing that is true for another. Just because we know our truth, doesn’t mean we do not wield it with love in sharing it with others.

We have an impact on people and the world around us.

Being honest and transparent is essential for love and intimacy, but not without consideration, compassion and kindness; while also holding trust that others are responsible for their own truths and emotions.

In an environment of love and honoring, truth and love can metabolize tension back into connection. In this space, when love and acceptance and goodness shows up, it is trustable because it is real. Real is where belonging and love and intimacy can truly thrive.

People pleasing is none of these things.

It is not honest. It is not love. It fosters disconnection and insecurity and fear. It is stressful.

It arises out of soul wounding and feeds off the ideas of perfectionism, which is salt in wounds where authentic self needs love. People pleasing is practically culturally mandated in order to keep all the things that aren’t working up and running in a world where more and more people struggle with feeling disconnected from life.

First, we must find and reconnect with the truth in our own hearts, then be honest with ourselves. Come clean and feel the grief that often arrives with truth in order to clear the pathways in the heart for more love.

Let us not fear the change that reconnecting with our authentic self brings, it is the change that opens the way for us to move towards what is right, true and for us. It is the pathway to true belonging.

What is highest for us is often also highest for others.

We must learn to trust truth and, therefore, trust love.

Love is always working us out.

Dr. Nandi Hetenyi
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