'... I know that I
am a people-pleaser, so anxious to do anything to feel loved that I don't
always take very good care of myself.' (In All Our Affairs, pages 81)
Superficially,
people-pleasing looks like doing what is right for others rather than what is
right for oneself. 'Recovery' would therefore be moving from selflessness to
self-care, or even outright selfishness.
If you look
carefully at this quite perfect summation, however, you'll see that
people-pleasers are not remotely selfless: pleasing other people is merely a
vehicle for satisfying oneself, in this case, 'feeling loved'. As Otto Fenichel
says about love addicts, 'They need the supplies, and it does not matter who
provides them': people-pleasers are really users.
Chuck Chamberlain
points out that it is helpful to know what the problem is: the problem, then,
with people-pleasing is not that one is being selfless in the place of
self-caring or selfish but that one's self-centredness is irrational. We're
putting ourselves first—let's make no mistake about that—but are going about
getting our needs met in a manner that does not work.
Recovery involves
two stages: firstly going about getting our needs met in a manner that does
work, which will involve learning how to take basic actions, both practically
and spiritually, to ensure our well-being; secondly, moving from a self-centred
approach to life to one in which we invoke God's power to fulfil our potential
as 'intelligent agents, spearheads of God’s ever advancing Creation'.
What often happens
in recovery is that the first stage is accomplished very well, and the
individual starts to look after himself, but that the second stage never gets
gotten round to: the individual ceases taking actions on other people's
behalves and becomes no less self-centred, but more overtly and effectively so
than before.
The Step Twelve
chapter of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions sums up this
trap and also this transition extremely well.
'Our desires for
emotional security and wealth, for personal prestige and power, for romance,
and for family satisfactions—all these have to be tempered and redirected. We
have learned that the satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim
of our lives. ... It became clear that if we ever were to feel emotionally
secure among grown-up people, we would have to put our lives on a give-and-take
basis; we would have to develop the sense of being in partnership or
brotherhood with all those around us. We saw that we would need to give
constantly of ourselves without demands for repayment. When we persistently did
this we gradually found that people were attracted to us as never before.'
The people-pleaser
is like a delivery man who never services his van and is concerned not with
what he is delivering but just with the paltry tips he is getting. Meanwhile,
the van is virtually a wreck. Recovery consists not in keeping the delivery van
in its garage and polishing and admiring it but in firstly getting the van in a
fit state and then doing a damn good job of making deliveries regardless of
whether or not tips are forthcoming: giving for the sake of giving.