you're listening to the Rise up and Shine podcast with Claudine and Ashley as an empty nester and a mom with young kids. We have both shared very similar and very real struggles from chaos to coaches, we now help other women live an authentic and meaningful life. So tune in weekly for girl talk and tips on how you too can rise up and let your light shine bright, This is the Rise up and Shine podcast. Welcome back friends to another episode here on the Rise up and Shine podcast, We are so excited you're here and tuning in with us again. I want to start with a couple of questions for you and really self reflect and see if this sounds like you 1st. Do you tend to over apologize, Do you struggle with saying no, do you care a lot about what other people think of you and do you tend to put other people first above your own self at the expense of yourself?

Maybe even well if these sound like you, you might be a people pleaser, my friend and we personally are too recovering people pleasers, we have been there, we've experienced it and we have learned some amazing tools that have helped us overcome this because it really did take a toll in our own personal lives and you know, as christian women, there's a fine line between serving and being a people pleaser, between denying ourselves and doing for others out of love, not being selfish and being a people pleaser. So that's why we're going to dive in today and talk about the difference and the healthy way of serving and saying yes versus people pleasing, which is unhealthy. Yeah. One of my biggest revelations would be that when I really started paying attention to this in different relationships, I had like to what extent do I people please? I realized because I struggled with why I'm just serving, right? It's my heart and that's what I'm called to do.

That's what we're supposed to do and that's what I want to do. But I realized it was coming from a place of fear and not love and I thought, okay, then I need to dig a little deeper there. And that is why we're bringing this up because many of us do that we think we're serving, we think we're doing the, you know, the right thing, we're being jesus like, but we're actually might be doing it from a place of fear and fearing rejection, fearing abandonment, fearing disapproval. That was a big one for me. I had feared a lot that I would disapprove or be disapproved of, right? If I didn't show up the way this person wanted me to or meet their expectations. Yeah, exactly. And you hit it on the nail. It's like people pleasing comes from the heart of fear and serving comes from the heart of love and when people please, if we do it too often and too much or even a little in an unhealthy inauthentic way we'll end up feeling resentful, um depressed, dissatisfied. It can lead to all kinds of negative feelings. So I don't think that's what serving um is supposed to do.

So that's how we know to fear feeling any of those negative quote unquote emotions. It's probably not coming from a place of love. Yeah, it was for myself personally it was to the extent where I needed therapy, like I needed to get help with it and I didn't actually know that's what was happening. That's when I started really discovering what was going on on a deeper level, but I just was experienced a lot of anxiety where it was debilitating. You know, I felt I mean I would get panic attacks and I would feel almost paranoid um if I was experiencing a situation with somebody or you know, saying no or just really cycling those negative thoughts and those stories in my head and once I was able to get to counseling that I really understood what was going on, I was like ah it's fear, it's not love, it's fear, that's why I'm doing this and those two can't coexist, do not coexist. And the thing with people pleasing is if we continue to do it and feel those negative emotions then we're going to develop negative coping behavior.

That's why it's important to address this because when we're feeling resentful or depressed or fearful or any of those guilty dissatisfied. We're gonna tend to cope with some unhealthy behaviors as well, which can lead to overeating right over drinking over netflix, binging those things that that aren't healthy for us and they don't help us rise up and shine and live our best life. So that's why it's important to deal with it and really come to the heart of the matter, deal with the heart of the matter here. Yeah and I know personally and speaking with many others um friendships and even some that I've coached even if we've experienced certain traumas in our childhood that has, that also determines kind of the level of which we people please, some of us people please. Um But some to even more extreme, you know I felt like I was on the extreme end of the specter, wow this is like my whole life that's taking up. Um and I did it with my kids, I did it with my husband, I did it with family, with friends, you know I did it all the time.

And even to the point where like if someone else honked at somebody else, I would get anxious like what did I do wrong because I cared so much about what people think, but it really it's obviously not logical that had nothing to do with me right, but my brain was like danger, right, we're doing it again or you know you did something wrong Ashley and that wasn't what was going on but really digging deeper to find out why. And then again with the certain tools that you can use to overcome it. Oh my gosh, it's just an amazing transformation. It's very free. Well, it's interesting you say that because we are wired for social connections, right? That's how we're built and there is a need to be approved. We want to feel approval because we don't want to be kicked out of our social circle because thousands of years ago, if you weren't part of a tribe, you were not safe, Like you couldn't live on your own. There were too many predators in too much danger. So our brains are wired to keep us safe and we need the approval of others to quote unquote, stay safe. It's very different this day. But unfortunately our primitive brains have not um you know, they, they still think, oh, danger if you're not approved of, you're going to be alone and that's not safe.

So, but we know because God has given us our prefrontal cortex that we can think and have intentional thoughts and feelings and decisions and all that. But thank you God for that, by the way, I think that was one of the best gifts it is ever could have received. It is the best gift and we have a lot more power than we thought, right? And we need to learn how to manage our minds and manage our emotions so we can rise up in china's best lives and don't have to live from this place yes, Fear. And one of the other things with people pleasing for me was that I was showing up with a lack of authenticity. I wasn't really me because there's that fear again, if people really know me, they might think I'm selfish, I might get rejected, right? We've talked about that. Um and if I don't have the approval of people then where am I going to be? I'll be lonely and I'll be depressed. But the truth of it is when we people please when we go against ourselves, we don't show up as ourselves and there's a disconnect, There is a disconnect and even if people approve of that person, that's not the real me anyway, they're just approving of the person that says yes to everything and then you have to keep up that persona and it's exhausting.

It is and it does, it can lead to anxiety and depression and really struggle mentally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's talk about some of the practical because we have a few that have helped us and that have helped others to overcome people pleasing. So the first one and you kind of hinted that actually is the why really checking the motives of our heart, Is it coming from a place of love or is it coming from a place where it's there's fear and maybe we're trying to seek approval, which actually we did a whole episode on how to stop seeking approval In episode 103 and we go deeper into that. But really checking our motivations, checking our hearts out for what is why am I doing this? Why am I saying yes to this? And I used to say yes to a lot of things again for fear of rejection or disappointment. Um but you know that's a lot, it's hard like my why wasn't because I genuinely want to do this or I genuinely want to serve in this way, it's like if I don't, what will they think of me? So examining your why, why are you saying yes to something someone is asking of you?

The second practical is setting up healthy boundaries, boundaries was not my vocabulary word in my my you know brain, but that is something that really helps as boundaries, you know, something like I thought that's selfish, it's not okay, I can't say no, I can't do these things but you know, I have to show up and be serving and those aren't things, those are stories that I'm you know, bringing up in stories or meanings that I'm giving to things and situations and relationships even, but having healthy boundaries is crucial for healthy relationships and I tell my kids all the time that you know, we teach others how to treat us and so when we people please we are teaching others that that's ok and that you can ask whatever you want from me and I will always deliver or I will always serve, I'm always there for you. But then what can happen is then, you know, we tend to people pleasers tend to attract people who might take advantage of that kind of mentality. Yes. And so and then it's just cause for disaster, right?

And that's not a healthy relationship. So setting up healthy boundaries is very important. And we actually have an episode on that episode 33 of setting up boundaries and what type of boundaries and what does the boundary look like? And um you know boundaries, like if you think of a house, you know with the yard and we have fenced yards um so are the property is on our side of the fence and the neighbor's property is on their side of the fence, what's mine? This is mine and that's yours and very very crucial for healthy relationships and healthy you as well. Yeah, absolutely. And going along with boundaries, I'd say another practical is don't make excuses if you have to say no, you don't have to make excuses. You don't owe someone a whole list of why I can't do this thing, like no is a full sentence and you don't have to apologize for saying no right? That's it. That's the part of it because I tend to say, oh I'm sorry, I can't and then why do I apologize, oh I can't next time though.

I mean we can say things like I wish I could, but unfortunately my schedule doesn't provide that right now it expresses the desire to help. But unfortunately I can't and that's it, right. Just a sentence. One thing that's helped me in this specific situation. Like if I know if someone says that to me, if I ask this of you know, hey, can you help me with that? And they say that very thing I don't think anything about Okay. Yeah, no problem. But for some reason when we think if we say that to somebody like oh my gosh, it's detrimental and they're going to yell at us and be so frustrated or disapprove of us and think less of us and that is not true. That is a story that we are thinking. Absolutely. So that was the third practical, just don't make excuses, you can just say no and that's okay. Um number four, bring it before God definitely bringing things anything that you know, we fear any anxieties, any prayer requests, anything, bring everything to God.

He is the best source to give us peace and guidance. You know? And sometimes we struggle with do I say yes, do I still know what do I do? And I just always bring it back to God and I pray and I just lay it in his hands and say God, you know the situation, I don't know what to do here, please guide my heart and knowing what I should do and make the right choice and sometimes the right choice is to be able to serve sometimes the right choices be still and say no and that's ok. But own it, huge thing is being able to own it. Yeah, that's important. And I think about the scripture in Philippians two, it says let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. And it was really powerful when I read that scripture because sometimes you think it says don't look at your own interests, just look to the interests of others, but that's actually not what it says. It says, let's let each of you look not only to his own interest, which would be selfish, right be very selfish if all we ever thought about was ourselves, but also to the interests of others.

But it doesn't say neglect your own interests. So there's a healthy balance there. And I do think even though it's number four could very well be the most important practical and bring it to God pray about it. There are times where I'm like, should I shouldn't I I don't know like I kind of do have the time, but I, you know, I just don't know if I pray about it and I'm like God direct my steps, make it really clear is this an area I can serve in? Or is this an area where I'm doing it out of the wrong motives because it's selfish. It is selfish to do it out of the wrong motives because I want approval or escape rejection. I wanna disappointment that in and of itself is selfish because writing about your So it's taken a lot of work to really to walk that fine line between serving and people pleasing and really it's practice self yeah, it's practice and self awareness which we talk about all the time, really reflecting on our own hearts and going along with the self awareness as well, is being confident in who you are.

You know, that's huge. People pleasers tend to feel inadequate and insecure and have a lower self esteem and we feel like we need to we need this approval because it validates us as a human being and that is not the truth and the truth is that again, that's another story, right? We believe these stories that I need validation outside of myself. So I am a valuable, worthy person. But again, going back to God, we are valuable and worthy in him. You know, that's it. That's plain and simple. That's it. We he sees are worth and value and be confident in knowing that then we will feel confident in making these decisions whether we say yes, whether we say no and how we're showing up and serving and it will really lead to serving from a place of love and not fear because you're coming from a more confident place, a place that I like to call a God for guidance, A God like that, confident in God through God from God right? That's awesome. I love that.

Well as faith based life coach is we can help our clients determine if they're being people pleasing or serving. We can help with the self awareness and the motives of the heart. So if you're in need of a little support and a little encouragement in this area, we are here to help, you can find this over at mind over chaos dot com or Claudine Sweeney dot com. And you can schedule a free discovery call on either of those websites with Ashley or cloudy until next time. We hope this has been helpful and practical to help you rise up and shine. Alright everyone, thank you for joining in on our conversation today here on the rice, I've been shined podcast. If you haven't already, please take a second to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and while you're at it share this episode with a friend who you know it can bless today if you want to visit us as well on our websites, you can catch Claudine over at Claudine Sweeney dot com and Ashley at mind over chaos dot com. Our links are in the description.

We also have some free resources there for you as well. So remember ladies, no matter what you are facing in life, it is never too late to rise up and shine and live your best life.