Keep Your Enemies Close: Own Them Before They Own You
If you also put other people first and meet their needs before yours to get approval, this is for you. Growing up as a people pleaser, although I had good intentions, I wasn’t actually making the impact I wanted to! I wasn’t helping. I thought I was doing the right thing by putting their needs first —accommodating so that they perceive me as friendly, likeable, nice— but I wasn't being authentic. People-pleasing often comes from a belief that we're not enough unless we're making others happy.
Authenticity Over Approval
Scientists disproved love as the most powerful vibration. They found that the highest vibration is being authentic; being genuine, being yourself! Being able to express yourself and remain aligned with your values. You are then at the pinnacle of virtue and vitality, and that's what Devoted to Extraordinary is all about!
Helping another person is the same as helping yourself when you are authentic. When you lead by example, it allows them the space and the safety to also be themselves. The best thing that you can then do is allow them to speak. Listen instead of trying to navigate the conversation a certain way. Read on to find out how.
Understanding "Near Enemies": Subtle Barriers to Healthy Relationships
I have studied what evil looks like and what it does best. The reason I came to God is because I realized that the devil is real. The devil imitates for a living. It lives in the shadows: it is nuance, it is everything we cannot pin down, it is all that darkness that we don't want to look at, it is fear. The devil becomes powerless when we look at it and name it. When we say, “This is what it is!” It’s only when we notice that we can actually change things. Noticing is most of the work.
Brené Brown’s work naming the “near enemy” is a brilliant way to recognise the subtleties of the devil. We can see that hate is bad because it's the opposite of love. Hate is the “far enemy” of love. We can often name the things that are obviously hateful and overtly abhorrent, but what about the little nuances that don’t feel completely right? What if it didn't feel whole?
You know when you’ve walked away from a conversation, and you feel like it wasn't fully what you expected it to be? You want to say, “I didn't feel entirely accepted,” or “You aren’t being empathic with me. I felt a little bit of,” or “That moment was missing something.”
Whereas in a conversation with another, it only takes a few minutes to feel fully understood, accepted and seen as you are, and you come away thinking, “Oh, that's what it feels like when someone's interested in me and is present with me!”
I often say that presence is the most valuable thing. There is a sense of vitality and electricity being shared when two people are fully with one another.
Can you be that when you're pleasing people? The answer is no.
Brené Brown tells us that the near enemy of listening and discovering is “knowing”, advice giving and problem solving. To put it in other words, the near enemy of connection is control.
The very first thing I used to do as a people pleaser when somebody came to me with their feelings was give advice.“Maybe you can do this,” I would suggest, trying to make them like me by giving them the solution. A lot of times a girlfriend isn't actually wanting advice! She’s most likely wanting your shoulder to cry on; your ear to listen to what she's going through. Women feel better when we talk about our problems.
I invite you to simply be curious; ask questions and invite them to speak even more. It’s amazing how little you must do to be of great help!
The Heart of the Matter
Eliminate the definition of perfection to being an ideal. Change it to a completeness, a wholeness.
Human being = light + shadow, conscious + unconscious!
When we suppress our shadow, or think that we don't have weaknesses, or obliterate our past, or think that we're not capable of creating hurt… that is when we're most likely to create hurt!
Being a human being and having desires in your heart is the very same place, the Bible says, that evil also lives. This is why we lean not on our own understanding. This is why we turn always to God, to prayer and to the Holy Spirit to enlighten us with wisdom of the truth: of reality, of the light.
When the light is cast —when we can see and acknowledge our patterns— that's when we can take ownership of who we are. They say we must “Name it to tame it!”
Codependence, Shame and Detachment
We aren’t getting to the heart of our own hurt: you have to be okay for me to be okay.
Because we know now that the near enemy of connection is control, we attempt not to control things to allow people to beand to feel exactly as we're trying to make them feel when we are people pleasing/putting their needs before our own.
Our inner narrative says, “What do I need to be like in order for them to like me?” But it really means “What values am I compromising to get external validation?” And deeper still,“How am I willing to give up my legacy for the will of God?”
When we try to manipulate how another is perceiving us, it stops us from remaining rooted in alignment and authenticity and allowing whatever is out of our control to turn up. Our limiting belief that we must keep hold of the pillars of existence even perpetuates terrible anxiety!
How could we possibly control another’s will?
We're not surrendering: the core of femininity. Trusting. Resting in the capacity that everything will fall into place without me having to hold the pillars of this environment alive.
We want our narrative to sound like this: “I don't need to control their perspective of me to be okay. They don't need me to hold them for them to be okay. If they are not okay, it doesn't mean I am not okay. I can allow them to feel scared, sad, angry, and I don't need to change that. In fact, I'm doing them more of a service by allowing them to feel the way that they want to feel. Holding space for that.”
Sadness Is a Well of Creativity and Good
The reason we try to change how others feel is because we think it is “bad” to feel negative emotion. We are afraid of seeing our own shadow, so were definitely in the dark when it comes to seeing theirs!
If I am disowning my shadow, I am allowing shame to live in my body. If I’m allowing shame to live, I'm questioning my own integrity.
You only have integrity when you know everything that lives in you. You only have integrity when you own every part of yourself.
Do you have integrity if you're saying, "We're not going to look at that! We're not going to talk about that. You cannot feel sad!”?
If I want to be a full human who is also joyful, I need to experience what it's like to not be a happy person. Negative emotion can also be turned into something else. You can use sadness to propel your creativity! I write songs and poetry, I paint… such beauty cannot be born from the simplicity of contentment. You learn to widen and welcome and embrace.Everything in life is an invitation and an openness.
Always Be in Control by Being Okay with Not Being in Control
When we acknowledge the near enemy of things, we learn the language of subtlety. This is a tool: to deeply trust ourselves to name the enemy when it arrives. Nothing can get in when we are guarding the gates.
For example, when someone tries to guilt trip you with a comment, your power is to notice it immediately and then give words to their weapon. Say: "I noticed you were trying to guilt trip me with that." This shifts the power dynamic.
That's ultimately what people who are out of integrity or who have a large ego are trying to do: they're trying to broaden their own sense of self by pushing yours down. It's not going to happen anymore.
The Devil Imitates God
Here are a few copycats of authentic emotion:
1. Lust Imitates Love
How many times have we been attached to someone because we sleep with them and we want that high, that dopamine and oxytocin again? It's all chemicals, it's not real. Are they there for you when there's a conflict? Are they there for you when it's hard? That's what truly counts. Brené Brown says: “The near enemy of love is attachment. True love allows, honors and appreciates.Attachment grasps, demands, needs and aims to possess.”
2. Pride Imitates Joy
If you’ve ever won something unfairly, gained an immoral advantage, or fueled your ambition from external validation, you know what it’s like to have a large head or puff out your chest. “I got it going on! I am goooood!”, you think, but you’re not truly happy. You feel a bit lonely. Consistent happiness is joy, and it comes from a humility of heart. The first of the seven heavenly virtues is humility,and the first of the seven deadly sins is pride. There is a reason for that: they are set against one another. If you are too prideful, you won't have the humility that allows sobriety, which gives way immediately to joy.
3. Drugs Imitate Peace
Drugs induce a feeling of peace because they numb you.They're the synthetic version. You cannot reach peacewithout it. Peace is permanent since I've nurtured a relationship with my Heavenly Father and accepted thelove of Christ.
4. Sin Imitates Freedom
If you're not Christian, you're likely familiar with the law ofkarma. Every action has a reaction; every cause has an effect. Whatever you do that is against the law of nature, whatever goes against what you know would be right thing to do or the truth: every time you go against that you’re “sinning”. It’s very practical. You think that you've got a life of freedom when you're partying every single night, living against your core values and not doing what you intrinsically know is the correct thing to be doing. You’re not aligned. You’re not yet humbled by the consequences of your actions catching up to you. In a life of sin and vice, every single decision we make and habit we have will let down the future version of ourselves:instead of exercising we're watching TV until the late hoursand then we're not going to wake up early the next day and we feel exhausted… They say that “Discipline creates freedom” because if you do in fact switch off the screens early enough the night before and get a good night's sleep,you've got an early morning the next day! Then you can rest well into the evening and maybe go out with your friends while feeling balanced and healthy while you're doing it. True freedom comes without energeticconsequences.
More of Brené Brown’s Near and Far Enemies
The far enemy of kindness is hostility. Anyone could walk straight away from a hostile person because it is obvious. But the devil is subtle. The devil will say “Aw, sweetheart, I'm so sorry to hear that!” and it doesn't quite feel the same as silence or holding space. Truly being there for you.
This is because the near enemy of kindness is pity. When instead of empathy we have sympathy for somebody, it sounds like: “Aw, I'm sorry for that!” The energetic difference hasn’t been felt. They’re just empty words.
Is this you? Daily, we might encounter these people who think that they're doing the right thing and don't know how to connect. Not showing up in authenticity may not be intentional, but the depth is lacking. Notice where you're not showing up with authenticity so you can give way to true connection!
Our favorite key word of the century it seems like is mindfulness. The far enemy of mindfulness is reactivity.We're very quick to notice who can and does react quite harshly,but then there is the near enemy of complacency. Complacency is a sign of your life force being turned off and it's time to get that vitality back! Having mindfulness means we attempt to notice, change and grow.
With all this inner work and learning new information, we actually want to transform! That's the whole point: to become embodied, listen to our intuition and feel connected to self.The opposite of this is clearly the far enemy: being disembodied, entirely disconnected from self and being numb. The near enemy of full embodiment is intellectualizing your feelings! “Feeling” them in your head rather than in your body. Not getting into your body, moving, doing exercise, dancing,swimming, walking and truly flowing with your emotions. Journaling and therapy have their place, but first you need to let your body feel to get to a point that you can begin to give it words.
OWN Who You Are
Breaking free from people-pleasing is about putting authenticity over approval by steadily choosing connection over control.Remember, learning to value your needs is essential to breaking free from the cycle of seeking validation through others.
If you also want to become a virtuous woman full of vitality and in integrity, I am so excited to work with you! You can apply here for virtue calls to develop emotional intelligence and nurture your spirit.
Please share this with a friend who might need to hear it today.
Love,
Julia