This is all about YOU (maybe a little of me)
DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOU?
You can’t seem to say “NO” (though you desperately want to).
You cannot set any kinds of boundaries.
You feel guilty putting yourself first.
You over-work, over-eat, over-exercise…OVER doing something but you are Never Satisfied.
You are very conscious about your self-image and what people think of you that you never voice your opinion.
You’ve read countless self-help books, podcasts, workshops, Nothing Works.
Let me explain why you have this dire need to please (everyone).
Somewhere in the small town of Malaysia……( rewind please….)
”Dad found you in a garbage bin and brought you home”, my sister used to joke. Little did she know that I truly believed that I was from a garbage bin because I was so different. I spent my entire childhood feeling not pretty enough amongst my fair-skinned sisters. I couldn’t even fit into my own family as early as six years old. Here is the beginning of how a negative belief was formed.
Well, I’m not pretty enough but I can still be clever enough (or so I thought). If I get good enough grades to make my parents proud, then they will fully accept me to be part of the family. But guess what? it turned out that my brother was the clever one in the family. I was not clever enough either. This is where I learned to work hard to be accepted.
I believed I was not good enough because I was DIFFERENT
I spent my adult life marrying the first man to love me. 5 years of marriage I faced affairs, accusation from other ladies (and husband), miscarriage, humiliation, loneliness, embarrassment, sexual trauma and abuse…….but not surprising I still stayed because I had no self-worth.
I was exhausted, kinda ‘checked-out’ and in extreme pain that my brain was protecting me from. It took me years to understand that I was stuck in a vicious cycle of people pleasing. It took me half a lifetime to learn to set boundaries, to say the ‘NO’ that I so desperately needed to say. It took me another half just to like me, love me, myself and I coz I was worth it. I am enough.
Change doesn’t have to take years for you.
