Keeping the Peace for People Pleasers and Conflict Avoiders
People pleasing is one of the top 10 ways that women self-sabotage.
If you prioritize “keeping the peace” make sure you’ve considered your own inner peace.
If you’re holding back on account of “keeping the peace” but in the process causing yourself internal conflict, you’re more focused on avoiding conflict than on creating peace. It’s a form of people-pleasing and conflict avoidance and the justification sounds something like this:
“It’s not worth my speaking up because other people might not like it, which stresses me out, so I may as well just keep going along with this”
You stay miserable, but since your own misery is familiar and only yours to manage you are choosing it over the risk of upsetting others.
When you look deeper it becomes clear that the real reasons people “keep the peace” at their own expense is a fear of judgement and a desire for certainty. This is why many control freaks are people pleasers or conflict avoiders. When you open yourself up to conflict you’re not in control of what others will do or think about you, and you don’t know what will happen
But here’s the thing: When you keep sacrificing yourself for others and prioritize their voice, you stop listening to your own voice.
You lose connection with yourself and start emotionally checking out. It’s like waging a war against yourself for an illusion of peace.
Is It Worth It?
Consider these two questions:
1. Why do you feel like you’re in charge of external peace?
2. Why is external peace so valuable to you?
The willingness to experience some fear, judgement and uncertainty is the only way to break the patterns of people-pleasing and conflict avoidance. Simply put, the willingness to risk the illusion of peace with your boldness is the fastest way to experience true inner peace.
Alignment Coaching helps you become more comfortable with this.
The good news is that being willing to risk NOT “keeping the peace” gets easier with practice.
P.S. If you want some help figuring out the next part, book a free coaching exploration call. We’ll talk about what’s going on and whether group coaching or 1-on-1 coaching fits. No pressure. Just clarity.
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