'If you live for the acceptance of others, you'll die from their rejection'

You could say I'm an expert in this area.

I am in my 20's now and I can confidently say I've spent over 2 quarters of my life so far attempting to please people.

I'm not a hundred percent sure where this issue stemmed from, like if you asked me to pin point a time in my life where I can say this began I couldn't tell you.

Maybe it stemmed from childhood trauma, one specific event or something that became a part of me overtime. Only God Knows. But what I do know is that living to please others and just being overly conscientious and self-aware made my life overly complicated.

I think that's one of the many things that differentiates us from children - the lack of self-awareness. Children come into this world with so much confidence (innocent confidence); they don't think they're better than others, they are just happy to be alive and are eager to explore the world around them on their own terms no matter who's watching. It's the world that dims their light, it's the world eats away at their confidence and self-esteem, it's the world that teaches them to hate themselves or parts of themselves. I have been overly self-aware for as long as I can remember. For so long, I've cared about how others perceive me. When I was a child, coming from an African household that valued appearance and performance, I always tried to please people and it became a part of me to the point that I didn't even know I was doing it.

My family is very competitive, and I won't lie a bit uppity. So I always felt like I had to prove my worth, if I didn't look good or if I was doing so good academically or career wise, I felt less than. Growing up I was often compared to other girls, whether it was friends my family knew about, female family members around my age, girls from Church or just plane strangers; there was always someone that was doing better than me in some aspect. There's nothing wrong with others doing well, there is always going to be someone that has something that you don't and that's okay. But the way it was presented to me made me feel that because they were doing better than me in one way or another, that meant that I was failing and that gave me an another area I had to improve on. It got so bad that I started seeing other females as competition. Even when my cousin was born, and everyone was fawning over her, I was jealous and saw her as competition. Oh the joys of childhood trauma!

Another factor that probably played a role in my desire to please others was the frequent criticism. Growing up, I found from the feedback that I received from others (mainly family members), there was always something I wasn't doing right. Whether it was the way I dressed, the way I carried myself (I was shy), the way I spoke or just my body; there was always something wrong. And this kind of made me withdraw from family events and it made me overly prepare for family gatherings that I couldn't really get out of. I was a late bloomer and had not so great skin, so you can only imagine how that went looool.

I remember in Year 7 or 8 I showed one of my aunties a picture of one of my close friends in the presence of my younger brother and she said something along the lines of "she has boobs and your sister (me) doesn't have any". I was very sensitive growing up and really took things to heart. Whoever said that words don't hurt must've had really thick skin. Not long after the incident with my auntie I started covering up in the house, I would either wear baggy clothes or just walk around with a duvet or blanket all day, come rain or shine; ya girl was covered. I just didn't feel comfortable at home. Mind you I experienced the same issues at school, but I wouldn't say it was as bad because at least at school I was covered by my school blazer. But I won't lie when we had PE I would wear a cardigan over my PE shirt or wear a puffer jacket, even in the summer! Why I say it wasn't as bad in school is because at least I was sometimes able to avoid the boys that did the teasing but at home walking around with blanket or some kind of covering all day, and having to deal with questions like "why are you always covering yourself?", "what's wrong with you?" and not being able to answer honestly didn't make things particularly easy.

In Year 8 (I think) I fell in love, he was everything I wanted but I found I was always trying to be everything he wanted and was failing woefully. From what I gathered he liked girls that looked mature for their age and he liked girls that were feisty; girls that could hang with the lads. So from then on everything I did was intentional; from the way I acted, the way I dressed to the way I spoke. I tried for 6 hard years to get this guy to see me as more than just a friend but I was never successful. I would spend hours on the phone talking to him, go to bed late texting him and being jealous whenever I saw him talking to other girls. I even bought him a small bottle of Ciroc for one of his birthdays (it was all I could afford), which is funny because not only am I from a religious family; I have never been an advocate for alcohol. So the fact that I was going against my beliefs says a lot.

In Sixth Form I still struggled with the same issues: insecurity, low self-esteem, being overly self-aware and wanting to please others. I was 16/17 at the time but still looked like I was 14/15. I remember just before I started Sixth Form my mum took me to a new Church and the Pastor called people to the Pulpit and he told my mum shortly afterwards that something was wrong with me, that's why I didn't look my age. That really affected my confidence, and I remember that even during my late teens to my early 20s I would still cover up at home because I just felt like I didn't looked like girls or young women my age and I didn't want to give my family more reasons to criticize me. When you've often been criticized by people, especially people that are close to you, and you're not sure in yourself, you'll find yourself longing for their acceptance. And you'll find yourself subconsciously doing things to obtain their acceptance. Some people may actually set out to please others but for me, I think it was more of subconscious decision. It was like my heart and mind made the decision, but didn't ask for my input. I found myself pretending to be outgoing, pretending to be confident and just doing things that weren't me. Every time all my family came over it's like I instantly went into performance mode, I had to make sure I never made mistakes in their presence because I felt that if I did I wouldn't be met with grace but rather judgment, mockery more criticism.

I carried this behaviour into my work life as well. For instance when I worked in a department store, I would often come home exhausted. Not because the work was tedious or burdensome but because I had spent most of the shift pretending to be someone I wasn't, in order for customers and colleagues to like me. It got to a point that I got tired of human interactions, it almost felt like the fewer people I interacted with the more I got to be myself; free from judgment. I got tired of trying to figure people out, trying to figure out what they really thought of me, trying to meet their expectations.

Through all of this, God was behind the scenes Working things together for my good. Slowly but surely, He was Weaning me off the desire to please people. I found myself wanting to go against the grain, wanting to do things that were contrary to what my family wanted and societal standards. He Made me tired of living to please people, He Made me hate it. I began to reject that part of me, the part of me that needed the positive reinforcement from others in order for me to feel good about myself. The part of me that made me feel worthless whenever I wasn't liked or accepted by others. He had to Kill that part of me for me to live. Don't get me wrong, every now and then; the enemy tries to use certain things to trigger those feelings of old in me or make me slide back into that abyss, but I am so thankful that Yahweh is always there to remind me that "I am fearfully and wonderfully Made" regardless of what others think or say about me and regardless of how others act towards me. It's taken a long time for me to get here and to be honest, I am still a work in progress because I still have those emotional scars. But I am healing, and I know that one day, by God's Grace, the enemy will not be able to use anyone or anything to provoke those feelings in me ever again in Jesus Name Amen.

Psalm 139