Sharon Wright, the founder of Gorgeous Hearts Coaching, is passionate about helping empty nesters to regain their vitality, realise their soul purpose and enjoy meaningful relationships. She is a qualified coach and naturopath with over 10 years of experience in somatic voice work (a modality that facilitates alignment to the soul).
Are you nice at the expense of holding back your truth? Does that niceness strangle you and sit heavy on your chest? And when you do say what you feel, do the reactions from others make you feel like the villain, which pushes you back into niceness and accommodating the situation?
Perhaps it’s the cramp in your stomach, the tightness in your throat, neck, and shoulders, or the constant low-grade anxiety fueled by the doubting voices in your head that gives it away. But awareness is the first step, and the body speaks loudly. Now you can do something about it.
In this blog, I’d like to explore why trying to please others is disempowering for both you and the other person you are in a relationship with, and how you can begin to express yourself unapologetically from a place of nonjudgement, without the guilt or fear of how the person you most want to connect with will react.
So, let’s free your authentic voice and rediscover purpose now in midlife.
The cost of saying “yes” when you mean “no”
It can be tough being honest, and it’s a challenge to pull another person up or to take issue with something. Many midlife women have spent years prioritising what they believe to be harmony, pushing their honest feelings aside whilst being inundated with self-doubting thoughts. It’s no wonder resentment and guilt can surface and sabotage relationships.
Accommodating people at the expense of your truth can be destructive in your life. Some examples are exhaustion, a breakdown in relationships, and burnout. But with this, there’s a more subtle confirmation of a false belief that you are in some way less or that you are lacking. It disempowers you and causes poor decision-making, financial dependency, lack of vitality, and the inability to follow up on whatever needs your attention. It can also cause resentment, guilt, and disconnection, which all play havoc in relationships.
While these consequences are dire, I would add that every time you give your power away, you are signing an agreement to abuse and to abuse others. Now, that may sound a little strong, but bear with me…
It may not be immediately apparent, but when you say ‘yes’ when you really want to say ‘no,’ you are setting a precedent of expectation. People will expect you to agree to their terms and accommodate their wishes over and over again. You will be continuously suppressing your truth to accommodate or modify yourself to suit someone else’s needs, which is likely to cause resentment and emotional exhaustion. Your relationships can end up being more superficial, including the relationship that you have with yourself.
Self-doubt and low self-worth can both become a chronic disease that hides in the deep tissue of your body, affecting your expression and sucking the joy and vitality out of you. That would be a pretty abusive way to treat yourself and the other people in your life, because it’s never one-sided.
We have a responsibility to make sure that relationships are enriching and not a game of pandering to the needs of others and allowing someone else to abuse us. However, this is not a slapping-of-yer-face ‘get over it’ kind of blog. What has been done to us to create this expression is old, and we need to understand the ‘why’ so we can stop feeling a victim of it and empower ourselves and others.
Understanding the origins of people-pleasing
In this article from Psychology Today, the following is said about the origins of people-pleasing:
“This person fears rejection or failure, which may be rooted in early relationships. Perhaps a people-pleaser had a parent whose love was conditional. This child may have had to earn her parent’s love and affection, or her parents were unavailable emotionally, or the parent’s availability was inconsistent.”
I hate labels like ‘people pleaser’ because nobody is really a people pleaser. We just conform to being good, nice, right, and accommodating in order to be accepted and not rejected.
From as far back as I can remember, I calculated how to get what I wanted to achieve a particular outcome, which was often a cuddle rather than a smack. A cute little smile or some praise or flattery may seem innocuous enough, but when your reactions to life keep confirming you as a victim, it’s not so innocuous. Getting sympathy when I was a kid was akin to recognition. But fast forward to adulthood, and it manifested into a chronic state of low self-worth, disempowerment, and accommodating others at the expense of my well-being. Fear kept me obedient to what I really shouldn’t have been obeying. But I needed the security of being on the right side, a good girl, liked and validated. I had to ask myself, am I going to blame my parents for this for the rest of my life, or am I going to do something about it? Because forfeiting your own authority to either fit in or not have to deal with reactions from others is not innocuous at all.
I chose empowerment.
If you find yourself in this situation of accommodating everyone’s needs but your own, stop the self-flagellation and call a ceasefire on those blame missiles. Instead, go back to your body.
What? What has your body got to do with this? To answer that question, we need to look more closely at what love has got to do with it.
The power of love, your body says it all
As babies, we only know love, the feeling of it, the tenderness and care that we receive, and our intrinsic register or relationship with love. There are no conditions at all when we begin life. We are wrapped in that love (mostly). But later on in life, we learn that there is a kind of attention that we hunger for. Others also need that attention and validation, and people often feel rejected if they don’t get it. Love becomes transactional and conditional. We may call this love, but it isn’t the same experience that we had as a baby.
We get praise, accolades, sympathy, and attention from our family and teachers as we grow up. We mistake this for the love that we originally experienced when there was no separation between us (baby) and the people who cared for us. Could it be that we even got hooked on this false love in a desperate search for what we knew and felt, but what life never seemed to give us enough of?
So we experience the desolation of what is not love. Not seeing or truly hearing another, being competitive, jealous, or judgemental are all obvious ways that we can be attacked, and how we can attack others in this foray. These reactions can be so unpleasant that we can find ourselves tiptoeing on eggshells to avoid them. It can cause a deep fear within us if it is related to traumas from our childhood too.
But if everyone else protects their boundaries of love and identity, and they too react to any kind of invasion of them, the result becomes a bit of a slapstick comedy as we ping pong back and forth, all in protection and fearful of each other’s reactions. If we stop the ping ponging and consider that honesty, openness, and acceptance can be our authentic voice in life, we may just discover a new kind of love.
Honesty brings us closer to true connection and harmony, and authentic dialogue, despite causing reactions in others from time to time, is necessary for us to evolve in our relationships and connection with others, as well as evolve in the relationship we have with ourselves. Where is the most honest part of us? Our mind? Well, last time I looked, I found it to be pretty tricky and crafty in its workings.
No, the body is where the honesty is. Your body doesn’t lie. That’s why we need to connect to it more.
How to shift from pleasing others to being in presence: A somatic approach
1. Pause, breathe & observe
Before you jump to a yes, take a moment. Reply with an “I’ll get back to you” type of response, and go someplace to take a few minutes to reconnect to your body through your breath. Observe your breath. Is it shallow? Is your throat tight? Is there any tension in your neck or shoulders? These can be signs you’re about to give your power away and override your truth.
2. Ground yourself
Take deep, gentle breaths that release some of the tension and create space. Connect with your throat and feel the space and warmth there. Check in with the movement of your breath in the body (the movement of the rib cage expanding). Relax your stomach and allow space for your breath. Now, your voice will be supported by this quality of gentleness within.
3. Be authentic
Keep the connection to your whole body when you speak, and bring your breath from the diaphragm. (If you don’t know how to connect with it, practice at home by breathing in and puffing out your cheeks. Make sounds with your mouth closed, pushing through your lips gently but firmly — you will feel how your whole stomach engages.)
If you feel hesitant about your voice and don’t like it very much, check out my other article here.
You could say:
“I appreciate your concern, but I need to sit with this before deciding.”
“That doesn’t work for me, but here’s what might...”
“I’m going to be honest with you right now because our relationship is important to me.”
But it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
Be authentic rather than overthinking what the “right thing” to say is, because when you’re not authentic, you’re wearing a mask that makes you feel like you’ve got to live up to something you’re not. It feels alien, and other people will feel this too and are more likely to react negatively.
If you are totally present in mind and body, you will say what you feel from your heart rather than from what your mind insists is the “right” thing. If there’s nothing to say, don’t say anything. It’s much better to say, “I’ll let you know,” rather than say something that doesn’t feel true to you.
Whatever you decide to say, say it with your whole body. Remind yourself that, whether this is the “right” thing to say or not, you are exercising the authority of your expression from your heart. Soon, you will discern with more immediacy what needs to be expressed.
I support people to exercise their ability to be more aware of this by offering somatic coaching. Find out more here.
Speaking with clarity & love: Harmony in relationships midlife
Directness isn’t synonymous with harshness, but clear, effective communication is the bedrock of more soulful connections. When you connect to your body and less to the head, you will feel an inner calm that feels soulful and soulful expression leaves no space for justification or defensiveness.
Love isn’t some fluffy emotional niceness and it is not about directing love outwards one way and hoping for a morsel from someone or somewhere else. You are not a beggar in love because love is like a well within you - it is always full and deep.
However, always feeling like you need to fill it up from outside of you is exhausting as it wastes much of your effort in trying to find love from elsewhere. When you treat yourself
with respect and love, you express love too and you show those around you that they also have a well full of love. There is no selfishness or self-sacrifice in love, but self-care, self-respect, and self-acceptance are all-encompassing of it.
The more you practice expressing authentically, the more you will respect yourself and the more others will respect you. Authentic communication in relationships supports a deeper, more enriching and loving expression.
How to move from people-pleasing to powerful presence
When do you thoroughly trust yourself, another person, a particular task or a situation? What does your voice feel like when you embody that trust? Compare this to how your voice feels when honesty invokes uncomfortable situations.
Even though the patterns of early conditioning, such as imposed expectations, mean that truth often gets forfeited when there is a need to be ‘good,’ when you practice being present in your body, your presence becomes stronger and steadier.
Don’t buy into these old patterns and question the motives of your actions. Needing to be good with a subsequent aversion to feeling bad or wrong, is often at the forefront of giving your power away. Use your voice to express this if necessary, but always from a place of presence and whole-body connection as outlined in this blog. More presence helps you to enjoy a deeper relationship with yourself – always the first step in building more meaningful relationships with others.
Your voice is so amazing and powerful in this world but it’s not just about using your voice, it’s about embodying your voice and expressing your truth in a way that doesn’t impose on others. How it can offer a true representation of your particular expression.
There’s no room for low self-worth, which can often get in the way of feeling the true beauty of your voice, when you are present. This is my particular passion and why I coach people to reconnect to their authentic voice and embody it so that all of their relationships can feel enriching rather than draining.
And as a final takeaway: When you let go of people-pleasing, you won’t lose love or be rejected, you will instead gain deeper and more authentic connections based on equanimity and mutual respect.
You may get a few reactions. I just observe them – sit with them. You cannot be responsible for the reactions of others and it can be hurtful, but only if you allow the second-guessing mind monkeys to chatter in your head. With a continued connection to your body, your self-confidence will grow.
When you please others to avoid their reactions, you are holding them back. Instead, you can gently allow them to realise how far from the well of love they have strayed but without any attachment to them ‘getting it.’
Remember - empowerment is for everyone so don’t forget yourself in the equation.
If you would like to know more about how you can feel more empowered during midlife, and rediscover your authentic voice and expression, here’s a blog for further reading.
And a quick last question…
What’s one small way you can speak your truth and practice honoring your voice today?
If you’re ready to step into your authentic empowered self-expression and release the grip that pleasing others has on you, my somatic voice coaching can support you. I offer free 20-minute taster sessions so please do get in touch!
You can contact me here for a free taster.
You are also welcome to download my 15-page pdf booklet “How to Feel Damned Good About Yourself After 50 & Connect Deeply With Your Partner.” It comes with a bonus
somatic voice exercise that helps you to let go of the tensions of transitions by reconnecting to your body and expressing yourself more lovingly. You can download it for FREE here.
Read more from Sharon Wright
Sharon Wright, Somatic Voice & Relationship Coach
Sharon Wright spent many years searching for true meaning and love in her life. After many spiritual detours, that nearly destroyed her marriage, she learned that her body was a way to connect to true love, aka the soul. She has since developed and shared techniques to facilitate that reconnection via awareness of the vibrational integrity of the voice. She both coaches and mentors her clients, empty nesters who often feel alone after their kids have left home, to manage anxiety and connect more deeply with their partners. One of her main tenets, that the vibrations of the voice can harm or heal, depending on the energy one is aligned to, brings focus to heart-led living for purposeful and evolving relationships.
