I was recently interviewed by Authority Magazine on the topic of being a people pleaser. Below is an excerpt from that article. The full version can be read for free on their website.

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What does “People Pleaser” mean to you?

A people pleaser is a person who feels compelled to give more than they receive in any kind of relationship. Their default thinking will be some form of ‘what can I do to make people around me happy?’

On the surface, it seems like being a person who wants to please others is a good thing. Can you help articulate a few of the challenges that come with being a people pleaser?

It does seem like a good thing on the surface. Certainly it is better than being the complete opposite. The trouble is the people pleaser invites others to take advantage of them. People pleasers will find there is inequality in their relationships. They are apt to grow bitter and feel that although they give so much to others, they get little in return. They may ask ‘when is it gonna be my turn?’

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How does people-pleasing behavior impact personal relationships?

If you establish in your relationships that you will give and give and not ask anything in return, the people in your life will accept that arrangement without much thought. People may assume you just take pleasure from giving. That you don’t want much of anything in return. Even well-meaning people can fall into this receiving without giving back trap. Receiving is easy, and if a person isn’t being asked for anything, it takes mental effort for them to notice that they should be giving.

The above is the more common scenario. But there are more dangerous ones. People pleasers attract people users the way a glove attracts a hand. It is common for the victim in abusive relationships to be a people pleaser. An abuser may be the type of person who consciously only wants to take and take. So they sniff out a person who was raised to give. The abuser unknowingly plays the role of that childhood parent or caretaker. And the victim will play their old familiar role, possibly not knowing a different role is an option.

This is exasperated by gender norms. Women are already conditioned to be givers in mainstream culture. If they grew up in a household that was both unstable and patriarchal, they likely would’ve received the message that it’s a woman’s job to quietly give and have no expectation of anything in return.

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Often while we say we want to change aspects of our lives that bother us, we don’t actually want to. That we actually prefer to keep the drama alive. This may be hard to accept. The drama appears to be everything you hate, so how could it also be your preference?

The answer may be that the drama is familiar. In discussing anxiety I often use the metaphor of ‘the tiger in the room.’ Anxiety is the fear that because we have endured traumas and stressful events in the past, we will again in the future. So we have to be anxiously on guard for it, we have to be looking around for where the tiger -the threat- is hiding. Relief from anxiety can then come when you see the tiger, when a bad thing is happening to you. Because at least then you are in a familiar experience.

The alternative is being comfortable with openness. That anything could happen, that there are no barriers, that anything can be in the room. This could mean a tiger is present, but it could also mean that love is present. It could mean a million different things good, bad, and neutral may be in the room. Anything may occur. If you choose to people please, then you will get the same familiar result. However if you choose openness, if you choose to take a new action, then you will get a new result. Is a new result what you want? Then take it.

Full interview here.

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Why is acceptance important when it comes to managing a mental health diagnosis and living well with it?

Acceptance is important because if you are battling the diagnosis, then you are really only battling yourself. The longer you deny reality, the longer you put off the work of coping with things. I have found that acceptance can be a relief as well. If you know what it is that is going on with you, you can begin the journey of coping with it.

How can psychoeducation help someone accept a diagnosis? 

We are not born knowing any of this. And sadly, due to mental health stigma and the differing priorities of the education system, we are not taught psychoeducation much either. Learning more about the diagnosis in particular and the mind in general can help make it all feel less overwhelming.

How can support from others -- like peer support groups -- help someone accept a diagnosis? 

Support from peers, therapists, and even friends can be helpful in normalizing whatever the diagnosis is. With peers in particular, you can see that “oh, other people are like this as well, and they don’t seem as ‘crazy’ as I would’ve thought.”

What else can someone do to work toward accepting a mental health diagnosis? 

Not take it TOO seriously. Diagnoses were created in part by the medical profession as a way to classify people. ‘OCD’ or ‘bipolar disorder', for example, are designed to be a shortcut for practitioners to understand the client’s situation at a glance. The mistake we often make is to turn it into a self label or a self identity. Whatever the diagnosis is, it is only one of many personal characteristics. 

What else to say about this topic?

When I am working with clients and they tell me their diagnoses I try to avoid making assumptions about them. Rather I will often ask “what does that diagnosis mean to you?” I feel that is more important than knowing what the psychological world thinks it means about them.

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I was recently asked some questions about pathological liars. And here they are!

​1. Is pathological lying a mental health disorder or is it a symptom of other disorders? Please explain. 

Not a mental health disorder, but more likely a symptom of some other things. A strong possibility is that the person had some traumatic events happen in their past. Usually in childhood. And as a consequence they developed the habit of lying as a way to protect themselves. Perhaps they grew up in a household where admitting guilt to even minor infractions was met with violent punishments. In that case lying would be the only logical thing for a kid to do to protect themselves. And as we find again and again in therapy, the adaptations of the kid stay the habits of the adult.

2. When it comes to pathological liars, are there any warning signs or red flags to look out for in the dating/getting-to-know-you process? 

Well if you can figure out a subtle way to do it, you can borrow a police detective strategy. When they tell you a story, ask for more details to fill in the picture. The more complex a story becomes, the harder it is to give details. Unless of course the story is true, then a person has actual details to draw on.

3. Can smaller lies ("white lies") also harm a relationship or erode trust? 

Yes, for sure. If they occur regularly it will inevitably create questions in the other person's mind such as "if they're lying about this stuff, then what else isn't true?"

4. If you think your partner may be lying to you about something, how should you approach the situation? And what happens if they double down on their lies? 

If you think they may be lying it could be best to help them explore why they are doing it. First you can show them that you care about them, and that they can be safe with you. Help them feel that though their lying hurts you, you want to work with them to help them get better. That may mean couples or individual therapy. The important thing is that the compulsion and its source are addressed.

If they double down on their lies you may need to double down on your efforts above. "Battle" them back by showing extra love and safety. But if they triple and quadruple down then it may mean the relationship needs to end.

The Conclusion Drawing Machine
The brain is a conclusion drawing machine. It does not believe in our ability to live in uncertainty. It has little faith in ‘we’ll figure it out when we get there’. It abhors ambiguity. It needs answers now, and if good ones cannot be found, it will settle for bad ones.
The brain’s first preference is the correct conclusion. It wants to be right about people, places, and things. It wants to be right about relationships and ideas. This is the golden conclusion we are always striving for.
The brain’s second preference is an incorrect conclusion. We like to close loops in our head. Mysteries are fun when they have answers. So many things in life are either unanswerable, or unanswerable in the moment. We lose sleep worrying about things that have yet to play out. Telling ourselves a lie can help us rest. Believing we have arrived at the truth means no longer having to think about it.
The least favorable preference is coming to no conclusion at all. Like the uncomfortable feeling when you are walking and the next step isn’t where you thought it would be. For our cavemen ancestors who faced threats we have since inoculated against or drove extinct, mysterious situations were where deadly danger dwelt. We are hardwired to have a nagging voice in our head saying ‘figure it out, figure it out. Don’t wait for more information, figure it out now.’


Comparitivitis
Comparitivitis - noun - /kəm-per-I-tə-vī-dəs/
: inflammation in soul caused by thoughts of others successes, particularly in comparison to ours. Psychosomatic disorder. Arises in subject from misconceptions on how ‘they’ve got it over there’. 
Individuals most vulnerable to comparitivitis include infants, toddlers, and those who have difficulty imagining what it is like to be in other people’s shoes.
Symptoms include: (a) endless social media scrolling, (b) “I wish I/we could do/had that” statements, (c) inability to appreciate what one already has, (d) decreased motor function
SEE ALSO: Joneses, keeping up with; First World Problems

​High School is Over
Maybe when we look back on it there is nostalgia but let’s face it, high school was awful. We were in rapidly changing bodies, first discovering what the social world was, and surrounded by others in the same situation.
No longer was there the innocent equality of the prepubescent days, when every kid was just a kid. Now there were rankings, cliques, hierarchies. We spent our days all in the same brick building. Everyone knew everyone, had an opinion on everyone and we had one for them. Hell even everyone’s parents had an opinion on us. We were being watched and judged; ‘No Mistakes’ was the order of the day.
After high school it’s all over. When we become an adult no one cares anymore. We are cast out into the world for our chapter three. Trouble is, every single person who has reached this point brought with them a view of the world developed in the preceding eighteen years. So if that view says that people are compared, categorized, and ranked, then we are going to march into adulthood thinking that is still happening.
It’s not still happening. No one cares, and that is a really good thing. Go make mistakes, fall flat on your face. No one is watching anymore, they too are off on their own. Go do a thing. Become you.

(Originally featured on Social Work Today)

In the American Southwest, there’s a little guy called the trapdoor spider. It sits all day in the small tunnel it dug into the earth with specially adapted teeth. It chose this space, seeing it as best suited for its purposes and freely available. It did the work of digging, closed its silk-hinged trap door, and now it waits.

Time passes, its prey creeps across its doorstep, and it strikes. It’s quick, and to our eyes violent, but also natural. It’s smooth. It’s the way of the world.

The tree in the woods did not select its spot. But it too works with the parts it has evolved on the ground that it found available. Time passes, and the storm winds rise up. The many branches of the tree bend and give way; the wind moves on. Maybe it appears violent to our eyes, but it is also natural, smooth, and the way of the world.

Some trapdoor spiders may starve, and some mighty trees may fall. But the tree does not attack the wind, and the trapdoor spider does not run around the ground in a panic. They do not force these actions because they know intuitively they won’t work. They do not force these actions because they lack anxiety.

Anxiety can be a beautiful thing. In large part because of anxiety, we do not have to live with our bodies or roots hiding in the ground. We can venture out across the earth safe in the knowledge that, to a strong degree, we can react to trouble and threats. Our blessing is that our reaction switch is always set to “on.” Our curse is that we can never turn it off.

Reaction will always be our default. Reaction is controlled by our amygdala, the almond-shaped bit of brain that sits near where the brain connects to the rest of the body.

When we feel, see, smell, or taste things, that information passes through our amygdala first before moving on to the rest of our brain. If we see a bear’s paw swinging at us with claws out, our amygdala will direct the body to dodge it before we even recognize with the rest of our minds that it is a bear’s paw.

The amygdala is so wonderful when it is functioning properly. When we have suffered a trauma, have suppressed a lot of emotion, or are under considerable stress, the amygdala can be like a malfunctioning fire alarm. It will scream out to us, “Something is wrong! We need to take action now!” Action, action, all the time. This is anxiety.

The amygdala reacts. But it knows its abilities are limited, and that it has an ally in our skull in our higher brain. The prefrontal cortex. The place where we do our higher thinking. This is the part you are using right now to comprehend and consider these words.

The amygdala reacts and asks our higher brain to take action. It sends up stress signals like the Bat Signal. It makes us physically uncomfortable so we will act. When we act, we feel comfortable again for a while. If there are no actual threats that can be addressed, we may turn to our default coping strategies. We may rearrange the furniture, seek out some reassurance, or throw a tantrum.
Afterwards we feel better.

Unfortunately, in searching for short-term relief, we often do long-term damage. Our actions, when there was no real immediate threat, fed back to the amygdala the message that it was right to get all worked up and send out those stress hormones. The amygdala then thinks it should see more things as threats and make us even more anxious next time.

The solution then is the most counter-intuitive thing imaginable in the moment. Unless the bear’s paw, the tornado, or the city bus truly is barreling toward us, the best thing we can do is take inaction. It is to sit there with the pain, watch it swell up like a wave in our mind and body, reach its crest, and then recede. Because it will recede. It will not drown you.

As the stress hormones taper off, you will find that you survived, that your life was never actually at risk.

After the initial reaction of our amygdala, our actions are within the control of the higher mind. When we ride the wave of anxious discomfort to its conclusion, we are then able to respond rather than react to what is going on.

With practice this becomes easier, and we grow more skilled at working with our anxiety. Eventually we can even learn to appreciate our amygdalas, which do so much good for us. We can learn to love them because they are part of the beautiful experience of being alive.

​We can learn when we need to respond. Or, like the patient trapdoor spider or the tree on a peaceful day, we may find that no action is required at all but to be.

Satellite View on Anxiety

When we are in a highly anxious state the world closes in tightly. It’s kind of like being in Google Street View. We’re locked in place and all we can sense is our immediate surroundings. Our brain is scanning the area around us because it perceives threats. We can see detail in every direction, but only about 40 feet out.

But that 360 degree bubble is not the only place life exists. Our anxiety is so concerned with the moment that we lose sight of that. If we are able to zoom out we see that the moment is a small part of the whole. There is the town, the county, the state, the nation, and it is all happening on this green and blue orb.

If we can catch ourselves in the moment, and click that (-) button to zoom out, we can be better off for it. Oftentimes the people that know us best are already there, viewing our life from 40,000 feet. It may be worth asking them what is actually going on in the wider view, help adjust your perspective.

The Overnight Attendant
The brain is like a good hotel. It is all efficiency. During the day bellhops zip up and down elevators, maids toss white linen in the air, and a team of workers at the front desk process weary travelers. We can take on most challenges in the daytime.

At nighttime things change. Staff go home to their houses and apartments. Come 3 AM there is no one around but the Overnight Attendant. That one lone person manning the front desk in the unlikely case someone is needed. The staff need rest, so they rest while the rest of the world is at rest.

We need, uh, rest too. We can run a whole operation during the day. We can hold conversations while operating vehicles. Listen to podcasts while cleaning. It is amazing what the brain can do! The cost of being human is that such an amazing piece of machinery as the neocortex cannot run at full power, 24-hours a day. At 3 AM it wants to be asleep.

So if we are awake at 3 AM, the hotel is not at its best. The anxiety we experience then is like a group of teenagers broke into the swimming pool area, someone clogged the lobby toilets, a surprise tour bus just pulled in, and oh by the way the building is on fire. The Overnight Attendant is not equipped to handle all this. What brain is awake at 3 AM is not equipped to handle problems. The best possible answer is to lock the doors and say “I am going to figure this out tomorrow when I am fully staffed again.”

Hope Loan

This one is dorky, but it can work. It’s called the Hope Loan. Sometimes in life we know we are in a pinch point, where life is coming at us from different angles. Perhaps the kids are at a really tough age, while simultaneously we are overwhelmed at work. Or you are in some major transition. A divorce, grieving a loss, an emptying nest. 

What all of these situations have in common is that they are not permanent. They are tough times, but the pain we are feeling in those moments won’t last. There are better times ahead. It’s hard to imagine that in the moment, of course. But the moment is emotional, not logical. Logic is clear: periods of pain are followed by periods of not-pain.

We all are familiar with loans at this point. A loan is a bet on yourself. It’s saying “I am gonna be worth enough in the future, I just need a lump sum to help me in the present.” A hope loan says the same thing. “The future is gonna be alright, so I am gonna take a lump sum of those good vibes now.”
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Hope loan: like a regular loan, but no monthly payments!

Marilynne Robinson said "depression may be the inability to sustain narrative." This is a fancy way of saying that when we are in the depths of depression it is hard to remember that we are in the middle of an ever-changing story. We view that how we are is permanent.

Depression says at least one of these three things: "I suck, the world sucks, and nothing is going to change." This flies in the face of the facts of the world though. The only thing constant is change. And the world or ourselves cannot be simplified to just 'sucking'.

If there is one thing common in all times of depression I have seen or experienced, it is this feeling of certainty. Depression is famous for black and white thinking. We might believe that things are wonderful for others and terrible for ourselves, with no room for either to be only partially true.

It is so important then to catch ourselves in these moments. If we have thoughts that sound so certain and definitive, we need to apply the hand brake. We have to recognize that we are thinking more in our emotional mind and not our rational mind. And then we can question whether any conclusions we have drawn about ourselves or the world are really 100% true.

(Read more about applying the brake to our thoughts here)

(And a trick on how to think differently here)