Fitting into boxes
One evening three weeks ago, Z was playing with a little set of pots and pans, and running around the living room, admiring how she could get half of a plastic pepper to stick to her toe (“I have a pepper on my toe!” step, step, pepper falls off, places it carefully back on her toe, step and repeat). Generally being that unique blend of chaotic cuteness that two-year-olds embody.
She then emptied a plastic box that held her toy pots and pans, and declared, “I’m gonna sit in it!” She put one foot in, then the other, and carefully squatted in the box, as much as she could. This lasted for about five seconds before she climbed out.
A few minutes later, she ran and got the laundry basket, which is significantly bigger than she is. She carried it through the kitchen, giving exaggerated grunts as she squeezed around a tight corner, then a triumphant, “THERE we go.” when she got through. She set the basket down on the carpet and asked me to pull her as she climbed in. I spun and twirled her for a few minutes. Then she bent forward and tried to do a somersault inside the laundry basket. She placed her head on the floor of the basket, and said, “It’s too hard,” meaning the surface wasn’t soft.
So she stood up and climbed out, before gleefully flipping her tiny, mighty body around on the carpet, promptly utilizing as much space as possible.
The shapes we fold ourselves into
Rewind to six weeks ago, when I suggested my best friend and I have a small Zoom Winter Solstice celebration, inspired by my recently finishing Wintering, by Katherine May (beautiful book, highly recommend).
We went all out. I mean, I put on a clean shirt. Lipstick. Earrings. It was fancy.
We lit candles and meditated and then we each stated things we planned to release from 2021.
Here was mine:
I release my desire to control how other people react to me and to the things I create.
I said this out loud, wrote it down and burned it in a candle, and felt more than just a little wild and magical while I did it (life in a pandemic has really lowered the bar for excitement). I actually had to burn it twice, and my friend commented that the universe was making me prove that I meant what I said.
Yeah.
I mean, this has been a major issue for me, my entire life, but it flared up in a BIG, and debilitating, way in 2020. It’s an issue for a lot of us, especially those of us who are socialized or identify as women. From a young age, we are often taught by family, teachers, doctors, peers and media, how to dress and eat and flirt and talk, to be not too smart, not too loud, not too bossy, not too big. The social pressure to behave a certain way is even more aggressive and violent for girls of color. To be clear, there are social pressures for boys too, but they tend to bend in the opposite direction, leading to a separate set of unhealthy behaviors, like higher rates of suicide and domestic violence.
I actually used to avoid eating lunch and dinner on days when there was a high school dance, so I wouldn’t have the tiniest little pooch poking out from my stomach. And I completely transformed my appearance and behavior when I entered eighth grade, to avoid being perceived as too nerdy. I stopped raising my hand as much in class and embraced a “ditzy” persona.
People-pleasing, along with it’s close friend, perfectionism, is also an issue for a lot of us as doctors and other healers. “The patient comes first”. We are expected to care for others before ourselves, which too often in today’s healthcare system can feel like to please others before ourselves (thank you patient satisfaction scores). This can contribute to job dissatisfaction and physician burnout.
In my case, I also have some obsessive compulsive tendencies and anxiety as well, which often coincide with people pleasing. I’m not sure it’s possible to be a people pleaser without also having anxiety issues.
I was recently looking through the Instagram feed of Ashley Lindsay Morgan. She posted on February 1 about her history of abuse by Marilyn Manson. Speaking out about abuse takes an enormous amount of courage, and the tendency toward silence by abused women can be linked back again to gender expectations of silence and “proper” behavior. You can read her original post here.
I read her powerful February 1 post, and then was looking at the rest of her feed. The next post from her, back in December, caught my eye, because I have so often felt this way myself. It also underscores how difficult it must be for her to share her story of abuse, given the tendency for women who do speak out to become targets of anger and backlash. Talk about courage.
This quote is so brilliant, because it’s how many of us with anxiety and people-pleasing tendencies feel. For me, when I think I may have hurt/upset/offended someone, my primitive brain shifts into overdrive, agonizing over every word, every gesture and every letter, memorizing each pixel in an email, or replaying the recording of our voices in my mind. Basically, I beat my little imperfect human Self into a pulp, wondering what I can do to fix things. And I have at times made matters worse by excessively explaining/contacting/trying to fix.
I’ve made progress on this over the years, but it still flares up, especially when other stuff in life is hard. Like when I’m grieving/moving/changing careers/breastfeeding/pandemicking/protesting/just trying to feel like a normal human sometimes.
On the plus side, this has happened enough times now that I’ve started to be a little better at identifying it. And slightly faster (from weeks, down now to days) at addressing and releasing it.
It’s an ongoing effort.
But what I really considered specifically in choosing how to word my intention for 2021 was that often, my efforts to stop people-pleasing have been about how “they” see me.
To “stop caring about what others think.”
For a care-aholic, this language has been counter-productive. How do I just stop caring?
I decided this time instead to focus on what I was thinking, and on releasing control.
A few months ago, I was listening to an episode of UnF*ck Your Brain (a really excellent, feminist-oriented cognitive-therapy-esque podcast I’d recommend for anyone who’s interested). The message was this:
When we people-please, we are actually lying to other people to make them like us.
Whoa.
That got me.
When we people please, we are manipulating our message, our appearance, our Selves, in order to be accepted, or at least, to avoid rejection. To MAKE others like us.
Or at least, to like the version of us that we tailor to them.
I had never thought about it that way before. But it makes sense. People pleasing, while stemming from our own insecurity, is at its core an attempt to control others. To control outcomes. To force someone else into liking/accepting/forgiving us. Because WE can not tolerate anything else.
Ah.
As a repeatedly recovering perfectionist, this makes sense to me. I prefer to have control over outcomes, whenever possible. And even when it’s not possible, I still prefer it.
So I have a hard time accepting when I mess up.
Like. A REALLY hard time.
Especially if my mistake might mean I’ve irreversibly hurt someone - whether it’s someone I know well, or a complete stranger. I’ve been this way since I was very young.
But the thing is. Sometimes I DO mess up. Or hurt or upset someone, accidentally. Sometimes I hurt or upset someone as part of my path to authenticity. And sometimes, I can’t fix things. Sometimes I SHOULDN’T fix things). Sometimes, we all. Fuck. Up. That’s part of being human. Heck, it’s why I named this blog a humandoctor. Because doctors are NEVER supposed to mess up, i.e. be human. And this is a pretty toxic belief for doctors, and for patients. I’m not saying we shouldn’t expect excellence from clinicians, but I am saying that perfection is impossible, and the expectation of it is a recipe for burnout, addiction, and misery. Not to mention a lot of malpractice lawsuits.
So, for 2021, I’m trying to let this toxic habit go.
I’m reciting my intention to myself regularly. I feel my gut unclench just slightly when I do. It’s a physical release to match my intention to release. But it is NOT easy. I’ve already had to deal with it twice this past month.
Which brings us back to my munchkin-in-a-box.
Z’s wasn’t in a box at first. But then she saw one that looked like fun, and she put herself in it. When we are kids, we become aware of social norms, labels or groups. We sit (or are crammed) into a box. Z enjoyed sitting in the tiny box for a bit, before she decided it was too small. Sometimes, it feels good or safe to sit in something that we’ve outgrown, including our own or someone else’s expectations of us. But eventually it gets uncomfortable. So, Z went and, with great effort, found a bigger box. That was fun for a few more minutes, and opened her up to some new experiences, like having someone else spin and twirl her. This happens a lot in our teens and twenties, when many of us are starting to stretch out a bit, but may still be very other-oriented, and find ourselves in particularly unhealthy or codependent relationships, on a ride dictated by someone else’s whims, through our work, our partners, our food, our behavior patterns, whatever.
Finally, when Z wanted to spin and twirl herself, she realized the larger box was still too rigid and too small. So she climbed out.
Perfectionism and people pleasing are ways we try to fit our adult-sized behinds into tiny, should-shaped boxes. Boxes someone else made for us. Boxes we made or chose for ourselves.
It’s only when we realize the box is too small, or that we don’t want any box at all, that we can finally choose to climb out of the box. Then we discover the space to dance and cartwheel, and can celebrate the others who are doing the same.