How to know and ask for what you want without people pleasing or fitting into other people's boxes

If you love and want something, that something will resonate with your joy, and be gifted in return...with no effort or obligation from you

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

It is so easy for me, as a recovering people pleaser, to do just that: habitually fit into the box of someone else and behave in a way that will make them happy or comfortable. It is easy to feel what other people want, and to help them get those things, so life will be less stormy.

So it is interesting in the process of becoming a butterfly, which we are all doing, to begin to outgrow that strategy of people pleasing.

The first surprising thing that has happened for me is that I started to know and feel what I want.

Some people do this quite naturally. Those people with secure attachment styles are quite good at knowing and expressing what they want, without a lot of sticky energy or hooks.

Then there are the rest of us. You know, those of us who went to school and learned that fitting in boxes was rewarded. That good grades, physical prowess, friendliness, or raising your hand, made life easier and that expressing your needs in the moment, did not always go so well.

We learned to walk in lines. We learned that behavior got a grade as well as reading, writing, and math. We learned what our parents liked and didn’t like and that the world felt better when they were happy.

I think many of us, lost the capacity to know easily what it is that we actually want.

I remember I used to struggle to make decisions. I blamed it on my astrological sign; I’m a Libra (on the cusp of Scorpio). I figured if I was born under a sign symbolized by a scale, it was in the stars that I struggled with deciding what to do or even to know what I wanted.

It is almost like the question itself is heretical. I imagine someone reading this might say they don’t have time to wonder about what they might want or need in the moment. Their day is scheduled with work, kids, and obligations. There isn’t time to ruminate about silly things like heartfelt desires. The truth is, when you have lost the capacity to really feel your desires, the question itself may trigger frustration and pain, as it points to the fact that you may not actually know the answer.

It is not fun to notice that you really don’t know what you want.

So, what does all this have to do with what I started with?

“I will include myself without conditions or people pleasing…without trying to fit in someone else’s box”

Well, let me tell you a short story.

Recently, I was talking to a friend and she said, with great surprise, that some words came out of her mouth that shocked her. She usually works on Christmas and this year, by chance, she was free. As she was chatting with a friend she said this: “I would love to come to your house for Christmas!”

Which to me means that the words came out before her mind could get involved, with all its training regarding what is ok and not ok say to someone. The words came out of a place in her that simply spoke from authenticity and joy. That place was feeling something lovely about joining her friend for Christmas. That place in her said, “Hey, I feel something good about spending Christmas with you and I would LOVE that!”

When we express ourselves like that, we actually resonate with something beautiful, in something or someone. And often, the something or someone will feel it, in the best possible way.

That kind of wanting doesn’t come from neediness or lack. It doesn’t come from careful calculation around the boxes we know are there for us to fit into, or suffer the consequences if we do not.

It is a different thing altogether.

Tonight, I was a tiny bit cold at my uncle’s house. So I did the unthinkable. I asked him to turn up the temperature one degree. That little nudge would make a difference to me.

I know, one degree right? What is the big deal? Who would even notice?

Well, I can tell you who, as I sit typing right now, in blissful comfort.

Me.

I notice things like that.

And of course, you already know what my uncle did don’t you? Except there was more.

He turned it up and then asked if maybe he should turn it up a degree at night as well?How was the temperature at night for me?

You see, my uncle and I enjoy each other’s company. It was one of those little-but-big things. He was happy for me to be comfy.

When you can feel that you matter, it makes it easier to ask for what will make your soul sing a bit more easily. It is easier to let yourself be happy.

It is odd, and the ease of happiness seems almost trained out of us as a society. We learn that happy is about having more money, buying things, control, and making sure you don’t rock the boat of all the boxes that want you to fit into them.

One degree? How silly.

But its not.

And I venture to say that two people were happy. My uncle, and me.

Now, a little background around all that, is that for many years, I was married to a man who felt strongly that the thermostat could not go above 71 degrees. At the time, I did not know how to stand up for myself, or how to ask for what I wanted from a place of really feeling it and the joy of receiving it. So, I lived in sunny Southern California and was almost always cold. I also developed a sense of powerlessness and fear over the thermostat.

So, my little ask tonight, was something different and new. It was a change for the better, with a lovely outcome. A butterfly thing. A very, very happy thing.

Any time you challenge past programming that no longer serves you, it is momentous. I imagine the angles sing. I imagine a cohort went to knock on God’s door to say, “Hey, she did it! She asked for what would make her happy! She asked for one degree!!!!!!” There were probably harps and everything. And cozy blankets with hot tea.

And I am realizing that there is a very subtle difference of wanting things from a place of love, or simple soul-desire, vs. wanting things from an energetically depleted place.

When we feel a sense of lack in ourselves, and look to others to fill that hole, the wanting comes from a need. And the solution appears to be to get the missing something, from someone else.

It is like one’s energy system has missing places that we try to fill by looking outside ourselves.

Maybe there is a “not good enough” hole, so we reach for things that will get us accolades or attention, whether that something is “likes” on Facebook, readers on Substack, or fitter-younger-smarter things.

It is easy to look out-there for something to help us feel better inside.

And diving into the holes themselves and feeling them, with care, compassion, and interest, seems to me to be the most healing thing.

It can be useful if done with care and love. Those holes and those feelings are simply needing what they didn’t get at one point.

So asking yourself what you want and need, is really more powerful than it seems.

Then if you can follow through, you can really start to change things in yourself.

It is more fun to be around authentically happy people, and people who are expressing how they are, honestly. It is more soul touching, and heart opening to be with someone who is truly expressing their feelings, without trying to get you to be responsible for them, or venting.

When someone with you is feeling something and staying with the feeling, it is surprisingly relaxing. They are feeling those places in themselves with kindness and if they allow you to accompany them, you are invited into intimacy. That is a lovely gift.

The difference is subtle but huge.

Venting is a strategy to deal with a hole, or something that feels like too much to process. So it gets spewed in the room like angry, toxic gas.

But noticing something, whatever it is, and then feeling it kindly and letting people with you know how you are…well that is more like this again:

“I will include myself without conditions or people pleasing—without trying to fit in someone else’s box”

All of those things above make up a map of sorts, that you might think requires practice.

How am I feeling? What do I need? What do I want? Is how I am feeling coming from a needy place and am I trying to get something from someone? Does energy feel like a commodity right now to me, a commodity that someone can give me to make me happy?

It can get a bit exhausting to filter through so many things.

That is why it was both disconcerting and satisfying to see the surprise in my friend when she told me that she very spontaneously, asked for something she wanted, without thinking.

Although all those questions are useful, you really may not need them if you simply allow yourself to ask for and receive what makes you happy.

People pleasing starts in school when we get accolades for good grades, or behavior someone judges to be “good”. I don’t remember anyone asking what I wanted to do, or in general, to learn. Teachers usually seemed to like me. I behaved and I studied. We had an unspoken pact. They had a box and I knew how to fit myself into it. They meant well. I learned from them. The box was unconscious, but it was there.

The same with my parents. They liked to be pleased too and not pleasing them was unpleasant for me.

So where was I in all of that? What were my needs and dreams? If I was in touch with them at all, I believe I kept them to myself. It is less disappointing that way.

You know how crushing it can be when you speak out a dream and it doesn’t land with the person you just shared it with? Maybe they give you some advice. Or they tell you how you should do something, or what they think you need to improve in yourself to succeed.

So, it is easy to not know what you really want or how you feel. Very easy.

And life is so fast, isn’t it? There is one obligation after another, a constant stream of emails coming in, things to accomplish, cars that need gas, and people to touch in with. There is your daily workout, or guilt from missing it.

It is a practice to notice what you want and need and then to let yourself notice, ask, and receive it. That is especially tricky as often, it can feel like there is a contract that happens when people agree. They may say yes to what you want, but with conditions.

We can have dessert if we finish dinner.

Praise if we get good grades.

That person’s attention if we look good enough, are friendly enough, say what they want to hear…enough.

So, actually letting someone know what you would like without worrying about what they will do, or how they will react, or if you will hurt their feelings or owe them something, can be a momentous thing to do.

It may not be easy.

But that is how new habits are built and how any new skill starts. It often starts awkwardly. Just like the spelling of the word, a-w-k-w-a-r-d-l-y. Those letters in a line are odd looking and feeling.

When my friend said, “I would love to come over for Christmas,” she didn’t think it through.

She didn’t wonder, “Is it ok to say this?”

She just said it and then had to face her internal shock and surprise.

Because what happened is that she suddenly found herself asking for something she wanted, without thinking it through.

Authenticity.

It is such a big thing.

If you feel that something will be wonderful, and you ask someone for that wonderful thing, it is like you are looking at the energy of it and it hums. They feel it too.

When it happens, we are actually speaking to the energy of what we want. We are addressing something in someone or something. It is different than asking for something from a mental place.

My friend told me another story. Another shocking moment when more words bypassed her brain.

She told her nephew that she absolutely loved to hear him play the guitar.

She wasn’t asking him to. She wasn’t trying to GET him to do something.

She just said it because it was true and she was really feeling it, and not just thinking and saying it.

And you know what happened?

Suddenly, she was invited to stay and hang out with him and his friends. And he went and got his guitar to play for her.

She gifted him. She sent a little puff of love to that place in him that is beautiful and plays music and he felt it.

That is the difference between expressing something you want, vs. trying to get a hole filled.

Of course, she could have said the same words with a hint of neediness, or whiny energy. If she had, he would have felt her hole and not the beautiful part of himself that makes music. If he did play, he would have probably felt resentful.

People do when they are actually sending some of their energy over to someone to patch up a hole that is not their responsibility.

Hole-patching our own holes is how we grow. It is fine to have support with hole healing, as long as the one with the hole is owning it and not looking for someone else’s energy to make them feel better or happy.

When you say to someone, “I would love to hear you play the guitar,” and you are feeling what you love, when you say it, things happen in the best possible way. Instead of feeling guilty or pressured, people are more likely to feel the energy of what you said. If you are really saying it clearly, they feel that place in themselves that you love. They feel how beautiful what you love is. It echoes in them. And they are a lot more likely to play it for you, because then they are touching it too…that loved thing.

Recently, someone asked me for something, which was support. It takes a few things to ask for that. The first is vulnerability. The second is courage. The third is care. You ask someone for support that you care for or value in some way. You don’t want someone with you to be supportive who is actually going to be needy.

So what happened for me is that the supportive part of my personality felt seen and valued. That part of me was so happy. I was jumping up and down to be supportive. Cancel my class that day? Sure thing!!!!! I had a job to do that was so much better. I could be supporting someone who valued me, and who I cared about as well.

All of this is to say that if you find yourself saying something that bypasses your brain, and maybe you ask for something you want…it might be a sign of growth. It might be a really good thing.

There is no need to repay times like these.

I don’t think our needs are meant to be commodities. I don’t want to live in a society of obligation where people keep score of what they have been gifted by others and do something back so they don’t feel guilty. (Or get into trouble, like a child).

I want to live in a society where we simply give and receive because something lights up inside both people.

I have a recipe for you now. It goes like this:

Pause for a minute to see what you want and need? Really, right now.

What is it?

What would happen if you let yourself have it, or asked, or expressed yourself full-on to someone, from your heart?

If you follow through (for me right now, it is a hot bath), can you savor it?

If you are asking someone else for something and they say, “sure,” can you let yourself feel that? Can you let yourself receive?

And if they say, “no,” can you find another way or another something that will satisfy that desire in you? Their “no” doesn’t mean you can’t be received. It might just not be with or by them.

What if feeling what you want and need is simply about love? What if you asking, and allowing yourself to receive, actually lights up beauty around you and in other people?

The world is not going to evolve if you keep shoving yourself into other people’s boxes because you are afraid of their reactions or response. The world is going to grow if you ask for and do what makes you happy. The world is going to light up with joy if you ask for what you love. Because what you are asking for from your heart, will create a heart-sound out-side of you. That something you desire, will most likely resonate with the beauty, and magic in you and that is a gift.

“I will include myself without conditions or people pleasing—without trying to fit in someone else’s box”