WHO ARE WE TRYING TO PLEASE?

A few weeks ago I came across a quote from @the.holistic.psychologist on Instagram that caused me to pause and really think about who we are trying to please as artists, and why. The quote shone a light on a truth about “people pleasing,” which is something I have been working on my whole life…trying to understand what is at play and how to not let it direct my choices and actions, especially as an artist.

While I have written about this before in a previous blog post from 2021, ‘Who Are We Creating For,’ there was something about this quote that asked me to revisit this. 

“People pleasers are not trying to please other people.
They are trying to avoid their own feelings of shame when they disappoint someone. 
Every people pleaser has one core goal: to control how another person views them.”

My first response in reading this quote was just how much people pleasing was actually a deeper need for self-preservation and acceptance. I recognized myself in it. I recognized the shame I can feel when I have to say no to someone, set a boundary, or choose my needs over another’s. 

People pleasing started early for me. As a painfully shy child, it was the safest way to not get hurt. I wanted everyone to like me, to never have a conflict, and to make others happy…many times at my own expense. But on some level it worked for me…so I continued to focus on pleasing others.

The flip side of this, and perhaps the confusing part as well, is that I am a kind and generous person…and I will always do my best to help when and where I can. I am proud of that aspect of my personality and would never want to change that about myself.

And I have, at times, said yes when I really needed to say no. I have made unhealthy choices for myself out of the need to feel loved and to avoid the shame of others' judgments about my need to be myself and honour my truth. I have self-abandoned more than I can bear to think about.

Years of counseling and personal work led me out of the stickiest part of this way of being, to a healthier place…thank goodness. I am forever grateful for therapy and the lessons that life brought me that allowed me to heal and trust myself more fully.

Then came art. I came to art-making later in life, after abandoning it as a self-indulgent and unreasonable choice, and one that no one saw as having true value. My early people pleaser could not forge a path in art-making simply because it meant going against the grain and societal conventions, bucking others’ expectations of me, and truly standing in what I wanted. 

But even as I finally found the fortitude to forge that path, even attending a 3 year fine arts program and dedicating my life to art full time, I was hampered by the residual “people pleaser” within me…I just didn’t know that was what it was. It seemed to be operating in an unexpected way – a way that was a bit covert. 

All I knew was that as I was attempting to make my art, I was thinking much too much about what others wanted, liked, approved of, rather than what I wanted or liked. Or if I felt compelled in a direction with my work, I doubted its validity and imagined all the voices that might challenge my conviction about that choice. This made making my work arduous and painful at times. Resistance to getting to the work grew as my anxiety did, causing an inner conflict between my vision for my work and my ability to persevere the rigor that art-making was demanding of me.

Art-making is inherently challenging. It asks us to truly be present, to be ourselves, and to create from that core of self-knowing. If we’re constantly thinking about others when we make our creative work, we’ve lost the connection to ourselves in the work – which is essential for authentic expression. We can become creatively blocked, unable to finish work, or even begin.

All artists want to make work that feels connected and alive with energy – work that reflects something as unique as they are. They want to be able to take risks and make work that they can feel proud of, simply because it is uncompromised by self-censoring. It’s real, truthful, and connected…and it has intrinsic value in its bravery. 

This desire requires us to show-up, not just physically, but holistically. We need to show-up for ourselves as much as the work. We need to set aside the concerns we may have for others – friends, family, collectors, gallerists, and social media likes – to be completely engaged in the creative process. 

When we can be this open to ourselves, and trust in our own worth and validity, we have the greatest potential to manifest the work we aspire to make. But, we have to please ourselves first…and, sometimes for some artists, pleasing only ourselves. Van Gough never stopped making his paintings because they were unconventional for the time, and not collected. He understood the connection he had and valued that beyond anything else and his master works live on as a result. So many artists like him have laid the groundwork for us to do the same. 

People pleasing doesn’t support our art-making, and if we can be really honest with ourselves, we know who we’re trying to please…and it’s not us. How would it be to shed that baggage and fully step into yourself? What freedom might exist there? 

Yes, it will likely generate some level of anxiety…but art-making generally does. We just need to have a few tools to manage that anxiety and carry on. Mindfulness practices, breath work, reflective writing, healthy self-talk and reframing negative thoughts and biases all help us to get there. I’m grateful I found them for myself, and can now share them with anyone who is also struggling with the burden of people pleasing.

Shame is one of the most burdensome emotions to carry. Its message to us is that we are flawed in some way. A tremendous resource for understanding shame's impact and how to work with it is Brené Brown. She is a writer, researcher and speaker, and you can find her work HERE.

The connection between people pleasing and shame that The Holistic Psychologist was making in her quote, can help us to understand why it is essential for us to stop thinking about pleasing others with our creative work and choose to be the artists that we are. Will you join me?

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