#236 – And when they don't like... me?

The only honest response here would be a giant ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

"You don't like me? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So what?"

The problem is, many of us people-pleasers (recovering or active) take so much responsibility for other people's feelings, that we make it our problem if they don't like us. We lay it upon us to do something about it.

As you may have guessed, it's not we – as in our True Selves. It's the Ego, with its insurmountable fear of rejection, enlisting, in my case, the Ghost of Misplaced Guilt (GoMG).

I have strabismus (my eyes don't align), as many of you know. To this day, I sometimes feel like I may offend a passerby with my misaligned eyes. And so I find myself looking down or away when I cross someone on the street.

It's not a conscious behavior, and whenever I catch the GoMG pressing me to look away from someone's gaze, I do the opposite: I look forward, which is when the misalignment becomes more noticeable.

Because someone else's aesthetic preferences aren't my responsibility.

I'm also not responsible for other people's happiness. Or for their mood and satisfaction with life. Or their weight, exercise and lifestyle habits, how well they slept or didn't...

But growing up in a codependent family has this byproduct: it makes the voice of the GoMG so loud that you think it's your own. You learn to shape-shift and twist yourself into the weirdest pretzels so everyone will feel at ease with you.

But someone else's feeling at ease or not has, once again, nothing to do with you.

What are you taking responsibility for that you could free yourself from?

Love,

Carolina