I need to make everyone happy!
Since I can remember I always want to make everyone around me happy.
Since I can remember I am very easily influenced by other peoples moods.
Since I can remember I feel sometimes overwhelmed when I am around a lot of people.
Since I can remember I thought that is just who I am.
In a sense, that is true. But I recently learned something about me. Yes, it only took me 33 years to find out that all the above are in a way normal and defining who I am but all these factors are also indicating that I might be leaning towards a highly sensitive personality.
Does that insight change me in any way? Probably not. But it surely helps me a lot to understand why I react how I react in certain situations and it certainly does help me realizing what my triggers are and why things bother me.
It might sound very sweet to other people if someone says "I want to make everyone happy" but let me tell you, it is only sweet until a certain extend. If you put yourself last all of the time because you first feel like you need to take care of the rest of the world you can easily end up very unhappy and very unsatisfied because - let's be honest - no one can make everyone happy, right?
So that romantic and somewhat sweet idea of taking care of others first can be very unhealthy for the person trying.
I naturally come along very well with people. But of course, sometimes you meet someone and you have no "click" whatsoever. And that is pretty normal, right? I don't like every person I meet so, logically not everyone likes me. Well, the idea that someone would not like me usually set's me off completely.
Also not sharing the same opinion with someone is very difficult for me. I would sometimes rather agree with people instead of saying my opinion just to avoid a confrontation. But is it OK to give in just because the other way would make me feel uncomfortable?
What happens with me when I am faced with a confrontation how simple or easily solved that might be is that first of all I feel nervous. Like this feeling coming from my stomach and is crawling up my throat making me so tense and shaky that I feel I could burst. Then I get warm until I am really hot and red. I feel like I get no air and start breathing heavily. It is like putting my body under an extreme stressful situation. The moment I can not deal with the huge amount of pressure anymore I often get emotional. - It's really no fun, I can tell you.
The worst situations are these were I already know beforehand that the conversation will end on a "conflict". For days and days and days I will have imaginary conversations with myself on how it could go. That of course only builds up more stress. I know that meditation helps me a lot with dealing with the stress but in the situation itself I often feel my self helpless or even trapped in my body. I want to just say what I think is the case so I can have a real discussion about topics with people. But I am so concentrated not to burst out in tears that that is not even possible. I figured out that this all comes with the urge to make people happy.
I always thought that disagreeing with someone is of course nothing that makes that person happy. And tataaa - here I am again in my circle panicking because I need to make EVERYONE happy.
But then I thought about it a bit more and realized that it might actually help someone more if I told someone my honest opinion even though that means I am not agreeing. While that probably sounds like the most logical thing to do for most people, in my mind this is a huge thing and it still needs time to settle in. I constantly need to remind me on it right now, that it is a good thing. But it is a huge step in the right direction for myself and releasing some of the emotional stress that I am carrying around.
Lily
Since I can remember I am very easily influenced by other peoples moods.
Since I can remember I feel sometimes overwhelmed when I am around a lot of people.
Since I can remember I thought that is just who I am.
In a sense, that is true. But I recently learned something about me. Yes, it only took me 33 years to find out that all the above are in a way normal and defining who I am but all these factors are also indicating that I might be leaning towards a highly sensitive personality.
Does that insight change me in any way? Probably not. But it surely helps me a lot to understand why I react how I react in certain situations and it certainly does help me realizing what my triggers are and why things bother me.
It might sound very sweet to other people if someone says "I want to make everyone happy" but let me tell you, it is only sweet until a certain extend. If you put yourself last all of the time because you first feel like you need to take care of the rest of the world you can easily end up very unhappy and very unsatisfied because - let's be honest - no one can make everyone happy, right?
So that romantic and somewhat sweet idea of taking care of others first can be very unhealthy for the person trying.
I naturally come along very well with people. But of course, sometimes you meet someone and you have no "click" whatsoever. And that is pretty normal, right? I don't like every person I meet so, logically not everyone likes me. Well, the idea that someone would not like me usually set's me off completely.
Also not sharing the same opinion with someone is very difficult for me. I would sometimes rather agree with people instead of saying my opinion just to avoid a confrontation. But is it OK to give in just because the other way would make me feel uncomfortable?
What happens with me when I am faced with a confrontation how simple or easily solved that might be is that first of all I feel nervous. Like this feeling coming from my stomach and is crawling up my throat making me so tense and shaky that I feel I could burst. Then I get warm until I am really hot and red. I feel like I get no air and start breathing heavily. It is like putting my body under an extreme stressful situation. The moment I can not deal with the huge amount of pressure anymore I often get emotional. - It's really no fun, I can tell you.
The worst situations are these were I already know beforehand that the conversation will end on a "conflict". For days and days and days I will have imaginary conversations with myself on how it could go. That of course only builds up more stress. I know that meditation helps me a lot with dealing with the stress but in the situation itself I often feel my self helpless or even trapped in my body. I want to just say what I think is the case so I can have a real discussion about topics with people. But I am so concentrated not to burst out in tears that that is not even possible. I figured out that this all comes with the urge to make people happy.
I always thought that disagreeing with someone is of course nothing that makes that person happy. And tataaa - here I am again in my circle panicking because I need to make EVERYONE happy.
But then I thought about it a bit more and realized that it might actually help someone more if I told someone my honest opinion even though that means I am not agreeing. While that probably sounds like the most logical thing to do for most people, in my mind this is a huge thing and it still needs time to settle in. I constantly need to remind me on it right now, that it is a good thing. But it is a huge step in the right direction for myself and releasing some of the emotional stress that I am carrying around.
Lily
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