When I work with clients, they often come from environments and primary relationships where they didn't have the freedom to be children, but were shaped as a function of emotionally supporting one of their parents. Later, they either become people who please others in order to stay connected or swing to the other extreme, thinking only of themselves but unable to form meaningful connections. These ways of life lead to frustration because neither of these polarities truly lives according to its own needs, and as a result, life feels unfulfilled.

There are situations in which it's perfectly natural to take other people into account. We live with one another, our lives intersect, decisions have consequences, and much of relationships and communal life rests precisely on the ability to compromise.

The problem arises when compromise ceases to be a place where we've found enough room for both ourselves and others, and becomes a way in which we gradually exclude ourselves from our own decisions.

That rarely happens all at once.

We can know very clearly what we want. We might have a plan, a decision, a need, or simply a feeling that something is right for us. Then we talk about it with the people around us. Someone thinks we should do it differently. Someone gets disappointed. Someone gets worried. Someone has their own idea of what would be best for us. Sometimes no one is even putting real pressure on us; it's enough that we already know what kind of reaction to expect.

Self-doubt

First, a little.

Maybe we change part of the plan. Maybe we postpone something. Maybe we agree to something we didn't want because at that moment it seems easier than explaining why we don't want to. Maybe we express our desire so mildly that the other person doesn't even realize how important it is to us.

And sometimes, after enough conversation, we ourselves start talking differently about what we wanted. Someone is energetically influencing us.

Parting of ways

What was clear to us just a few days ago now suddenly has a hundred problems. We're starting to wonder if we assessed the situation correctly. Maybe we're asking too much. Maybe now isn't the right time. Maybe the other person is right. Maybe we should be more reasonable. We're doubting.

And of course, sometimes we really do change our minds. Listening to someone else, seeing something we hadn't seen ourselves, and then making a different decision is a perfectly normal part of life.

But there's a big difference between having understood something new and having adapted so much to our environment that we've drifted away from our own position.

We often don't recognize that difference in our thoughts at first. We recognize it by how we feel. When we say one thing but something else remains inside us.

We can do what others expected and then feel dissatisfied, even if we can't quite explain why. We can become irritable. We may start to resent the person we gave in to. We may feel sadness, frustration, or anger that seems excessive compared to what just happened.

Sometimes we start to resent it. We feel like others are always asking something of us, that we're the ones who always have to adapt, and that no one thinks about what we need.

Healthy boundary, healthy ego

And there's an unpleasant part of the story that isn't always easy to see: maybe we've never clearly shown the people around us where our boundaries are.

We said „yes“ when we meant „no.“ We said „I don't care“ when we actually did. We said "it doesn't matter" about something that mattered to us. We agreed, and then got angry that we were expected to do what we had agreed to.

We say “yes” when we don't mean it, and “no” is very rare.

Other people then react to what we've shown them, while we're living something completely different on the inside. Often, everyone likes us in that guise.

A lifetime of building

If it goes on long enough, the problem is no longer a single decision we made against ourselves. We begin to build a life in which there is an ever-widening gap between what we feel and what we show, between what we want and what we do.

And such a discrepancy has its price.

Why is it sometimes so hard to simply say what we want?

The reasons can be very different.

Someone learned early on that peace in the home was more important than how they felt. Someone received more love and acceptance when they were good, quiet, reasonable, and unassuming. Someone learned to closely monitor the moods of those around them and, based on those moods, determine how much space they were allowed to take up that day.

Someone is afraid of conflict. Someone finds it hard to bear the feeling that another person is disappointed in them. Someone feels guilty as soon as they put their own need before someone else's.

For some people, adapting has been the normal way of functioning for so long that it no longer even looks like adapting. They feel relief when they manage to please others. Until then, they stay on guard, and if they have to enjoy themselves alone, they don't know what to do with themselves.

Such a person won't necessarily think, „I've done what others want again.“ They might honestly believe they don't care. That it doesn't matter. That they can adapt. That it makes no sense to make a big deal out of a small thing. And only when enough of these „small things“ have piled up does the question arise of where so much dissatisfaction is coming from.

Unspoken needs don't go away.

One of the more serious consequences of long-term adaptation to others is that, over time, we can lose clarity about our own feelings. We don't know our own needs. When I ask such clients about their needs and desires, they simply don't know. Others also don't know who they are.

If every time we want something we immediately start thinking about what our partner, family, friends, colleagues, or anyone whose opinion matters to us will say, it becomes increasingly difficult to capture our own initial reaction.

What do I want before I start calculating what everyone else wants? How do I feel before I start explaining to myself how I should feel? What would I do?  What if for a moment I didn't have to think about whether someone would approve of my decision?

These aren't questions that imply we should always do exactly what we want. Living with other people neither allows that nor would such an attitude toward others make any sense.

But it's hard to make a real compromise if we're not clear with ourselves or can't articulate our needs, whereas a compromise in which we consciously give up some of our energy because something else is more important to us can be entirely our choice.

Building the shell

However, constantly giving up on ourselves before we've even admitted to ourselves what we want is something entirely different.

Over time, our relationship with people changes too, because when we don't stand up for ourselves for a long time, the consequences no longer stay confined to us.

We may start to distance ourselves from people. Become less open. Have less and less patience for their needs. Begin to see others' requests as pressure, even when they may not be intended that way. React to anyone in a hostile way, becoming defensive at the mere possibility that someone might ask something of us.

We may feel that we have to protect ourselves from others.

And that's where an interesting paradox arises.

Sometimes we've given in for years just to preserve peace, relationships, acceptance, or closeness. And in the end, our own unspoken dissatisfaction begins to push us away from those very people.

It's hard to stay open to an environment we resent for not giving us enough space if we ourselves have never clearly claimed that space. We expect others to give us what we haven't given ourselves.

Put yourself back into your own equation

Standing up for yourself doesn't mean you stop taking others into account.

It may be much more important to notice ourselves again before we make a decision.

What do I really want here?

What do I need?

What do I think about this before I hear what I'm supposed to think?

What was I prepared to do before I started imagining other people's reactions?

How do I feel after the decision I made?

Sometimes, after everything, we'll still decide to make a compromise. Sometimes we'll consciously put someone else's needs before our own because that person or situation is more important to us at that moment. Sometimes, after a conversation, we'll actually change our minds.

The difference is whether we remained present in our own decision.

Because when we're constantly trying to make room for everyone else, we very easily overlook the one person who will have to live with every decision we make—ourselves.

All of this can be healed. On subtle levels, time flows faster, and with quality energy work, issues in our subtle bodies are quickly resolved, whereas at the physical level, a therapist's support is needed to teach the system, step by step, that it's safe to choose oneself.

Saša Momić