The Manipulative Side of People Pleasing Nobody Talks About
People pleasing carries a manipulative side that often goes unrecognized, even when the intent behind it is never to cause harm. At its core, people pleasing is a coping mechanism used to manage the discomfort of disagreement, boundaries, and taking up space, and it serves the ego of the person pleasing rather than the relationship itself. This episode traces the pattern back to the fawning response, a survival strategy that trades authenticity for safety, and unpacks how that trade creates an unspoken debt between partners: giving without expressing true needs, then expecting devotion in return. Left unaddressed, this dynamic breeds resentment, passive aggression, and emotional distance. Lorin breaks down the difference between intent and impact, how the norm of reciprocity operates beneath the surface of every relationship, and what it actually takes to move from a transactional dynamic to a devotional one. Useful for people pleasers and for anyone in relationship with one.
Mentioned in this episode:
Healing the Mother Wound - Brand New Edition
A 2.5-hour live online workshop with Lorin Krenn
The Core Method™
The trademarked, unique and universal coaching framework for deep transformation
Transcript
At the deepest level, people pleasing is a coping mechanism to deal with the discomfort of, for instance, disagreeing with another person, of dealing with the discomfort of taking up space.
Speaker A:The truth is, if you are just authentic, if you are just expressing your hearts and soul's deepest truth, it is possible and inevitably so, that you're gonna disappoint people or that.
Speaker A:That people disagree with you.
Speaker A:People pleasing is the act of never repairing, of brushing everything underneath the carpet.
Speaker A:Suppressing our anger, suppressing our true desires as a way to manage our own discomfort.
Speaker A:We're not in service to others, only people, please.
Speaker A:We're actually in service to our own ego.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Masculine and Feminine Dynamics podcast.
Speaker A:My name is Lorien Kren and I help people get to the core of their deepest challenges in relationships, purpose and.
Speaker A:And life.
Speaker A:Masculine and feminine dynamics are not about gender.
Speaker A:We all carry masculine and feminine energies inside us.
Speaker A:When they're wounded, it impacts every area of our lives.
Speaker A:When we heal them, we experience deeper relationships, we experience more abundance coming into our lives, and we step into our deepest soul's calling.
Speaker A:I do this work through my trademark coaching mythology, the Core Method.
Speaker A:It allows you to reach the core of any challenge in the shortest amount of time possible.
Speaker A:If you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe now so you never miss an episode.
Speaker A:Why is people pleasing manipulative?
Speaker A:This is the most important thing to understand before we even begin, because otherwise many of you will feel ashamed, will feel like, well, I'm being on purpose.
Speaker A:Manipulative, not at all.
Speaker A:There is a big difference between people pleasing as a coping mechanism and deliberately manipulating other people in relationships.
Speaker A:However, the impact of people pleasing can have a somewhat similar effect as manipulation can have here.
Speaker A:We need to understand, and this is one of the most important lessons we all need to understand in relationships, especially, intent and impact is not the same thing.
Speaker A:I can intend to do something nice and still hurt my partner in the process, hurt my wife's feelings.
Speaker A:My intent could have been pure, but the impact of my action or whatever I may have done could have caused real emotional pain for her.
Speaker A:And we've almost likely had an experience where we said, well, it wasn't my intention.
Speaker A:Well, it wasn't my intention to hurt you.
Speaker A:Yes, but the impact remains the same.
Speaker A:This is the dark side and the manipulative side of people pleasing.
Speaker A:Even though the intent usually in most cases, is not to manipulate the other person, the impact is the same and it causes deep pain for the one on the receiving end.
Speaker A:Today we're gonna go deep into this.
Speaker A:What is the exact impact of people pleasing.
Speaker A:And this episode is not just for those struggling with people pleasing, but also for those who are on the receiving end, who are with a partner or know someone in any relationship dynamic who struggles with people pleasing.
Speaker A:You will gain deep clarity throughout the these episodes.
Speaker A:So let's get practical, let's go deeper now.
Speaker A:People pleasing is an old survival response.
Speaker A:I'm going to quote Pete Walker's work here.
Speaker A:He coined the term fawning.
Speaker A:So we don't just have fight, flight or freeze nervous system responses to specific challenges or triggers, but there is also fawning.
Speaker A:I'm going to read this for a moment because this is really important.
Speaker A:Fawning is the seeking of safety by merging with the wishes and needs of the person who could hurt or withdraw.
Speaker A:These aren't the exact words, but I paraphrase them.
Speaker A:So this is really important.
Speaker A:It's the merging with the wishes of the person who could hurt or withdraw their love and affection from you.
Speaker A:So it's almost.
Speaker A:You can see it as an unspoken packed, but it's not spoken.
Speaker A:It's I'm gonna merge with you, abandon my own sense of self, my own needs, my own desires.
Speaker A:In order for you to keep me happy, in order for you to provide love, in order for you to provide connection.
Speaker A:In order for you to provide love.
Speaker A:We can call this the unspoken debt.
Speaker A:I'm gonna talk about this shortly in a second and make this really practical.
Speaker A:So you can see how this impacts relations underneath the surface.
Speaker A:But just before we do that, there's something very important to go into.
Speaker A:And that is at the deepest level, people pleasing is a coping mechanism to deal with the discomfort of, for instance, disagreeing with another person, of dealing with the discomfort of taking up space, having needs, being seen, being witnessed.
Speaker A:It's that discomfort arises the moment you take up any space, the moment you could potentially disappoint the other person.
Speaker A:Because the truth is, if you are just authentic, if you are just expressing your hearts and soul's deepest truth, it is possible and inevitably so that you're going to disappoint people.
Speaker A:That's their own story, that's their own meaning, you will disappoint them.
Speaker A:They might not agree with you, or that people disagree with you, or that people don't like you, or that people have all sorts of ideas, projections and judgments placed onto you as a people pleaser.
Speaker A:That can feel like death.
Speaker A:This level of exposure, because a level of discomfort arises and then the people pleasing is the act of managing our own discomfort.
Speaker A:You need to Understand this, write this down, please, because this is that important.
Speaker A:People pleasing is the act of managing your own discomfort.
Speaker A:When we people please, we are in service to ourselves and not in service to the others.
Speaker A:Other people pleasing is the act of trying to avoid feeling a level of discomfort that comes with the exposure, of expressing ourselves authentically and truthfully.
Speaker A:So this is why people pleasers seem like they're selfless.
Speaker A:But in truth, it's a selfish act.
Speaker A:And most people don't understand this.
Speaker A:How can it be I'm doing everything for you?
Speaker A:Well, first of all, it's an unspoken kind of agreement and pact.
Speaker A:I'm going to do everything for you, but I expect XYZ back.
Speaker A:It's not true.
Speaker A:Giving from devotion, from wholeness, from the heart.
Speaker A:And then there is this element of I need you to be a certain way or I can't rock the boat or I can't express my desires or my truth because I can't deal with the level of discomfort that arises then.
Speaker A:So now I need to manage that level of discomfort.
Speaker A:The moment the other person is unhappy, the moment the other person is disappointed.
Speaker A:All vital moments of working through something together for both to have the opportunity to express their truth and actually repair People pleasing is the act of never repairing, of brushing everything underneath the carpet.
Speaker A:Suppressing our anger, suppressing our true desires, all as a way to manage our own, own discomfort.
Speaker A:We're not in service to others, only people please.
Speaker A:We're actually in service to our own ego.
Speaker A:One other thing before we talk about the unspoken debt that I hinted on before, which is really important, and then we'll talk about more things as well.
Speaker A:One other thing is, one other important thing is if I feel unworthy, if I've got an internal story from childhood, for instance, an old pain, because we understand that is an old survival response, usually from childhood.
Speaker A:People pleasing a coping mechanism in order to not feel a certain pain.
Speaker A:The pain of being rejected, the pain of being abandoned, the pain of having love or affection withdrawn.
Speaker A:But if I feel unworthy, and I'm so sure about this, then I will never give my partner the chance, my wife, the chance to see the real me, because I've already deemed myself as unworthy, I am not good enough to show who I truly am or my true sense of self.
Speaker A:So I might as well just hide it because she will leave me anyway.
Speaker A:Can you see how there is an element of projection in there?
Speaker A:First of all, my wife, if I were to do this, and I used to strike off people pleasing in the past, this is Something I worked through.
Speaker A:But this would mean not giving my wife the chance to actually meet the real me, the authentic me, the truthful me.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Because I already decided that I'm not worthy of being loved in these parts of who I am.
Speaker A:So this is really important to understand.
Speaker A:We've got a full story running.
Speaker A:And that full story is not allowing another when it's an intimate relationship, a deep friendship or whatever it may be, but specifically in intimate relationships.
Speaker A:That's a key focus here today.
Speaker A:But it implies and impacts all relationships.
Speaker A:Am I giving the other?
Speaker A:Am I allowing the other to love me in my fullness?
Speaker A:Am I allowing the other to see me for who I truly am?
Speaker A:Am I allowing the other to meet me in my deepest truth?
Speaker A:Because if I never allow them this experience, if I never show and reveal these parts of myself, if I never take space, that I'm already sabotaging any possibility of true connection, of true intimacy, and of truly feeling emotionally safe in the relationship.
Speaker A:So let's talk about the unspoken debt.
Speaker A:This is really important to understand.
Speaker A:When one person is people pleasing, there is an unspoken debt in the relationship.
Speaker A:The area where this will show the most is in intimate relationships.
Speaker A:However, it might reveal itself in all relationships.
Speaker A: he norm of reciprocity in the: Speaker A:What is the norm of reciprocity?
Speaker A:It's a near universal expectation.
Speaker A:Someone does something for you and you owe them back.
Speaker A:And this feeling of owing them back is very, very powerful in us human beings.
Speaker A:There are stories of people who.
Speaker A:For instance, there's a story where one person gifted a very wealthy individual all the time endless gifts until the wealthy individual paid that individual who gifted them something back ten times or a hundred times through a favor or for something specific.
Speaker A:There are several, many stories in history that show us when we give to other people, they naturally feel a sense of obligation to give back to us.
Speaker A:Now, this might not apply to people with strong narcissistic tendencies, but that's not what I'm talking about right now.
Speaker A:That's a different conversation altogether.
Speaker A:And I have specific episodes about people who are high on the spectrum of narcissism.
Speaker A:So the key thing to understand here is this unspoken debt is immediately created in relationship with a people pleaser, or if you're the one who is people pleasing because you're giving and giving and giving, and deep underneath you want this to be repaid.
Speaker A:This turns the whole relationship into a transactional relationship.
Speaker A:And I always say we have to move from a transactional relationship model to a devotional relationship model in order to experience sacred union, in order to experience a conscious, truly conscious partnership.
Speaker A:So it's transactional because it's wanting already something before you're giving it.
Speaker A:It's not giving from your heart because you love the other person deeply.
Speaker A:It's giving but already expecting something specific back.
Speaker A:It's that unspoken deal that says, I will endlessly merge myself and make your needs and your desires and your visions mine.
Speaker A:In order for you to keep me happy, in order for you to never withdraw your love, in order for you to do X, Y, Z.
Speaker A:So what?
Speaker A:People pleasers, they give and give and give.
Speaker A:This is unspoken act.
Speaker A:But because they're not receiving back, because they're not making any, they're not expressing their needs or expressing what they desire, there's no room to be met.
Speaker A:They're creating a dynamic where they cannot be met.
Speaker A:But then resentment starts to build up and anger starts to build up and is projected onto the other person.
Speaker A:Why are you not repaying the debt?
Speaker A:Why are you not giving me all of this finally back in the form of love, affection, or keeping me happy or whatever it may be?
Speaker A:Why are you not seeing me?
Speaker A:Why are you not understanding what my needs are?
Speaker A:This is the unconscious form of manipulation.
Speaker A:It's something unspoken and then there is an unspoken expectation.
Speaker A:Then there is resentment building up, and then there is projection.
Speaker A:And at times that resentment from being smiling all the time or saying everything is fine, blowing up suddenly and expressing anger because underneath has always been anger that has been suppressed.
Speaker A:This creates a level of guilt in the other person because they feel guilty for feeling they're not repaying a certain debt.
Speaker A:All of this is unconscious.
Speaker A:They feel a level of they should be giving something back.
Speaker A:But obviously they're not feeling a sense of gratitude because they feel that the giving is not truly coming from wholeness, is not truly coming from the heart.
Speaker A:And also they feel a sense of obligation.
Speaker A:Usually it just creates a dynamic that doesn't inspire the other person to give their fullness.
Speaker A:It creates a dynamic where their nervous system, even without their awareness, subtly picks up that there is a level of manipulation at play.
Speaker A:Even though there is not an intent of manipulation, the impact is that of manipulation because there's an unspoken agreement, an unspoken expectation.
Speaker A:And then anger and resentment being projected and leaking sideways onto the person who never actually knew about disagreement.
Speaker A:Imagine for a moment a people pleaser would say, hey, you know what?
Speaker A:Every time I give you all these things, actually what I'm Truly expecting from you is this and this and this.
Speaker A:The reason why I'm doing all of this is because.
Speaker A:And I'm just abandoning all my needs.
Speaker A:No one would agree to that, or hardly anyone would agree to that.
Speaker A:It would change the dynamic completely.
Speaker A:So the shift here for the people pleaser when it comes to the unspoken debt is to check in with themselves where their giving is coming from.
Speaker A:So in short, am I giving from fullness and devotion or am I giving so I'm not abandoned or love is not withdrawn from me?
Speaker A:Which is what trying to manage your own discomfort in that moment, your own fear of being abandoned, your own fear of being left.
Speaker A:And for the one on the receiving end who is in relationship with a people pleaser or someone who struggles with people pleasing tendencies, your practice becomes becoming aware that this guilt or sense of obligation you're feeling, or needing to try to understand your partner's needs, or your truth or your desires, or tiptoeing around them, or suddenly walking on eggshells and constantly being afraid when are they going to blow up and are they keeping score and is that what they really want?
Speaker A:That is not your job.
Speaker A:And this is the problem with the manipulation.
Speaker A:It can lead to people.
Speaker A:The people pleaser seems like the one who's just giving and it's also unfair.
Speaker A:But eventually the one who is people pleasing blows up because of their resentment.
Speaker A:They're not processing their own anger and working through it and expressing their truth and desires.
Speaker A:So the one on the receiving end starts walking on eggshells, starts abandoning themselves as well, feels a sense of guilt, feels a constant sense of needing to scan the people pleaser.
Speaker A:Are they really happy or are they just saying they're happy?
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And that is not your job.
Speaker A:You cannot mind read.
Speaker A:Yes, you can attune to a person and really feel into them.
Speaker A:No one always expresses everything perfectly, specifically in a moment of challenge.
Speaker A:But you cannot become a professional mind reader.
Speaker A:They need to have the level of maturity to actually express their truth, their desires and their real needs in the relationship.
Speaker A:So let's talk about that anger, that suppressed anger.
Speaker A:Because there is something really real and important around this that's very practical.
Speaker A:So the term passive aggression traces back to the second World War military psychiatry by William Menninger.
Speaker A:These were soldiers who complied on the surface, while resisting through lateness, forgetfulness and inefficiency.
Speaker A:So this is very interesting because these people, for instance, in this example, soldiers would have known that going against what the authority or whoever said would lead to punishment, would lead to loss of their job or their position.
Speaker A:And as children we might have learned growing up that expressing our truth and expressing our desires led to punishment.
Speaker A:So now we see it as danger.
Speaker A:Again, here comes the manipulative side.
Speaker A:We feel that our anger or our annoyance with something which can be healthy because maybe a boundary needs to be set, maybe a truth needs to be spoken, maybe something needs to shift back into alignment that is out of alignment, a specific relationship dynamic or a specific household chore, or whatever it may be.
Speaker A:And here passive aggression is essentially a form of self sabotage.
Speaker A:I'm not going to express my annoyance or my boundary or anything to you in the moment, but I'm going to sabotage the relationship through coldness, withdrawal, passive aggressive remarks, or whatever it may be.
Speaker A:Still showing you my anger.
Speaker A:Again, this goes back to kind of the other person on the receiving end walking on eggshells.
Speaker A:Because in the moment you don't express as a people pleaser what's truly happening for you.
Speaker A:So you leave the other person guessing.
Speaker A:Or at worst, they might not even know that you felt any sense of anger or annoyance.
Speaker A:You didn't set a boundary, but then it comes out sideways, leading to pain, leading to disconnect, leading to a loss of trust and a loss of emotional safety.
Speaker A:So the practice for the person struggling with people pleasing becomes when something comes up in the mind moment, where a boundary needs to be set, where your truth needs to be spoken, where an important choice needs to be made, that is the moment to express it.
Speaker A:Because if you don't express it, but then are passive aggressive about the whole thing, or are withdrawn emotionally, it's a form of punishment toward your partner because they don't know that you didn't agree with that.
Speaker A:They don't know that you actually didn't want to do that thing or go on that trip or whatever it may be.
Speaker A:But then you're passive aggressive about the whole thing, or withdrawing your love, or are cold or shut down or whatever it may be.
Speaker A:So they're left guessing, they're left in pain, they're left in confusion, they don't know what's going on, but the thing already happened.
Speaker A:And now they're being punished wrongly for needs to be expressed in the moment, especially when they're important choices that have to be made.
Speaker A:And if you haven't expressed it, then it sounds a bit harsh and brutal what I'm about to say, but this is to protect the other from our own projections.
Speaker A:Then you have to put up with it because you haven't expressed your truth and your true desires.
Speaker A:So you can't hold the other accountable for not mind reading in that moment that when you said yes, you actually meant no.
Speaker A:There is a third mechanism that is really important to mention and that is that people pleasing trains the other person or the relationship to adopt a standard that is unhealthy.
Speaker A:A standard of relationship where we minimize our own needs.
Speaker A:What do I mean by that?
Speaker A:If the people pleaser abandons their sense of self, then the other person who has real needs and want to express their desires is seen as overly demanding on paper or as on a superficial level.
Speaker A:The people pleaser looks like they're being selfless and putting themselves aside.
Speaker A:The other person by having needs.
Speaker A:And we all have needs, they're important.
Speaker A:We all have boundaries, we all have non negotiables, we all have values, we all have specific desires in relationship.
Speaker A:But it makes the other person feel like they're a burden simply by having needs.
Speaker A:It creates a standard that is important, impossible to reach, and even if it is reached, it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker A:So going back to what I said at the beginning, people pleasing is not deliberate manipulation.
Speaker A:It's a coping mechanism, an old survival response where we try to avoid to be abandoned, rejected, or love and affection being withdrawn from us.
Speaker A:However, the impact of people pleasing has a very dark and manipulative side to it.
Speaker A:There's an unspoken debt.
Speaker A:The other person, if they're not conscious of what is happening, might start to feel overly demanding for having needs and desires.
Speaker A:They might start to become hyper vigilant, constantly scanning what is the other person's state of mind.
Speaker A:Do they really mean yes or do they really mean no?
Speaker A:What's actually happening?
Speaker A:And it creates a relationship dynamic where it's very transactional rather than devotional.
Speaker A:The deeper answer to work through people pleasing is in practical terms, if I am fully honest and truthful with my wife, which I am, and vice versa with my desires, my vision, and she is the same.
Speaker A:And we align on this, which we do at the deepest and most wonderful level.
Speaker A:And in the moment when something arises that is not in alignment for us.
Speaker A:When something arises that goes against our heart's truth or desires, we're both able to voice it and work through it and repair from that.
Speaker A:Then we start to feel free, which we do to give fully.
Speaker A:There's no resentment, there's no score keeping, there's no sense of the other person is getting more in the relationship than the other person.
Speaker A:We start to give freely.
Speaker A:We start to give from devotion out of the energy of love.
Speaker A:Now, as we both give fully without expecting anything back, the other person feels inspired to give even more.
Speaker A:So we start giving both more and more and more.
Speaker A:As we give more and more and more, we start to receive more and more and more.
Speaker A:And we're living in a relationship dynamic where both are fully devoted to deepening our relationship, to supporting each other, and to speaking and aligning with our truths and with our desires and with our vision of what is most important for us in this life.
Speaker A:Easier said than done.
Speaker A:However, it is possible.
Speaker A:I've worked with many people pleasers.
Speaker A:I've helped them work through it.
Speaker A:It is absolutely possible.
Speaker A:And it is a form of death, dying to yourself.
Speaker A:That version becomes integrated or dies that feels something really dangerous is going to happen when you take up space, when you have a small moment of confrontation, when the other person is disappointed.
Speaker A:But actually when you're taking up space, when there is disappointment, when there is disagreement, that becomes the material for true connection, true communication, and true and authentic intimacy to be there.
Speaker A:The very thing the people pleaser is running away from is the actual thing that makes a relationship sacred.
Speaker A:That allows a relationship to go much, much deeper beneath the surface and go to a level of relating and communication that is a higher state of consciousness and a higher state of communication and the higher state of love.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for listening or watching this episode.
Speaker A:It is a true honor to be of service in your deep journey.
Speaker A:If you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe now so you never miss an episode.
Speaker A:Thank you.
