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The Marriage Dance

Since I was young, I always found pleasure in dancing. For me it brought a sense of freedom, and I tended to use it as a way of escape from my own reality. I never even needed a dance floor –my room, living room, a bowling alley, the street sidewalk, or even the sandy beaches served me just fine.

When Jeff and I were married in 2020, I was super disappointed that we could not spend the entire night dancing amongst friends and family. Marrying on the top of a mountain, in the middle of a global pandemic, when everyone was supposed to be “quarantined”, required several sacrifices on our end. Although we only had a handful of in-person guests, the six-feet-apart rule provided an awkward setting for dancing, and the time restraints did not allow many options for activities. We may have missed that wedding moment, but we often find ways to create new moments that are unique to us.

One evening just last week, Jeff and I found ourselves kids-free and without any work obligations. After eating dinner together, we randomly moved the furniture, turned off the house lights, activated our multicolored LED strip lights, flipped the channel to a music station, and started dancing together….and not just any music station…..but the Reggaeton music station. (If you know, then you know 😉

Needless to say, we had a very satisfying evening together. Ok, so the way I just made that sound effortless and easy is Exactly how it was… for me. I had no problem moving the furniture, creating a club-like atmosphere, and grinding away with my hubby in the middle of the living room to reggae. Jeff, however, needed a bit more convincing. He doesn’t love dancing, and although he was a master break dancer in his youth (no lie), these days, he tends to be a little more reserved, more aware of himself, and a little less eager to be so vulnerable.

We are just starting to recover from the production of our thanksgiving feast, which included two months of décor planning, two days of menu planning, one week of food shopping, three days of cooking and baking, three hours of set up, two hours of breakdown and clean up, and only about 45 minutes of eating and actual quality time with the family. While everything was beautiful, and it was wonderful to have dinner with those we love, it seems as though as soon as we all wiped our plates clean, the –itis took over, and we were all ready for bed, with each one of us individually retreating to separate rooms and eventually knocking out until the next morning.It leaves me wondering if any other households experience the one-night-stand feeling of giving everything you’ve got for only one evening of pleasure, complete with the morning-after-walk-of-shame to the bedroom from the living room where you fell asleep in your dinner clothes and full make up, bloated and still stuffed from the night before. I briefly spoke to my dad the next day, and he reminded me of how our Holidays used to be focused on family and quality time. We never had one decoration that I can remember at Thanksgiving, and with the exception of my Grammy’s Crispy Cheddar Mac-n-Cheese and my Mommy’s Anise cookies, I can barely recall what else was on the menu. As many gifts as we had to trample over on Christmas morning, I cannot remember even one gift that stands out in mHowever, the one thing that I can vividly remember about both of those holidays was our extended family gathering to play card games and how much fun I had with my cousins after dinner. The memories that we created literally lasted a lifetime. As an adult now, cultivating my own family, I realize the importance of creating family traditions, ones that can be recreated each year, no matter where the holidays take us. I learned a very important lesson this past Thanksgiving, and that is to not make the same mistake of focusing on the bells and whistles (or decorations and dinners), but rather to focus on the areas that matter and that will have sustenance for years to come. With Christmas right around the corner, we have a wonderful opportunity to implement practical and sustainable concepts to help us have a more fulfilling, less stressful, family-focused holiday that will create lasting memories for us all. The question is, how exactly do we do that effectively?

Christmas festivities are said to be focused on family, mostly because vacation time is often granted to observe the holidays, gifts are customarily exchanged, and traditional stories are told to our kids such as the birth of Christ and Santa Clause. However, if we peel back the layers of “tradition”, we may find that a whole lot of our holiday habits actually stem from a severe case of people-pleasing. While pleasing people may not seem like a horrible concept during the holiday season, the effects of this deeply rooted action can backfire immensely. We often confuse people-pleasing with kindness, unselfishness, humility, and the act of servitude, but there is a very distinct difference, yielding very different results. People-pleasing involves putting someone else’s needs ahead of our own, and most people who want to please others are very aware of the needs of others and are often seen as agreeable, helpful, and kind. Unfortunately, in being people who wants to satisfy others, we may often have trouble advocating for ourselves, which can lead to a destructive pattern of self-neglect and self-sacrifice. As people-pleasers, we tend to be good at tuning in to what others are feeling, and we are also commonly attentive, empathetic, thoughtful, and caring towards others. Caution: these positive qualities may also be accompanied by a poor self-image, resentment, the impulsive need to take control, and the tendency to extravagantly overachieve. While others may describe us as generous people, givers, and sacrificial friends, being this type of person can be very laborious in keeping others happy and often leave us feeling drained and stressed. People might appreciate our giving nature, but they may also begin to take our kindness and attentiveness for granted, and they may not even realize they are taking advantage. All they know is that we are always willing to lend a hand and that, no matter what, we will find a way to “figure it out”. Hence, they continue to depend on us and lean on us, having no doubt that we will show up whenever we are needed and resolve whatever issue that they are facing. What they may not see is how thin we are stretched, how overcommitted we might be, and how much we may actually be the one in the position of need.

For a very long time, I found myself engaging in people-pleasing behaviors because I did not value my own desires and needs. Having a lack of self-confidence in various areas, I found myself craving external validation and often felt that doing things for others would lead to approval and acceptance. It took years for me to recognize my own self-worth and begin to value my own essentials; I genuinely thought that I had grown out of the desire to appease everyone else at my own expense or the expense of my immediate family. I believed this because, for some reason, it seemed to become a little easier to politely decline requests from others that required my time and also because I had not felt the anxiety to accommodate and satisfy the needs of others around me for a long time now. However, it recently hit me that the innate desire to please others had not necessarily been completely eliminated from my personal behavior in its entirety due to deep revelation or accelerated maturity, but rather, it was simply kept at bay for a period of time due to lack of opportunity. After all, with quarantine mandates and social distancing restrictions over the last two years, interactions with people have been limited, thus minimizing the opportunities of potential people-pleasing. As soon as the holiday season kicked in this year, so did my tendency to overachieve in sustaining the happiness of others, and I immediately began sliding down a slippery slope of amicably accommodating others at the expense of sacrificing my own priorities and desires, only to result in utter disappointment and complete exhaustion. I realized that I have more internal work to put into my own self, in order to triumphantly overcome this sacrificial satisfying syndrome. Sometimes when we have felt painful past occurrences or have experienced trauma from emotional or physical abuse, we may try be as agreeable as possible with others in order to avoid triggering abusive conduct. Recognizing this behavior is important so that the behavior can be readjusted, and the past is not given power over the present. I had spent so much time in my life trying to achieve the unattainable approval of the voices that meant the most to me in my past, that I began projecting that same behavior onto others who actually loved, valued, and accepted me effortlessly already. Continuously taking the time to notice and acknowledge that fact, ultimately reminds me of my value and allows me to properly channel my efforts to please others.

The effects of people-pleasing can be truly detrimental. One of the results of trying so hard to achieve satisfaction from so many different people around us can be that, while we might actually enjoy helping others, it is bound to breed frustration and even anger when we do things reluctantly out of obligations or “traditions”. These feelings can lead to a cycle of assisting or doing something for someone, feeling mad at them for taking advantage or not appreciating us in the way we had hoped or imagined, and then feeling regretful, bitter or sorry for ourselves later. This looped sequence of events is unfair to those around us and can cause unwarranted hostility and resentment based on unmet expectations, assumptions, and lack of communication.

To avoid this, it is important to keep a few things in mind.

First, it is helpful to clearly communicate desires, intentions, and expectations prior to executing any actions. This season, I took time to meditate on what I felt mattered most to me personally, what would make me feel that “holiday spirit”, what I wanted the end results to be, and how I could implement a plan to achieve those desires. I determined that since we are working towards building a stronger connection amongst our newly blended family, quality family together and a peaceful atmosphere with all the holiday “feels” is what I want to experience the most during this holiday. After I was able to process those things on my own, I was able to clearly communicate my thoughts, desires and expectations to Jeff, and allowed him to do the same with me so that we were both on the same page. Together we executed a plan on how to achieve what we both agreeably desired. Being that we are in super sunny, 90 degree Southern California in the middle of December, with no hope for a single flurry of snow, pumping the air conditioner to bring a synthetic chill to the house, while lighting on our seasonally embellished fireplace provided a cozy winter-like atmosphere. Styling our Christmas tree, rather than traditionally decorating it, brought an extra added flare to our festive environment, and igniting the flames of strategically placed balsam pine fragranced candles allowed for an undeniably satisfying atmosphere. Determining a schedule for the kids while they are on Christmas break that also incorporated family movie night, game night, Bible studies, and planned meals that we cook together was an important part of our plan in order to provide opportunities that will help attain our desired results of connecting better as a family. We decided to spend more time and money planning our quality time activities as a family than shopping for and wrapping Christmas gifts. Just setting that simple plan in motion has already helped us establish a peaceful environment that has set the tone for enjoyable family time together.

Second, keep in mind that just because we decided to take on a task or agreed to commit to something, does not mean that those around us are obligated to help us accomplish it, especially if we failed to communicate with them before making the commitment. Oftentimes, as people appeasers we tend to volunteer our services or oblige to a project, task, or request submitted by others, prior to consulting with family, counting the cost of the time, effort, money, or proper planning required to fulfill that obligation. Then, when it becomes overwhelming or stressful, and we see our spouse or our children enjoying their personal time relaxing or participating in recreational activities while watching us run rapid, we may feel frustration or anger. We may be tempted to impose on their peaceful moments to solicit their assistance, as if it is their obligation to help us satisfy a responsibility that they never agreed to take on in the first place, we did. Remember that when we make a decision to give our time, energy, or money away to help satisfy others, we are subtracting that time, energy, and money from our own family. It is not only ourselves that suffer, deplete, and breakdown when we are stretched thin, but often the greatest loss is experienced from those who are closest to us whom we love the most.

Third, because people-pleasing can cause an extreme amount of energy depletion, it is very likely that by giving so much of ourselves away to help make others happy, we risk actually being able to have the motivation and energy to tackle our own goals. Lavishing all of our energy and mental resources towards ensuring that others are accomplishing what they need could position us to be less likely to have the tenacity and willpower to achieve our own ambitions. Believe it or not, willpower and self-control are both limited resources that should be used wisely. If we are using your mental resources to ensure that other people have what they want or need, then it might mean that we have little left to allocate to our own needs.

Last, realize that trying to accommodate others may also result in hiding our own preferences and desires in order to allow others to express and experience theirs. This habit can inadvertently breed a lack of sincerity and authenticity within our hearts that can affect us to the point where we may not even be aware of what we want any more or of who we are. Hiding our true feelings makes it difficult for other people to get to know the real us and prevents us from experiencing an authentic connection with those around us. It is important to process through our emotions internally and search to understand what we truly want and need, as well as the cause and effect of each action we commit, each decision we make, and each reason behind both. Only then will we be able to effectively communicate that information to others around us and establish a clear opportunity.

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