Listen to my salad story and find out how that relates to the healing journey!
We are continuing the conversation about how you know that you are healing from codependency and people pleasing. I’m going to relay a story to you that happened at Panera Bread a few weeks ago. I wanted to get some work done so I brought my laptop with me and I ordered a salad with either a sandwich or soup. When I got my order, some of the lettuce leaves did not look fresh. In the past I would have thought to myself, “Ugh. I can deal with this. I don’t want to make a fuss or be an inconvenience.” Instead, I went back to the counter and asked them to remake my salad. I simply said the leaves did not look fresh and could you remake my salad.
If you have come out of people pleasing, you completely understand what I mean when I say I didn’t want to be an inconvenience. You’re regretting your decision to not go back and ask, but you’re also not going back and asking. In the past, if my friend had an issue with her salad, I would have no issue going up to the counter to ask for a new salad, but for myself, I would not have done it. It’s a beautiful thing when we start treating ourselves with love and respect and when I treat myself as well as the other person. That’s an indicator you’re growing in self love and self care. To use your voice and be able to advocate for yourself.
I had to be aware of the intrusive thoughts that came afterwards. “Maybe they thought you were too much. Come on, you could have eaten the salad like that. What was it going to do? It wasn’t going to harm you.” I just let those thoughts be. “No. It’s fine that I asked. I paid for this and now I’m happy with what I got. I enjoyed my salad.”
This is one way you can know. I am healing. I am changing. This is a story about a salad, but it applies to so many areas in our life. When people are speaking to us and interacting with us in ways we don’t like, we have an opportunity to speak up and use our voice to advocate and stand up for ourselves.
These are all good things for any of us coming out of codependency and people pleasing. We learn to put ourselves on the back burner and to grin and bear it. When we disempower negative stories and stop projecting onto everyone else based on some of the past experiences we’ve had. You legitimately were told you were too much or that you should just grin and bear it. You might have heard or experienced these things. The point isn’t that we now live our life based on what our parental figures or someone else in our life said to us or about us. It’s time to reevaluate and you get to decide for yourself. What feels best for me? What is aligned with the direction I am going now? What is actually true to my authentic self?
You can know that if you’re standing up and using your voice, that you are creating some rifts and you’re feeling the tension in the room because you’re saying things that are oppositional. It might get messy and your emotions may be all over the place. You may feel dysregulated. That’s ok. You have to start somewhere. If you’ve been used to shutting your voice down, you may feel dysregulated when you start using it. That’s part of the process. Over time, you get used to it. When we’re initially doing it, it’s uncomfortable. It’s unknown. We may not know how to navigate it. It’s ok to learn as you go. It’s ok for it to be messy. It’s ok to even go back later and apologize—not necessarily for everything, but for maybe how it came out. Sometimes it’s going to be messy and we’re going to need grace in that. Even if the other person is not ok with it, it doesn’t mean we have to stop speaking up.
I’m ready to help you. I understand what it’s like to shut yourself down. I believe who you authentically are is worth getting to know.
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