329: Five Types of People-Pleasers from The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue

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You when we make decisions from a place of love, care, trust and respect, as opposed to fear and guilt and obligation and underlying feelings of resentment and trying to prove ourselves, we are always going to be in a better place.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Welcome back Pivoters. I am so delighted to be here today with Natalie Liu. Natalie and I had so much fun getting to know each other the last time we scheduled this interview and so we decided to just chat the whole time and reschedule for another day. So you're in for a treat. Natalie used to have very low self esteem, a litany of problems including bad boundaries, toxic relationships with emotionally unavailable and shady folk, as she puts it, and immune system disease. But that all changed in the summer of 2005. Today she's a recovering people pleaser and we're talking about her brand new book, the Joy of Saying no. A simple plan to stop people pleasing, reclaim boundaries and say yes to the life you want. She also just recently wrapped a long run with her podcast, the Baggage Reclaim Sessions. You can listen to the archives. They're absolutely fantastic. We have in common that we've both been doing the online thing for 18 years now. She's an OG in the blog world and today she's in her Pivot in Progress, learning and teaching others how to reclaim themselves from their own emotional baggage. She has a brand new sub stack that we'll put in the show notes. Nat, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Jenni. I am very excited to be chatting with you.

Me too. I actually want to start by asking you about deciding to end the podcast after such a long run. I want to say seven or eight years, you'll correct me sometimes I think the people pleasing can come in with projects and professional efforts where we actually don't want to put words in your mouth, but don't want to let your audience down or let people down by not continuing something that you started. So can we dive into that for a minute of just how you came to that decision and did people pleasing play a role in that, or audience pleasing, rather?

Oh, absolutely. And it creeps up on you with this because I think when we think about why we have invested ourselves in certain projects, the intentions we started out with, we'll talk about firing up with our creativity. We want to experience freedom and flexibility. We want to serve, we want to help to make a difference in people's lives. But originally, when we start out, we obviously think, okay, I'm going to make this thing. We don't necessarily envision that we'll still be making that same thing for eight years. And we don't necessarily consider how that thing takes shape and how it morphs and how maybe you thought it was going to be one way, but now there's all of these other things that come into it. I never thought that I'd make over 275 episodes of the show. And don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved making the podcast. But I realized that there is something in the way that we as creators have been encouraged to make content, and we call it free content. And something I emphasized when I was ending this show was that actually it's not free, that you might be listening to a 30, 40 minute, whatever length episode. And you might make the mistake of assuming that that took 30, 40, or whatever minutes work. No, it probably took at least half a day, if not a day, if not more to go into that. And it is easy to keep going with something because you know that lots of people are listening to it. You know, my podcast is approaching, you know, three and a half million downloads. So there's a lot of people who've listened to the podcast. And then I'm getting messages from people still most days going, your podcast changed, saved my life. I love your podcast. I've listened to all of the episodes several times around. And so you can feel this weight of responsibility, especially, I guess, given some of the subjects that I'm talking about with the show. But then what I found is that I'd made something that is meeting lots of people's needs, but it actually wasn't meeting mine anymore. And I think it is okay for us to acknowledge when things are not meeting our needs anymore. It may have done at one point, but it wasn't anymore. And I realized that there's a level of over giving that creeps into content creation where you have to start asking yourself, how much is enough? I started to wonder, am I just gonna keep making episodes? Do I see myself one day going, hey, we're on episode 400, 500, 600, when is it time to stop? And I had this moment in December 2022 where I'd been promoting pre orders of my book the Joy of saying no. And they've been a little slow. You know, you and I have talked about this and I had this realization that I 1, don't, don't need to depend on the podcast and see it as, oh my God, I have to hold onto this platform. But I also, number two, recognized that I felt a little resentful and this immediately as soon as I recognized those feelings along with disappointment and shame and frustration. And those feelings were not aimed purely at audience or even mostly at them. It was myself, it was probably a bit of publisher as well. I was like, ah. As soon as I recognize that resentment is in the room, then I know that I have been people pleasing somewhere. I know that's so true. I've done something that for all intents and purposes is a good thing. But somewhere along the way, either a wrong reason crept into it or the way in which I was going about it was not in my best interest. I was people pleasing. And I realized, and I think a lot of people who are listening to this who have engaged in content creation will identify with what I'm about to say next. You start off and you're making things. You're writing the blog, you're sending the newsletter, you're posting on whatever social media you're making the thing, the E course or whatever. And then there's just more and more and more and more and we are sold this idea that if we keep making this stuff and we keep giving more, that a portion of those people will turn around and be like, oh, hey, here's my money, or hey, I want to support your thing. And actually that can be true to a certain extent, certainly initially starting out, but actually in the long run that's actually not necessarily true. Plus what happens is you feel like you have to people please your audience by generating more and more things to basically please them in the hope that they will support you in basically continuing to work. And that just was no longer viable for me.

It's so powerful. That energetic Fingerprint of resentment. And I feel at least I can speak for myself as well as also a recovering people pleaser. Slash, am I ever really recovering? I feel it's always hovering there somewhere, but that resentment. And sometimes I'm not aware that I'm even doing it until, as you said, resentment enters the room. It's like, whoa, I'm angry. But I think a quality of people pleasers is that at least I suppress my anger for a long time. Anger just didn't exist for me. I go straight to sadness. I internalize everything. Everything's my fault. I'm always wondering, what did I do wrong? If I have to upset somebody. I'm always trying to read the room. And then when that resentment comes in, it's like, oh, wait a second, it's usually on jet lag. It's way delayed to whatever was going on. And I've like internalized so much that it's not until the resentment comes that I go, maybe there's a piece here that is okay for me to be frustrated about and just own that and then try to recognize what piece of this is really true for me versus trying to just appease everybody around me or do the thing that everyone else wants me to do.

Oh, I felt that so deeply. First of all, you could be describing how I have been for a lot of my life. You know, anger, it wasn't necessarily that it didn't exist per se, but I was not allowed really to go there unless it was under the most dire of circumstances. Like, I waited for it to be like a 911 situation where it's like, you annoyed me so much and I now feel so neglected, so frustrated, so annoyed that I now feel like I have total permission to just let rip right there.

Me too. Like, very unskillful. I'll go from 00,000 to like, explosion. And it's very rare, but it's like an uncontrollable outburst. Yeah.

And that is the sign of people pleasing. Because the people pleasing by us focusing on being compliant and pleasing others, we end up suppressing and repressing our needs, desires, expectations, feelings and opinions. And we are not designed for this. So all of this time when we are essentially just holding ourselves in and projecting something externally that doesn't match how we truly feel on the inside or what it is that we need and want or even expect. Eventually it is a matter of if not when, we are going to explode. And the great thing is that once we become aware of this showing up in our lives, we don't have to wait for an explosion like an eruption or like an internal breakdown for us to finally recognize it. Instead, we can notice when, for instance, the resentment shows up in the room. Because honestly, as soon as I noticed the feeling, it was like something lit up and I went, oh, there it is. I immediately understood what it was. But of course, there was a time for us when we wouldn't have recognized these feelings.

You were the first person to break down five types of people pleasing. That I think is so helpful because these types of adaptive behaviors can be, well, they're adaptive, they came in handy at a certain point, and then they can be slippery and they take different forms. So I would love if you could do us the great favor of just giving the overview of the five types of people pleasing. And I'm also curious how you came up with this. Like, was it hard to narrow it down? So that will be part two. The behind the model.

So the five styles are gooding, efforting, avoiding, saving and suffering. So the names in and of themselves tell you about what it is that that you do or focus on in order to please others, but also to avoid the likes of conflict, criticism, rejection, disappointment and loss. So for instance, with gooding, the focus is on being good, looking good, being a good something, good, girl, good, student, good, guy, good, Christian, good, employee good, whatever it might be. It doesn't necessarily mean that that's always what we are doing when we focus on gooding. But it is important for us to portray that and it is very important for us to be light. And you will know that your style is gooding if when things don't go your way, you're like, but I've been so good. I've done all the right things. I don't understand like, why don't they like me? Why don't they like me? If you really get bugged by that, then you know that gooding is your style. Efforting, which is my style, you're focused on effort. That is what you do to please. And it's also what you do to avoid, you know, the conflicts and criticism and so forth. And so you're about giving 100% when you're efforting. It is trying to be the best. Do the best always be seen to be making the most amount of effort. So with efforting, it's not enough for you to have this appearance of, like, being good? Like, that wouldn't be enough for me. I have the effort receipts to prove it. And then of course, when things don't go my way, I'm like, but I made so much effort, I've put in so much work. I've done all of the things and people who have this efforting style, we are the most likely really to burn out because of push, push, pushing ourselves and being so reliant on our effort to define who we are as people and our sense of self worth. Avoiding is where we avoid discomforting others as a way of being pleasing. So for instance, we won't talk about the thing that really, really needs to be talked about, even if it means putting ourselves in great pain. Because by our estimation, the pleasing thing to do is to avoid anything that's remotely difficult that can also show up as, I like what you like, what do you want to do? I want to do what you want to do. And going along with things, even when actually inwardly we're, oh my gosh, what am I doing here? And when we have this avoiding style and things again blow up in our face, they're not going the way we want them to. There's a part of us that will go, but I'm really good at not making waves. I don't cause any trouble. I've avoided bringing up that difficult thing. So why is this happening to me? Saving is the fixing, healing, rescuing, you know, being the savior, being of service. People who have that saving style need to be needed. So again, it wouldn't be enough to be like, oh, I'm a good something and trying to kind of craft that appearance of it. And it wouldn't even be enough, like, in terms of like, look at me, I'm putting all of this effort in, it's directed towards doing things for others under this guise of being helpful and supportive. And it's not to say that we're not when we have this style, but, but we don't realize that on some level we engage in this style of pleasing, of doing these things for others because of what we hope we will get back. And this can cause us to overstep other people's boundaries. But of course, we can also breach our own limits in the process. And when things don't go how we'd like them to, we're like, but I've done so much for this person. After everything I've done, after everything I've sacrificed. And last but not least, then we have the suffering style, which is essentially, I bleed for you. The more I suffer, the better that makes me as a person. And so that means that somebody who has that style will tolerate a great deal to the point of breaking and think that that is actually a way of pleasing and loving others and being helpful and being of service and so they can put themselves in real dire straits in an effort to kind of get people to realize actually you need to step up and fix this situation.

We'll be right back just after this.

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Talk about resentment when with a suffering one. Because of course I don't know about you, but I've been all five with the suffering one. I'll speak in first person martyring myself and then one day comes time for that person to step up for you and they're nowhere in sight. Talk about resentment. And at first it's like, but I've done all these things for you. It can't be like that. They never signed up for that contract for you to suffer and over give. And so it's like that righteousness and then the resignation and the resentment at some point in the adulting process you go oh, I did that to myself. I suffered, I overgave, I burned myself out with someone where it wasn't reciprocated. How many relationships did I do that in?

You know, absolutely. Like, I mean I feel like you describe my dating life. It's like I put in all of this effort and then I fall on my sword because now I'm suffering over this and then I'm like I suffered for you and so what? Now this person owes me a relationship and commitment because I've been willing to suffer like come on now. And it's so easily done that we can find ourselves in this place and I'm like you where I've definitely dabbled in all five. I'm very strongly an effort. I have been, as we would say, you know, back home and I've been Reared to believe that the more effort that you put into things is, the more likely you are to get. The thing is, the better it makes you as a person is the more successful and decent you are as a human being. I must prove myself with my effort, which of course feeds what can be an underlying feeling of not being good enough, but it can also just. You just don't know your limits when you focus on effort. But I have most definitely been like. I would say I'm probably a strong mix of efforting and gooding, but efforting and avoiding with then splashes of the gooding.

Yes.

And the saving and the suffering. Suffering is very thankfully in the very distant past. But we still have to be vigilant about some of this stuff because this has been around us for all of our lives.

Even after eight years of podcast conversations and writing this book, is there any one of those that you feel is most challenging for you today, even with all the awareness and progress that you've made?

It'll always be the efforting because I'm 45, I'll be 46 in a few months time. And the thing that I have really come face to face with in my 40s, and I think that different phases of life, different incidences in life bring you face to face with different things. And I have really come face to face with how much of my identity and my habits are based on effort and this stark realization that I as a child never learned about limits because it was the expectation that you just keep going. You don't turn around and say, I'm tired, or I don't want to do that because the adults have decided that you're capable of this. So I never learned limits. And now what I've been doing in my 40s is really, really having to feel out my limits now. Because, of course, your limits at different stages of your. I have to be careful still around effort because for me, I can be very quickly aware of where I might be doing something to try to appear a certain way and cut that off really quickly. Effort is so sneaky because of course, so much of life is built around, oh, show up and do this thing. And so I just have to be mindful of where I can get very carried away with myself with effort. And I'm pushing. What I'm looking out for is that striving, pushy, not enough kind of energy.

Ooh, I'm glad you mentioned that. Like what the little flags are that let you know when you've tipped the balance on that. Tell me if you Struggle with this, because one that I notice in myself that's very subtle, but probably creates the most persistent annoying thoughts until I catch them, is wanting to be liked. And I don't know if that's under gooding, but I notice that even if I go to social interactions, it doesn't matter if it's a conference, a party, a dinner. Sometimes I'll leave that event and I'll go, did I say the wrong thing? Did I put my foot in my mouth? Did I make a faux pas? I'll have an almost obsessive, persistent thought if I think that I veered ever so slightly in a wrong direction of even being rude or possibly offending someone or saying the wrong thing to another or. I get, like, crazy about this. Yeah, I'm wondering if you have that too. And I don't know where it fits. Maybe it's gooding.

It's quite a strong gooding trait. Yeah.

If I think that I've said or done something that will make somebody not like me or not want to be my friend anymore, it freaks me out, even if I actually don't really care to be their friend. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's what I realized at some point. I'm like, this is wild. I'm obsessed that this person doesn't like me when I don't. Even if I'm being honest, I don't need everyone to like me because I don't want to be everyone's friend either. It does go two ways.

Yeah, this is a very strongly gooding trait. It's not that it doesn't show up in other ways, like, for instance, on the efforting side of things. If you have the efforting side and you worry about being light, it will often be because you feel as if you haven't done. Because remember, effort is the doing. So you will feel as if, well, hold on a second. I haven't actually done anything to warrant this person not liking me. And what you will find actually across, I'd say pretty much all people pleasers, is there are often incidences of being concerned about, oh, hold on a second, if I not please this person, why don't they like me? But also not acknowledging that we might not actually like the other person, but because so much of our sense of self is tied up in, we must be pleasing and we have to be perceived in a certain way. This idea that we might have done something to offend somebody or that somebody doesn't like just sends us into a tailspin and creates a great deal of anxiety.

Yes. I also find even with the people I do like, I'm always questioning, am I a good enough friend? Did I do the right thing on the right holiday or occasion or send the reminder or send the gift or the card or. It's so tricky. And then obviously that's unsustainable. I can't keep up with that level of gooding, you know, even with the people I most care about. And people who've listened to this podcast for a while, like it's a broken record by now, because they know I'm always talking about my micro guilt around things like this. And I think that you're helping me put language to it. But it comes from the gooding and the efforting. The efforting in the sense of, am I putting enough effort at the right time for the right people? But then as anyone's network grows, as we all age, you know, it's like almost impossible to keep up with an outdated gooding slash efforting paradigm.

And I think part of your challenge, and this is the same for any of us who are grappling with aspects of this, is that you have an image of what you see as being a good friend or a good something that you are trying to hold yourself to, but possibly in the process, for instance, trying to be your version of what you think is a good friend. It's like, oh, my God. Well, a good friend always remembers every single holiday occasion and remembers this thing and that thing and does this thing and doesn't say this and whichever else. One, that creates a great deal of anxiety. But two, it's very possible that sometimes you might actually override your own needs in the process of this because you're so busy trying to cater to, trying to hold yourself to this standard, to.

This Image Only ever 100% of the time, as Byron Katie would say.

Who, me? What? There's a Jenny back there that actually has her own needs. Who knew?

Absolutely. And it's so easy to neglect. And actually, you were saying earlier about, like, how did I come up with these sort of five styles? And it was because one of the things that I do, and I actually remember you talking about this as something that is a similar, I guess what we call it a skill or a gift and something that we enjoy doing. But I essentially reverse engineer what are the tricky situations in life. I can read relationships and read people really well. I can pick up on the patterns and so forth. And what that helps me to do is you realize that as much as, don't get me wrong, we are unique. But as humans, by God, it is as if we have been reading the same playbook about how to do certain things or what type of person you will be if you've had certain things go on in your life. And so I noticed the same themes coming up and I noticed what people were motivated and driven by, because I think that it's very easy with people pleasing to go, oh, people pleasing, it's a sign of virtue. Look at me, I'm a good person, people pleaser. Or to go the other end and be like, oh, people pleaser means that you're a doormat. Actually, it's neither of those things. Sure, there can be the odd extreme circumstance where somebody is like, I'm laid down, you can just walk all over me. But you'll often find with people pleasers that there are some areas where they are more assertive, more confident in other areas where they're not. And yeah, there are some times where it's like right across the board and they're a chronic people pleaser. But I realized that if we don't understand what drives us, and as such where some of our anxieties come from, we can actually misunderstand our people pleasing and judge ourselves incorrectly, but also find ourselves stuck in frustrating patterns. Some of us are driven by this idea of being good, of needing to be good, of needing to be liked, to be perceived that way. Some of us are very driven by effort and tie up our self worth and that. And so for instance, your self worth is quite tied up in being light and how people perceive you. Mine has been tied up in efforts other people's has been in. Do you know what? I'll just be in the background and just avoid as much as possible. I just won't need too much. And other people, it's like, well, actually the saving is a mixture of gooding and efforting. And it's like, I'm just gonna save you and be helpful and be of service and, you know, sacrifice myself. And some people, it's like their identity is caught up in suffering. And of course, if your identity is about suffering, you're not going to allow yourself to be in a place that totally contradicts that, because then you wouldn't have that identity. But understanding what drives us, what motivates us, can help us to better support ourselves.

And even saving and suffering are also forms of efforting, even avoiding. Actually, it's so interesting how they all interweave, because saving and suffering are a paradigm that I need to be functional in your life. I need to make myself so valuable to you by suffering for you or saving you, AKA effort in order to be loved, in order for you to want me around. And avoiding is also the effort of suppression. You put it really well, like disappearing where you go, oh, I don't have needs. Well, that takes effort to suppress all that feeling and all that wanting and all those preferences. I don't know about you, but for the longest time I had no clue. Someone asked me, what do you want? Where do you want to eat? I'm like, huh? I asked you? Yeah, you know, I'm like, oh, I have no attention to what I want.

Totally. Because your life has been so oriented, not just even around other people's needs and wants, but also around what society has essentially told you will make you either a good person or a successful person. And so one of the things that I say to people is sometimes a good idea, particularly when we put ourselves under pressure about certain things to ask ourselves, is this a preference or is this programming? So like a classic area where this happens is I have heard from so many women who literally, once they are approaching their 30s or they're in it, there is this automatic sort of pressure. Settle down, have kids, right? And okay, some of them actually do want to settle down and have children, but you'd be amazed at the number who'd actually don't. But it's like we're pre programmed because of everything we've absorbed through the culture as such that we think that that's what somebody who is like us, who's in their 30s is supposed to do. And so next thing you know, we're chasing after something that we don't actually need or want.

That's so true. Let me ask you one more scenario question, because they're only coming up now for the first time, and I feel that you are really giving me a baggage reclaim therapy session. Even though your podcast is officially retired. Okay, you've been putting yourself out there publicly for 18 years, as have I, obviously, both of us, you know, it's on a moderate scale. We're not like super famous or anything. But have you ever had situations where people are reading your work or listening to your show and then you meet in person? Whether you show up at an event or you meet one on one for coffee, this is part of the gooding and efforting. But do you ever have a feeling afterward, maybe I've disappointed them. When I do a podcast, I'm my best self because I love doing this. When I'm at a public event, I'M not always my best self. Sometimes I'm not that energetic or I'm more quiet and sometimes my people pleasing will come in afterward. Like I've probably disappointed them. I'm not showing up as the person they're used to seeing or hearing. Have you ever had that? Yeah.

That's an interesting one. Because a lot of people I think would maybe see me, for instance online, bearing in mind I'm not. Not even on social media that much, but they would get a sense of what I'm like and maybe expect me to be very sort of not hyper but like just very sort of super confident in person. But actually at events and particularly around people I'm unfamiliar with, I would say I'm can be a little bit, I won't say socially awkward. I take a little bit of time to warm up to that. I think in a very specific context, which is typically at work related events where there's like groups of unfamiliar people. I have definitely had that sort of feeling of people may be expecting you to be a certain way. I'm then kind of coming across as, I don't know, quiet or whatever and then I'm going like, oh my God, like what are they thinking of me? But actually generally speaking, like if I'm meeting somebody one on one or when I've bumped into people, and that does happen to me quite often, where I'll bump into people who are huge fans of the podcast or a huge fan of the blog and they will feel as if they know me. And so they'll be like, oh, how's the dog and how's the kids? And I love your work. And often they'll say actually you're like kind of how we expect you to be in person. I think generally speaking, I don't lose much sleep over it unless it is one of those big, you know, those sort of networky events where there are other people who are maybe, I don't know, being more out there and talking themselves up. And I'm never that person who's like, oh my God, I'm doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So then I kind of overthink that after I've left the room on that one.

Thanks for sharing your experience with that. You named your book the Joy of Saying no, which I love. Just love the title. How did you decide to go that direction? The Joy of Saying no. You have people pleasing, reclaiming boundaries in the subtitle. I love that you emphasize the joy in saying no because that's such an important antidote to everything that we've been talking about up till this point. So I'd love for just to hear your thoughts on how you landed on that.

So there were a couple of reasons. One was that genuinely, I had made the connection between saying no and all the wonderful things that I have in my life and the way my health is now and just how I feel about myself as a person. And when I looked back on what it was that was acquired of me, what had made the difference, time and time again, I kept seeing that no was a factor, and it wasn't necessarily that. Look, I pull no punches in the book. If we're expecting that we're going to turn around and say no, and immediately fireworks are going to go off and angels are going to sing and rainbows and my little ponies are going to pop out, it's not happening. It's a very unrealistic expectation. But what I had learned time and time again was about how you say no and you open yourself up to better and better things. You open yourself up to joy instead of resentment and frustration. The other factor in this, then, was that in starting to think that there was something really powerful about saying no. I had always been fascinated, even though I'd never actually seen the book in the flesh. But as a kid, there was a lot of talk. I'm born, like 1977, so I guess it would have probably been sort of like the early 80s. There was a lot of talk about a book called the Joy of Sex. And I always found the title, even as a small child, I found it fascinating because I fundamentally understood that this book was encouraging people to find joy in something that people basically treated like a taboo subject, like a dirty subject. And what else do we treat that way but the word no? So I wanted to celebrate no and show what is possible with it and, you know, encourage people to start treating no like it's a dirty word.

We'll be right back just after this.

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What practices or experiments help people build the muscle of saying no? So maybe listeners are at different stages of their no journey and finding it joyful. I'd love for you to give us some examples, like of a no lately that was a little tricky for you, but that you feel so free having made that decision or communicated something.

I'm laughing because the one that I'm about to say is it will probably shock some listeners, but I made the decision in February to step away from my relationship with my mother. So it was a biggie. And.

Of course, am I turning around and saying that that decision has just like, you know, rolled off me? You know, no bother at all? Absolutely not. But I tell you something. So much relief has come from making this decision, and I have found myself at peace. That doesn't mean that I haven't had my moments of feeling upset, but this is a decision that was a long time coming, but right on time. And it came off the back of series of, let's call them, events, ruptures that occurred. And I laughed to myself through tears. As you know, I journaled. I remember the day that I made the decision and I literally closed the door on her and turned away. I had to fly to Edinburgh later that day. And I remember sitting on the flight and feeling so angry and upset. You know, you all churned up. And that's why I journaled. I was like, get this out of your system. Cause I was on the way for a marketing event and I was like, get this out of your system so it doesn't churn you up. And I could see myself sort of rebuffing all these various different things that were said, you know, in this conversation as such. And then I laughed at myself and I was like, oh my gosh, this isn't even the worst of what has been done in your relationship. And yet this is the thing where you finally go, right, I've had enough. I am backing myself and supporting myself in having said no. I feel so much lighter. And I understand that there are people listening to this who are like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that she's done that, or who totally understand actually what it is like to be in that situation and find that daunting. And I cannot overstate how much peace I have experienced as a result of that. Decision, I feel free. That's a big one.

That's huge. That's incredible. And it must have been such a heavy weight and area because family seems like the final frontier of putting up boundaries, you know.

Totally.

I just know from so many friends who've had to do something similar with a family member, where of course you want to give it every last chance under the sun, but to realize at some point that there's that suffering, those efforts are not returned and it continues to be toxic and it continues to be disappointing and draining and terrible. It's like, oh, what an incredible thing to finally kind of reclaim that for yourself and just say, this is my life and you don't get to treat me that way.

Yes. And actually, you know, part of this is also, look, you can do all the self work. I know that's what they like to call it these days in the world, and you can up level your boundaries and be in a really good place of yourself and all of your other relationships and still have this other relationship in your life. And you can have all the boundaries in the world. Boundaries are not miracle workers. Yeah. So they're not gonna part the waters and turn water into wine or make somebody spontaneously combust into an entirely different. And so at some point after you have as such, and this is, you know, the people pleaser in us as well, where you've basically borne the brunt of doing that work and figuring out those boundaries, at some point you realize, hold on a second, I've done all I can do here and I can go no further down this road. And that is liberating because it lets go of that very heavy, people pleasing energy. And look, we do the best that we can. And as you said, family, this is where we learn to people please from the people that we grew up around here. So it is understandable that we feel uncomfortable with this. And what we have to trust is that when we make decisions from a place of love, care, trust and respect, as opposed to fear and guilt and obligation and underlying feelings of resentment and trying to prove ourselves, we are always going to be in a better place.

Beautifully said. And I love that snippet right at the end of making decisions from love, care, trust and respect. What a beautiful compass. I just even picture that as the four directions and that that can help us have confidence when making the really tough decisions and find that joy in saying no. Because like you said, if it's out of love, care, trust and respect for yourself and the other person.

Amen.

That's the thing. It's like, you get equal consideration here, if not more. It's your life.

And the thing is, look, I know that I've given, like, a big example there or something that I have said no to, but you know what I've also said no to? Not overstuffing my schedule, going, oh, hold on a second. Because I can be very guilty of that. That's the efforting in me where I'm like, oh, yeah, I can do that thing, and I genuinely want to do the thing, but my schedule has too much in it. And so my thing this year is margin. And so if I can't have margin, then I'm going to say no to that thing or move it to a time when it can fit better. And that has allowed me to experience joy because I'm more relaxed as a result. And so, sure, for some of us, those things that we experiment with might turn out to be something big because it's what the moment calls for. But those little things that we can do in life, here's another example. If you're somebody that tends to hold your peas and skip meals and skip breaks and skip rest and delay sleep, a way to experiment with this is to start saying yes to allowing you to do those things and no to delaying your very basic needs. Because the way that we treat ourselves in terms of, like, rest and breaks and hydrating and feeding ourselves and moving around from our desks is a metaphor for how we treat ourselves in general. It's a metaphor for how we're meeting our needs. If we won't allow ourselves to go for a pee for several hours, and then we get up and it's like, oh, my God, I'm barely going to make it. That's because we are postponing our needs. We are not making ourselves a priority.

That's such a good one. And it seems small, but it's so fundamental. It's like that's the root of it. Absolutely. I remember I never used to let myself book a massage unless I was physically exhausted, had just run a marathon, had earned it somehow. Like, unless my body was in aches and pains. I don't know. I never grew up. Like, massages just were not a thing and they seemed expensive. You don't walk away with anything. Like, I had these really weird ideas. Yep, same about how to earn a massage and what would necessitate or precipitate actually paying for it. And, yeah, just something like that. And then meanwhile, I have friends who get one every week.

Yeah, I go twice a month for two Hours at a time now. Cause I'm really into, like a long.

That's amazing massage now.

That's. That's like my thing. But I'm the same as you. It's like, this was not a thing, like, in my childhood. So the massage is what you went to go for when you were mashed up, when you were already in that zone of like, oh, my gosh, I'm broken. Whereas now it's like a regular care.

We didn't even talk about Sophie for another podcast and we are gonna do a free time one on kind of behind the book process and all the ways these habits show up there. Speaking of massage, then my people pleaser comes out. If it's a talkative masseuse and I'm like, how long do I be polite?

How long do I be polite? And how do I cut this off and just say, oh, my goodness, this is the one hour I don't have to talk to anyone. Like, please, please, can we not speak? It's like, I loved when Uber added that feature of just, do you want this to be a quiet ride? It's like, yes, yes, please. You know, just some way to indicate, can you not talk to me? But there's the people pleasing muscle of having to practice that even in a massage that I'm paying for. I have to fight this part of me that doesn't want to be rude.

I was talking to somebody who said that they didn't want to point out that the massage was coming up if it was too tough or it wasn't firm enough because they didn't want to make the masseuse feel awkward.

No, I know.

I have that quintessential people pleasing. And I was like, so hold on a second.

Oh, my God.

You're paying for a service to go for a massage, and you're going in there and you're not telling them that it's, I don't know, too tough or not firm enough. And so now you lying there on the massage table feeling distinctly unsatisfied. They're a masseuse. Like, they're in the business of giving a good massage, hopefully. So they want to know, is this pressure too much or too little? Does this feel good? Does it not feel good? How do you like your massage? And so it's not a good experience for either one of you. It's. This is an exchange here. You don't have to lie there unsatisfied. They're not going to take offense. They're a masseuse, and if they do Take offense. Then there's something pretty scary about that.

And have you ever had to say, could we not talk? How do you say that if it's a talkative one?

I just drift off one word.

Grunt answers.

Yeah, I don't say anything. And to be fair, I absolutely love my massage therapist. And so we will have a bit of a chat and a gossip initially and then I just drift. Yeah, like the conversation sort of tails off and I don't feel like, oh, I kind of need to pick this up a bit and like keep chatting. I'm sure she's quite happy to like massage about. About talking as well. But it's like, I do think, like, if you don't know the therapist that well, like, while it's nice to have a little bit of chit chat. Painful escapism.

Right. Like, I got a podcast for that. I don't need that at the massage table. I think this is the perfect homework for this topic for listeners to book a massage. Oh my goodness, how self indulgent. You know, the money, the time, not only to book the massage but, but then to communicate your needs is like the ultimate people pleaser litmus test. And like exercise, you know, such a good one.

Absolutely. Like, notice where this shows up in your life where it's like, oh, I won't mention that. Oh, are you actually going to sit there and eat the wrong food because you don't want to annoy the person by telling them that the food order is wrong. Are you going to sit there and have an unsatisfactory meal instead of turning around and saying like, this shows up in a myriad of ways.

I know, it's everywhere. Well, I could talk about this all day with you. As evidenced by our first recording session that we decided to just chat offline the whole time. This has been so fun. Now where can people find you if they want to learn more, keep in touch and even take the quiz.

So you can find like a lot of my work is hosted@baggagereclaim.com where you can also find the quiz and you can also find like the podcast as well, the Baggage Reclaim sessions, which is available across, you know, all podcast players. And then I have my own site. Well, I've got Substack, which is natalie lou.substack.com and then social media wise, I'm not massively active on social media, but I am on Instagram. That's where you are likely to find me if I am doing something on there. And that's Natlu N a T L U e And of course I've got my book the Joy of Saying no, which is available in all bookstores.

Yay. Thank you so much Nat. I'll put all these links in the show notes and listeners stay tuned for free time because we're going to go behind the book and business for that one.

Thank you so much Jenny.

Thank you Nat. What a blast. And wishing all of you listening a beautiful rest of your day.

Thanks. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcasts and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always?

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