23 April

People-pleasers in relationships often have a history of some sort of trauma. I think this goes much wider though, because our social behaviour is now dominated by people-pleasing. The greatest fear many now have is disturbing the ‘positivity’ of everyday life. Of making any sort of waves. Everything is ‘gorgeous’ and ‘lovely’. Is there a collective trauma that brought this about? I think so. The brutal removal of custom, tradition, of generations of guidance for people in how to live their lives for the collective good. Replaced with a single, economic ‘market’. We market ourselves now (the depressing vanity of Linkedin). And like with individual relationships, this trauma draws us into toxic collective relationships. It makes us compliant to employers, politicians, social media influencers etc.