This week we're bringing back the energy of those classic 90s magazine quizzes — but with a spiritual growth twist. I've created a five-type people pleasing quiz specifically for sensitives and empaths, because most conversations about this topic don't account for how differently these patterns show up when you can actually feel other people's emotions.

People pleasing doesn't always look like people pleasing — and if you're a sensitive or an empath, it can be especially hard to spot in yourself.

In this episode:

• The five sneaky people pleasing types that hide in plain sight — especially for empaths
• Why your gift of sensitivity can make people pleasing feel like kindness instead of self-abandonment
• How to score yourself as we go — and what your total score actually means
• Why this isn't about never being flexible or never showing up for others
• The moment of recognition that changes everything

Grab something to write with and play along — you'll have your score by the end.

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Full Episode Transcript:

Hey, beautiful soul. Welcome in for another episode of Spirit Speakeasy. Quick question before we dive in, how many times in the last two weeks have you said yes to something and, like, really meant it completely, like a full body yes, no asterisk, no quiet calculation of what you'll have to give up, but just like a full yes for you, and on the other side of that coin, How many times did you say yes in the last couple weeks, and something felt different underneath, like obligated, or a little guilt twinge, or maybe a little feeling of like, well, I can't really say no to this, so I guess yes, because that's what we're going to talk about today. If you had to put a percentage on it, what percentage of your yeses this week came from that genuine yes versus, you know, that version that is something else entirely? That is the question that today's episode is about. I want to be really clear up front. I'm not here to tell you that you should never be flexible or never put someone else first or never be negotiable or sacrifice or show up for people you love. Of course, that's not what I'm saying. That's not what this is. Caring for others and showing up and being a part of a team, those have real important aspects for us, for our growth, for relationship building, and those can be really beautiful things. What I'm saying is that it matters what percentage of your overall yeses have their roots in a genuine yes versus something like fear or guilt or obligation, or the need to keep everyone comfortable, and a lot of us, myself very much included here, have been every single one of these at some point, just so you know, don't always know the difference, right? We don't always know when we feel obligated versus when we genuinely want to help or do something, if you are an actively recovering or still in the throes of it, people pleaser, I'm raising my hand over here. Just know I'm talking to you, and this is for us. But this is going to be a fun one, because here's the thing: people pleasing doesn't always look like people pleasing. It doesn't always look like the doormat who can't say no, or the chronic apologizer who kind of shrinks in every room. Sometimes it looks like being a great team player, sometimes it looks like being deeply devoted and loving. It can look like being the most capable, helpful person in any room. Sometimes people pleasing just looks like being a good person who does the right thing, and those are the sneaky ones. Those are the ones we're going to talk about today. And we're not just going to go through a list today, we're going to do something fun. I have created a quiz. Do you, do any of you out there in the Spirit Squad, the Pod Squad? Do any of you out there remember doing those quizzes in magazines when you were like a preteen or a teen? I'm talking about Cosmo, 17 magazine, all the magazines in the 90s with those like score yourself quizzes, and then you would go in the back and read what the score meant for you at the end to find out what kind of person you are or what this means about you. I lived for those, I didn't get to do them very often because those magazines were expensive, but I have always loved those really fun quizzes. So we are bringing all that energy back from the 90s today, but we're going to make it about spiritual growth, tipping into the summertime now. I wanted to do something a little fun for us, even as we are learning and talking about people pleasing. So, here's how it works. For each of these five sneaky people pleaser types, I'm going to describe what it looks like, how it shows up in real life, and why each of these that I'm going to go through, excuse me, is particularly sneaky if you're a sensitive or an empath, because the rest of the quizzes and talks, they're not really geared towards like why these things are extra hard if you're someone who's sensitive or spiritually gifted or is really an empath in the world, so we're going to come from that angle, and then I'm going to ask you to rate yourself from zero to five, so as we go through these, kind of keep that in the back of your mind, and I'll pause after each one and give you a second to evaluate yourself, zero to five, zero means this is never me, like this doesn't resonate for me at all, 0% one means very rarely do you feel like this or act like this, two means sometimes, three means often, four means very often, and five means always or almost always. So, just a zero to five, with zero being the lowest and five being the highest of the. That's it, and we are going to rate them, and then you can tally up your score, and then towards the end of the episode, I will tell you what your score means about you, and we are all going to be okay, and we're going to have some fun along the way, and maybe you, as an empath and a sensitive, because if you're here, you are, maybe you will learn a little bit about yourself, and maybe your eyes will be open a little bit to some sneaky people pleasing that I definitely still can fall into on occasion. So, grab something to write with if you can, write your numbers down as we go, and at the end you can add them all up, and I'll give you your score breakdown. And, as always, take what resonates with you, leave the rest. This is meant to be illuminating and fun, not deflating. Okay, let's get into it. So, the first of these sneaky five people-pleasing styles that I want to address is the team player. For the team player, you're flexible, you're easy, you go with the flow, you don't make a fuss, you're the one who says I don't mind when the group at lunch is trying to figure out where is the office going to go eat or where's your friend group at the office going to go eat, even if you do mind, you're the one who takes the on call shift, you cover the inconvenient day, you sit in the middle seat, you take the room with the bad view, you tell yourself it's no big deal, you tell yourself you're just being a good team player. Have you ever said that? I've definitely said that. This is this kind of like take one for the team or be a good team player attitude. And here's the thing, sometimes you genuinely are flexibility, collaboration, those are real virtues, right, there's nothing wrong with them, but the people, please pleasing version of the team player isn't actually flexible, they're afraid, afraid of being seen as difficult, afraid of being the one who holds things up or makes things complicated, afraid that if they say what they actually want, something will shift in how people see them, for example, and the sneaky part is that this one can run completely under the radar for years for sensitives, you're not dramatic about it, you're not obviously suffering, you're just quietly deferring, you keep accommodating, you keep taking the hit, taking the one for the team, and then one day you look up and realize you genuinely can't remember the last time you said what you actually wanted, like for yourself, or you feel like, do I even have any preferences, or you might even find yourself inexplicably resentful of people who seem to have no trouble asking for exactly what they need. I have definitely felt like this. This is actually part of why I wrote this episode. So, how it shows up in the specific moments someone might ask where everyone wants for lunch, and you immediately say I don't mind, even though you actually had somewhere in mind that you were hoping to go, and now you're eating sushi when you really wanted Italian, right? It could look like your boss adds something to your plate that's clearly beyond your capacity, and maybe even beyond your role, your job description, and instead of flagging it, you say sure, no problem, or you might not even say anything at all, and you figure out later how to make it work, how to figure it out. It could show up like you've been covering the inconvenient shifts, the holiday days, the last-minute asks for so long that the people in your workplace have stopped asking if it's okay, and they just like assume, "Oh, you'll do it. It could look like your family is deciding where to go for the holidays, and you say you're flexible, even though traveling, you know, maybe traveling by car for a long drive is genuinely hard for you, because you don't want to be the reason that the holiday is complicated. It could be that your friend group is making plans, and two of the friends are pushing really hard for something that you don't really want to do, you're not really interested in doing, and instead of saying you don't want to go or you'll stay behind or negotiating something else, you go along with it and spend the whole time wishing that you were home or weren't there, it could be your partner or your roommate has a really strong preference about something that affects you both in the home, and you fold immediately, not because you genuinely don't care, but because they're wanting it so much, made your own preference feel like less important somehow. It could be that someone volunteers you before you even thought it through, or raise your own hand at work, at school pickup, at a faith community, at the family reunion planning committee, like it could be in any area that you're getting volunteered for things, because you're the one that will be the team player, right? It could be. That you arrange your whole Saturday around someone else's schedule, and when they casually mention they might need to change the time, you say totally fine, even though you have reorchestrated all of your schedule and your plans for them, and it is very much not totally fine. So, why is this version this team player, so like sneaky, especially for sensitive as an empaths, for highly sensitive people and empaths. This one is particularly tricky, because you can actually feel when someone is hoping that you'll say yes. As an empath, we can feel and perceive other people's emotions, even if we don't know that we're doing it, so you pick up on the subtle shifts or vibration of their energy before they've even finished the sentence or the ask, or before you even fully discover what's going on. You probably feel relief when you agree, because you can feel their relief, and sometimes that felt sense of their relief is so immediate and so real that it shortcuts your own decision making process entirely, and you said yes to their energy really before your own mind processed the ask and really decided, and it is in a way a version of kindness to like help and step up in the moment, it doesn't feel like fear, it feels like kindness, and yeah, sure, it is in a way, but when it constantly comes at the cost of your own needs, it's kind of crossed the line from team player and helper into self abandonment and the energetic experience of someone else's disappointment can feel like physically uncomfortable for sensitives, so avoiding that feeling of disappointing someone or letting them down or not helping out by saying yes can become an automatic reflex, because we can feel the discomfort or the energetic experience from both sides, so it can be a reflex that we're not even actually doing what we want, we're just easing the energetic tension. I'm going to tell you a really quick story to illustrate this, and then I will, we'll rate ourselves, and then I'll move on to the next one. So, this is about a friend of mine years ago, who worked in healthcare, and they always volunteered to cover the holiday shifts. They would tell themselves and everyone else that they didn't mind. They lived alone, their family was far away, it was fine. Their colleagues, of course, loved them for this. They felt useful, and they felt needed, and it wasn't until a few years in to this career that my friend was telling me that they realized that they made themselves so reliable and available to everyone else that they realized, like, oh my gosh, no one has ever once asked me, like, did I want the holiday off when we're doing all the scheduling? Everyone just assumes, like, someone else is going to get it. I'm, and I'm going to take it, because I've offered a lot before as a courtesy, but, like, hold on, no one is even ever asking me if I want to have a holiday off, and the loneliness that my friend felt working those shifts wasn't just about the holiday or those emotions that come around during the holiday. It was about having everyone around them in the workplace trained that my friend's presence didn't need to be considered, that they were the easy one, and they would show up and kind of the workhorse, and it really hurt their feelings in many ways. Can you relate to that story. I've definitely, I've definitely been in those shoes. So, for this team player version of people pleasing, rate yourself on a scale of zero to five. Remember, zeros never, one is rarely, two is sometimes, three is often, four is very often, five is always or almost always. How much do you see yourself in the team player? Okay, jot down your number or make a mental note, and we're going to move on to number two, the self sacrificer. This one runs deep, and it often looks from the outside like the most beautiful kind of love, this is the person who gives everything, the self-sacrificer, their time, their energy, their last piece of cake, the last of whatever they have, and they never ask for anything in return, or at least that's what they tell themselves, because underneath all that giving is often a very quiet, very old belief that love has to be earned, that if I do enough, if I give enough, if I sacrifice enough, then there will be reciprocal love, or I will feel safe, or I will be chosen. And often this is a program that's running very quietly in the background, especially for sensitives and empaths. You might know this person, you might have been raised by this person, you might be this person. Let's get into it. So, I grew up around a version of this, and I think a lot of us did. It wasn't in my family, but many of my friends that I grew up with. It was the way I think of, like, quintessentially this self-sacrificer is the grandma who comes from another country and lives with her family in this country. I can't speak for every culture, but growing up I witnessed Nona's from Italy and Lola's from the Philippines and Yayas from Greece and Avos from Portugal and Abulitas from Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, and so many of them were the quintessential version of this. The grandma would wake up every morning before everyone else. She'd cook every meal, she cleaned without being asked. She never sat down. I never saw them at the table with the rest of the family until everyone else was served and fed and happy, she would wave off any offer for help. No, no, no, I'm fine. Sit, eat, let me take care of the babies, right? And I want to be clear, I'm not saying that every woman in this role felt resentful or kept a tally of some kind, but many of them, you know, it was. It's a hard role, of course. Many of them genuinely loved it, and for some of it was simply the cultural expectation of the time and place kind of programmed so deeply that it wasn't even a conscious choice. In many cultures, that is what the grandma just does, goes and lives with the family and takes care, right? So some don't have other feelings about it, because it's just part of the culture, but even the ones who didn't resent it, even the ones who gave with a completely full and open heart, so many of them just never seem to have permission for just themselves, just to sit, just to rest, just to want something and say that they wanted it, just to tell someone to get something for themselves, and the absence of permission is kind of its own quiet loss for for the sensitive, and this isn't limited to grandmas or to any one culture, of course. I'd love to hear in the comments what this looked like in your family, or your background, or where you grew up, because I have a feeling it shows up in lots of places with its own beautiful and heartbreaking flavor, and it doesn't just only live in the older generations of family dynamics, of course. It shows up in romantic relationships, in friendships, in workplaces, anywhere where someone has learned that their value is measured by what they contribute rather than who they truly are, and I think a lot of us can resonate with that. Certainly, I can. So, how might this show up in specific moments? You can, like, better identify what I'm talking about here with this one. You can cook and clean and organize and plan and manage the household, and when someone offers to help, you say it's fine, I've got it. And then maybe you quietly feel a little twinge of resent, resentment, or resentfulness that you always have to do everything yourself. It could show up like you canceling your own plans, your own rest, your own needs, without anyone asking you to, and then over time you feel unseen when nobody notices that the sacrifice you know you've made it could be that you are the one that remembers everyone's birthdays and dietary preferences and triggers and bad days and somewhere in the back of your mind you're keeping a very quiet tab or tally of who does the same for you? It could mean that you give a gift or do a favor or go out of your way for someone, and while part of you really genuinely means it, right, you're your generous person, another part of you is kind of quietly hoping that it'll be remembered by this person, and when it isn't, and when they don't reciprocate for your birthday or your special day, something dims just a little, or feels just a little frustrated within you. In a relationship, it could be that you consistently put your partner's needs and moods and preferences ahead of your own, and over time, maybe you've stopped being able to identify what you actually even need, because their needs have taken up all the space. You might say things like, I just do it because I love them, or I don't need anything, and in the moment you mean it, but later there's this familiar, like almost hollow feeling that you can't quite name my nose, is so itchy for those that are watching on the video. When someone does try to give you something or take care of you, you deflect it, you're uncomfortable receiving, you minimize it, you rush to give something back immediately, because being on the receiving end feels almost unsafe. It occasionally. Personally, tips into martyrdom with this one, not the dramatic, loud version, necessarily, but the quiet sigh, the no, no, no, it's fine, the comment that lands just a little heavier than intended, and underneath it, it's not anger, but it's really grief, the grief of someone who has been giving for a very long time and is still waiting to feel truly seen. And let's talk a little bit quickly about why this is especially sneaky for sensitives and empaths. For sensitives and empaths, this one's particularly layered, because giving genuinely feels good for sensitives, at least at first. You're wired to feel other people's needs and respond to those needs, and it can feel like the most natural thing in the world. It can feel like your purpose, your gift, even your calling. The problem is when this giving becomes the primary way that you feel worthy of love, when it's not a choice but a compulsion, it stops being a gift and starts being more transactional, and it's a transaction that you never agreed to. Actually, sensitives also tend to feel the emotional weight of others very acutely, which means when someone around us, as a sensitive, is struggling or needing something, the pull to fix it, or to provide, or to sacrifice ourselves for their needs, it can feel almost irresistible, almost like not even a choice at all, because maybe we feel them hurt or weak, or because we feel it so deeply that doing nothing feels like cruel or wrong sometimes, and over time this can create a quiet, it's almost like an exhaustion that's hard to explain to people who don't experience the world as a sensitive. So, I'm going to tell you a quick story to illustrate this one, and then we will rate ourselves from zero to five on this self-sacrifice people pleasing, right? So, this person, she was the person everyone called. She was the friend who showed up with food when you were sick, remembered you had an anniversary, checked in on you after your difficult meeting or procedure. She gives generously and genuinely to everyone around her. She loves being this person, but in those quiet private moments, and in a private moment with me, this person brought up in conversation that she actually couldn't remember the last time someone had shown up for her in the same way, not because her people were bad people, and not because even sometimes that they didn't offer, but because she had been so consistently the giver that the dynamic of her receiving simply hadn't been solidified, she had really trained and continued to train people around her without even meaning to, that she didn't need to receive anything, and the loneliness of that was about being unloved, really. It wasn't about the stuff or doing it, was about being loved in a way that didn't quite reach her. So, how can you see yourself in this self-sacrificer? I want you to rate yourself from zero to five, zero being never, and five being always or almost all the time, so rate your zero to five for the self sacrifice, or write it down or make a mental note, and we are going to go next into number three of the five. The helper with the hangover is what I'm calling this. If you are the helper with a hangover, you have a big heart. When someone near you has a problem, you feel it, and your instinct is to help, and that's not a flaw, obviously, that's actually beautiful. But this one is about what happens when that instinct moves faster than your boundaries can keep up with it. The helper with the hangover says yes in the moment, genuinely, warmly, wholeheartedly, open heartedly, and then wakes up the next morning, or even sometimes later that day, with a specific feeling, you know, the one, the oh no, what did I just agree to? That realization that you've added something to your life that doesn't quite fit, or it costs more than you budgeted for emotionally or practically, and that nobody usually with this one, nobody asked you to do in the first place. The sneaky part is that the yes always feels right in the moment, or usually feels like the primary emotion in the moment. You're moved, maybe by what the ask is, or what's going on with this other person, you're present, you're connected, and then the moment passes, and you feel like you're left holding something heavy that you handed yourself. Okay, so let me talk more about how this shows up in specific moments, so you can see if it's popping up for you. This one pops up for me. Sometimes, too, it could be that you're in an emotionally charged conversation, and, like, you know, you're talking to a friend or a loved one that's upset, and they make a request that, in any other moment, you would have probably thought through more carefully, but in that moment, feeling them upset, the warmth and the connection makes it feel impossible to say anything, but yes, for you. It could be that you make a special exception for someone, your time, your, you give them a reduced rate, maybe. If it's a client, you bend your boundaries, your usual way of working, because the situation genuinely moved you. Maybe they have something seriously going on, and their story genuinely moved you, and so you bend, and then you spend the next week quietly wishing that you hadn't made that agreement. It could look like you go significantly above and beyond for someone at work or in your personal life, and their response is underwhelming, not because they're ungrateful, necessarily, but because they didn't ask for you to do what you did, or to give what you gave, and they don't know how much it costs you, actually, in the overall, like, emotional cost, energy cost, let alone the monetary cost, right? It could look like something that you agree to that sounds manageable in the moment, because you're caught up in the moment, and a couple days later you're looking at your calendar, wondering how you got here, how was this on your calendar, and how did you agree to one more thing? It could be that you volunteer for something meaningful, something that you genuinely care about, and only after the yes do you start to see the full picture of like what you actually signed up for? This is the like saying yes with little to no research. I've definitely done all of these things. So, why is this one especially sneaky for sensitives? For sensitives, the yes happens almost before the thought does. Sometimes you feel the need so acutely in the moment that responding to it feels less like a choice and more like a reflex, right? Kind of similar to the other ones we've talked about, and the hangover comes a little bit later, usually when you're out of the energy of that moment, of that person, of that need, and you're back in your own life, trying to figure out how to deliver on something that felt completely manageable then and now feels like a lot. I did this even just this last week, as I'm recording this. I am not going to tell the story because I don't know who listens to the pod at this point, but I could definitely get swept up into this one. I'm going to give you a friend, a story about a friend of mine, and I hopefully this will illustrate this for you. This friend was a yoga instructor, and she genuinely loves this work, like it's so passionate about movement and yoga specifically, and love working with her typical clients, and then also did a version of yoga for special populations, because she has some extra training on the medical side of things, and when a colleague asked if she could cover a series of classes for a few months at a different studio location, it's a bit of a drive for her, but she would be serving this like special population that she really cared about. She said yes almost before the question was finished, of course she did. Just who she is, she's so giving and loving, but the truth is, you know, while the work was meaningful, there was something else underneath the yes to she was so caring that she was also partially considering that this colleague of hers that asked her had just been going through a really hard year with family loss and just lots of upheaval, and my friend could really feel what this colleague had been going through, and the colleague had been sharing a little bit with her from time to time, and my friend knew that, like, the time off actually would do this person good, so how could she possibly say no to that, like this person was trying to take care of themselves, and she knew the struggle, and so she almost like wasn't even seeing herself in the situation, and the sensitive in her took over, that warmth of the moment took over, and the logistics of it felt like, oh yeah, sure, I'll just figure that out, something she could sort out later, but they weren't really small details, the commute was really challenging, because of the time of day, because of the specific location, it was really eating up the evening time that she had. The schedule was really disruptive to her own practice, her own schedule. There was a reason she wasn't already working at this studio, and the few months was like quietly expanding over the next couple weeks of her. Sudden was like, oh, actually, I'm thinking I might, it might be more than a couple months, maybe I'll take an extra month, and then came the layer that my friend wasn't expecting. She started to feel guilty, even as part of this, as an added layer for her, not just about the situation, but about her own feelings about it, because she was feeling a little resentful or frustrated, or like it's maybe not annoyed that she said yes, but like it was a lot, and she was feeling kind of like, oh my gosh, why did I agree to this? And then she felt guilty for feeling like, why did I agree to this, because she's like, oh my gosh, I'm such a bad person, I should be helping these people, so you guys know those dreads shoulds, right? But she felt guilty for wishing that she had said no. She felt guilty for resenting something she had chosen, and that guilt on top of the original yes is so classic for this one, because the helper with the hangover doesn't just carry the weight of what they agreed to, they carry the weight of not being allowed to feel bad about it or to feel annoyed about it, so there is a lot mixed up in this one. So let's rate ourselves now on a scale of zero to five. Remember, zeros never, one is rarely, two is sometimes, three is often, four is very often, five is always, or almost always. How often are you the helper with the hangover, we will make a note of it, or make a mental note of it, and I'll give you the tally at the end. And now we're going to move on to number four. Number four is interesting because it's the uninvited rescuer, so where number three is the helper with the hangover, and someone's asking you to do something for them, most likely, and then you're saying yes, or you're jumping into action and regretting it, or feeling like, oh my gosh, why did I agree to that? This one's a little different. This one can look like strength, the uninvited rescuer can look like capability, the one who handles it all, like being the person who gets things done and doesn't wait around for someone else to figure it out, and in its healthiest form, it's genuinely all of these things, and some people are just naturally problem solvers, right, with big hearts who cannot stand to watch someone they care about struggle. It's real, and it's beautiful, but here's where this one gets complicated, the uninvited rescuer doesn't always wait to be asked. They see a problem or they feel the discomfort in the other person, and they move, they take action, they research, they solve, they offer, they fix. I've even known some that hire someone for you to do the thing that they think you need done. Sometimes it's before the other person has even finished getting to explain or express what's wrong for them, and often the other person didn't actually want solving. Maybe they wanted to be heard, maybe they wanted to vent, maybe they were going to do it themselves, maybe they wanted someone to sit in it with them, not to hand them a four point action plan. And then there's the other side of this that's maybe a little harder to see when you're in it. So, have you ever had someone in your life, maybe a friend, maybe a family member, maybe a coworker, that always seemed to have some sort of crisis, like every day it was something with them, who regularly shows up with their, like, their problems, their drama, their issues of the week, their issue du jour, right, and somehow every single time you end up involved, you didn't get recruited exactly, nobody formally asked you, you just stepped in because you care, because you could see what needed doing, because you're a strong person, because watching them struggle felt worse than just getting in there and helping. Now, sometimes, and this is important, that person genuinely just needed to feel hurt, not rescued, not advised, not managed, just witnessed, and the rescuer, by jumping straight to the solution, actually misses the moment entirely. Sometimes the most helpful thing would be just to sit and say, yeah, that sounds really hard, and it's a learnable skill for this people pleaser type. Other times the dynamics more layered, there might be codependency running in both directions, especially if it's someone that you've been like a work friend with for a long time, or a personal friend, or a relationship, we can feel this codependent need to spring into action without them being asked, and they can allow the codependency, right? So it's really both people contributing in that instance, and neither person fully aware of how they got there, and of course, this isn't about fault, it's about patterns, and patterns can be changed once we recognize them if we want to, and then occasionally, not always with this one, but it does happen if someone with a more self-centered or. Manipulative energy, like a friend, let's just say, figures out that you will just volunteer. They will use that, someone who intends to manipulate, whether they know it or not, or someone that's very self-centered, or maybe even tipping into narcissistic, if they realize that they can just cry or make the sad face or woe is me, and you will immediately volunteer without them even asking. Then they often will just allow you to do that, and they will use that. They don't have to ask, they just have to present a problem loudly and uncomfortably enough, and you will step in. And then when things go sideways, they can say, well, I never asked you to do anything. I didn't ask for your help, and somehow you're the one who ends up feeling guilty. That's the far end of the spectrum of this one, but it's worth naming, because sensitives are particularly vulnerable to it, and I have absolutely been in that version of it several times that I can think of right off the top of my head. So, how will this uninvited rescuer show up in the day-to-day situations? It could be something like a friend that texts and says they're having a really hard time, and before they finish, you already have offered three solutions and started drafting a cover letter for them, and all they really wanted was for you to say, like, wow, that sounds hard, but you've already sprung into action. It could be someone mentions a problem just in passing, like at the office, let's just say in the break room, they just mention a problem in passing, and you go home out of the goodness of your heart, and you research solutions, and put a plan together, and send it over, or bring it in for them the next day, and shove it in their locker, genuinely wanting to help, and then you realize later that they weren't actually even asking you for help with any of it. It could be that you're the one in the family or friend group who always ends up coordinating, managing, solving, not because anyone directly asks you, but because you feel the pull of responsibility. Maybe no one else was moving to get anything done, and maybe you partially, even subconsciously, self-identify as the leader, or the strong one, or the one that everything falls to. It could show up like there's someone in your life who always has something going on, and you always seem to end up getting involved, and when you look at the pattern honestly, you realize that some version of codependency has developed that maybe neither of you even consciously chose or intended. It could be that you find yourself doing things for a person that is perfectly capable of doing it for themselves, and part of you knows it, but the discomfort of watching them struggle or feel upset feels worse than just stepping in and doing it for them, or helping, or orchestrating. It could be that you feel chronically drained, like you give way more than you receive, and it genuinely hasn't occurred to you that a lot of what you're giving was never asked for, so think about that piece of it, because that's often how we can identify this one. Maybe you offer help, resource, energy, and the other person barely engages with it, and not necessarily because they're ungrateful, because they didn't ask, and they probably don't want to do it. I'm thinking of someone I know who they had, like an older, like a young adult child, and this kid, oh, needed a job, and instead, like, the kid didn't actually want a job, but the person, like, really sprung into action, and calling connections, and networking and finding them this job that they didn't even ever want in the first place, and it became a real tension point for them. Does that make sense? So, let's talk about why this, this one, this rescuer is especially challenging for sensitives. For sensitives, the uninvited rescuer pattern is particularly vulnerable to exploitation because you feel other people's distress so acutely that when they are telling you about what's going on or you see what's happening, doing nothing feels almost impossible. Someone else's unresolved problems can sit in the sensitive body like it's our own, and moving to fix it is just as relieving, pretty much, for our own discomfort as it is about helping them, which means that the right person, or someone that's learned that presenting pain gets them results, can essentially use your empathy has, like, a remote control. You don't, you don't need much, right? They don't have to manipulate you overtly, they just have to hurt or express loudly or uncomfortably enough that they get you to spring into action. I'm going to tell you a quick story on this one. This is about a friend of mine, and this is a tough story, because this is a family one. So, my friend had this sister-in-law, and she had knew, known her, they knew each other since they were quite young. They all went to school together, they were from the same neighborhood, and so it didn't just feel like, oh, a sister in law that she'd only known a couple years, she'd known this sister in law this gal's whole entire life, from the time she was a kid, so the sister in law was the type of person that always had like some kind of drama, a difficult situation at work, a conflict with a neighbor, a health scare that came up, some kind of financial emergency or crisis, and these were real things. They weren't made up. Sure, the sister-in-law maybe just kind of leaned dramatic, or seemed to have a lot of dramatic things happening to her in her life, but they're real, right? A health scare is a health scare, even if you're a dramatic personality, right? So real things were happening, and every time my friend somehow ended up in the middle of it, even if she didn't want to, researching, advising, making calls, sending resources, she genuinely cared. She's a really good person, but over time she started noticing the pattern, her sister in law would just start to do this little version of like complaining or letting her know what happened, and as part of this pattern she realized that her sister in law would be like highly emotional, whether it was angry or tearful or freaking out with anxiety, and my friend would like somehow help absorb whatever came her way, and so she would kind of pour it all onto my friend, and then my friend would feel like it got dumped on her, and then her sister in law would like go on to do whatever else she was gonna do after my friend stepped in with these resources or help or I'll call this person or I'll go pick this up for you or I'll make myself available or bend myself to help you and then her sister in law just kind of would move on her way no follow through no real gratitude ever, and the moment my friend pulled back, even slightly, like, because we worked on this over the years, and I was like, "What would happen if you just didn't like, if you just didn't offer to do all the things? So the moment that my friend would pull back, even slightly, her sister-in-law would resurface with something new, some new, like chaos or drama or emergency happening, and when my friend finally named the pattern out loud, she said she was never asked about any of it. It just kept showing up, and her sister-in-law just kept letting her step in and help, and actually, at some point, it was clear that my friend was exhausted, and her sister-in-law was kind of pulling these strings, like that remote control we were talking about, where she would just show up in tears or in some type of like exacerbated emotion, and when my friend stopped immediately responding and springing into action, because we did some experiments with this. Her sister-in-law kind of was getting annoyed and frustrated and mad at her, like she owed her fixing all of her problems, and just, you know, it was really challenging to resolve, but even my friend realizing this was happening made her feel more empowered and made her feel like she could differently hold her boundaries, and that's exactly what she ultimately did end up doing. So, let's rate ourselves with this rescuer on a scale of zero to five. Remember, zero is the never, five is always or almost always. How much do you see yourself in this uninvited rescuer personality, like I said, there's a spectrum for all of these, and I've definitely been on each of these spectrums many times. Let's move into number five, our fifth sneaky people-pleasing method for sensitives. This is the guilt-driven giver. This one is particularly sneaky, because it doesn't feel like people pleasing at all, really. At first, it feels like doing the right thing. It feels like being a good person. This one speaks in the language of shoulds. I should help. I should be there. I should step up. I couldn't just do nothing. I just feel bad, and underneath every should is a very old program about what is decent, or what a responsible person does, or what a caring person looks like, and the fear of not being that person, or being seen as not being that person, is what really drives the bus. For this guilt-driven giver, the guilt-driven giver isn't motivated by wanting approval or love the way that some of these others that we've talked about are. They're motivated by wanting to avoid the feeling of guilt, which sounds like a subtle difference, but it's actually very significant, because the guilt often arrives before anything at all has happened. They're managing anticipated guilt, preemptive guilt. It's guilt about something nobody's asked them to do yet, but they've already decided that they should. And the exhausting part about this one is that the guilt is essentially unwinnable, because even when they do the thing right, even when they show up or step in or give their time or energy or give up their own dream for someone else's, the relief is only temporary, because the guilt finds something new, and then they end up feeling drained, unseen, sometimes even resentful in a way that they can't quite justify to themselves, because after all, nobody made them do anything, they chose it, which, of course, generates more guilt. So, here's how it shows up in some specific ways, because this one is again really sneaky, and usually ties back to a core belief about what a good person should do. So, this could be you say yes to things not because you want to, but because you couldn't live with yourself if you said no, or if you didn't help, you use the word should a lot, I should call, I should go, I should offer, I should do more, and when you trace the should back, it rarely leads to something that you actually want. It leads to something that you're afraid of feeling guilty if you don't do. Afraid of feeling bad about you. Take on the responsibility for other people's feelings and circumstances, not just the ones you contributed to, but the ones that are entirely outside of your control. This could be you feeling guilty for having your own needs, or for wanting things for yourself, or for occasionally wishing that you said no to something that you said yes to. This could look like you apologizing frequently, and sometimes preemptively, like when you didn't do anything wrong before anyone has indicated that they're upset, before anything has gone wrong, kind of just to get ahead of anyone's possible disappointment, you're already apologizing. This could be that you've made a significant life choice for yourself in a relationship, in a career, in how you spend your time, maybe based primarily on what you felt you should do rather than what you actually wanted or needed the resentment that builds is confusing because you chose this right and that makes it even harder to name or to ask for relief from and I want to touch into why this is especially sneaky and challenging for sensitives, for sensitives this one often has very deep roots, sometimes going all the way back to childhood, where being good and being helpful and being responsible was how you earned safety or love or approval. The should isn't coming from nowhere, it's was installed at some time, that's why we call it a program, and because it lives at the level of this core belief rather than a conscious choice, it can be incredibly hard to see from the inside. It doesn't feel like fear, it feels like integrity, because you're being in integrity to this belief about what a good person should do. For example, I'm going to tell you a little story that hopefully will illustrate this, and then we'll score ourselves, and then we'll get on to the key, so this is about a client that I had, and this, a lot of this came through in a reading, actually. So this client was the one who showed up for her aging parents, she organized the appointments, she managed the medications, she did all the treatment care, she navigated the difficult conversations, and her siblings, to be quite honest, largely stayed on the sidelines. Nobody had formally given her this role, right? She wasn't the only child, she wasn't even the oldest child. She had taken it on because she felt like she should, because a good daughter would do this, because she couldn't possibly live with herself if she didn't step in and take care of her parents, and when people asked how she was doing, she would say fine, because obviously they were suffering more than her, and this was the right thing to do, because underneath it was guilt that was so layered it went in every direction at once, she was guilty. She felt guilty for doing it, and guilty for feeling resentful, and guilty for wishing her siblings would step up, and guilty for occasionally wanting her own life back, or even just a break to herself. She felt guilty for having any of these feelings at all, and. The shoulds were so loud for her that it really drowned out every other signal that her soul was trying to send her about what she needed. Have you ever experienced something like that? I definitely have. So, rate yourself on this guilt-driven people pleaser, from zero to five. Zero is never, five is always or almost always, and write down your number for this fifth one, and then take a minute here to go back through and tally your scores, so we're going to tally all the way from the beginning, give yourself your score from the team player was the first one, the self sacrificer was the second one, the helper with the hangover was the third one, the uninvited rescuer was the fourth one, and the fifth one was the guilt driven giver. So, do your total, and then whatever number you come up with, we are going to dive in. Your total should be somewhere between zero and 25 and here is what it means. So, if you are driving or have been doing chores, now is a great time to pause. If you haven't scored yourself, just score yourself, and then click back in, and we're going to go through these score meanings. So, if you scored zero to five, the I kind of did them in that magazine style, mostly grounded. Look at you, if you're zero to five, either you have done a lot of work on yourself, you are naturally pretty boundaried, or you listen to this episode and scored yourself very generously. And, honestly, all three are valid. You have a relatively healthy relationship with your own needs, and you're not consistently abandoning yourself to keep the peace. That doesn't mean it never happens, right? We all have moments, but it's not running your life. Keep doing whatever you are doing. If you scored zero to five, and maybe share this episode with someone that you know that needs it, that fits at least one of these. For those of you in the spirit squad that scored six to 10, occasionally people pleasing, you're doing pretty well overall, but there are a few areas where people pleasing has quietly set up camp, maybe it's a specific relationship for you, or one specific type of situation, or one of the five types that just really made you go, oh, that's me, that actually is really useful information. You're not in crisis, but there's some fine tuning available to you right now as a sensitive, and the fact that you see it means that you're already most of the way there, and you're ready to acknowledge it and move forward in a new way, if you scored 11 to 16, it's a pattern. This is one showing up consistently enough in your life that it's worth paying real attention to. You're probably familiar with all of the feelings we talked about, the drain, the resentment that's hard to justify, the yes that felt right in the moment, and really cost you later. This isn't a character flaw, it's a pattern, and patterns can be changed once we see them clearly, which you're starting to do right now. So, gold star for you. This actually is a really powerful place to be for you, if you scored 11 to 16, if you scored 17 to 21 it's running a lot of the show. People pleasing is not just an occasional visitor in your life, it's been making a lot of your decisions for you. The good news is that you felt this episode in your bones, which probably means your awareness is ahead of your habits right now. The gap is where your life can change. Be gentle with yourself. This level of people pleasing usually has deep roots, and it didn't develop just overnight. This is not just you being a nice person; it actually won't shift overnight either. But you seeing it clearly, it's not nothing; it's actually everything. So, well done for being here. And now you can start really noticing and choosing more intentionally. If you score 22 through 25 oh honey, first of all, thank you for your honesty. If you scored yourself that, second of all, you're not alone, and there's nothing wrong with you. People pleasing at this level is almost always the result of very early programming, significant relationship experience, or a sensitive nervous system that learned a very long time ago that keeping everyone else okay was the safest way to be in the world that made the most sense for you. At some point, it might not be serving you now. This is exactly the kind of work that can change your life, and it starts with exactly what you just did. You saw it, and now you can build from there. So, congratulations, wherever you scored. You now know a little bit more about yourself, and you now can be a little bit more aware of how these different sne. Leaky versions of people pleasing might be showing up for you, and if this episode resonated with you, and you want to learn more about this kind of content, or mediumship, or the spiritual gifts in any way, I hope that you are subscribed wherever you're watching this or listening to it. It really helps me, and it really helps you, because you won't miss an episode, but it helps me, because I'm always trying to grow the pod. Okay, beautiful soul, this was your people-pleasing audit: five types, 25 points, and hopefully at least one moment where you thought, "Oh yeah, that's me, because that moment of recognition is not small, that's actually where everything starts. And I want you to come back to something I said at the top, I'm not here to tell you what you should do, or that you should never be flexible, or never sacrifice, or bend, or never help, or never show up for the people you love. That would be absurd, and also not who you are at all as a sensitive. What I am saying is that it matters. It genuinely matters what percentage of your yeses have their roots in that genuine yes versus have their roots in fear or guilt or the need to be needed, because you deserve to know the difference, and the people in your life deserve to receive your genuine yes and not the one that comes with a hidden cost for you or anyone else. So be easy with yourself as you sit with your score. This isn't a verdict, it's a starting point. You are a work in progress, as are we all, right? And the fact that you're here doing this kind of honest self-reflection already puts you ahead of where a lot of people are willing to go. So this stirred up something for you. I would genuinely love to hear about it. Come find me on social media, or send me a message, [email protected] or leave a review and let me know which of these five types of people pleaser hit closest to home for you. Please make sure again you are subscribed wherever you are watching or listening to this, so you don't miss what's coming next. I have so much coming up in the next few months for you, and I will see you very soon. Big hug, lots of love. Bye for now, from Inside Spirit Sneaky Zeh.