My entire sense of self depended on what you thought of me. My worth was in whether or not you liked me. For most of my life, I wanted to be nice. I still do. But the question is in the compulsion, so I ask, “why am I so nice?” My understanding of niceness is currently undergoing a fairly drastic overhaul as I learn to care for myself.
I am learning how to deal with my compulsive niceness.
Growing up, I would have done anything to create calm in the chaos. I played the role of mediator between warring parents and smiled from the moment I stepped outside until I was alone again each night. The world taught me that women were pleasant and pretty. Taught me that little girls were women in-training, and that honey kills more flies than vinegar. I learned to make myself small. To deflate my bubbly personality when things got tense, and otherwise contort myself into the shape I thought most suited you. Agreeable and easy to please, I became a product of the patriarchy and stepped into the world ready to fulfill my role.
I stepped into the world ready to be so nice.
But those quiet moments alone, in the shower or snuggled in bed, I let my face fall to its natural state. Not often a frown, but frequently wrinkled full of doubt and fear. Always with the same question – “did I do ok?” I worried endlessly. I analyzed each interaction with the hope that my performance was enough. “Did they see me smile?” It wasn’t worry about how I looked or if I sounded smart, those were afterthoughts, the worries that compounded later in life.
More than anything, I wanted to be liked.
In retrospect, I understand my concern to be one of faltering self-definition. I had no idea who I was because I’d only ever wanted to be someone you liked. Gabor Maté explains that we all have a need to belong and be loyal. “When you don’t get the love that you need, you’ll be consumed by being liked,” generally at the expense of authenticity. He further states that “in the way of the Self are coping mechanisms, personality patterns, habits and self judgements.”
All people have two basic needs: attachment and authenticity.
As evolving humans, we need to feel close to those who provide us love and security. At the same time, we need to express ourselves authentically and have the ability to act on our own self-awareness. The problem arises when we betray our authentic selves out of fear. If I think my attachment is threatened by my authenticity, I suppress who I am as a coping mechanism. In other words, as a child I feared not being loved for who I was, so I changed myself into someone I thought was deserving of that love.
This is not a finger pointed at my mother.
She loved me fiercely and in the best way she knew how. But it is to say that perhaps the tension in those early years, that need to mediate and only ever smile, has everything to do with my faithless sense of self. She thought she was saving me from judgement, but I ended up judging myself. Moreover, the suppression of self and inauthenticity led me directly to develop false needs in the form of addiction which exasperated the shame and solitude I wanted so desperately to escape. Not only was I feeling guilt and stress for living the way I was, drinking and using, hiding and lying, but I was betraying myself which can only ever lead to shame.
The shame of addiction and self-suppression.
More than two years free of my addiction, I feel sturdy enough to explore myself. It feels safe for me to dig deep into my past in an attempt to understand more about who I am today. How I got here and what I can do to heal. I look to Dr. Maté again and understand that the capacity for healing is in my nature. Not only is it possible, but it is what I am meant to do. My hope is that through my vulnerability, you might see your own coping mechanisms. See how you’ve been hurt, so you too can begin to heal.
So how do we heal?
How do we look at the various trauma suffered throughout our lives to mend broken hearts, beaten bodies, and find our way back to the Self? I think the first step is to recognize that not only is it not your fault, but it is normal. We must understand that inauthenticity is an adaptive trait, a normal response to an abnormal environment, a coping mechanism our little selves used to survive. The list below comes from Dr. Maté’s therapeutic approach called “compassionate inquiry,” a method of exploring why we are the way we are in order to become more congruent. To live as the healthiest versions of ourselves, we must make our outsides match our insides, we need to find our way back to authenticity.
This is Gordon Neufeld’s list of personality patterns:
1. when you don’t get the attention that you needed you become consumed with attracting attention.
2. If you didn’t get the approval you needed you’ll be consumed with winning approval and have a winning personality.
3. If you were not valued you’ll be craving to measure up to people’s expectations so they can value you.
4. If you weren’t made to feel special you might become very demanding.
5. If you weren’t esteemed for just who you were you’ll want to impress people.
6. If your importance as an individual wasn’t valued you might end up in the helping professions, be helping people all the time. That’ll give you a sense of importance.
7. If you weren’t liked for who you were, you’ll be very, very nice. You will be liked by being nice, and suppress some of your authentic features.
8. If you weren’t loved you might become very charming.
9. If you weren’t recognized for who you were you might be concerned with seeking status. You might become a very successful person and empty inside because this movement to get validated from the outside actually hurts you.
I identify with more than one of these adaptive traits. I also feel safe in saying that with an honest and deep enough excavation, we will all find a little of ourselves on this list.
So what do I do with this information?
Use it to repair the relationship I have with myself. Maté explains that addiction is a solution to deal with suffering, and that because you cannot separate the mind and body, suffering leads to both mental and physical pain. He looks at physical ailments as a process that manifests in the relationship I have with myself, so if I change the relationship I have with myself, it makes sense that I can impact that which ails me. More simply, I can feel wholly better if I learn to listen and care for myself. If I stop being nice for the sake of being liked, I can repair the relationship I have with myself and live more authentically. This isn’t to say I’m going to turn into a greedy, self-important narcissist, it doesn’t work that way. It is human nature to be nice, but I must also look after my own needs by setting boundaries and learning how to say “no.”
I must listen to body and ask “why am I so nice?”
A time-tested truth for authenticity is found in listening to our bodies. In fact, my addiction was my body screaming out for me to change. Those years spent being nice were met with anxiety and eventually addiction because I wasn’t listening. I drank and used to ignore and numb my inner Knowing. My inner voice spent decades calling out for help. I couldn’t say “no”, so my body said “enough” for me.
My addiction was a teaching to bring me back to myself.
I am learning to listen to my body, she is wise, and we have many years left to travel in this world together. I still regard myself as a nice person, one full of empathy and compassion. But the need for everyone to like me is disappearing. It matters more to me that I can like myself. Yoga is daily practice and through it, I’ve become capable of stillness. I’m gaining connection and overcoming inauthenticity by sitting down on the mat with myself. The importance of saying “no” is in the front of my mind. I’ve decided to heal from the guilt and shame by simply accepting it. Rather than finding the fastest way to shut her up, I say “thank you for helping me but I don’t need your advice anymore.”
“Your conflicts, all the difficult things, the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going to go in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, you, “Look here! This way!” That part of you loves you so much that it doesn’t want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, it will make you suffer greatly if you don’t listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose.” (A.H. Almaas)