Dan and I recently rented an airbnb. As we reviewed the 'rules' one thing jumped out at us; the house was wired with a decibel reader. Apparently, if the decibels exceeded 65 dB we would be at risk of getting kicked out of the house. 

As a NICU nurse I am very familiar with decibels and what sounds correlate with what levels but for Dan, this was brand new. I pulled out my smart phone where I had downloaded a decibel meter reader so he could get a sense of what 65 dB's sounded like.

He was shocked when the meter exceeded 75 dB when I laughed - we looked at each other and Dan promptly said "You can never laugh while we are here or we will get the boot" .

Well, that's going to be pretty darn difficult for sure!

Holding back on who I truly am was something I never really gave much thought to. I could be basically anything to anyone at any given moment. I am a born people-pleaser. (By definition, a people-pleaser is "a person who has an emotional need to please others often at the expense of his or her own needs or desires".) 

Unfortunately, letting go of my people-pleasing tendencies is not as easy as it may sound. I have had YEARS of practice beginning as a very young child. When the grown-ups around me were happy, well, then everyone was happy. There was some definite perks to making sure everyone was happy and, just like the old saying 'neurons that fire together, wire together', the more I perfected my skills at making sure everyone was happy, the more it became embedded in my biology and ultimately became my default mode.

And, I am not trying to suggest that it's not fun and cool to make people happy, it is ... except when their happiness is contingent upon your unhappiness. When what makes them happy makes you unhappy - that's where the rub lives. 

But as Mick Jagger says "old habits die hard", but the silver lining is ... old habits can die.

Moving beyond the 'people-pleasing' archetype means establishing boundaries. Not the kind of boundaries that resemble electrified barbed wire but the kind of boundaries that honor self; that clearly articulate what is OK and what is not OK for me. Brene Brown talks about boundaries as an act of self-compassion.  Check out the video and her incredible wisdom.

Building boundaries takes time and practice and begins with one simple word... 

“It’s only by saying ‘no’ that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.” — Steve Jobs

What I know for sure now is that when I don't hold true to myself, when I don't honor the who I am here to be by continuously deferring to others then, well, the world simply gets a lot less of ... me.  To which, my former self would have said "So What?" "Why Do You Think The World Needs More of You?" 

The truth is the world needs more of me, more of you, and more of each and every one of us. But we can't give what the world needs when we are mired down in pleasing everyone else but ourselves.

So, as I wrap this post up I want to challenge you to answer this question: What Do YOU Want/What Do You NEED to bring your best self to the world? And, once you have the answer, What is YOUR Next Step to achieving it?

In the immortal words of Howard Thurman: 

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls. Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Thanks for taking the time to read me 

Take care and care well,

Mary