Who Are You Living for?

“Imagine what it takes to override a lifetime of programming – all our habitual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors – and set about the chain reaction that’s liberating old energy. That’s a very big moment.” – Dr. Joe Dispenza

Are you living your life for you or someone else? Are you a people pleaser at the expense of your own happiness? Are you pleasing everyone else at the detriment of your own pleasure? Are you willing to sacrifice yourself and your happiness for someone else at any cost? If you’re like me, the answer to these questions is a resounding yes and was most likely a learned response. I grew up trying to keep the peace and ensure that those closest to me were happy at any cost. Growing up was stressful at times. In my attempt to avoid the stress, I would do what I could to diminish the emotional chaos, often casting aside opportunities to be a kid. To take some of the burden off and attempt to make others less angry, it was more important to me to keep the peace in any way I could.

As I’ve studied the effects of emotional energy and how it can affect the body, I understand the negative impacts that this stuck energy can have on our mental, emotional, and physical health. How many times do we seek help from a mental health professional because we feel we’re losing our emotional balance or feel we’re going crazy? We know all too well the impacts of living with all the stress and chaos has on our mental health, but have you ever thought about the impacts and implications that that stressful, chaotic, and toxic energy has on our bodies?

We’ve heard how people have learned they have a specific cancer gene and try to avoid or diminish the risk of cancer by seeking out a surgeon to remove their breasts, ovaries, uterus, etc. While having a cancer gene can certainly be a risk factor in getting cancer, what is more likely to cause cancer are the reactions to our environment. In his book, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles, Dr. Bruce Lipton talks about a paper written by H. F. Nijhout titled Metaphors and the Role of Genes. Nijhout writes, “When a gene product is needed, a signal from its environment, not an emergent property of the gene itself, activates expression of that gene.” Meaning, the gene is controlled or activated based on your reaction to your environment.

In her book, Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, To Near Death, to True Healing by Anita Moorjani, Moorjani describes how trying to people please and make everyone around her happy at the expense of her own happiness nearly cost her her life. She explains how she had a near death experience (NDE) and that while in that state, she says, “…I understood that I owed it to myself, to everyone I met, and to life itself to always be an expression of my own unique essence. Trying to be anything or anyone else didn’t make me better—it just deprived me of my true self! It kept others from experiencing me for who I am, and it deprived me of interacting authentically with them. Being inauthentic also deprives the universe of who I came here to be and what I came here to express.” Living from the “people pleaser” perspective for decades, I couldn’t agree with her more.

It is our responsibility to take care of our individual selves, to make ourselves happy, and live in authenticity. If you’re living to please everyone else, you’re never going to make anyone happy, least of all yourself. If you’re trying to please everyone, you’re pleasing no one. It’s ultimately easier to make yourself happy thereby making everyone around you happy because you’re being true to yourself and living authentically. When you live your life for others, you gradually lose sight of who you really are, your true sense of self.

If you’re living to please everyone around you, you’re most likely under a tremendous amount of stress and that stress is not only creating a mental mindset of unhappiness but it’s taking its toll energetically on your body as well. To help diminish the effects of negative energy on our bodies, any one or combination of the following can help lessen the impact that these negative energies can have on our bodies:

• Meditation

• Journaling

• Qigong

• Tai Chi

• Earthing/walking in nature

• Prayer

When it comes to people pleasing, I’m still a work in progress. However, I understand the importance of living life authentically. It is imperative to get our mindset and belief system in a healthy place, not only for our mental and emotional well-being but for our physical health as well. Get and keep your external environment emotionally healthy and reduce the amount of stress in your life by exploring the suggestions I shared above. If you have toxic people in your life, whether it’s family or friends, do your best to diminish the contact you have with them or cut them out entirely. Nothing and no one are worth your emotional, mental, and physical wellness. If you don’t make yourself happy, no one else will; that’s entirely up to you. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean looking externally for something or someone to make you happy; true happiness can only come from within. Looking for things to be grateful for is a great place to start.

Bibliography

Lipton, Bruce. (2015) The biology of belief: unleashing the power of consciousness, matter & miracles. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc., pp.28

Moorjani, Anita. (2012) Dying to be me: my journey from cancer to near death, to true healing. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc., pp. 68