Are you too nice in your relationships?

We’ve all heard nice guys finish last.  It’s been said that when a guy is too pleasing, he loses his edge turning off the otherwise would be smitten female.

But, what about women, do we experience the same fate? Are we turning off Mr. Perfect?

Let’s squash the played out masculine/feminine debate and have a more interesting conversation.

I want to answer the bigger questions of “what’s too nice”, Who does being too nice attract?”  And “When does it become a real problem?”

First things first, I’m not talking about being kind, considerate, gentle, warm, or vulnerable.

Some people confuse being a good human with being too nice.

The right person is never turned off by kindness, vulnerability or intimacy.

These people are often dysfunctional in relationships and have an unhealthy view of intimacy which involves elements of all of the above.

Being too nice becomes a real problem when it involves an element of compulsive compliance.

Then, you move from being nice to being a people pleaser.

People pleasers are compelled to put the needs of others before their own. They become the sacrificial lamb, dying to the whims and wishes of others.

Excellent chameleons, they often shape shift into an imagined ideal of their love interest, being whoever they need to be in effort to gain approval, affection attention or acceptance.

In other words, people pleasers lose themselves in relationships.

They withhold their true thoughts, feelings and beliefs when they fear they differ from others, spurring potential judgment, conflict or rejection.

Research shows that two of the key elements attracting us to one another is our authenticity and confidence.

So, who would likely be attracted to someone who loses themselves?

You’ll attract someone totally comfortable with you being who they want you to be.  They don’t mind telling you who to be and how to behave. This person wants to be in control of you.

You’ll attract someone who is happy to have you put their needs first and take advantage of you.

You’ll attract someone who doesn’t particularly care about your feelings, thoughts or beliefs.  

In other words, you attract takers, narcissists and otherwise dysfunctional people.

Obviously this becomes a problem when you habitually get into relationships with these types of unhealthy people.

You find that you are not happy. In fact, you are often upset and resentful of the imbalance in your relationship.

You long for a partner, and want mutually beneficial relationships, not the one sided situations you find yourself in over and over again.

So, what’s the solution?

The first step is awareness.

Your behavior is likely subconscious and you’re not even aware of the codependency patterns you’re exhibiting.  

People pleasing behavior stems from wanting to be loved. You want to feel close, connected, needed and valued in your relationships. But when your desires to please become unhealthy, it’s at the expense of yourself.

Becoming conscious of your codependency patters means we get to the root of where this behavior originated and deprogram the long standing beliefs you hold about yourself that make it possible for you to behave this way.

Then, we work to uncover new ways of thinking and behaving in relationships that support your relationship vision.

The thing is, it’s not just about your relationships.

If you are a people pleaser, you do it everywhere: in your family, with your friends, and at work.

And that takes a toll on you emotionally, financially, physically and psychologically.

You deserve to be happy and have relationships that work!

I can help you do that. Please reach out for more information or to schedule an appointment.

You like him or her, a lot.  You didn’t think you’d feel this way so soon!

S/he’s become all you can think about lately, wondering if they love you the way you love them. You’re sure s/he doesn’t.

You search through their social medial, looking for the tell tale “like” to reveal their betrayal laden hidden affections.

Finally, you break down and seek reassurance. So, you ask:

• “Where is this relationship going?”
• “How do you really feel about me?”
• “Who is that person on your Instagram?”
• “What should I call you?”

And they say, “Whoa. Where is this coming from?  Of course I like you. Let’s not label anything. Let’s just see where it goes.”

Your heart beats out of your chest, you start to sweat, and your throat closes a little. You’re sure they’re breaking up with you.

You immediately launch into “just kidding mode”, backpedaling to explain you were simply making conversation.

Maybe you start to search out some help and look for ides on:

• “How to make him commit.”
• “How to make him obsessed with me”
• “How to attract women.”

And so on.

Breathe. I get it.

But don’t worry. This isn’t commentary on how to get him or her to love you, be obsessed with you or commit.

That kind of advice is useless anyway and I only know that because I used to subscribe to the “understand the opposite sex” stuff before I fully understood that I needed to understand myself.

What’s really going on here?

It’s likely one of two scenarios.

1. You are in a situation with someone who emotionally unavailable and contributing to your relationship confusion by withholding their feelings for you. If that’s the case, this is likely a dysfunctional person.
2. You’re with someone who is available and totally into you, who genuinely wants to see where things go and you’re insecurity is getting the best of you.

Which one is it? Hard to tell as they both originate from the same codependency pattern of low self esteem.

But most people don’t realize that it’s a codependency issue, they truly believe that it’s the other person “making them feel” insecure.

But NO ONE really makes you feel insecure. It’s a question of the chicken or the egg.

If you’re choosing emotionally unavailable people, it’s likely your preexisting insecurity that chooses a person to mirror that low self-esteem.

And if you’re not able to recognize when someone is into you, dropping the shoe to end the wait, it’s also the same issue.

So, what to do?

Well, the only thing left to do is to get to work on the root of your insecurity.

It’s not your fault.

Codependency patterns emerge from a necessity to cope with unhealthy people in your life.

You were simply trying to thrive, survive, connect or cope in your significant relationships, likely starting in your family of origin.

Your insecurity didn’t come about on its own or just as a result of this one relationship.

I bet if we looked at it, we can see it’s a pattern that affects all areas of life for you.

People with insecurity exhibit the following difficulties (to name only a few)

• Speaking your truth especially when other’s opinions matter
• Setting and holding boundaries with people you care about
• Feeling your feelings without justifying, rationalizing or defending them
• Leaving bad situations (you’re loyal to a fault)
• Following through with projects (you start but you don’t finish)
• Procrastination
• Knowing what you really want

An on and on.

So, you can see it’s pretty important to get to work here.

The good news is that you absolutely CAN work on your self esteem and learn how to truly love yourself (faults and all).

Most people conflate self love and self care.

To be clear, I’m not talking about bath bombs and massages here.

I’m talking about learning to do the very things that are hard for you like the things I mentioned above.

It all starts with knowing yourself. You need to get to the root of your insecurity issues and I’m happy to help you do that!

I the meantime, let’s talk for a minute about what makes you most attractive to others.

1. Your authenticity.

Think of it this way. When you see someone being all of who they are, it’s refreshing! They own themselves and it’s inspiring to others. No one likes someone who’s being fake.

But people with a low self esteem pattern are not themselves. They are people pleasers, being whoever they need to be to be liked and avoid rejection.

2. Your confidence. There’s just something so attractive about someone who believes in themselves and goes for what they want in life without seeking or needing the approval r permission of others.

But when you have low self esteem, you’re less likely to have that kind of belief in yourself.

3. You’re openness and availability to others.

When you have a low self esteem patters, you may be on guard constantly waiting for others to disappoint you or take advantage of you. This energy can be felt by everyone around you.

So, what’s the solution? Know thyself. Get to the root of where these patterns originated and uproot them.

I can help you do that.

If you’d like more help, please reach out to me here.

Love,

Coach Heidi

Recovery is no easy task!

So congratulations on becoming more of who you truly are through the process of shedding all that’s not you.

You’ve changed! And that is amazing!

What’s not so awesome is when you have changed, but the people you love are the same.

 You find yourself getting triggered up and maybe even falling back into old patterns and ways of behaving.

First, I want to talk about what happens when you change.

Although people want you to change, it’s also scary to them. They don’t know if it’s only a matter of time until you relapse.

And so, if your loved one is living in the past and reminding you of who you used to be or how you ruined last Christmas, it’s likely in an attempt to ensure you don’t do it again.

They mistakenly think that if they remind you how bad things were, it will keep you on the straight and narrow path to sobriety.

The other thing is that if they aren’t doing it with benevolent intentions, then you may want to consider distancing yourself from them.

 Maybe they’re actually a toxic or dysfunctional person themselves. And if that’s the case, you will want to make some decisions about choosing to spend time around them.

The other thing that may be happening is that you find yourself slipping back into old ways of behaving when you’re around them.

And sometimes you do this because you want to connect with them.

When you change, you can feel like you’re outgrowing people and that can be scary and feel lonely.

So, if that’s the case and you are morphing yourself into the old version of you to stay connected, that’s an issue and it’s codependent.

If you are codependent, you’ll want to learn how to start your recovery journey.

And if you have family that you want to educate on addiction, you can encourage them to learn how deal with addiction in the family.

I hope you found the video helpful! Please leave a comment and let’s connect!

Love,

Coach Heidi

Hey! Heidi here! Thanks for coming back for another video.

I appreciate your messages and comments and I love hearing about how these videos are helping you.

I have a special video for you today.

Do you have a habit of getting started on something only to inadvertently screw it up? Me too.

I used to get momentum towards my goals and then I’d be right back to where I started.

I’ve found that there are 4 main ways we self-sabotage and I talk about them in the video. They are People Pleasing, Perfecting, Procrastinating and Projecting. 

I also share with you the number one thing you must do in order to overcome codependency. Watch the video now!

If you find value here, please leave a comment. It helps me tremendously! I’d also love to schedule a consultation with you if you believe you are ready to go to the next level in your recovery. Thanks for stopping by! See you soon!

Love,

Coach Heidi.

Hello Love!

Welcome back to the blog! I’m so glad you’re here. If it’s your first time visiting, I’m Heidi and my goal is to help you resolve your relationship issues for good. 

Through these videos, I want to help you root down in your value, find and speak your truth and never settle again.

Because the truth is, you DESERVE healthy and happy relationships.

AND it all starts with YOU. You teach people how to treat you.

This week, I had a lot of requests to make videos about feelings.

It makes a lot of sense to me that this would be an issue lately, given the circumstances of isolation and all of the uncertainty in life.

So, I made two videos for you this week.

The first one is on how to feel your feelings.

Many of the people I work with have difficulty admitting they are struggling. They want to be the strong one’s and often have a “suck it up buttercup” kind of mentality.

This issue with this of course is that leads to becoming a ticking time bomb and all that repressed emotion created more conflict.

We then find other ways to cope that are self-destructive.

In my next video, I talk about loneliness.

I’m really excited about this video because I explain HOW loneliness happens and actually give you concrete tools for feeling LESS lonely RIGHT NOW!

I hope you enjoy these videos!

And of course, if you have a video topic you want me to discuss, please send me a message here!

Also, if you have ever thought about going deeper with me and want to start to make some significant change in your life, LYFE School is starting Sept 2! It’s my semi private 3 month guided experience where you learn how to do all of the things I mentioned above!

If you’re considering it, now is the time to hop on a call with me to see if it’s a good fit for you!

In the meantime, I love you and enjoy the videos!

Love,

Coach Heidi

When you have trust issues in your relationship, it effects everything.

Trust is the foundation of all things.

But what happens if you’re not sure IF you can trust someone? And what if that someone is YOU?

• Are you being lied to? Is he/she cheating?
• Should you break up?
• Is he or she relapsing?
• Are they relapsing?

What if your gut is telling you one thing, but your head is telling you another?

It can be crazy making! In this video, I explain the difference between your intuition and your NOT your intuition and how to tell what’s what.

As always, please subscribe and like the video and for more help, reach out and shceule a complimentary consultation.

Love,

Heidi