I’m working on this too. It’s a big problem for me. A few days ago my counselor suggested I write out my life story. That seemed like a bit much to me but I figured what the heck, I’ll work on it.

I started putting things in outline form with one brief paragraph per year. One thing stood out to me very quickly. By age 12, I was already taking it upon myself to do things for others without being asked. I thought about the reason for that. It’s because tension and stress was increasing in my household and I must have decided I could fix it. I thought if I asked for nothing and helped out a lot we could have a peaceful and happy life.

And here I am almost 40 years later doing the same thing... even at work I do it.

I hope that seeing for myself how and when I started this behavior will help me stop it. It was eye opening to see it written in my own words. I wasn’t looking to discover root causes of my own behaviors, I was just writing the things that came to mind. And there it was. The start of my people pleasing, co-dependent behaviors.

I plan to continue this outline and see how my people pleasing behaviors continue to unfold. I expect it will be painful to see this all written down in my own words as I reflect on my own behaviors through the years.

I did notice as I added more and more information to the outline that I was a pretty funny and quirky little kid. I had to laugh at that because I’m still that same quirky person all these years later. My childhood was not a loving one. I never felt secure which is obviously why I’m still such an anxious person all these years later.

I don’t want to dwell on the past but I do think seeing the patterns of my behavior might help me. I also hope I can develop better self compassion. We were all just little kids once, trying to do the best we could. It’s good for us to remember that about ourselves. Good luck to you. Please share with us your progress and any insight you gain.