The roots of my people-pleasing began in the lap of a pedophile not soon after an otherwise healthy child would be uttering the word no.

For roughly a decade I complied with his advances because I’d seen what happened to the people around him, grown adults in much bigger bodies than my own at the time. He broke their furniture and doors; hit, punched, pulled, shoved and cut them with knives. He screamed, growled, howled, leaving shattered glass and cortisol in every room he exited. So I learned how to live in the remains of a body I was incapable of protecting. I’ve been fighting for its life ever since.

Healing can’t truly begin until safety is restored. Establishing safety for myself has taken a little over forty years. I’m not talking about utopia; just the ability to keep peace in and predators out. It was a gauntlet and, as I’ve said many times, no one should have to put on a tutu and tap dance through a violent triathlon of classism, discrimination and capitalism just to eat. That’s not resilience. It’s just inhumane. There’s very little time to sniff out wolves when you’re undergoing gentrification and constantly working while lugging around twenty years of nightmares.

How long should it take to restore trust in nervous systems that have been subject to chronic, complex trauma? In a world that doesn’t accept us for who we are? In a paradigm that only caters to the needs, protection, pampering, care, feeding and fulfillment of the dreams of the top 2%? Are we lazy or just demoralized? And, who gets to decide where that line is drawn?

Boundaries are a hot topic lately. Books, sit-calms, movies, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok…everywhere except Twitter, seems to be talking about boundaries. Mental health awareness is finally starting to break barriers across generations and all it took was a global pandemic. There really is a gift in every challenge.

So, why do so many of us struggle with being codependent people-pleasers who can’t seem to say no?

Well, according to many well-intended experts it’s because we don’t love ourselves enough and are desperately chasing any crumb of approval that happens to land in our general vicinity. Apparently they think we’re pigeons.

Other experts say it’s because we don’t believe God loves us. They accuse us of rejecting our divine inheritance and being immoral enablers living in the sins of fear and doubt.

While still others say we’re drowning in toxic shame because our parents expected us to have mansions and our own countries by now and all we’ve got are some mediocre investments, 5 yachts, one dinky summer house in the Hamptons and still can’t find a good nanny. We’re just the worst!

I have a very different theory. Beggars can’t be choosers. How many times have we been called lazy, difficult, greedy, selfish insubordinate, ungrateful, uneducated trash because we dared to ask for something more or better? Something or even the same thing as what they have? Things like living wages, paid time off, pensions, and housing that isn’t just affordable but also safe, healthy and something we’re happy to live in, as opposed to something we settled for because it was better than the street. How many times have we been denied services, or told we don’t need it because it’s not covered by our insurance? How many times have we been told to stay in our lane or arrested for dressing above our station? How many times have we had to deny our needs, let alone wants or dreams because there’s just no realistic way to meet them? How many times have we agreed to do something to protect or provide for either ourselves or people we love even though we hated it? How many times have we done something we never wanted to do because setting a boundary might’ve gotten us fired, evicted, cut-off or killed?

Many of us would love to scream no from the rooftops and tell them exactly where to go and how to get there but instead, we say yes. We say yes and settle for less because we can’t afford to say no. It’s encultured codependence. Oppression grooms us into people-pleasing while simultaneously shaming us for becoming the exploitable sheep it needs to uphold the grand delusion.

Simply put, we don’t set boundaries because we can’t afford them.

It’s easy to get out of a bad relationship when you have a car, a supportive family and money. It’s easy to evacuate to an Air B&B when a massive storm is coming and you have money. It’s easy to quit a toxic job and take some time off to rest and find a workplace that’s truly what you want when you have money. It’s easy to get meaningful, healing, holistic healthcare when you have money. It’s easy to restore safety, well-being and even mental health when you have the time, knowledge and access to resources that should be considered basic human rights but instead are reserved for folks who can buy them.

Decolonizing mental health has to include recognition of the concrete limitations placed on the majority of the worlds population as a result of classism, discrimination and systemic oppression.

Encultured codependence is like a collective Fawn state. Fawning is a trauma response in which we abandon our authentic self in exchange for survival. None of us want to keep pretending to be someone we’re not.

“The fawn response involves people-pleasing to the degree that an individual disconnects from their own emotions, sensations, and needs. In childhood, this occurs because they must withhold expressing their authentic emotions of sadness, fear, and anger in order to avoid potential wrath or cruelty from a parent or caregiver.”-Dr. Arielle Schwartz

Are you sufficiently bummed out now? Sorry not sorry for spinning some hard truth but as always, gonna leave us with some sunshine.

While all that mainstream wisdom mostly fails to even remotely consider our existence, we can still set boundaries and recover, reconnect and dance with who we really are. Our path and process are different but the destination is the same; we come home to ourselves.

Stick around for all the answers in my next Ted-talk xo

ps: What’s with the radish? It’s a root vegetable. The root chakra is associated with our foundation, connection, safety, survival and vital chi or life force. Boundaries, root chakra, radishes.