When Pleasing You Is Killing Me

Book excerpt: While people pleasers can be some of the nicest people you'll meet, they have an uncanny knack for finding themselves in relationships with controllers. Knowing how pleasers are motivated by duty and obligation, the controllers will persuade, cajole, argue, and convince, knowing they can erode the resolve of the pleaser rather quickly. This, of course, leaves the pleaser with residual feelings of hurt, anxiety, and resentment. Because pleasers are not as skilled in the art of coercion as the controller, they can collapse in feelings of futility. In the book, When Pleasing You Is Killing Me, Dr. Les Carter explains how the pleaser can become freed from futility by choosing to stay out of the controller's power games altogether. Drawing upon decades of counseling with a wide array of frustrated nice people, Dr. Carter gives sound direction to those seeking to reclaim their true selves. Relationship boundaries are explained, assertiveness is taught, and insights are offered as the reader is guided into a paradigm shift regarding the ways to respond to a controller.