People Pleasing and the Mind-Body Connection of Fibromyalgia

September 18, 2009 by Lisa

Mind and Body are Linked: During my years of creating states of health in my body (curing fibromyalgia) I have discovered that the mind and the body are linked in a kind of constant dance, so much so that Dr. Sarno refers to them as one word: mindbody –  in his books. 

Mind states create body states: Fibromyalgia is a body-state that, in my opinion, oftentimes corresponds to certain mind-states, like problem-solving or problem-analyzing, worrying, feeling overwhelmed, constant anxiety, or people-pleasing.

Caring what others’ think produces fibro:   I think caring what people  think of me is really, really big because it’s one of the things that still has the power to produce sore muscles in me.

A recent example of my own

I am pain and symptom free 95% of the time, but recently I had an open house – trying to sell my house by owner.  I had two couples come in back to back and I talked to them for about 45 minutes all together. 

I wasn’t consciously trying to please them, but I know I did want to appear friendly and open and engaging (who is going to buy a house from someone they don’t like?), and within about 20 minutes of conversation my muscles started getting really sore! 

I thought “I’m supposed to be done with this!  What is going on?”

After they left and I got a chance to sit down and rest and think about it I realized what was going on.  Similar experiences have verified this. 

I’d rather feel good than be right: These days I try to remember that my priority is how I feel, not what other people think of me.  I can’t really make them like me anyway – I can put on a front that I think they might like, but people are fickle – they might not like my front either! … so it’s just not worth it. 

What’s funny is, before I made this correlation I would not have called myself a people pleaser.  I would have thought of myself as someone who doesn’t care what others think of me.  But, that’s just not true.   As much as I didn’t want to care what others thought, it was still important to me to be seen as a certain kind of person.  I have dropped this as much as I can, and am still working on dropping it further.  It’s just not worth it. 

I really do believe that caring what people think of you is an actual cause of fibromyalgia.  It’s like just asking for tension, because regardless of how you stand on your head for one person, the next person will want something entirely different.

Parenting: One big area I have recently discovered that I really cared what others thought of me was parenting.  When my son misbehaved in public I got really anxious without even knowing why. 

I eventually figured out the root cause for this and have mostly worked through the issue – and I couldn’t do it by modifying his behavior!  I had to modify my beliefs and emotional habits because the actions I had to take to modify his behavior also caused me emotional and physical pain!

Highly Recommended: 30 Days to Feel Better From Fibromyalgia

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