5 Ways to Support Healthy People Pleasers, Givers,
and Helpers
There is nothing like feeling and knowing without any doubt that you
have a community, friends boss, or family member who has your back, totally and completely.
Many of us have experienced the opposite.
Backstabbing at home, in friendships, and at work.
It’s unfortunate that many women have learned how to survive in a man’s world by competing, holding back, stepping on, disrespecting, and dishonoring in order to elevate themselves… to shine in the eyes of the men who lead. And those of us who are givers, helpers, service-oriented, and healthy people pleasers are the ones who have suffered their wrathful competitiveness and betrayals.
On behalf of women, I am sorry for what women have done to you that dishonored you in any way… in words and deeds.
Today, I want us to reorient ourselves… our energy… towards being mentally clear about what support looks like to us.
As a healthy people pleaser, giver, helper and service-oriented person… I can tell you that my clarity about my own requirements, needs, values, and principles that are non-negotiable helped me ask for what I need in my relationships… and those that were out of alignment with my requirements, needs, values, and principles… did not stick around.
That just made room for new honoring and supportive relationships.
There is nothing as immense as saying and showing you have our back. It is fuel to us – that motivates, inspires, and gives us energy to keep on being who we are, showing up for you, and making a difference to others.
Here are 10 ways to say and show your support and unconditional love for the healthy people pleasers in your life:
- Ask them what their Love Language is and then speak their language. For example: my love language is Words of Affirmation… noticing the things I do that makes a difference to you, and letting me know you appreciate those things, the skills and qualities that it took to do those things, and why it makes a difference to you… makes my heart and soul beam brighter than the rays of the sun.
It sounds like a mouthful, but really it takes less than 1 minute to say this to them. Looking for opportunities of contribution instead of criticism is larger than any store bought gift you can buy.
- Once you notice the things they do for you, that make a difference to you… do that thing for them that week. For example: one week my husband was sleeping in. He had been traveling for several weeks and was exhausted. It is not like him to not take the trash and recycling out in the morning the day the pickup is scheduled. I did not want to wake him up… so I emptied all the trash cans inside the house… quietly. I separated out the recycling… the way he does it… cleaning the jars and lids, separating out what’s recyclable and what’s not… honoring the people who pick it up and their jobs. He woke up around 1:30 in the afternoon. For some reason he chose to look out the window into the front yard… and saw the trash and recycling cans outside. He came into the kitchen and said how did they get there. LOL! The trash and recycling fairies visited us. It gets even better… he went out and looked in the cans… and was gobsmacked at how it was all organized in thoughtful consideration for the people who pick it up and their jobs.
- Spend quality time with them… not busy time… just being with each other time. Those silent moments sitting on the porch, sipping your favorite cuppa is priceless… not awkward. In those silent moments, you’ll come up with things to do that is valuable to both of you. Nothing can replace these moments of truly being with each other… soul to soul.
- Notice their favorite meals or drinks… their favorite places to visit… their favorite self care places… and buy 2… share the gift with them and the date you’ll be joining them to enjoy it together.
- Have their back! In words and actions. They will protect and have your back… even to the point of sacrificing themselves if they have to… that is love for them. So, always have their back and be protective of them. This is the epitome of trust. Trusting each other with your hearts, minds, bodies, and soul… without question… and knowing you have each others backs… this is more precious, elevating and meaningful to us than money or store bought gifts.
These all require paying attention to the person and their daily joys and struggles. It requires not solving anything. And it requires giving from a place of honoring them… instead of what you think will help.
Which brings me to the picture of the Elephant Community… it is a beautiful example from Mother Nature about how women must support each other… we are natural healthy people pleasers, givers, helpers, and service oriented… so let’s be of service to each other by honoring, supporting, promoting, and elevating each other.
My friend, Betz McKeown, posted this on the book recently:
Elephants are mystical, intelligent, sentient beings. We humans can learn so much from them. Here, in their sovereignty, the feminine stress response: not ‘fight or flight,’ but ‘tend and befriend.’ Sacred feminine energy is what will save the world. 
It’s about female elephants. You know, as all good stories begin. See, in the wild, when a mama elephant is giving birth, all the other female elephants in the herd back around her in formation. They close ranks so that the delivering mama cannot even be seen in the middle. They stomp and kick up dirt and soil to throw attackers off the scent and basically act like a pack of badasses.
They surround the mama and incoming baby in protection, sending a clear signal to predators that if they want to attack their friend while she is vulnerable, they’ll have to get through 40 tons of female aggression first.
When the baby elephant is delivered, the sister elephants do two things: they kick sand or dirt over the newborn to protect its fragile skin from the sun, and then they all start trumpeting, a female celebration of new life, of sisterhood, of something beautiful being born in a harsh, wild world despite enemies and attackers and predators and odds.
Scientists tell us this: They normally take this formation in only two cases – under attack by predators like lions, or during the birth of a new elephant.
This is what we do, girls. When our sisters are vulnerable, when they are giving birth to new life, new ideas, new ministries, new spaces, when they are under attack, when they need their people to surround them so they can create, deliver, heal, recover…we get in formation. We close ranks and literally have each others’ backs. You want to mess with our sis? Come through us first. Good luck.
And when delivery comes, when new life makes its entrance, when healing finally begins, when the night has passed and our sister is ready to rise back up, we sound our trumpets because we saw it through together. We celebrate! We cheer! We raise our glasses and give thanks.Maybe you need this too. If you are closing ranks around a vulnerable sister, or if your girls have you surrounded while you are tender, this is how we do it.
There is no community like a community of women. <I would add: and the men who honor, respect, support and promote them.
-Jen HatmakerPhoto credit: David Yarrow Photography
Gratitude credit: Thank you Betz for the inspiration to write this.
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