Approved and Affirmed: Navigating Trauma, Codependency, and People Pleasing

Every human wants to be seen and heard, acknowledged and loved. It is part of the way that God, our Father and Creator wired us. He formed His Image bearers with the desire to know and be known. This innate yearning fuels our worship, love, and devotion to the Father through our relationship with Jesus, assisted by the Holy Spirit. It can also fuel people pleasing.

With other humans, this need for a sense of acceptance and belonging spearheads meaningful connection, beginning with our earliest influences and evolving throughout the course of our lives. Parents, guardians, and caregivers play a significant role in our development.

In healthy connections, we develop an abiding sense of attachment. Nurturing bonds with our family members promote security and confidence. It forms our view of self and relationships with others as we navigate our ever-expanding world.

Yet, when we experience trauma associated with rejection, abandonment, and abuse in our closest circles, what was pure becomes perverted. Its distortion shows up in how we see ourselves and our relationships with others.

In the absence of identity-affirming attachment, the voices of trauma, shame, and codependency have the potential to shape our lives. We may not receive proper validation from those whose input matters most, resulting in a codependent mindset and behaviors.

In an attempt to adapt to a toxic environment and traumatic circumstances, relationships become transactional. Instead of providing safe spaces where we experience interdependence and mutuality, codependency swaps the delight of being truly cared for in exchange for the false security that pleasing others solicits.

People pleasing: Understanding the opposition

As with anything else, our legitimate need for acceptance, belonging, and meaning can become skewed and misdirected. This is precisely what the adversary hopes to accomplish. He baits us into making gods of others, leaning our legitimate need for belonging toward human appeal and applause.

Pleasing people causes lies and falsehoods to flourish in the same heart space where we were designed to seek what’s right and true. We were created for relationship, but our identity is not solely based on who we are to others. It is primarily who we are to the Father who has already accepted us in Christ, His Beloved Son (Ephesians 1:6).

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. – Galatians 1:10, NIV

Diverted worship

The adversary, Satan, is familiar with this need for belonging as he misappropriated his own role in heaven. Instead of being satisfied with how God delighted in him, he sought to become like God to overturn the Almighty’s throne. He led a mutiny of one-third of the angels in an attempt to usurp the Father’s authority. This resulted in being ejected from heaven and eternally destined for a lake of fire.

It is no wonder why he seeks to dampen or divert our worship onto lesser gods of any created being, including humans, as long as it isn’t the Most High God.

Satan distracts our focus from the True and Living God and lures us into believing that our worth and identity are derived from performance. Abraham and Sarah misplaced their frustrations, misusing Hagar and “assisting” God with fulfilling the promise for a son in their old age. Hagar, as their slave, was as valuable to them as the purpose she fulfilled; yet to God, she was seen, known, heard, and loved (Genesis 16:2-3, 13).

We wrestle with similar struggles, as demonic influences remind us of feeling invisible, rejected, and unwanted, based on the pain of past trauma. Although the enemy convinces us of worth based on people pleasing, the Truth of the Father’s love, in Jesus, supersedes the assortment of facts related to our trauma history and sets us free.

Distorted worship

Instead of yielding joy, prioritizing pleasing others over God produces resentment, drains our energy, and ultimately delays the destiny that God wants to bring forward. We suspend God’s vision for our lives, attuning to others’ voices to determine our destination and direction. People pleasing demands that we entertain and cater to what we believe other people want over the dreams and desires that the Holy Spirit has placed within.

In Christian circles, we often deflect responsibility for pursuing purpose, instead busying ourselves with service to others. Even as believers, we have become well-versed in idolatry, elevating human acceptance and approval, though crushed by the pressure that ensues.

Could it be that people pleasing is a subversive attempt to convince others, and perhaps ourselves, of our worth? Deceptively, it leaves us empty. Unknowingly, we sacrifice, compromising more than what we had hoped to gain. We accommodate other people’s wishes instead of prioritizing what delights our Father’s Heart.

Whether with those in our households, friends, or others we encounter along the way, we find ourselves recycling the dysfunction that was a much-loathed part of our own traumatic experiences in childhood and adolescence. It is a trick and a trap used by the enemy to chain us to a past we cannot change instead of the future that the Lord beckons us into.

Trading our actions for others’ acceptance is subtle theft. When we have been trained into being a commodity for others’ use or misuse, the codependent habit of pleasing people masquerades as part of our identity. Though we may have left the familiarity of toxic environments, we may still pander to the idol of human approval until we have a life-changing encounter with the Lord.

Although we could become burdened by shame or discouraged into silence, we must remember that the grace of God outpaces the sin and trauma that threatened to consume us. Although trauma sought to intercept our destiny by distorting the Image of God, we don’t have to submit to its manipulation, but joyfully surrender to One who sets us free (John 8:36).

Devoted worship

We may have lived through significant traumatic incidents, but we have adapted, coped, and demonstrated resilience. Whether we endured suffering at the hands of individuals who hurt us with their actions or remained silent while others did, we may be able to trace moments where the Holy Spirit came to address and remedy our pain in unlikely ways.

Through Jesus, the Balm and prescription for our souls, we can now experience healing and transformation. It seems uncommon, but He often repurposes our most difficult days to point us forward into purpose and an unveiling of who we were intended to be with the Father from before the earth’s foundations (Ephesians 2:10).

Naturally, we may have gathered a combination of protective factors contributing to our resilience and ability to survive the worst circumstances. Yet, when we survey what God has enabled us to overcome, we must acknowledge and agree with the words of Jesus, that we didn’t choose Him, but He certainly chose us.

The Father has called us beloved and accepted. The shedding of Jesus’ blood has not only remitted sin but also ushered in the restoration of Father God’s original intents and purposes for our lives.

With that knowledge, no history of trauma, codependency, or people-pleasing can undermine the fullness of His plans for our future. Our compassionate Savior suffered mercilessly and willingly offered His life for ours to experience inexpressible joy in the present and all of eternity (1 Peter 1:8).

Next steps for overcoming people pleasing

 

People pleasing reveals the soul wounds imposed by trauma and leveraged by codependency that God wants to heal and make whole. The Father never intended for you to enslave to the past and bow to the image of flawed humanity, but rather to rest in the identity that He alone has given.

Your heart is a reserved space, designed to enthrone the Most High. Seeking Him will satisfy in ways that human vice cannot. Search for a counselor on this site and make the appointment that will help you transform the life of peace and joy you deserve and desire.