One of the recurring themes in my therapy room for my female clients has been the reluctance and even fear of emotional conflict.
We are raised in contemporary social norms to maintain pleasant relationships. Taught as children to “get along” rather than assert ourselves physically or verbally when encountering trouble (as most boys are), we become evermore sensitive to emotional energy in the people around us. While this can become what I call a female superpower, it is an emotional preference with a great shadow side: we are often paralyzed by bullying in our families, at the neighborhood bus stop, on the playground, at sleepovers, anywhere someone with an urgent need to assert their dominance lurks. We easily become victims of other people’s inappropriate power.
Does this feel familiar? it is completely familiar to me. By the time we are deep into dating or full time jobs as young adult women, we have reinforced this emotional bias so many times we can struggle to know what appropriate personal power looks like. A large majority of women never fully heal from this expectation and gendered socialization: they become adept at sending their anger inward at themselves, sideways to those who don’t deserve it, and passively with those who do.
Bad romantic partners, bad family members, bad neighbors and bad bosses all cause enormous stress to those of us raised to not kick up a fuss when we are slighted, injured or even abused. At the far edge of this impulse to be forever pleasing is the extreme automatic adult responses of freeze and dissociation when threatened, enduring trauma or physical or emotional assaults. We have simply never given our bodies and minds the chance to push or fight back when threatened.
To become whole, happier, less anxious and perfectionistic people, we need to grow our toleration of social awkwardness, conflict, distain and stand up for ourselves when we need to do so. The need to be the people who are forever soothing others comes at such an enormous cost to us and to our relationships. No wonder women have such high rates of depression, anxiety, insomnia, body image issues, food addictions and eating disorders, emotional dysregulation and suicide attempts.
Any kind of emotional conflict is the kyrptonite of people pleasers and perfectionists. Time to see that superpower as an incomplete strategy, turn it into wonderful intuition that is BALANCED by the strength of your strong voice, confidence and skills at problem solving. But we must first become unafraid of wading into those turbulent waters. I promise you already know how to ride out that rip tide: speak up, hold on and ride it out.