People pleasing urge

The urge to be a people pleaser is a physical sensation.

A queue of strangers at a training day walks up to their classmate. They ask him a simple question: "May I have some of your time."

The instruction was simple: Politely say "no".

He could not do it. The single syllable could not come out of his mouth. Ever fibre of his being wanted to satisfy this fake request for some of his time. Every time, his body tensed and jumped at the classmate.

He was an extreme case: We all tense and jump at the opportunity to please someone.

We get to catch that early, and just relax.