I am an obsessive people pleaser with an immobilizing fear of people being mad at me. I go physically weak and feel sick to the depths of my stomach when someone is upset with me and I feel desperate to do whatever it takes to make them happy with me again. This is a BIG problem, because it is impossible to please everyone. We all have varying views and beliefs and can't always agree and when strong emotions get involved and people start judging others without really trying to understand and empathize with their view and experience, things get real messy. One of my "strengths" is restorative, which means that I feel I have to fix all problems that arise in a relationship and restore peace and harmony as soon as possible. This seems like a good quality, and it can be, but it has turned into a negative, harmful trait for me, because I feel it too deeply. For many years I have tried hard to never upset anyone, to never disappoint their opinion of me, to never cause a wave to ripple in the water of any of my relationships, whether I had met the person recently, or known them all my life. This worked okay, most of the time, though it was rather tiring but then several people I was close to started to disagree heavily with me on my beliefs and became seriously upset and sometimes angry with me for not agreeing with them. I was heartbroken and cried many tears but I could not give in and agree to do what they pressured me to do, because it went against who I was, it didn't feel right to me, and it went against God's plan for me. I wanted desperately to make them happy with me, but I could not, though many times I was horribly tempted to give in and try to be who they wanted me to be. This people pleasing trait has caused me extreme anxiety, grief, depression, and frustration and I am beginning to fully realize, that in order to have peace, to grow in self confidence and to stop being continually anxious, I HAVE to stop trying to please people who disagree with me, even if they are very close to my heart. I have to stop feeling like I am doing something wrong or bad or that I am bad, if I don't think, act and believe like they think I should. I have to stop letting what others believe about me stir up my world and make it muddy and confusing, because if I don't, I will never be able to have a healthy love for myself. As one of my dear friends said to me recently, "I know you, you will keep trying to make everyone happy, that's how you are. But if you keep trying to make them all happy, you will lose yourself in the process. Please don't let that happen." I felt very touched by her concern, I knew she was right and I felt a new level of conviction that this is a BIG problem and that I need to put this controlling, unhealthy habit in God's hands and surrender my desire for everyone to be happy with me and agree with me. I need to remember that we are all called to live like Jesus, and Jesus did and said things that made many people upset with Him, angry with Him, even hate Him and He was never doing anything wrong. Jesus shows us that there is so much more to life than just trying to please everyone. He shows us that it is essential that we act, believe, speak and live in a way that is true to our faith, true to ourselves and that follows God's Will, and that it is not essential to make others happy with us.