201:Stop Trying to Earn Love: Redefining Love for Recovering People Pleasers

Stop Trying to Earn Love

What if your relationships feel exhausting not because you love too much… but because you were taught the wrong definition of love?

Many highly sensitive people learned that love must be earned — through self-sacrifice, over-accommodation, and being “low maintenance.” But that belief creates burnout, resentment, and imbalance.

In this episode, we untangle the truth about love — and why you don’t have to exhaust yourself to deserve it.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• The 3 core beliefs people pleasers were taught about love
• Why self-sacrifice as a default leads to self-erasure
• The difference between survival love and sustainable love
• What balanced, healthy love actually looks like

Love that requires self-erasure isn’t love. It’s people pleasing dressed up as devotion.

You are already worthy — not because you’re useful, agreeable, or self-sacrificing — but because you’re human.

Work With Me

If you’re ready to stop over-accommodating and start creating balanced, secure relationships, I would love to help you.

Coaching helps you retrain your nervous system, untangle guilt, and redefine love so it no longer requires self-betrayal.

Email me at maryann@maryannwalker.life
to ask about current availability and next steps.

You deserve love that feels steady — not earned.

FREEBIE: Are you ready to state boundaries without fear and anxiety? Click now to get my FREE boundary setting master class! https://maryannwalker-life.kit.com/ef2bbf6158

Transcript

0:42

What if the reason your relationships feel exhausting isn't because you love too much, but because you were taught the wrong definition of love? Many highly sensitive people were taught that love must be earned through self-sacrifice, through being agreeable, through being low maintenance, through putting everybody else first. Essentially, they were taught that love must be earned through our actions. But that belief creates a lot of burnout and imbalance in relationship, the very things that you're wanting to avoid right now. And so today we're going to be talking about what you were likely taught about love, why those beliefs are not sustainable, and what healthy love actually looks like. So first, let's talk about what people pleasers were taught about love. There's three main core beliefs we're going to talk about today, and the first one is love must be earned. More than likely you were taught "be good, be helpful, be understanding. Don't be difficult. Don't need too much. Don't rock the boat. You better accommodate other people." And essentially the unspoken messages. If I'm easy to love, then I won't be abandoned. Then people will stay. Now for highly sensitive children, especially more than likely, you were taught how to scan the room. You needed to make sure that everybody else was feeling okay, because that's how you helped yourself to feel okay. You adjusted your own emotions and your expectations. You learned how to manage other people's moods and that was all kind of done because you didn't really know how to manage your own moods. You learned that it was safer to suppress your own wants, needs and desires. Because guess what? Having wants, needs and desires, it might inconvenience other people. Or even worse, it might upset them. But that's not love. That's survival. And of course you learned that when you were growing up. Of course, you learned how to adapt and it worked for a while. It kept the connection intact. But what works for survival.. It doesn't always work for thriving. All right. Core belief number two is self-sacrifice equals love. More than likely you internalized that love means putting other people first. Love means enduring love means patience without limits. Love means forgiving everything for as many times as is needed. Love means depleting yourself to fuel the relationship. Love means spreading yourself thin, and while yes, there is a time and a place for self-sacrifice, there are seasons in relationship where we do prioritize somebody else above ourselves. for example, with parenting or in times of illness or grief, or when a partner is really struggling. But when self-sacrifice becomes your default setting, you disappear. And that's not sustainable. Core belief number three is it is my responsibility to fix it. You internalize that if somebody is upset, it's probably my fault. I'm responsible for other people's emotional experience. If there is a problem, I need to be the one to fix it and make it better. I must be the responsible one, the forgiving one, the fixer. And while yes, being responsible for your actions is vital for creating healthy relationships when you over own responsibility in relationship, it can actually create the very imbalance that you're wanting to avoid. These core beliefs, they really skew our reality. Because while it is true that yes, you have needs, you've skewed that fact, that you have needs into the belief that my needs are too much. While it is true that relationships require mutual effort, you've chosen to skew that belief into, it's my job to keep everything working. While it's true that relationships require mutual accountability and mutual responsibility, you've chosen to believe that it's solely my responsibility. When you believe that love must be earned, you over function. You over accommodate you, overexplain. You call it love, but it's actually a fear of losing connection, a fear of abandonment and burnout and resentment become the predictable outcome of those fears. Your nervous system has learned over time that accommodating other people is what is going to bring you personal safety. Telling other people no, or stating boundaries... that's going to create danger for you. It's going to create abandonment from others. And so because we're so afraid of being abandoned from others, we often self abandon. So now we're equating self abandonment with love and boundaries, with personal threat. And that makes sense given your upbringing. But here's the truth is love that requires self erasure... that's not love. It's people pleasing masquerading as authentic connection. Love does not require a performance. Love is not a reward for being nice enough. Love is not conditional upon how accommodating you are of others. You are already worthy of love and not because you're useful, not because you're agreeable, not because you're self-sacrificing, but simply because you're human. I spent a lot of my life attempting to prove my worth to others. I told myself, be nice, be fun. Don't rock the boat. Smile. It's not that big of a deal to accommodate other people. So do it as much as possible so that nobody is inconvenienced well, I mean, except for me, right? I'm gonna be inconvenienced. And what this created for me was a lot of burnout, feeling unseen and unappreciated. Imbalance in relationship. And yeah, people did come to me when they needed something because I really showed up well, but I struggled to find people that were willing to show up for me. And in hindsight, I can see that probably there were people that were willing to show up for me, but I didn't know how to ask for support. I didn't know how to get my needs met because I had become so good at pretending that I didn't have any needs, because that might make it easier for other people to stay if I had no needs. But through coaching, I was able to learn that I didn't have to sacrifice myself to make relationships work. It was okay for me to have needs and to ask to have those needs met. It was okay for me to say no to requests that didn't align with my values, my schedule, my energy level, or my wellbeing. Stating boundaries didn't automatically mean that I would be abandoned. I learned that it was okay for people to feel temporary disappointment while I worked to protect my health and my wellbeing. I could have relationships that were balanced and built on mutual love, respect, and accountability. I learned I had so much more energy to invest into the activities and the relationships that I do truly love when I no longer felt obligated to show up through self-sacrifice. I finally learned how to prioritize true compatibility over acceptance. And now I help other people to do the same. Balanced love includes mutual respect, mutual care, space for both people's needs to be met. It looks like mutual repair and mutual accountability after conflict. It looks like mutual respect around our personal limits. Healthy love says I care about you and I care about me, because it's that mutual care that is going to make the relationship more sustainable for you and more fulfilling. So in closing, let me share five signs that you're still trying to earn love. You feel guilty for having needs. You apologize for having normal and rational boundaries. You tend to overexplain your "no." You feel personally responsible for everybody else's emotions. You fear that speaking up will make somebody leave you. And that's not love. That's insecurity. You do not have to exhaust yourself to be loved. You do not have to earn your place in somebody else's life. You are already worthy. So if you are ready to stop over accommodating, to stop abandoning yourself, and if you're ready to start creating balanced, sustainable relationships that help you to feel secure without performing, come and work with me. Through coaching, we can retrain your nervous system, untangle guilt and redefine love. We can also help you to build relationships that don't require self betrayal. You do deserve a love that feels steady and not earned, and I would be honored to help you to create that. I know you and I know that if I was talking to one of your friends right now, if you knew one of your friends was struggling right now with feeling like they had to prove themselves in order to feel loved, you would say, Hey, you need to talk to MaryAnn. You should go and get some help. So I encourage you to self-reflect on that and see, you know what? I'm going to love myself enough to gift that to me. I'm going to take those next steps so I can experience more peace and fulfillment in my relationships. So if you're ready to be that friend for yourself, email me at MARYANN@MARYANNWALKER.LIFE to inquire about my current availability, what your next steps might be, and also to just see what coaching might look like for you. I am so looking forward to working with you and let's talk soon. Bye now.