“Understanding the difference between “niceness” & kindness”♡
How do I fix my “performative “niceness”
Think about “performative niceness” as a bit of a self soothing habit. It always used to feel validated in the fact that we are nice people. Decent people. Almost like feeding your ego but I believe that performative niceness is in most instances stems from people pleasing.
“What is people pleaser?”
A people pleaser is something that’s defined by Merriam-Webster as “a person who has an emotional need to please others often at the expense of his or her own desires”
This habit can stem from parenting or anything that in a sense lowers someone self-esteem. A lack of self confidence will send someone to look outside of themselves for validation.
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“Performative niceness” may also push you to limit your response to things you don’t like or don’t find generally agreeable.Remember to ask yourself if not speaking up or using your clear communication skills and establishing clear boundaries is honoring yourself and respecting yourself or further digging yourself into a hole.
Determine if exuding “niceness” rather than “kindness” is really what you should be doing. Niceness is a sense empty. It doesn’t stem out of anything truly genuine. Someone who is genuinely a horrible person or lacks morals can easily be “nice” to someone they come across in the grocery store but moving out of their way, or letting them cut them in line.
For example, because I know this is something you can all relate to or understand. Is that “nice” guy you know really a genuinely nice guy or he just portrays to others that he is nice to achieve something or not be held accountable for his lack of respect and human decency towards the women in his life or that he chases after? Exactly.
If you’re subconsciously asking yourself or wondering if others think your “kindness” is enough, it’s probably not true kindness. Kindness stems from sitting with yourself and honestly and truly deciding to do what’s best for others because you truly care.
I do not have to be “nice” if I don’t want to. But I am kind because I have others best interest in mind and dedicate my life and my time to helping people overcome the things that they are struggling with. Not because I need that validation but because I simply want to and want the world to be a better place.
Hope this was a helpful piece. Follow my aesthetic page @cooki3face on Instagram for coquette black girl aesthetics and more. <3
Love you so much, good morning, good evening, or good night. Hope you’re doing well.
Choosing to set and enforce boundaries even and especially when it is difficult is an act of heroic self love. It is heroic self love to realize, vocalize and prioritize your needs because you know in your bones that your healing depends on it, that your soul is calling for it and your younger self is crying for it. To say, “No.” Despite the fear. Despite the malice of others. Despite the mockery, refusal, rejection, resentment, disregard, ignorance, anger, hostility and abandonment that will come to do battle with the brilliant light that is your knowledge of self worth. It is heroic self love to speak your mind, to draw the line, to put your foot down and risk standing alone and away from all that is familiar but that threatens your vitality as well, to surrender the socially preferred role of “agreeable person”, all for the simple fact that your sacred smile is worth it. When we stop expecting the healing journey to be easy we make room for the glorious moments of overcoming that remind us that we are our own heroes, we are the knights for whom we have fought the fatal sleep of despair. We heal when we give priority to our wellness. We heal when we draw the lines that create our safe spaces. We heal when we put doors on our sanctuaries. And we heal when we see ourselves standing up for ourselves.
Today I’d like to acknowledge everyone who has established boundaries for which they faced loss but which they enforced and maintained in the name of truth and healing.
The abuse you experienced is not your fault, and this question is not meant to imply that you would not have been abused if you had set boundaries. Rather, when it comes to your relationships with partners, friends, family members and even strangers, what are the lines you now know are important for you to draw?
Because abuse involves violations of our rights and because trauma is so often accompanied by feelings of shame, guilt and worthlessness, boundary setting plays an important role in our recovery. We are allowed to set boundaries and be clear about the type of behaviour that is or is not okay in our lives. We have the right to stand up for ourselves.
What type of behaviour are you no longer willing to put up with? Please share your answer below. #ReclaimYourVoice
[id: a screenshot of a tweet by hugo reinert @metaleptic. tweet reads “new office neighbor has a very sensible office door policy,” followed by a photograph of a printed sign taped to a door. sign reads:
Dear visitor:
In order to protect my concentration and sanity I have decided to implement a door policy:
Door open: very welcome to knock and come in, yes I would love to have a chat!
Door closed: Please do not knock at my door or come in unless you have urgent business.* I am extremely easily distracted and I will talk to you until the end of time instead of writing my dissertation.
Sometimes we take decisions which lead us towards a less comfortable situation, pushing our boundaries so that we can grow into e new version of ourselves. This often takes some kind of courage and, therefore, it’s not an easy thing to do. We like our good and bad habits because we know what to expect. But the nicest things happen when we thing outside the box.
It’s that time of year again! Do not feel compelled to spend time with family if you feel that they are toxic. You do get to choose who you allow in your life. You can always choose what’s best for you, never forget that ❤️ And as the year comes to an end, I hope that your boundaries will be respected and you’ll have some peace. A new year is coming, a new chapter in your life, let’s make it great!
If a disability professional asks you to come and address their professional group, be very careful — especially if they ask you to “tell your story”. Sometimes disability professionals are prepared to learn from disabled people, but more often than not, it’s a setup for humiliating emotional exploitation.
Most disability professionals form their professional consensus on The Enlightened Approach to Disabled People without many or any disabled leaders in the room. Having already decided what they will do to us, disability professionals then bring in disabled people as validation fairies to help them feel the way they want to feel about it.
Even if the person approaching you seems nice, it’s worth being cautious — don’t trust a smile; look for evidence about whether or not they are prepared to take you seriously as an expert. Most disability professionals don’t want to learn from our expertise; they want us to help them feel good about themselves. What they usually want from us is an emotional performance that validates their self image and the approach they’ve decided to take to disabled people.
They want to feel inspired, without facing difficult truths. They want to feel moved, without changing. They want to say “I learn so much from you!” without reconsidering their worldview or professional practice, and they want to say “You have such a unique perspective!” to every disabled speaker, while treating us as largely interchangeable. (Disability professionals who are actually prepared to learn from us acknowledge gaps in their expertise, and seek out disabled experts to teach them what they need to know.)
When disability professionals *mean* “come make us feel good about ourselves”, what they usually *say* is some version of “we have so much to learn from your unique perspective” or “my colleagues need to hear your story”. When disability professionals ask a disabled person to “tell your story”, they generally expect us to follow these unwritten rules:
Tell the audience horror stories about your childhood that allow the listeners to feel righteous because We Would Never Do Such Things.
Make sure that the stories are graphic, but not too graphic. Horrify the audience enough so that their pulses raise a bit and they feel brave for listening to you, but be careful not to horrify them so much that they have nightmares.
Make sure that you tell the story in a way that doesn’t make them feel ashamed or responsible for any of it.
Give them someone to identify with so they can feel like excellent people. Usually it’s either “my mom never gave up on me!” or “there was this one awesome teacher who showed me how to believe in myself!”
Don’t talk about the lingering harm done to you, or how it’s affecting you in the present. Don’t make them think about harm done to disabled kids who are facing lifelong consequences of that harm. Don’t talk about present-day injustice, discrimination, or violence.
Tell your story as a tragic misunderstanding. Don’t talk about discrimination or systematic injustice.
Allow your audience to laugh at you. Tell self-deprecating jokes. Don’t insist on respect.
Don’t describe solidarity with other disabled people, and don’t attribute any of your success to other disabled people who you regard as equals.
Don’t describe fighting with a professional and winning, unless you can attribute your victory to someone they can identify with.
Don’t be angry, and don’t describe other disabled people’s anger as legitimate. (Under some circumstances, it may be permissible to describe it as understandable, but only if you’re appropriately condescending and give the impression that the therapy provided by the professionals in the room would fix it.)
Don’t talk about disability in political terms. Say that “times have changed”, without giving any credit to disabled people who fought for those changes.
Do not mention organized groups of disability activists, especially organized groups of disability activists who exist in the present and clash with disability professionals.
At the end of the presentation, open the floor for Q&A. When audience members presume that it’s ok to ask you intrusive personal questions, smile and give them an answer that makes them feel good about themselves.
When you’re in the audience of their presentations, do not expect this intimacy to be reciprocated, and do not expect them to show similar concern for your feelings.
Understand that you’re here to validate them, and they’re not there to validate you. Pretend that what they’re doing is listening and learning.
Don’t break character, and don’t drop the mask. Don’t acknowledge the unwritten rules or the unwarranted emotional validation they want from you. Accept compliments about your “honesty” and “authentic first hand perspective” with a straight face.
Above all, do not talk about being harmed by disability professionals who there’s any chance your audience would identify with.
When disability professionals expect you to be their validation fairy, this is a form of ableism and emotional exploitation. They should not be treating your life as a story about their benevolence as disability professionals. They should not be treating you as existing for the purpose of making them feel good about themselves. They should be treating you with respect as a real human being — and if you are an expert, they should be treating you with the professional respect due to a colleague.
I am not the validation fairy, and neither are you.
Tl;dr Disability professionals who say “tell us your story” often mean “make us feel good about how we’re treating disabled people”.
“The greatest wound a child can receive is the rejection of his authentic self. When a parent cannot affirm his child’s feelings, needs, and desires, he rejects that child’s authentic self. Then, a false self must be set up. In order to believe he is loved, the wounded child behaves the way he thinks he is supposed to. This false self develops over the years and is reinforced by the family system’s needs and by culture. Gradually, the false self becomes who the person really thinks he is. He forgets that the false self is an adaptation, an act based on a script someone else wrote. It is impossible to be intimate if you have no sense of self. How can you share yourself with another if you do not really know who you are? How can anyone know you if you do not know who you really are?
One way a person builds a strong sense of self is by developing strong boundaries. Like the borders of a country, our physical boundaries protect our bodies and signal us when someone is too close or tries to touch us in an inappropriate way. Our sexual boundaries keep us safe and comfortable sexually. (People with weak sexual boundaries often have sex when they don’t really want to.) Our emotional boundaries tell us where our emotions end and another’s begin. They tell us when our feelings are about ourselves and when they are about others. We also have intellectual and spiritual boundaries, which determine our beliefs and our values. When a child is wounded through neglect or abuse, his boundaries are violated. This sets the child up for fears of being either abandoned or engulfed. When a person knows who he is, he doesn’t fear being engulfed. When he has a sense of self-value and self-confidence, he doesn’t fear being abandoned. Without strong boundaries, we cannot know where we end and others begin. We have trouble saying no and knowing what we want, which are crucial behaviors for establishing intimacy.”
Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child by John Bradshaw
“You can do all the research in the world to understand the inner workings of the narcissist’s mind, but it will do nothing to influence the outcome of the relationship.
Narcissists don’t think like most people. You can try to appeal to their seemingly ‘hurt’ inner child, be the most devoted partner or family member, and do everything they ask of you, but it will not change a thing.
Ever.
Narcissists are not interested in stable, loving, reciprocal connections. The idea of meeting your emotional needs repulses them to the core. The only positive leanings they have about your love and devotion are that they can use your sentimental feelings against you for their own benefit.
Here’s one thing I know to be absolutely true – when it comes to narcissists, we all want to believe we’ll be the exception to the rule, but none of us ever are.
There simply is not a way to “make things work” with a narcissist that doesn’t involve erasing your own identity, emotions, and needs.
You cannot set boundaries with them (none that they’ll honor, anyway)
You can’t reason with them.
You can’t get them to stop lying, cheating, betraying, etc.
You cannot have a loving, reciprocal, healthy relationship if you’re the only one interested in having it.
And this is the last thing on the narcissist’s mind, even if they try to convince you otherwise. Pay attention to patterns, because patterns never lie.”
Our third issue of Anxy is here! Order yours now; they ship July 30th!
What’s inside The Boundaries Issue?
FEATURED INTERVIEW
Open Mike Eagle on Genre-Hopping “I live in this constant anxious thought that everything is going to be taken away from me.”
ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Fabiola Jean-Louis on History “I’m thinking about a scenario where life is respected. Where there is no slavery, there is no injustice, there’s none of these things that have happened to us.”
PERSONAL ESSAYS
A collection of reflective, intimate essays
HUMOR
Samantha Irby on Anxiety “Hello 911? I’ve barricaded myself in the bedroom because the cleaning service came before I could think of a reason I needed to leave the house for an hour and forty-five minutes.”
EXPERIENCE
Dayna Evans on Silence
“In choosing to share these secrets, my mother crossed another boundary, exposing private family matters to people who felt obligated to plead ignorance.”
MEMOIR
Odalis García on Family “By sticking together the way we did, we carried with us the Cuba my family was forced to leave behind. If we were together, then nothing could tear us apart.”
EXPERIENCE
Alana Hope Levinson on Broken Homes “I didn’t think any sane person would want to live next to their ex.”
REPORTED FEATURES
Incisive, thoughtful reporting that gets to the core of the issues
DISPATCH
Eric Reidy “The government even refused to refer to people fleeing the Syrian war as ‘refugees,’ opting instead for euphemistic ‘displaced people’—blurring the legal boundaries around their obligations.”
OP-ED
Floricel Liborio Ramos “I don’t know where they had been hiding, but suddenly there were seven ICE officers, all in uniform.”
VISUAL STORIES
Compelling photo essays and illustration that bring boundaries to life
COMING OF AGE
Paola de Grenet “A neurologist once told us he was fascinated that she ‘presents as normal.’ So very close to what we all pass for, but in the end, her brain creates a boundary she cannot cross, a line that forks the path to the future.”
CULTURE
Jessica Chou “For the younger generation, Paris By Night provides a sense of their history and the world their parents grew up in, even if some of the flashy costumes and Liberace-styled acts are occasionally met with an eye-roll.”
HUMOR
Gary Moskowitz When I was a kid I was scared of barbers so my mom cut my hair. As I got older, I realized that barbers could actually be hair therapists. But they could also make things So. Much. Worse.”
COMMUNITY
Franziska Wittlede and Amazon Turk Workers What happens when you ask random strangers to draw their boundaries?
Pictures from our launch event at Designers + Geeks in San Francisco (thanks to Yelp for the space!)
Anon wrote: I was hoping to seek your advice with my ISTP father. His inferior Fe is extremely underdeveloped, even though he is in his 60s. He is always starting arguments with my ISFJ (possibly ESFJ) mother and me, his ISFJ daughter. He starts disagreements over the tiniest of things and causes so much turmoil in our household. He leaves for long periods of time without telling us where he’s going, he shows no empathy for our feelings even after us expressing how we need him to change at least once a week, and does not act like he even really needs my mom.. especially like she needs him to be there for her. It’s really hard because we both love him so much, and as an adult daughter, I am well aware of the impact this is having on my mother. Do you have any advice on how to approach him about this? Explaining our feelings and even telling him directly what we need doesn’t work. I just want my parents to be happy and my mom to feel loved. Even if I can’t have the greatest relationship with him myself, I can still love him and know he loves me, but I want him to love my mom how she needs because she has suffered so much emotionally through all of this.. Thank you.
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When dealing with any problem, facing facts is the first step. Your expectations of him seem very out of touch with the reality of what he is. Your expectations for the relationship seem very out of touch with the reality of what is actually possible. Since you and your mom share a similar/same type, you basically run into the same problems with him. However, keep in mind that her relationship with him is a separate entity to your relationship with him. You can’t and shouldn’t try to fix their relationship for her. The both of you need to do some personal work, if you hope to change this unhealthy relationship dynamic.
There are several issues that need to be unpacked:
1) The Problem of Boundaries: SFJs tend to be very self-sacrificing in relationships. This is a testament to their wonderfully deep capacity for love. However, this behavior can result in harm to oneself and/or others when healthy relationship boundaries are never set and properly maintained. Having no limits to what you’re willing to sacrifice leaves you wide open for exploitation. Signalling to others that you’re willing to do whatever it takes for a relationship to work is basically granting them license to take, take, take from you without having to think about giving you anything in return. This is why FJs often find themselves stuck in woefully unequal and sometimes even abusive relationships. It’s important to understand that inequality is self-inflicted suffering that arises from your lack of boundaries and/or your lack of assertiveness in enforcing boundaries. You have to be able to set limits on how much you give in relation to how much you get from the relationship. Aside from what the other person does or doesn’t do, whether a relationship has a sense of equality is largely dependent upon whether YOU assert your rights, advocate for YOUR needs, and request the respect and consideration that YOU are owed. It sounds like you tryto do this, but it is met with no good result, because you have probably waited too long and the relationship dynamic is already set. Boundaries have to be set at the start of the relationship and maintained at every turn. I suspect both you and your mom need to work on boundary setting abilities, see the resources page for book recs.
2) The Problem of Expectations: The self-sacrificing tendency can cause problems when it leads you to place unreasonable expectations upon people to reciprocate your sacrifices (especially when it comes to sacrifices that they never asked you to make). If you expect a Ti-Fe person to be a Fe-Ti person, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment. Different people show love in different ways. Trying to force an opposite personality type into being more like your type usually backfires. While you must assert yourself in a relationship and make requests of people to meet your needs, there is a hard limit as to how much a Ti-Fe person can reciprocate your devotion and sacrifice, simply because their awareness and understanding of Fe is far different from yours, especially when they have ardently resisted type development. You can’t have a healthy relationship as long as you can’t see and accept someone for who they really are. If you’re not equipped to have a relationship with a Ti-Fe person and/or if you’d rather have a relationship with a Fe-Ti person, be completely honest about it and adjust your expectations to fit the reality of the situation.
3) The Problem of Consequences: In order for people to understand that their behavior is problematic and should be changed, they have to face up to the negative consequences of it. As far as I can tell, he suffers no real consequences for his neglectful, rude, and dismissive behavior, because the both of you are still there waiting on him when he comes back, caring for him anyway. At most, he endures a bit of nagging, which he can easily tune out (out of sight, out of mind). This goes back to the first point: How much are you and your mother willing to give him before you say enough is enough and actually make him suffer some real consequences for his problematic behavior? This is not an issue of miscommunication if the real problem is that he simply doesn’t want to change. Type development is a personal choice; you can’t force it on people. I can’t tell you what sort of consequences he needs in order to finally learn something and I can’t tell you whether he will just ignore the consequences you try to inflict. I can’t tell you whether the relationship needs to end or whether it can be salvaged. All I’m saying is that it looks like he has no motivation whatsoever to change, and your willingness to put up with his bad behavior only enables his resistance to change.
4) The Problem of Sexism: It is very likely that a heterosexual relationship suffers from all kinds of underlying gender biases. As a man, he has very little reason to change his behavior when the women in his life behave as expected, as he has been taught to expect by society’s gender stereotypes. As a woman, it is very easy, even for women who identify as feminists, to unwittingly fall into the default submissive, sacrificing, or passive role that women are socialized to embody. Perhaps both you and your mom need to re-evaluate your concept of “fairness” and “equality”. Equal treatment in a relationship doesn’t magically appear, especially when you have societal forces unconsciously pushing you into an unequal relationship dynamic. If someone refuses to treat you like an equal, do you recognize it and does it bother you? At what point do you ask yourself whether the relationship is still worth your considerable investment of time, feeling, and energy?
This relationship dynamic has been going on too long and the problem keeps getting rehashed in circles with no resolution. I don’t tell people how to make decisions in life. All I can tell you is that, in order for it to change, YOU have to do something different to break the cycle, because he sure as heck isn’t going to change anything when he benefits more from it.
I was done with the waves. I have had enough of them. The waves of hopelessness that tricked my mind into believing joy would never stay. During my divorce it was understandable for me to have waves of sadness, depression, and heartbreak. However, the shock and surfaced pain wore off and I had another journey ahead…facing what has settled inside of me and made a home.
I had felt so guilty because God’s faithfulness has been so beautiful that I mistook processing pain as being ungrateful.
Then, a therapist said something that made everything shift inside of me. He shared that depression is an expression of suppressed anger. WOW. I’m not a person that gets easily angered. That hasn’t always been the case—at one time in my life I had a temper. I was a little spitfire with a lot of opinions but along the way, I convinced myself that anger was invalid and irrational.
If you are like me, then you have this ability to reframe circumstances to see them from an optimistic point of view. My therapist would say searching for a brighter side seems safer and less painful than the truth…my optimism was actually denial.
So if depression is the expression of suppressed anger…what is going inside of me? I shared with a friend and she said: “Eryn what are you angry at?” Me: “nothing…I’m really thankful..” Her: “No Eryn…what are you still angry at?” Me: “Okay, well maybe I’m angry at…” and then the list began.
Angry at him for ____.
Angry at her for ____.
Angry at them for ____.
Angry at me for ____.
For the first time…the first real time…I saw underneath. I saw the anger. I saw the pain that has been weighing me down. I saw the triggers…I saw what would have a strong hold. It took me being so embarrassed by my inconsistencies to say I’M DONE. These waves are controlling me and impacting my relationships. Admitting what I was angry at brought me closer to joy. Without pain, joy can’t exist…I get that phrase now. I found where the pain was and I’ve found how joy can sustain… // When Dr. Henry Cloud and team asked me to share a quote that meant something to me, I knew exactly what it would be. Dr. Henry Cloud has impacted my healing so much.
Love,
Eryn
Quote from Boundaries by Dr. Cloud with Dr. John Townsend
Good morning Tuesday! Hello Makeshift – Issue 15: Boundaries. Makeshift is a field guide to hidden creativity. New lives for lifejackets and lifeboats left behind on the migrant trail in Greece. DIY barricades to keep ISIS at bay in Kurdistan. Shed-built spacecraft in Australia. Border shopping arbitrage in Brazil/Paraguay. The new Boundaries issue features innovative ways to Cross, Confront, or Create lines in the imagined sand. Now available in our online store!
It’s okay to be upset with someone who hurt you. Even if they are upset about hurting you. It is not your job to comfort them and you are still allowed to hold them accountable. Them feeling upset does not mean you need to ignore your feelings.
you can be a good, considerate person and it won’t necessarily mean being quiet and obedient whenever that’s expected of you. sometimes you’ll find yourself in a situation where you have to speak up to be taken seriously, or a situation where you have to be nasty and rude in order to get someone to get their hands off of you or leave you alone or respect you / your body. you’re allowed to use your voice to protect yourself and you’re allowed to get mad.
if something someone says about or to you is especially hurtful and demeaning in some way - even as a joke - you’re allowed to be upset & let them know in an assertive way. however, it’s important to remember that how they respond to it says a lot more about them than you. even when their words felt personal, their beliefs and reactions aren’t yours to change or take responsibility for. once they know something has hurt you, you cannot try to convince them of your worth or the damage behind their actions.
