Question:
I love people and I have a recently discovered a problem I have with feeling that I am not worthy/ lovable if not doing and saying everything I can to make people respond positively and feel good. I am worried about not being lovable to others (cla*sic ‘people pleaser’) but fundamentally about not good enough to God and being judged for not doing absolutely everything I could. The words said in church growing up regarding asking for forgiveness of sins “in what I have done and in what I have failed to do” have always haunted me.

I have a perfectionist attitude to myself in most facets of life, spiritual, physical, psychological. I believe in the need to be as good and selfless as possible to be worthy and good enough for God. I guess I also believe we are loved regardless but how do you act in your own self interest and not in someone else’s best interest without having consciously sinned (for want of a better term). Fundamentally it seems to me to be selfish. I have only just realised this is how I think and act and I am very gentle with others, I only apply this logic to myself. I am worn down physically and emotionally and having quite a few problems due to living to serve others (which I kind of feel is everyone’s vocation). I realise that pushing myself to the limit of what is possible is not working so well but don’t know how it would be acceptable to do anything less. If it can be done or squeezed into my day how can I not do it? If I am only a bit tired, sick and stressed as a result then that does not feel like to great a sacrifice to make.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how to balance doing things for others and looking after yourself in the framework of this belief system of service to others and selflessness. I hear advice about it, but without taking into account spiritual and religious foundations I stay stuck in the above thoughts. It seems to require me changing my views on God which feels impossible as I will always fear the repercussions of acting differently.
Answer:
When your awareness is situated in the field of all possibilities, and in concert with all the forces of the cosmos, then your self-interested actions are automatically synchronized to be in accord with everyone else’s interests and the universe’s interests as well. Cosmic consciousness is really the only way out for the chronic people pleaser personality. Although you do need to relinquish the idea that it is “you” and your actions that is doing the pleasing. There is no way to cognitively calculate or understand all the possible long and short term influences of our actions upon others and our environment. Human intelligence doesn’t have the capacity, but thankfully human awareness does have the ability to synchronize with the deep structure of Nature’s organizing intelligence and to act in perfect sympathy with it. Look at the myriad operations the 100 trillion cells of our body can perform every moment: We oxygenate all our cells, rid them of toxins, digest a meal, play a guitar, gestate a baby, and sing a song all the while our cells are doing these tasks in perfect synchrony with all the other cells. The cells are acting in their self-interest, but at the same time they are supporting the balanced functioning of the entire organism.
Love,
Deepak