Let’s face it, when it comes to being asked for favors, sometimes it feels like there is no escape! But we can certainly make sure we are not being taken advantage of. So, when the word “yes” slips from your lips more often than “no”, and you find yourself going beyond the call of duty to satisfy others, you may be a victim of the “people pleasing” trap.

Maybe you are a serial people pleaser, or maybe you know one. People pleasers anxiously scurry to fulfill the expectations of others for a fleeting moment of satisfaction from a simple “thank you” at the expense of their own well-being. Worst case scenario: you turn to drugs, alcohol, an eating disorder as an unhealthy way to cope.

Certainly, there are times when we all have to people please, for instance, to satisfy requirements for work as well as our personal relationships. However, when you are overdoing it, anger could be a symptom. I often tell my patients that anger is a common sign that our people pleasing efforts have violated certain rules, standards, and philosophies we have for ourselves, and that our need to please could now be operating at our own expense!

If your ears are buzzing from Usher’s newly released song “Climax,” let it be an inspiration this spring to heat up your romance. No spring cleaning is not just for the garage. It could be time to can the granny panties and flannel jammies and spruce up your love life with some sure fire ways to make your relationship grow wildly sexy!

It has been said by Shunryu Suzuki that “to find composure in the midst of change is to find nirvana”. How you conduct yourself along the path of life determines how it unfolds. Emotions are never in a continuous state of harmony and life doesn’t happen perfectly as we might hope and wish, but our Everyday Mind is a survival mechanism that we develop to get through the ups and downs of life. It is built up over the years in response to people, events, and situations. It is informed, cunning, clever, and sometimes ignorant of itself. In other words, it helps us to survive, but doesn’t always act in our best interest.

Your Everyday Mind is the catalyst and cause of illness, as it creates behavior that attaches you to thoughts and actions that in turn cause you pain and illness. It disconnects you from a state of consciousness and creates conflict and disharmony that manifests in the shape of anxiety, depression, moodiness, fear, anger, and other negative emotions.

While we can’t escape the tyranny of events in everyday life, we can find an inner escape by beginning to control how we respond to events. The first step to activating healing is developing Three Insights into the Everyday Mind: