Anila was the eldest daughter with two younger brothers. As she shared, “I got a sense very early on that I had to compete to get my parents’ love. I was a girl, and that too dark-skinned, whereas my brothers were fair. I was the ugly one. I had to take care of my brothers, be obedient and not take up too much space. Whenever I wanted something for myself, I was told, ‘You are the eldest. You should understand.’”

Anila grew up carrying resentment towards her brothers and guilt for even wanting more. “I realised,” she said, “that I had to carry out ‘older daughter duties’ to receive appreciation.” As a deeply reflective person, Anila also noticed that this early training followed her into other relationships. She described a pattern of what she called “people pleasing”, especially with her classmates. I hear this term so often from young people that I was keen to unpack it with Anila: “I am constantly trying to figure out how I should dress, what music I should listen to be seen as cool. I replay every conversation I have had with them to check if I messed up in some way or if they like me. It’s as if I am always editing myself.”

What goes by the name of “people pleasing” is often not a choice but a response to power and hierarchy. It is a way to survive, seek validation, and fit into a social world that is not designed for us. There is a difference between fitting in and belonging. The former demands performance to gain membership and the latter accepts us as we are. The difference is often shaped by where we are socially located, by gender, class, caste and even the colour of our skin.

When Anila was 15, her youngest brother attacked her with a cricket bat, leaving a ghastly bruise on her leg. When she complained to her parents, she was told, “Siblings fight all the time. Don’t create drama.” That day, Anila realised something with startling clarity. Her home was not a safe space because the adults were unwilling to understand her distress. She moved to her Dadi’s house soon after. The school got involved and that is when I met the family. When I met Anila, she was firm in her refusal to return home. She came with her Dadi, and it was a delight to witness their warm relationship. Dadi’s eyes lit up when she spoke about her granddaughter and Anila, in turn, seemed to expand in her loving presence.

Watching their easy banter, I was reminded once again that we heal in kinship, not in silos. With her parents, Anila saw herself as a burden, as less than, as unlovable. With her Dadi, she was lighter, freer, happier. She did not need to shrink to fit in. There was no trace of people-pleasing in that room, no auditioning, no fear of rejection.

Relationships are like memberships. Some we are born into, others we acquire and build over a lifetime and some we let go of. Many of these memberships are open and welcoming. They do not demand much from us. They accept and love us, more or less, as we are. These people become our safe haven. Then, there are memberships with rigid expectations of us and, over time, we learn who we are required to be to pass the test. There are stringent, unspoken rules on who we have to be in order to be valued or even accepted.

Anila had been moving through life seeking memberships where she was expected to perform, pose and perfect herself in order to fit in. The silent cost, or what Anila called the “silent tax of people-pleasing”, was exhaustion, self-doubt and mental health struggles.

In our work together, I became curious about what might happen if we flipped the position. Instead of seeking memberships, I asked her, “What membership status would you give the people in your club of life? Anila sat up with excitement. “I have never thought of that,” she said. “This is a game changer as I get to choose rather than wait to be chosen.”

It was a shift in position that invited agency. She was no longer required to play by the rules of the people-pleasing game. She could decide who mattered in her life and how. She gave her grandmother a platinum membership. Two close friends and neighbours who had stood by her through everything were upgraded to the gold level. Her brothers received silver status. “They are kids,” she said with a shrug, “but they have to learn to respect me.” Her parents were downgraded to bronze. “They have to earn their way up in my club,” she said, “and only then will I be able to trust them.”

It would be easy to blame parents alone but they did not invent these rules. They are often enacting an intergenerational script where worth is tied to gender, obedience and the colour of our skin. They are performing a dance that they themselves never got the opportunity to question. Her parents respected her decision and, over time, they were able to have open, respectful conversations and strengthen their relationships. Anila’s mother shared, “Being a working parent of three children is so exhausting that my daughter became invisible to me.”

Now over to you. Would you like to reflect on the club membership statuses you assign in your own life? Who would you upgrade to platinum or gold? What makes these relationships nourishing, and how do you contribute to each other’s lives? Are there memberships you might want to downgrade or even revoke because they demand a constant people-pleasing tax? And are there any that might be open to a conversation, where the implicit rules can be renegotiated and the possibility of repair and restoration still exists?

There are relationships in our lives that we cannot easily exit. Maybe a colleague, a family member, someone we must coexist with. Is it possible to opt out of the people-pleasing dance? It might have started as survival but, maybe, they can be placed on probation, marked by grace rather than resentment. As a colleague once put it very wisely, “I don’t need them to like me. I just need them to not harm me.”

If you are a parent, teacher or someone who cares for children, a vital question to sit with is, “What membership would the children in your life give you?” This is not a comfortable question. It asks for honesty and deep soul searching. And it asks us to consider what we are doing every day to support children, not to shrink or to levy a people-pleasing tax but to be fully present. To relate in ways that do not demand performance or perfection but uphold their dignity and honour them as they are.

Composite stories and pseudonyms are used to maintain confidentiality.