I derive immense satisfaction and personal fulfillment from caring for, bringing joy to and serving others.

I am a pleaser. I always have been. The concept of being selfish, or self centered is truly lost on me. I don’t know how not to share or give. I see people be selfish and I wonder to myself why they don’t enjoy doing for others. I just don’t get it.

As far back as I can remember, I have always been motivated to do for others, to care for others, to bring happiness to others. Even as a child I was motivated by the sense of gratification I felt when I would make my mother or father happy. Obviously I went through the normal rebellious teen phase, but even now, I still find that I derive satisfaction from seeing and making my parents happy.

The desire to please others doesn’t just apply to my parents however, I remember that I was always thinking about others, from my teachers, to my friends and finding or doing things to make them smile. As a child this was often through the physical act of gift giving. I would pick flowers, drawing a picture, making trinkets from all sorts of things. I would also try to help at home, act silly to make them laugh, let my friends choose the game we were going to play. I was too young to understand the greater concept of serving others and what I was doing. All I knew was that I felt really good when my effort was received with approval and happiness.

As I grew up and matured, my desire to please others morphed into something very unhealthy.

I was bullied mercilessly throughout middle school and high school. I didn’t have very many friends and was often intentionally left out of activities by the group of people I called friends. I became very familiar with rejection.  My high school sweetheart could not choose between me and another girl. We would date for a few months, break up, they would hook-up, break up and cycle repeat. I was never good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, or talented enough for others.

I was harassed verbally, physically and sexually all through my most impressionable years.

I remember very clearly an incident that is actually the root of my stage fright and why I stopped singing everywhere but in choir because I couldn’t drop the class. My choir teacher had asked me to sing the national anthem at one of our games. I agreed, quite excitedly at that, not because I wanted to, but because he asked me too.  Well, long story short, I didn’t make it through the entire song. I was literally mocked and heckled off the floor. I left the gym in tears and never agreed to do anything like that again. I just wanted to make people happy. In a moment of doing something to please my choir teacher I was met with rejection and hurt, and it reenforced my unhealthy relationship with pleasing others, I obviously wasn’t doing enough.

That is one tiny example in the train wreck that was my teenage years.

I compensated for all of the bullying and rejection by becoming unhealthily focused on making others happy. I never said no, I went above and beyond to do for others, and always worried that my efforts would be met with displeasure.

My desire to please others was an unhealthy compensation for my lack of self-worth.

As I grew up, went to college, experienced life, love, heartbreak, and trauma, my feelings of worthlessness were consistently reenforced. My first boyfriend out of high school, the one I technically lost my virginity too…. he cheated on me multiple times with a girl who was by all definitions of the word… “nasty.”

Why?

Because I wasn’t good enough in bed, and she was sexier than me. His words, not mine.

I will spare you the rest of the sob story because you already know about quite a bit of the other things I went through.

It wasn’t until I met the woman who taught me about Dominance did I even begin to understand my desire to please. She was a force to be reckoned with. Accepting nothing less than my absolute best she helped me work through my years of abuse, my lack of self-worth and fear of rejection. She was not kind, she was cold, manipulative and self-serving, but she took a liking to me, took me under her wing and helped me rediscover myself and grow as a Domme.

She taught me about the driving factors behind the male submissives service and her live in slave taught me about a submissives unconditional love and service to their Dominant. I learned to value myself, to not take crap from others, to expect and demand nothing less than the best for myself and from myself. She also helped me let go of many, many things, and for the first time since I was a child, I was truly happy and satisfied with my life and myself. I had a healthy self-image and self-respect again.

I also learned to derive pleasure from the act of pleasing others for their happiness, not their approval.

Around the time I graduated from college, I realized that I was having the desire to submit again and my ex latched onto that like he was drowning and I was his life vest.

Enter the next 6 miserable years of my life where I was forced to be submissive to someone who did not deserve my submission. To please constantly for him with no reciprocation, appreciation or pleasure.

After I spent time alone, focusing on myself I finally returned to the dating pool where I rediscovered my love of pleasing others. Specifically sexually.

At this point in our relationship Sir, you should be very well acquainted with my desire to please you in that manner…..

I have spent quite a bit of time, and put quite a bit of thought into making sure I fully understand why I am so driven to please others, in particularly you. I needed to make sure that I wasn’t driven to please you, to serve you, so I would be accepted by you.

I derive gratification, satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment when I help someone. This is the reason I chose the career I did. This is the reason why I am always offering to help others. It is, at the very core, the driving force behind my desire to please.

When I do something that pleases someone else, helps them, makes them happy, I walk away from the event feeling fulfilled. I am content.

It feels great to be appreciated.

Is some of my desire to please, to serve others, still rooted in that need for acceptance from when I was younger?

Yes.

The difference is now I recognize that. And I am working on it. I say no much more often than yes, and I say yes only to those that will appreciate me. Overall, I have developed a much healthier relationship with my desire to please and serve.

Do I find myself slipping into that old thought process? Yes, occasionally. This will make him/her/them like me more. When I catch myself, I have to take a time out and evaluate my motivation for what ever it is I was about to do. If I can’t change my thinking on it, I don’t do it. Simple as that. But this doesn’t just apply to you, it applies to everyone. I can not and will not derive my sense of self and satisfaction from someone elses approval or acceptance. 

That shit isn’t happening.

What will happen is this:

Oh this will make him so happy! I really like it when he smiles, it feels really good to make him laugh, what else can I do to make him happy?

I get the warm and fuzzies inside I make you happy. When I please you.

When I please you specifically be it sexually, romantically, by giving you gifts, cooking for you, or making you laugh, I am happy. I am satisfied, content, settled. There is no question or doubt that I am doing what I am supposed to.

When you are happy Sir, you get this smile, it reaches across your whole face. The corners of your eyes crinkle up and your eyes in general, they just light up. For a moment I see you let go of everything else and just enjoy being happy.

And that. That pleases me.