[memling]

> I love my friends and family and they love me back. However I would avoid conflict at almost all costs in order to please people even if it is too my own detriment.

I've sat on this for a couple days trying to wrap some thoughts up. It's challenging, and I think what I've written below is pretty incomplete. But in any case...

I think these two statements are mutually contradictory, and I think that is an essential insight. (I, too, tend towards peace-making and people-pleasing at the wrong times.)

Love is a commitment that should produce sufficient safety to tell the truth to each other. It's hard to do that, and it's hard to test it. Love is ultimately concerned with the good of the other. This reflects around to you: if you are unable to be truthful with the beloved, you are not best for the beloved.

The well-worn bedrock of civilization--do unto others as you would have them do to you--seems like a good starting point for both loving yourself and your neighbor. It remains fraught with difficulty, though, because we often lack the will to do what is best for ourselves (or even the knowledge of what is best).