Why We People Please (and Why It Feels So Exhausting)
So many of us recognise ourselves the moment we hear the words people pleasing.
That tightening in the chest…
The smile that’s just a little too bright…
The sense of twisting inside to become whatever we imagine others want us to be.
People pleasing isn’t a flaw in your personality - it’s an old adaptive strategy.
A survival mechanism you learned long before you had language for it.
Beneath the behaviour is something deeper:
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fear of being disliked,
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fear of losing connection,
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fear of rejection,
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or simply the aching belief that you aren’t enough.
And the body remembers this.
It becomes tight. Pressured. Squashed.
We override ourselves again and again… until we forget there is a “me” in the first place.
The Moment Everything Shifts
In the recent live session of Being Me Therapy (membership), something beautiful kept happening.
Whenever someone felt safe, their whole system softened.
They stopped smiling too much.
They stopped filtering.
They stopped shaping themselves around imagined expectations.
And what emerged was honesty.
Realness.
Presence.
Self.
This is the key:
People pleasing dissolves in spaces where you can safely be yourself.
The more you taste that safety, the more you reconnect with the parts of you that were silenced.
What’s Beneath the Pleasing?
For some, it is deep sadness.
Old childhood memories of trying - and failing - to make a parent happy.
Feeling like the “wrong” one in the family.
Feeling that who they are is somehow too much, or not enough.
And when we explored what those parts needed?
The answers were simple and profound:
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“I need to be heard.”
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“I need to feel safe.”
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“I need connection.”
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“I need permission to be me.”
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“I need space to feel my anger.”
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“I need someone beside me as I break the shell.”
These needs are old, but they’re not out of reach.
Healing People Pleasing by Being More Yourself
Here’s the soft magic of this work:
When you reconnect with the parts of you that were once silenced…
When you let your truth be spoken, even shakily…
When you allow the anger, the sadness, the fear to surface with kindness…
You stop people pleasing - not by forcing yourself to “just say no,”
but because the real you is finally here.
You reclaim:
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your voice
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your sense of self
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your boundaries
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your autonomy
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your inner reference point
And from here, pleasing others isn’t a compulsion -
it becomes a choice.
If This Spoke to You… Let’s Go Deeper Together
This is the heart of the Being Me Therapy membership -
a space where you get to peel off the mask safely, gently, and with companionship.
Where your body, your truth, your voice are welcome exactly as they are.
Where you learn, layer by layer, to become more yourself -
and discover that this is where healing lives.
If you feel the pull, you’re warmly welcome to join us inside.
Your inner world will thank you.
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