The people pleasing paradox: Finding our way back home

People-pleasing is an automatic (and often unconscious) response that many of us originally learn as a way to navigate difficult relationships in our lives. At its core is a survival response: as a human species, our nervous systems developed when we were tribal creatures, and "strength in numbers" is still its primary belief. Deep within our bodies, each of us carries an enduring truth: as human beings, fundamentally, we need one another.

This can be a beautiful fact, for poets and dreamers down the ages have testified. "All we need is love," dreamed John Lennon. But what about when love cannot be had? What happens when those who are meant to love us, leave us? 

Abandonment and neglect can happen in many ways – sometimes the people we are in relationship with (caregivers, partners, friends) abandon us physically; other times, in the small, nearly incomprehensible moments that make up day-to-day life. It might be that caregivers were emotionally unavailable, or that emotional or physical safety was dependent upon being compliant.

When we are faced with abandonment in our relationships, we learn a new survival response that, from the body’s perspective, is designed to keep us safe. We learn to be what others want us to be. We do what we think others want us to do. We set our own needs aside and give priority to what others want from us. We want to be accepted, seen, valued, and loved – and sometimes, over-giving gets the job done in the short term. People-pleasing strategies really can please the people in our lives. But the reality is that in the process, we often lose what’s most important in the long term: our authentic self. 

Understanding the origins of people-pleasing

People-pleasing behaviour often stems from childhood. Most of us are raised with conditions we must meet to receive love from our families. These conditions can be direct and obvious, "Children should be seen, not heard," or indirect and subtle – the look of disappointment on a caregiver's face when you come home with a poor report card, and, on the other hand, the approval you experience as love when you do something to make a caregiver happy. 

As children, being physically reliant on our carers can mean we replicate our carers, their values, and their beliefs. With time, we can internalise such values, remembering nothing of where they came from and believing that they are ours. Carl Rogers (1959) believed that our anxieties emanate from the places in our lives where we are incongruent, or acting in ways that do not truly resonate with our own deep-seated values. 

Similarly, modern neuroscience research and trauma theory describe core automatic survival responses that come up in our bodies when we feel unsafe. If we feel physically or emotionally threatened, we might go into one or several of the following states: 

• Fight (willing to defend and attack).
• Flight (run away).
• Freeze (imagine a deer in headlights; needing to move but frozen in terror).
• Fawn (sometimes called ‘Tend and Befriend', or people pleasing). 
• Flop (depression, or dissociation).

The fawn response 

You might feel it in your body first: the internal bracing that comes when you’re saying yes to others, when inside, your body is saying no. 

If we have learned to put others' needs ahead of our own, we may find ourselves defaulting to a fawn response without even knowing it. Fawning over people, over time, can become an issue when it erases your boundaries and sense of self. 

The consequences of losing yourself 

When you consistently put others' expectations first, you risk losing touch with your own values, wants, and sense of self. This may look like:

• Burnout: Continually going the extra mile to fulfil others' needs is emotionally and physically exhausting.
• Resentment: Resentment and frustration, both towards others and towards yourself, typically arise from the denial of your needs.
• Identity confusion: Over time, you might lose touch with your own preferences or interests, as choices are made based on satisfying others.

Reconnecting to your authentic self

Reclaiming your sense of self requires conscious effort and kindness towards yourself. The following methods can help the process:

1. Identify your patterns: Reflect on situations where you’ve prioritised others at your own expense. Journaling or speaking with a trusted confidant or therapist can help illuminate patterns and triggers. Awareness is always the first step to being able to make change.
2. Pause: The desire to please other people is connected with a rush of stress hormones. You could work with a somatic therapist to learn how to bring yourself back into your window of tolerance. Learning how to emotionally regulate can open up your options – rather than relying on habitual tendencies, from a more grounded place, you can make choices about how you want to respond.
3. Offer self compassion: You could work with a counsellor to learn to listen to the parts of yourself that feel a need to self-neglect. You’ll learn to attune to yourself in the ways that you were not attuned to in the past. Remember that learning to listen to yourself is not a betrayal of others, but an affirmation of your own worth.
4. Setting boundaries and learning to say “no” is crucial, but it’s equally important to consider what you’re saying “yes” to instead. What are your needs, your preferences, your likes and dislikes, your values? Reconnect with your desires and rediscover what you love. Start small by declining low-stakes requests and gradually build confidence in asserting your needs.
5. Seek support: Surround yourself with individuals who respect your boundaries and encourage your authenticity. Professional guidance from a counsellor can also provide tools and insights for navigating this journey.

People-pleasing can seem like an easy way to be accepted, but it often leaves us with a splintered identity. By getting to know the causes and outcomes, and by taking real-world steps towards reunion with your genuine self, you can reclaim your voice, your values, and your energy. By going through this process, you can finally feel like yourself again, and your relationships will be re-energised – you’ll be bringing your true self to the table.