Deep Dive: People Pleasing—Why we do it and how to stop
You smile when you're hurting. Say “yes” when you mean “no.” Apologize for taking up space, having feelings, or making others uncomfortable. If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. People-pleasing is often mistaken for being “nice”—but beneath the surface, it's a complex survival strategy shaped by early attachment styles and nervous system responses.
I actually find it incredible that the little people we once were had the capacity to develop these types of behavioral patterns out of adaptation to our environments. I have been able to foster so much compassion for my adult self by seeking to understand the needs that I was trying to fulfill as a small person and why I saw these behaviours as a necessary tool for survival. People pleasing isn’t a weakness, it’s survival intelligence.
If this sounds dramatic, let me explain.
For the Deeply Curious
People pleasing isn’t just about being an agreeable, ‘go-with-the-flow’ kind of person that holds no opinion too strongly. It is a biological response to perceived danger.
The most threatening type of danger in our early childhood is our relationship to our caregivers. Without a secure attachment–one that is responsive, safe, and predictable–our survival is threatened. According to Erik Erikson’s Stages of Development, we are dependent, to a certain extent, on our caregivers up to around age 18. It is within this time that we learn how we should feel, think, and behave to develop an attachment with our caregivers that ensures closeness (emotional, mental, physical).
When we experience a threat to our caregiver attachments, our nervous system responds with stress–fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Our fawn response involves appeasing others to avoid conflict, disapproval, harm, or distance. This response becomes wired during childhood if we learned that love from our caregivers was conditional on the way that we felt or behaved around them. Our fawn script begins to sound like:
“When I ask dad for help with something like homework, tying my shoe, or practicing soccer, he rolls his eyes at me and clicks his tongue. Then he usually says, ‘Can’t you see that I’m already doing something, figure it out yourself.’ That gives me a stomach ache. I don’t ask dad for help anymore even if I need it because I don’t want him to be upset with me.”
Perceived danger: Expressing needs leads to rejection.
Fawn response: Suppress needs; become self-reliant.
Reinforcement of Fawn Response: Avoiding requests prevents negative reactions.
“I was having a lot of fun playing with my toy, but my little sister was crying to play with it, too. I noticed my mom start to rub her forehead with her hand and heard her say, “ugh, stop crying!” When my mom is upset I like to try to figure out how to make her feel better. I gave my little sister the toy I was playing with. This made my mom smile. She told me I was such a good big brother and gave me a kiss on the forehead. It felt so good when my mom gave me a kiss and I like hearing her tell me I’m a good big brother.”
Perceived danger: Mom's distress is unsettling.
Fawn response: Appease others to restore harmony.
Reinforcement of fawn response: Sacrificing personal desires earns affection.
Side note: These narratives have been expressed in ways that outline how we may experience a biological response to a perceived danger in childhood. We do not have the cognitive capacity to be consciously aware of these connections as children, it was described in this way for your understanding.
Your Resume Reads…
In an attempt to remove the shame that can come along with being labelled a “people pleaser” I want to be transparent and authentic about the ways people pleasing can be helpful. Please refer to the image to your left for some people pleasing sattire.
A people pleaser has learned to stay in-tune with other people’s needs and emotions. They are skilled problem solvers, good listeners, and devil’s advocates. They tend to be friendly, likeable, and nice to be around.
So, what gives people pleasing a bad reputation?
Self-Abandonment
When we habitually please others at our own expense, it creates subtle, chronic harm. We learn to abandon ourselves—that is, we neglect our needs and wants and disconnect from our values and boundaries.
Emotionally, we begin to feel frustrated and resentful that all our efforts go unacknowledged or under appreciated by others. We may begin to recognize others taking advantage of our helpful nature.
We live a life that is inauthentic. People pleasing keeps us from expressing who we really are, because we were never given the safe opportunity to explore our true Self. During the time when we were meant to explore who we are as individuals, we were altering and adapting to the conditional love and unpredictable enviornments we were exposed to. This leads us to attract unbalanced and one-sided relationships.
And worst of all—we stop trusting ourselves. How do we learn to take care of ourselves if we continuously neglect our own needs? For most people with people pleasing tendencies, we convince ourselves we don’t have needs or wants. Others may believe that if they have needs or wants, they don’t deserve to have them met, or getting them met would be burdensome to others. If we can’t recognize that we have our own needs or wants, we cannot trust ourselves to take care of our Self.
Healing this pattern isn’t about swinging to the opposite extreme where we begin to “not care” about other people. It’s about coming back to your center—where you can care for others without abandoning yourself.
Story Time
I recall as a teenager entering the working world, landing myself into yet another realm of relationships that I could people please my way through. Taking on extra shifts, staying overtime, never calling in sick (even when desparately ill), ‘going above and beyond’ the job description etc. In fact, the people pleasing show started before I even landed the job, interviews were when I would SHINE! When asked that dreadful interview question, “What do you consider to be one of your weaknesses?” I would respond by explaining that I had a difficult time saying no to people or opportunities. I whole-heartedly believed this weakness was really a strength in disguise from a buiness perspective— the employer would interpret that I am an over-achiever, a star employee that they would benefit from having on their team. A “yes” girl!
All these years later and I still fight the urge at my big girl job to remain a “good employee” in ways that directly contradict the values and boundaries I hold today. I no longer believe that over-extending myself at work is an admirable employee characteristic. In contrast, I believe that overextending myself as an employee gives me less of my Self to bring home to my children, my partner, and my body. I believe that selflessness in the workplace is a lie that we are told to maintain a capitalist society (I’ll likely get into this topic more in later posts). Today, I hold boundaries around my work life that reflect my values, needs, and beliefs. I meet the requirements of my job description, after all, that is the document that outlined my pay structure! I no longer live by going “above and beyond” in the way my early hardwiring is telling me I need to in order to maintain employment.
Take Aways
People pleasing is a survival strategy developed as young children to create a sense of security
People pleasing equips you with resiliency and relational intelligence
People pleasing forces you to abandon your Self for others
People pleasing leads to a pattern of unbalanced relationships
Healing the wounds that developed this pattern does not require you to cut everyone off
Healing this pattern is done through taking care of your own needs before overextending your Self to others
I’ll let you Sit with This
“What am I afraid will happen if I say no?”
Feel free to share in the comments—I’d love to sit with that with you
