Why CAn’t I stop people pleasing? breaking the addiction to saying “yes”
You say yes when you’re exhausted.
You apologize when you’ve done nothing wrong.
You replay conversations in your head, worried that you upset someone by speaking too directly.
If this feels familiar, you may be caught in the cycle of people-pleasing—and it’s not just a bad habit. For many women raised by emotionally immature parents, people-pleasing was the survival skill that made love, safety, and connection feel possible. But what once protected you in childhood may now be holding you back in adulthood.
As a holistic therapist in Westchester, I help women untangle this pattern. Together, we explore why people-pleasing shows up, how it impacts your relationships and self-worth, and what it looks like to finally put your own needs at the center of your life.
Why People-Pleasing Starts in Childhood
Children of emotionally immature parents often grow up without a stable model of unconditional love. Instead of feeling seen, safe, and soothed, you may have experienced your caregivers as unpredictable, self-absorbed, or emotionally unavailable.
When a parent couldn’t regulate themselves, the child learned to regulate the parent. You might have been the “easy kid,” the one who stayed quiet, didn’t cause trouble, and made yourself small to avoid rocking the boat. Or you might have stepped into the role of the parentified daughter, taking responsibility for others’ needs long before your own were ever met.
Over time, these unspoken rules take root:
“If I keep everyone happy, maybe they won’t leave me.”
“If I don’t have needs, I won’t be a burden.”
“If I take care of them, maybe they’ll finally take care of me.”
This is why people-pleasing feels so automatic—it’s not just a behavior, it’s a survival strategy embedded in your nervous system.
How People-Pleasing Follows You Into Adulthood
Even as a successful adult, the patterns from childhood often continue. You may not consciously think of yourself as a people-pleaser, but it shows up in subtle ways:
Hyper-independence: refusing to ask for help, because leaning on others feels selfish or unsafe.
Perfectionism: believing that if you’re flawless, you’ll finally earn approval.
Guilt: feeling bad when you set boundaries, rest, or prioritize yourself.
Choosing emotionally unavailable partners: gravitating toward relationships where you give endlessly but rarely receive the same care.
Work burnout: saying yes to extra responsibilities, terrified of letting anyone down.
Avoiding conflict: silencing your truth to keep the peace.
For many women, these patterns create an exhausting push-pull: you crave deeper connection but fear that asserting your needs will make you unlovable.
The Hidden Costs of People-Pleasing
On the surface, people-pleasers often appear strong, kind, and dependable. Inside, however, the story is very different.
Emotional Toll
Constant self-doubt: questioning if you’re “too much” or “not enough.”
Resentment: giving more than you get, yet feeling guilty for noticing.
Loneliness: never letting anyone see the real you, only the polished version.
Physical Toll
Chronic fatigue, headaches, or body pain from living in fight-or-flight mode.
Sleep issues and difficulty calming your body when triggered.
Health struggles linked to stress, anxiety, or suppressed emotions.
The truth is, people-pleasing asks you to abandon yourself. And when you abandon yourself long enough, your body and spirit eventually start to protest.
Why Can’t I Stop People-Pleasing?
If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, you’re not alone. People-pleasing isn’t a simple habit you can just “quit.” It’s often the result of early experiences with emotionally immature parents, where keeping others happy was tied to your safety and belonging.
That’s why even as an adult, you might feel pulled to say yes when you want to say no, or guilty when you set boundaries. Your nervous system still believes that conflict equals danger and approval equals survival.
Therapy helps because it doesn’t just tell you to “stop people-pleasing” — it works with your body, your subconscious, and your inner child to rewrite that old script.
Why Stopping Feels So Scary
It’s important to name why breaking free feels terrifying, even when you know it’s necessary.
Saying no or setting boundaries may trigger old fears: rejection, abandonment, disapproval. To your nervous system, these aren’t just uncomfortable feelings—they may feel like life-or-death threats. That’s why guilt shows up so quickly.
Healing doesn’t mean forcing yourself to suddenly become bold or unbothered. It means gently teaching your body and mind that you’re safe to exist as you are, even if others aren’t pleased.
How Therapy Helps You Heal People-Pleasing
People-pleasing can’t always be solved by willpower. Because it lives in the subconscious and in your body, you need approaches that address both. In my practice, I weave together psychodynamic therapy, mindfulness-based approaches, somatic therapy, spiritual therapy, and holistic practices so you can heal on multiple levels.
What to Expect in the Intake Process
When you reach out, we’ll begin with a free 15-minute phone consultation. This is a chance for us to connect, discuss what you’re looking for, and see if we’re a good fit. If we decide to move forward, your first session will focus on your story, your goals, and beginning to notice the patterns that shape your life.
What to Expect After Care is Established
Once we begin working together, we’ll meet regularly in sessions (online or in-person, including walk-and-talk nature therapy). Our work is personalized—sometimes it looks like exploring your past with compassion, sometimes it looks like practicing new boundaries in real-time, and other times it may mean going deeper with hypnotherapy or ketamine-assisted therapy.
As you grow, we’ll continually re-assess and integrate. Therapy isn’t one-size-fits-all—it’s a co-created journey where your needs and pace guide the process.
Therapeutic Approaches That Support People-Pleasers:
Somatic Therapy
People-pleasing often lives in the body as tension, numbness, or automatic “yeses.” Somatic therapy helps you notice these signals and learn to respond differently, calming the nervous system so you can tap into your intuition and know your no’s, so that you can set boundaries without panic.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
Mindfulness helps you create space between the old impulse (“I should say yes”) and a new choice (“I can pause and decide what’s right for me”). It teaches you to slowww down so you can actually hear what your body and intuition are telling you.
Hypnotherapy
Because people-pleasing runs deep in the subconscious, hypnotherapy can access the younger parts of you who still believe their needs are dangerous. Meeting and re-parenting these parts creates profound healing. Hypnotherapy helps you unlearn and rewire the patterns that you don’t even realize you’re doing, because they are SO ingrained in your subconscious mind.
Ketamine-Assisted Therapy
For eligible clients, ketamine therapy can help loosen rigid patterns of guilt and self-doubt, opening new neural pathways so it becomes easier to step into authenticity. Ketamine can literally rewire the brain, read more about how in my blog, Your Brain on Ketamine, Explained Simply.
Spiritual and Holistic Therapy
Many clients find healing through practices that honor their connection to nature, intuition, and ancestry. People-pleasing often disconnects us from our deeper truth—spiritual therapy invites that truth back.
What Makes My Approach Different
What sets me apart as a therapist isn’t just the modalities I use—it’s the way I hold space. My clients often tell me that I name what others won’t.
I don’t sugarcoat everything. When I see something that needs to be witnessed, I gently highlight them.
I create a container where the truths you’ve been holding inside—“I don’t feel good enough,” “I’m afraid of conflict,” “I don’t know who I am without pleasing others”—can finally be spoken out loud.
That naming is alchemy. It transforms vague pain into precise truth, and from there, real healing begins.
Signs You’re Ready to Stop People-Pleasing
You don’t have to wait until you hit burnout to make a change. You may be ready if:
You feel resentful more often than you feel connected.
You’re tired of repeating the same relationship patterns.
You notice guilt running your choices.
You long for love that doesn’t require shrinking yourself.
You want to trust your intuition instead of second-guessing every move.
The First Step
The First Step
You deserve relationships where you don’t have to perform for love. You deserve rest without guilt, boundaries without apology, and a life where your needs matter just as much as anyone else’s.
If you’re ready to explore therapy for people-pleasing, perfectionism, or self-doubt, I invite you to schedule a free 15-minute consultation.
📍 I offer online therapy across New York and New Jersey, as well as nature-based sessions in Westchester. For clients interested in psychedelic therapy, I also offer in-person ketamine-assisted therapy.
👉 Schedule your intro call HERE.
Closing Reflection
People-pleasing isn’t weakness. It was strength in disguise—the clever way your younger self learned to survive. But survival is not the same as living.
Therapy is an invitation to release the guilt, the hyper-independence, and the constant “yeses,” and to discover what it feels like to be fully you: grounded, connected, and free.
You don’t have to keep abandoning yourself to keep others happy.
Your life is allowed to be yours.
