Therapy for People Pleasers
Are you tired of always saying yes?
Do you want to prioritize yourself more?
Do you want to learn how to take up space in conversations?
As a child, you may have witnessed your parents sacrifice everything to give you a better life. As an adult, so much of your life is driven by guilt and shame. Whether it is about trying to set stronger boundaries or asking for help, you realize that this way of living is not sustainable and causing you a lot of anxiety. You want to make changes but don’t know where to begin.
What is people pleasing?
People pleasers start off as parent pleasers. If you come from an immigrant family, you may have learned that self sacrifice is the only way to show love because that is what you saw your parents do. Watching them work hard made you want to be less of a burden so you learned to not speak up or ask for what you need. You also quickly learned that being an easy kid and always going with the flow made them happy. Constantly doing what others want and not having needs became a way for you to feel safe in relationships but also caused anxiety. You learned how to change your personality to accommodate and prioritize others. This is called the fawn response. Fawning felt safe as a child and kept the peace at home but now as an adult, you struggle to speak up and ask for what you need.
If I could just stop people pleasing, i wouldn’t feel so anxious all the time.
You want to stop prioritizing others over yourself and you want to stop fawning. At Space to Reflect, our team of therapists are not only professionally trained clinicians but also have personal experience overcoming exhausting ways of living and the anxiety this causes. We teach our clients that self preservation is most important and this way of living can be achieved even in the most enmeshed families. While keeping culture in mind, we work with clients to help them unlearn harmful ways of coping. We help clients learn to identify and prioritize their needs, separate themselves from family issues and find healthy ways to cope if certain family dynamics are unavoidable. We also know that cutting off family isn’t an option for many clients so we work with you to find ways that work. You can also check out our blog post for tips on how to stop people pleasing.
Therapy for people pleasers might be for you if you want to:
Stop people pleasing
Feel less anxious
Untangle yourself from family conflict
Stop being the emotional caregiver for everyone
Learn to set boundaries
Emerge as an adult outside of dysfunctional family dynamics
Increase self esteem
Heal perfectionism
Learn to trust yourself
I’ve never been in therapy before, what should I expect?
It is ok to feel nervous or excited or even scared. Our team of therapists are warm and welcoming and create a safe space for clients. Therapy at Space to Reflect is client led. This means we let client guide sessions and topics. This is to ensure emotional safety and client empowerment. If you want a more direct approach, let us know and we can make that happen too.
What if I am not ready to talk about something?
It is completely ok to not feel ready to talk about certain topics. Most people need to build trust with their therapist before talking about heavier things. Our therapists keep this in mind when engaging with clients and will never force a client to talk about something when they do not feel ready. There is no rush in the therapy process.