Counseling for Individuals Struggling with People-Pleasing
Learn to Stop Putting Others’ Needs Above Your Own.
Often when you think about yourself, you think:
“I’m the one that everyone depends on.”
“I don’t know how to let other people be there for me.”
“I’m afraid to let everyone else down”
Does this describe you to a T? You find yourself taking care of others and their needs before your own.
When you have needs, you feel like an inconvenience.
Taking care of everyone else feels like the most important part of your day. “I am good with doing anything to help” is one of your common phrases but you find yourself feeling unsatisfied.
Carrying the burden of putting others before your own wants and needs is exhausting and can lead to feeling lonely and resentful. When your relationships feel one-sided you might not feel comfortable sharing yourself with others.
As people pleasers, we develop our identity and sense of self in connection to helping others and find ourselves in the constant cycle of needing validation.
Always looking to other people for approval in order to know we are okay. We may also notice a tendency to pursue others who show us they aren’t interested by walking away or avoiding us.
Break Out of the People Pleasing Cycle.
You are looking for a therapist so that you can change people-pleasing behaviors. You know it’s possible to prioritize your own needs and maintain reciprocal relationships.
You can find a balance between participating in relationships and maintaining a sense of identity. You can break the cycle of needing constant validation from others and build a strong sense of self.
Learning more about yourself will help you understand why you prioritize others instead of yourself.
Find Your Real Self
People-pleasing tendencies develop as a way to cope with trauma. Experiencing rejection or abandonment in childhood might result in the development of a certain type of vigilance.
In this vigilance, we learn to pay too much attention to the needs and wants of the people around us. Our self-worth can be tied to how happy and satisfied we make others.
In therapy, we’ll explore how the people-pleasing roles and behavior patterns you’ve adopted have developed to gain acceptance and validation from the people around you.
Together, we’ll explore past traumas and beliefs. We will move slowly through this process, checking in regularly with your system and body.
Together, we will check in with different parts of your system, using the techniques of Internal Family Systems (IFS), and the protective actions they may take in relationships.
In our work together, we’ll create a coping skills toolkit that includes breathing exercises and meditations. We’ll also help you develop a routine of self-care and self-validation.
I will help you develop new communication skills, boundary-setting techniques, and a connection to yourself.
Therapy for People-Pleasing
In my experience people pleasing is an action, something we don’t think about and just do automatically. When we are working on your people pleasing, I will teach you to move into your body to come into contact with any messaging you may be holding.
This allows us to understand your underlying belief systems of how to be in relationships that developed in your past.