Hi, my name is Cara and I am a recovering people-pleaser.

A few years back, I was shopping at Nordstrom for a new coat. A store associate came over to help me. I did not want her help - I knew what I wanted and I wanted to pick it out myself. However, I did not know how to say that at that time in my life. So I let her show me a few coats - I really hated all of them, truth be told. While I was trying on one that particularly repulsed me, she insisted it looked great. So I bought the freaking coat for $200 and then the very next day, I drove 25 minutes to a DIFFERENT Nordstrom and returned the coat.

This is pretty funny and ridiculous looking back, but at the time it seemed like a perfectly logical series of events. It is my favorite example of the insanity of people-pleasing that used to run my life. Let’s break it down a little bit:

I was dishonest - I didn’t say, “No thank you, I’d like to look myself.” Nor did I say, “Thank you so much for your help and attention! However, this coat isn’t my style.”
I was not able to sit with MY OWN DISCOMFORT in saying no, so I tried to manage HER emotions by letting her help me when I didn’t want help. This behavior came from two assumptions:
- I assumed this woman could not handle me saying no - I was making her pretty small and incapable.
- I assumed her intentions were to make a commission off me and I was trying to give her what she wanted. (Which, by the way I didn’t actually do because her commission would’ve come out of the return I made.)

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation, saying “yes” when every part of you wanted to say “no”?

Maybe it was agreeing to host a last-minute playdate when you were already exhausted. Or twisting yourself in knots while planning a family gathering, trying to make sure everyone else felt good about the plans. Or biting your tongue when a friend did something you weren’t okay or comfortable with — because keeping the peace felt easier than speaking up.

It’s easy to call this being nice or going with the flow. But what if it’s something deeper?

What if it’s people-pleasing—not as a kindness, but as a way of trying to control others so you can feel okay?

People Pleasing and Control

We don’t usually think of people-pleasing as control, but that’s exactly what it is.

At it’s core, it is an attempt to manage someone else’s emotions so we don’t have to sit with our own discomfort.

“If they’re happy, I can relax.”
“If there’s no conflict, I can breathe.”
“If my child stops crying, I won’t feel so overwhelmed.”

But in doing this, we trade our truth and sometimes even our sense of self for temporary relief. It also turns another person into someone who is small and can’t handle your truth - we’re usually projecting our own inability to be clear about what we want and need onto this other person.

In the process of people-pleasing, we silence ourselves. We override our needs. We abandon ourselves—just to regulate someone else. It is a self-regulation issue: “I am not able to regulate myself in this situation, so I am going to try to give the other person what I think they need so that they will calm down and I can feel okay.”

The Hidden Cost

At first, it seems like we’re making life easier when we people-please. But over time, people-pleasing comes at a cost:

Exhaustion & resentment: Constantly managing everyone else’s emotions drains you, and when we say yes when we mean no, we often feel resentful afterwards. Additionally, we resent when other people are able to say no to us. (Resentment is often rooted in jealousy - I wish I could say no, so I resent you when you can.)
Disconnection from yourself: You stop knowing what you actually want or need when you’re focusing on others.
Unintentional modeling: Your kids learn that other people’s feelings matter more than their own.
Emotional dependency: If your peace depends on others being okay, you’ll always be chasing it and your inner serenity will be contingent on external factors. This creates a somewhat chaotic rollercoaster ride of an internal experience.
People can’t trust you: If you don’t know how to say “no,” people have a hard time trusting your “yes.” Being in a relationship with a people-pleaser can often feel very draining and also constraining.
Inability to hold space: It is really difficult to hold space for other people’s emotions and let them be where they are when we are so uncomfortable with our own. Often, people-pleasers will try to change or fix someone else’s emotion rather than allowing space for it. This can be very painful when you are on the receiving end of this behavior.
Attracting emotionally immature relationships: If you are “addicted” to people-pleasing, or in other words if it is your norm, you may attract relationships with people who are unable to regulate themselves emotionally. For them, being around you feels good because they have someone to make them feel better. This creates a very unhealthy pattern of codependency which can have major impacts on the two people involved and anyone else close to them. (I know from experience!)

Where People-Pleasing Comes From

If this is you, have some compassion for yourself. Often patterns of people-pleasing come from childhood. It is a survival pattern - at some point in your childhood, you felt like you needed to ignore your own needs to take care of the needs of someone else. Or, you may have had it modeled to you. Our society tends to reward mothers in particular for sacrificing themselves for the feelings and needs of others. Often, we learn to people-please when we have an emotionally reactive or immature parent, someone who is unable to regulate their own emotions. In this situation, the child feels like it is their job to “make” their parent feel better by people-pleasing.

(Now: it would be easy at this point to blame your parent for causing this behavior, but I wouldn’t go down that road if I were you. Your parent was doing the bast they could with what they had, they are human, and often their patterns of behavior came from THEIR childhood, so the adult and mature perspective on this is to have compassion for them, while also recognizing your own patterns and taking responsibility for them so that you do not pass them down to your children.)

What’s The Alternative?

So what is possible if we aren’t trying to manage other people’s emotions and make everyone (but especially ourselves) feel okay all the time?

You could trust that other people—including your kids—can handle their own emotions.

You could let yourself feel okay, even when they don’t.

You could stop trying to make everyone else comfortable and learn to sit with your own discomfort instead.

If any of these possible realities make you feel uneasy, we may be on to something. I recommend journaling or speaking with a therapist, coach, or guide about WHY the idea of letting go of this pattern feels unsafe to you. Often, when we are attached to a behavior like people-pleasing, it can feel scary to let go of it as it feels like we are letting go of a piece of ourselves. Our survival brains go haywire thinking we are “dying” and will fight to keep that part of ourselves alive. It is important to do this kind of work slowly, titrating your way to healthier autonomous behaviors.

A Simple Practice to Reclaim Yourself

Next time you feel the pull to people-please, pause and ask yourself:

Am I saying yes because I want to—or because I’m afraid of their reaction?

If it’s fear, try a gentle boundary instead:

“I love you, and I don’t have the capacity for that right now.”
“That doesn’t work for me, but here’s what I can do.”

Let the discomfort be there. Let the other person have their feelings. Let yourself hold your own.

Because you are not responsible for managing everyone else’s emotions. You are responsible for honoring yourself.

Deeper Work

Often, recovering from people-pleasing involves some deeper inner work. As I said earlier, it is ultimately an emotional regulation issue. If you are a people-pleaser, you often don’t know how to self-regulate other than to make others feel okay.

It takes time, patience, and grace to recover from this behavior - but the rewards are worth it. By healing this pattern, you’ll experience:

Being someone who is “okay” no matter what is happening around them. This is a gift for yourself and others.
Clear communication that builds trust. If you are able to say “no” when you need to, people feel very clear about their relationship with you and feel more free to ask you for things without a fear of taking advantage of you. You will feel like a much safer person to be in relationship with.
Feeling nourished and cared for. If you don’t care for yourself, who will?
Authentic fulfillment. When you say “yes” to someone or help someone from a full-cup, it is genuine and fulfilling.
Radiance. I am a big believer that caring for yourself with boundaries (awareness and honoring of your own needs) leads to your inner light shining through.

I have been working on this pattern for several years and I still adopt people-pleasing behaviors sometimes. (Progress, not perfection!) The difference is, I am aware of it now. I continue to practice doing the uncomfortable thing and letting other people be responsible for their emotions while I am responsible for my own.

If you are struggling with people-pleasing and you’re not sure how to heal the pattern, feel free to reach out - I’m here to help!

Recovering From People-Pleasing