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Understanding Compulsive People-Pleasing, Part 1

12/21/2024

Photo of smiling blonde woman represents someone who comes for therapy for compulsive people-pleasing.

Photo by _visualbruno

Compulsive People-Pleasing: Mimicking Connection as Self-Defense

If you are someone who is stuck in people-pleasing then you likely understand the unique flavor of loneliness that comes along with compulsively going out of your way to make other people feel comfortable at the expense of yourself.

Compulsive people-pleasing is a prison that prevents us from accessing the possibility of genuine connection. Genuine connection requires that we slow down enough to tune into how we really feel and then consciously respond in a way that is congruent with our inner experience. But when we are stuck in compulsive people-pleasing we have a difficult time accessing our true feelings in the moment. When we are stuck in compulsive people-pleasing, also known as the fawn response, our nervous system has learned to interpret relationships as threatening, therefore, our innate response is to hide out instead of revealing how we truly feel.

Healing Childhood Trauma: It's OK to Be Critical of Your Parents

2/14/2024

Photo by Yannic Läderach on Unsplash

As adults we need to understand our childhoods. We need to understand the ways in which our parents got it right and the ways they messed up. This allows us to understand the wounds that we now carry. It helps us understand how to show up for ourselves and how to avoid abandoning ourselves in the same ways that we were abandoned as children.

This is the basis of all emotional healing in adulthood. You can take all the yoga classes, read all the self help books, and have the perfect meditation practice, but if you fail to stop abandoning your inner child, you will never step fully and authentically into your own power.

Being Highly Sensitive: The Inner Observer and Inner Child Healing

10/6/2023

Black and white picture of a young woman's face illuminated by light, surrounded by darkness. This illustrates how inner child healing work can felt scary and intimidating.

Photo by Quinten de Graaf on Unsplash

What's Wrong with Me?

As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) myself, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to have strong emotional reactions to things that other people seem to move past quickly, or maybe not even notice at all—it can start to make you feel like there’s something wrong with you! But there is nothing wrong with us as HSPs, we are just wired in such a way that we are more responsive to—and more deeply impacted by—our environment than those who are less sensitive.

The scientific term for high sensitivity is Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS). SPS is not a mental health diagnosis, but rather a temperament trait that is found in 20-30% of the population. In other words, it is a variation of normal; not a malfunction in our system. Researchers believe that Sensory Processing Sensitivity is a survival strategy and has a biological basis—simply put, it benefits animal species to have a small percentage of the population that is more observant and cautious (i.e. highly sensitive). This trait has been found in similar percentages in over 100 different animal species, ranging from fruit flies, to monkeys, to horses.

Being Highly Sensitive: How to Navigate Emotional Overwhelm

9/3/2023

The silhouette of a woman a sunset kneeling down into a body of water. The water illustrates the deep emotions that Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) feel.

Photo by Jennifer Kalenberg on Unsplash

HSPs and Intense Emotions

Raise your hand if you associate sensitivity with weakness? You aren’t alone. Many of us were taught that being sensitive is a negative thing, but in actuality there are many advantages to having a highly sensitive brain. One of those advantages is that we Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) feel our emotions more intensely than non-sensitive people.

You might be thinking ... and how exactly is that a good thing? It’s a good thing because
strong emotional responses can provide us with important information IF we know how to be with and process our intense emotions, instead of becoming overwhelmed by them.

Are You Close or Are You Enmeshed?: Differentiating Between Intimacy and Enmeshment

7/28/2023

Young black woman laughing with eyes closed. This represents the young adult clients that come to Sacred Circle Holistic Healing for online therapy in Lawrence, Kansas.

Photo by Prince Akachi on Unsplash

Intimacy or Enmeshment?

“My mom and I are so close; I tell her everything.” This is something I often hear from clients when I first begin working with them. But with time what we often discover is that what the client thought of as “closeness” was actually enmeshment. Enmeshment is a term that describes a lack of healthy boundaries in relationship. Read more about enmeshment in my article, What is Enmeshment and Why Is it Harmful?

How to Fight Well: It's OK to Disagree

6/30/2023

Young woman smiling, holding a white cat and flowers repesenting the young adult clients who come to Maggie Jones Boyle for holistic therapy in Lawrence, Kansas.

Photo by ☀️Shine_ Photos on Unsplash

Ruptures and Repairs

Relationships are simply a series of ruptures and repairs.

One moment you and your partner are attuned and on the same page. You’re making eye contact, talking fluidly, and feel comfortable and safe in your bodies. The next, you’re not. Something is said that rubs you the wrong way. You tense up. You feel annoyed. You withdraw from the conversation. There has been a rupture in your attunement and sense of connection. When you feel ready, you tell your partner that something he said upset you, and you check in with him about what he actually meant. You have a conversation about what happened and how you both feel about it. You feel connected again.

Rupture. Repair.

What is Enmeshment and Why is it Harmful?

5/29/2023

Young woman sitting on a path looking at the camera representing clients who have come to Sacred Circle Holistic Healing in Kansas for online therapy for childhood trauma.

Photo by Milan Popovic on Unsplash

What is Enmeshment?

Enmeshment is a family systems term that refers to families who do not have healthy interpersonal boundaries. Enmeshment is a form of relational trauma that is typically intergenerational and has negative impacts upon children’s ability to form a healthy sense of self.

Therapy as Reparenting: The Healing We All Need

5/12/2023

Young woman with blonde hair looking into the camera representing someone who has entered therapy with Sacred Circle Holistic Healing in Lawrence, Kansas for online therapy addressing childhood trauma, anxiey, and self-worth.

Photo by Dave Goudreau on Unsplash.

What is Therapy?

Therapy is difficult to define. There are many different types of therapy, and on top of that—despite the ongoing attempts to fit psychotherapy into the Western medical model—therapy is largely an art, not an exact science. It is based on relating, and relating is a fluid, intuitive, non-linear process.

It’s widely accepted now that the quality of the relationship between therapist and client—as opposed to the specific therapeutic modality being used—is the most important factor determining the efficacy and outcome of therapy. Having a good relationship with your therapist—feeling safe, seen, heard, and understood—is the most important thing.

So at its core, therapy is a relationship, a healthy (hopefully) relationship that exists for the singular purpose of facilitating your healing, personal growth, and wellness. Good therapy helps us individuate and differentiate, becoming the unique person we are meant to be.

What is the Fawn Response?

4/14/2023

Young woman holding flowers and looking at the camera representing young therapy clients who have come to therapy in order to heal their childhood trama.

Photo by Mihajlo Šebalj on Unsplash

What is the Fawn Response?

The Fawn response is a trauma response that is characterized by self-abandonment in relationships and overly-focusing on the needs of others. The Fawn Response is chronic, compulsive people-pleasing, which most often begins in childhood as a result of relational trauma.

Five Reasons to Revisit Your Childhood Trauma

3/31/2023

Young woman looking into the camera representing a client in Lawrence Kansas coming to therapy for childhood trauma.

Photo by Amirr Zolfaqari on Unsplash.

The Importance of Understanding the Past

There is a widely held misconception that therapy is all about sitting and talking about the past. In actuality, at its best, therapy is present and future oriented. However, we do revisit our past in therapy, and for good reason. We can’t fully and consciously participate in the unfolding of our lives in the present if we are still being unconsciously impacted by things that happened to us in the past.

Processing our childhoods—understanding through the lens of our adult selves, how our experiences impacted us and allowing our bodies to fully integrate the emotions connected with these experiences—is the key to healing pervasive issues such as low self-worth, perfectionism, anxiety, people-pleasing, and codependency. Most of us are carrying some level of childhood trauma, and everyone can benefit from processing their childhood experiences.

<<Previous

Compulsive People-Pleasing: Mimicking Connection as Self-Defense

What's Wrong with Me?

HSPs and Intense Emotions

Intimacy or Enmeshment?

Ruptures and Repairs

What is Enmeshment?

What is Therapy?

What is the Fawn Response?

The Importance of Understanding the Past

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