An Interview With Brooke Young & Yitzi Weiner
Get to know you. It’s pretty hard to live authentically when you don’t know yourself. So learn to reconnect with who you are. What do you like and dislike, what are your values, what brings you to life, what is and isn’t okay in the context of relationships? The more you deepen your relationship with yourself, the more you can recognize where you end and where others begin.
In today’s society, the tendency to prioritize others’ needs and expectations over one’s own can lead to significant emotional and psychological challenges. In this series, we would like to explore the complex dynamics of people-pleasing behavior and its impact on individual well-being and relationships. We would like to discuss the root causes of people-pleasing behavior, its effects on personal and professional life, and practical steps for cultivating healthier relationships and self-esteem. We hope that this series can provide insights, strategies, and real-life experiences that can help individuals navigate and overcome the pitfalls of being a people pleaser. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Ali Arteaga.
Ali Arteaga (she/her) is a trauma therapist and the visionary founder of Fio Counseling, a haven for mental health therapy nestled in Colorado. Driven by a profound passion for connection, compassion, and curiosity, Ali is on a mission to help folks break free from people-pleasing and perfectionism.
Drawing from her personal healing journey through complex trauma, Ali is a gentle and compassionate guide for fellow people-pleasers, perfectionists, helpers, and high-achievers on their journey to embracing abundant, authentic living and thriving beyond the shadows of trauma. Through writing, consulting, and her work as a therapist, she creates a space where healing is not just possible, it’s an inevitable part of the journey.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I’ve lived a very non-linear life. My story started in a small town in Minnesota. I had a big family that all lived mostly locally, so cousins were more like friends, and I had close relationships with my grandparents. I grew up with two siblings that I actually got along with really well, and parents who had a nauseatingly inspiring love story. My world felt really small and safe, and I’m grateful to have a beginning like that. Life was also complicated and messy. There was generational trauma in my family that seemed normal at the time but definitely influenced my development. And I experienced a lot of small-t trauma growing up that had a ripple effect on my life. After I graduated high school, I spent four years serving in the Air Force. I have mixed feelings about this part of my story, but I’m eternally grateful for the most amazing people I crossed paths with along the way. And I got to see the world, which unlocked something in me that had been dormant for a while leading up to that. After exiting the military and my abusive first marriage, I found a sense of home in Maryland while I pursued my undergrad degree in Speech-Language Pathology. A traumatic event turned my life upside down as I was wrapping up undergrad, so afterwards I spent awhile healing in therapy and a loving community. And I allowed myself to not have everything figured out personally or professionally. That season was grueling, but it changed my life. I discovered I was drawn to being a mental health therapist, so I moved across the country for grad school and haven’t looked back. I remarried along the way, which has been immensely healing, and we’ve been creating a beautiful life together the past four years.
Can you tell us a bit about what you do professionally, and what brought you to this specific career path?
I’m a trauma therapist based in Colorado on a mission to help folks break free from perfectionism and people-pleasing. And doing this work is deeply personal for me. As a survivor of complex-trauma, most of my life was characterized by people-pleasing. Shrinking myself, swallowing my voice, and being hypervigilant to the needs of others was how I moved through the world. I thought it was the way to find safety, connection, and love. I found myself in a lot of one-sided relationships, some that were toxic and abusive. As I began sitting with people as a therapist, I found many of my clients were navigating similar difficulties with people-pleasing and perfectionism. It felt like more than a coincidence.
Being a therapist is weighty work, and it’s heartbreaking to wade through the depths of suffering with others. But I absolutely love what I do. I’m inspired daily by incredible humans who are choosing to show up for themselves differently. It takes so much courage to turn around and face the things that you’ve been trying to outrun your whole life. Healing is not for the faint of heart, and breaking cycles of people-pleasing is beautifully disruptive work. It’s an honor to empower my clients to reclaim their lives and live more authentically.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about People Pleasing. To make sure that we are all on the same page, let’s begin with a simple definition. What does “People Pleaser” mean to you?
I would define people-pleasing as the act of prioritizing the needs, wants, and perspectives of others while neglecting your own. It typically involves some level of self-abandonment and disembodiment. People-pleasers are often very dialed in to what’s going on with others. They’re hyper-focused on others’ emotions, needs, shifts in body language, things like that. But they tend to be disconnected from their own emotions, wants, and needs.
People-pleasing may look like overbooking yourself, going along with things you actually hate, excessively apologizing, deferring decision making to those you’re with, not speaking up when something has hurt you, shape-shifting into who you think your loved ones want or need you to be, avoiding conflict, not owning your desires or preferences, or maybe even not having much awareness of what you like, want, or need. And for people-pleasers, this way of existing is the rule not the exception. This is how they move through much of their lives.
On the surface, it seems like being a person who wants to please others is a good thing. Can you help articulate a few of the challenges that come with being a people pleaser?
Well to start, it isn’t fair to the people-pleaser. It leads to things like burnout and loneliness, and it negatively impacts the quality of relationships. You’re building relationships built on a counterfeit you, and as much as that may serve you for now, it ultimately creates a barrier to authentic connection. It creates a barrier to you experiencing the richness of being truly seen and known. And if you’re constantly filling up your time with things that aren’t your best yeses, there isn’t much room left for you to engage with what’s meaningful to you and ultimately live a life you love.
There’s a cost to constantly swallowing your voice. It perpetuates the internal narrative that who you truly are isn’t worth knowing. And the energy of your emotions, needs, and your body’s impulses have to go somewhere. But they get stuck when you constantly down-play them, which leads to so many mental and physical health issues.
And let’s not overlook how it impacts others. People-pleasing adds to the mental load of the other person, and it puts them in the position of having to read your mind. That isn’t fair to them. For example, you’re trying to decide on a place to eat with your friend. You don’t want to choose wrong and risk your friend being disappointed, so you say you’re fine with anything and leave it at that. But now instead of sharing the mental load of planning where to go, you’ve unintentionally dumped it all in their lap.
Does being a people pleaser give you certain advantages? Can you explain?
In the short term, absolutely. We wouldn’t continue people-pleasing if it didn’t work on some level. By people-pleasing, you temporarily avoid disappointing others. You exude a likeability and approachability that makes people feel comfortable coming to you for help or a compassionate ear. You make friends this way, although they’re probably pretty one-sided relationships. Professionally you may earn favor by anticipating needs, being willing to do things others don’t, being reliable. People feel seen and cared for by people-pleasers because they tend to be super aware of others, and they’re considerate and thoughtful of what others are experiencing. They’re able to empathize, which this world can always use more of. Unfortunately though, their empathy and care leads to burnout when it comes from a place of scarcity or fear that is so often tied up in people-pleasing.
Can you describe a moment in your life when you realized that your own people-pleasing behavior was more harmful than helpful?
I noticed it negatively impacting all kinds of relationships for years. Often, I would shrink myself, put the spotlight on everyone else, I didn’t really know what I wanted or needed, or I wouldn’t communicate when I was hurt by something. And that would grow into resentment or passive-aggression. I hated showing up that way, and it wasn’t helpful for the relationships. I didn’t really want to filter out an entire dimension of myself, but I was afraid of losing the people in my life if I showed up fully. And I spent awhile living in that tension until I really got to know myself, especially the younger versions of me, through Internal Family Systems therapy. And along the way there was a turning point where I recognized that people-pleasing was requiring me to abandon all of these younger parts of me. I loved those little me’s too much to keep doing that, to keep choosing everyone else over me, to keep modeling for them that our voice and presence and needs didn’t matter. So I said goodbye to people-pleasing. There has been a lot of work healing and untangling myself from the wounds that led to the people-pleasing in the first place. And some relationships have been negatively impacted because people couldn’t accept my authenticity and boundaries, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Once you taste belonging, masquerading to just fit in becomes a really bland alternative.
In your opinion, what are the common root causes of people-pleasing behavior?
I’ve found that people-pleasing can be traced back to a fear of abandonment, rejection, being alone, and disappointing others. And it’s usually early relationship experiences and wounds that shape these fears, and thus contribute to people-pleasing.
Kids are good at being themselves, they don’t know any other way to be at first. But if they experience rejection and shame simply for being who they are, they learn that to be seen or known leads to hurt. And they unconsciously adapt in order to not experience that again. Our brains and bodies are smart like that.
Or if a child exists in a dynamic with their parents in which they’re made responsible for their parents’ emotions, or have to take care of them instead of being taken care of, it leads to shape-shifting. If their parents can’t hold space for the full range of their child’s emotions and identity, the child may internalize that their emotions and needs and personhood is bad, not worthy of connection, and something that leads to them being alone.
I think about dynamics where the child feels like they’re walking on eggshells to avoid their parents’ rage or passive-aggression. Or when the child experiences unhealthy negative consequences with conflict or sharing a different perspective. Of course they’re not gonna want to ‘make waves’ or use their voice, because they’re met with silent treatment, guilt trips, verbal abuse, unjust punishments, things that ultimately threaten the connection with their caregivers. And connection with our caregivers when we’re growing up is a survival need, just like having food, water, and shelter. If we’re put in a position to choose between authenticity and connection to our caregivers, we unconsciously choose connection every time. We deny and abandon ourselves to survive.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact personal relationships?
It leads to resentment, disconnection, and loneliness. Which I think is part of what becomes so frustrating to people-pleasers, because it’s the opposite of what they hope will come from their behavior.
So maybe they’re experiencing connection, but it feels off, kind of empty. It’s lonely feeling like those closest to you don’t know you. Or maybe they’re not feeling very connected because their inside doesn’t match what they’re experiencing on the outside. People-pleasers also often feel resentful. And no wonder, their wants and needs are going unmet. They likely haven’t actually communicated those wants and needs, or they haven’t done so very clearly, but because they’re so good at anticipating and sensing the needs of others, they feel hurt when it’s not being reciprocated. The resentment may cause people-pleasers to withdraw, which just further increases the disconnection and loneliness they feel. Or the disconnection causes them to feel resentful. In any combination, it perpetuates their long-held fears that they’re not worthy of being known and cared about. It’s a vicious cycle.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact professional relationships?
Similarly to personal relationships, resentment is one of the byproducts of people-pleasing that impacts professional relationships. And it negatively affects trust and cohesion. For example, if the people-pleaser isn’t setting boundaries, getting the help they need, or communicating when someone has crossed a line, resentment builds. Out of that resentment, maybe they stop extending the benefit of the doubt to the other person, they start viewing the other person as the villain, maybe they start engaging with the other person passive aggressively instead of from a place aligned with their values. The story they’re telling themselves about the other person is that they don’t really care about the work task or about them. And it leads to a strained relationship, undermines trust, and creates a barrier to cohesion.
But even if resentment isn’t coming up, people-pleasing still negatively impacts professional relationships. I think about the people-pleaser who’s going along with deadlines and working conditions that are pretty unreasonable, burning themselves out to make it work. And maybe everyone else is struggling with them as well, but management then uses the one person ‘making it work’ as rationale to keep promoting unreasonable and unhealthy conditions. Or I think about the people-pleaser who’s saying yes to projects that aren’t best aligned with them and are actually better suited for someone else on their team. It impacts the overall efficacy and efficiency of the team because you have two people, potentially more depending on the ripple effect, working outside of their strengths.
How can long-term people-pleasing behavior impact an individual’s mental health?
In so many ways! There’s a cost to self-abandonment. It’s fragmenting. Maybe for a time we can disconnect from ourselves and our internal experience, but it always catches up. Let’s say someone hurt you, or you’re angry at an injustice. Sure, it feels smoother to file these feelings away, not tell the other person, let it ‘roll of your back’. But those emotions don’t evaporate. They’re cues just like when your body signals it’s tired or hungry. And just like it’s not sustainable to ignore those cues, it’s not sustainable to ignore our emotions either. Things start falling apart. Literally. So many physical health issues can be connected to mental health issues. People-pleasing is literally making us sick.
Same with our limitations. We’re humans, not robots. We can’t do everything, and it’s killing us to act like we can. So, we see people-pleasing directly linked to burnout. It also perpetuates low self-worth in how it insidiously seems to confirm beliefs of not being enough, being unworthy of being seen and known, connection and love being something that’s conditional, your needs and voice not being important, or your uniqueness being a problem rather than exactly what the world needs. And it increases loneliness and blocks connection. We need connection to survive, and being a vessel for someone else’s needs instead of a participant in a mutual and reciprocal relationship doesn’t really lend itself to connection.
In your experience, what is the role of self-awareness in overcoming people-pleasing tendencies, and how can individuals cultivate it?
I don’t really know that people-pleasing can be overcome without self-awareness. It’s so important. Awareness is what provides the road map from where you are to where you’re hoping to go. Awareness gives you more control and choice. Like Viktor Frankl suggests, between stimulus and response there’s a space, and in that space is the power to choose. With people-pleasing, if you can recognize the familiarity of triggers or your own internal responses to the triggers, it creates an opportunity to slow the process down instead of just automatically responding. And by slowing the moment down and tuning into yourself, you create the opportunity to tend to what you need and choose a response that’s congruent with who you are.
Awareness of triggers empowers you to strategize how you want to show up in scenarios that typically prompt people-pleasing. It allows you to consider and practice alternate ways of showing up before the moment even happens. It prompts you to explore how you want to be with yourself when this new way of engaging feels challenging.
When it comes to cultivating awareness, I’d say it starts with taking an inventory of your go-to people-pleasing behaviors. Then noticing and tracking your internal experience associated with people-pleasing, which you can do this in the moment or by reflecting on past experiences. For example, you notice you’re doing one of your hallmark people-pleasing behaviors. See if you can pause to turn inward and take an inventory of what you’re experiencing internally. Do you feel anxious, small, exposed, fearful, or like alarm bells are going off? Is your body tensing up, are you breathing shallower, is your heart racing? And then notice what happens as you pay attention to your internal experience. Do your emotions or physical sensations get bigger? Do you feel the urge to push them away, distract yourself, get quiet, or do your thoughts become harsh? The next step then is to see if you can be curious about what’s coming up for you. Does it feel familiar? Does an image or memory come to mind? Do you feel younger than you are presently? And then finally, rewind all the way back to what happened prior to your people-pleasing behavior. What do you notice that triggered the whole thing? Was there something about the person’s body language, facial expressions, past experiences you’ve had with this person, the circumstances themselves? What started the whole cycle for you? And there you have four areas, that don’t require much except your attention, that will expand your awareness of your people-pleasing cycle and how to break it. Slowing down to notice definitely requires some intentionality because of how engrained these patterns are, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Keeping track can be as simple as making notes in your phone or a journal.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience or research, what are the “Five Strategies Or Techniques That Can Help Individuals Break Free From The Cycle Of People-Pleasing”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.
1 . Get to know you. It’s pretty hard to live authentically when you don’t know yourself. So learn to reconnect with who you are. What do you like and dislike, what are your values, what brings you to life, what is and isn’t okay in the context of relationships? The more you deepen your relationship with yourself, the more you can recognize where you end and where others begin.
2 . Set external boundaries. This is the number one way to keep resentment in check. We don’t have to like everything, or be able to do everything, or be okay with everything. At the end of the day, we can’t control others. We can have hopes and make requests, but we can only control our own behavior. So it’s up to us to let others know what we are and are not okay with, how to best connect with us, and where are limitations land.
And setting boundaries doesn’t have to be this momentous thing. It can be letting your loved one know that you absolutely want to hear about their day, but you need them to check in with you first about whether you’re in a space to engage like that. It could be electing to not go on a hike with your friend because you’re not feeling up for it that day, but offering to meet up after their hike to grab food. Healthy boundary setting isn’t putting walls up or being harsh.
It may be an adjustment to your loved ones as you introduce boundaries into your relationships, and that’s where internal boundaries come into play. But for the ones who refuse to be receptive to your boundaries, I can say with the utmost confidence that their response has everything to do with them and their story. It is in no way a reflection of how worthy you are of connection and care. There are people who will not abandon you or judge you for being yourself. And those are the people you will find as you show up authentically.
3 . Set internal boundaries. A big part of breaking free from people-pleasing is being able to tolerate other people’s unpleasant reactions to how you’re changing. I’m hopeful the people-pleasers reading this have folks in their lives who will be receptive and respectful as they start to engage more authentically. But some people won’t be. So setting internal boundaries is an important step to being able to tolerate someone’s disappointment or passive aggression when you say no or set a boundary.
As a recovering people-pleaser, internal boundaries have been life changing for me. It’s been on ongoing process of learning to identify what belongs to others versus what belongs to me. By which I mean emotionally, energetically, the vibes I pick up during interactions. And so early on, if someone was disappointed by the boundary I communicated, I would immediately feel bad and back track on what I said. I felt guilty, like I caused the other person that disappointment. But I started learning that the other person’s disappointment was about them, and maybe was completely valid, but it wasn’t mine to take on. Setting internal boundaries to visually and emotionally remind myself that others can be responsible for their own stuff, and that contrasting needs can coexist, really helped me with that. So for example, I visualize the image from Dirty Dancing where Patrick Swayze’s character teaches Baby where her dance space is and where his dance space is. And it signals to my nervous system that I don’t have to absorb the other person’s experience. This allows me to stay true to what I need while also staying connected to the other person with compassion and curiosity.
4 . Risk incrementally in safe relationships. It’s a process to be able to tolerate showing up differently than you’re used to. It can feel super uncomfortable at first to start taking up space, using your voice in a new way, owing your differences, communicating hard things. And based on the past experiences that led to your people-pleasing, it’s gonna feel pretty threatening to your internal system to do the thing that led to hurt or harm or disconnection or trauma in the past. So, it’s important to take risks with authenticity and boundaries in bit-size chunks. Going from zero to 100 is not the goal here. Maybe you start with setting a boundary with yourself, like not scrolling through social media before bed. Or you acknowledge to yourself something that’s authentic for you. I started with this. It was a big deal at first to acknowledge both for myself, and then with others, that I actually prefer cold and moody weather, because it seems like everyone would rather it be summer all year long. This for me felt like a safe risk though. I was putting myself out there but not in a way that left me feeling exposed. And then when you’re ready, you move into setting an external boundary that feels uncomfortable but not completely terrifying, gradually working your way up to the more intimidating boundaries for you. Or you work up to adding your unique perspective to the conversation instead of just going along with what everyone else is saying. Eventually, you find you can disagree or let someone know when they’ve hurt you. And little by little, you build up your tolerance and confidence for being your own person, letting yourself actually be seen, honoring your limits, and being able to handle people’s disappointment.
5 . Heal the root wounds. At the end of the day, we could have a list of 50 strategies here, but if we don’t address the underlying roots, we’re just putting band-aids on the situation. Like I shared earlier, people-pleasing behavior is rooted in some pretty significant fears that are heavily influenced by formative relationship experiences. So, recovering from people-pleasing requires us to come alongside our younger selves and invite them into an updated story. We start by validating their experience, honoring how painful their wounds were. We undo the aloneness they felt by showing up for them in the way they needed at the time. And we update their beliefs about worth and belonging. Within ourselves we start to show these past versions of us that we are good and lovable. This is also where risking in small ways with safe people comes into play. It’s important to be able to have corrective experiences so that we can update our unconscious templates for life and relationships that started long ago.
What steps should people pleasers take to establish healthier boundaries?
I think there are a lot of misconceptions about boundaries that create barriers for folks who are considering stepping into that world, so I want to start by naming that boundaries are something we do to enhance connection, not detract from it. And it’s about changing our own behavior, not the behavior of others. I may not like a particular aspect of my dynamic with my partner, but I still get to choose how I engage. I could go along with the thing I don’t like, letting the resentment build, or I could set a boundary around what I’m willing or not willing to do when it comes to that dynamic.
And it all starts with awareness, which is why I’m so glad we talked about that earlier. The first step is to identify areas in your life of over-extension or where you might be feeling resentful. Be curious about this resentment. Like we discussed earlier, explore what you’re okay with or not okay with, what needs you have that are going unmet. The next step with boundaries is to make requests. We don’t have to jump all the way into what we typically image a boundary can be. We can start with an invitational conversation where we let our loved ones know what we need, how we’re impacted by something, when we’re hurt, if a particular dynamic is no longer working. And then brainstorm together about what to do with that. If requests are not honored or remembered, boundaries are the next step.
Two important steps when you get to the boundary-setting phase is to have a self-soothing plan and to start small. Whether it’s the unfamiliarity of a new practice, or your past that makes it feel absolutely terrifying, setting boundaries brings up a lot. So having a plan for how to self-soothe before, during, or after makes a huge difference. A self-soothing plan can be whatever makes sense for you. Maybe there’s a mantra you want to say to yourself to ground you in truth. Maybe there’s a fragrance that signals safety to your body. Maybe you create a playlist to hype you up or calm you down. Get to know what is comforting to you. And then start small. Small shifts are powerful for making big changes. Start with boundaries that feel workable for you. Or start with people that feel safe to practice with. A therapist can be a great person to start small with. And incrementally, you expand your confidence for saying yeses that are actually aligned for you because you’re saying no when you need to. You begin to accumulate experiences in which people have respected your boundaries instead of rejecting you or creating disconnection. And gradually you’re able to handle when people have a hard time with boundaries, because you know it reflects what’s going on for them and isn’t a sign that your needs or wants don’t matter.
How can someone who is naturally empathetic maintain their compassion while becoming more assertive?
This is such a good question because this is one of the main things that comes up with people-pleasers. Although their kindness is influenced by people-pleasing, it’s still in many ways rooted in who they truly are. And so, they don’t want to lose this part of themselves. But it’s important to name that compassion for others is directly linked to self-compassion. How much love and kindness can you really access and share when the foundation within yourself is hateful? How much can you really see and honor someone else’s inherent worth when you’re disconnected from your own? There’s a ceiling to the compassion and kindness we extend to others, and it’s influenced by how we love and care for ourselves.
And you can’t give what you don’t have. If you’re burned out trying to be everything for everyone else, how much compassion do you really have to give? You’re human after all, not a machine. No one can just endlessly pour out of themselves for others without tending to their own needs. People-pleasers struggle with this, but it’s important they know that having needs and caring for themselves doesn’t make them selfish. We tend to juxtapose selfishness with selflessness, completely forgetting there’s a third category in the middle of these two extremes: being unselfish. It leaves room for me and you. You can have your needs, emotions, and experience, and it matters. And I can have my needs, emotions, and experience, and it also matters. There’s room for both.
I also want to name that being assertive isn’t being aggressive, which I see as a hang up for many female-identifying people-pleasers because often their assertiveness has been labeled as aggressive. Being a doormat isn’t compassionate though. Not for you, not for anyone.
What are the most common misconceptions about people pleasers, and how do these misconceptions affect their journey toward recovery?
I think one misconception is that it’s not actually a problem. People see the kindness, flexibility, or generosity of people-pleasers and think it’s a good thing. Which makes sense. These are wonderful qualities. And people and systems really benefit from how people-pleasers engage. But it is a problem, because if it’s rooted in people-pleasing it’s rooted in fear. It isn’t coming from a foundation of self-love. And it just isn’t kind to anyone in the long run for people to be denying themselves and disconnected from who they are. I think because of this misconception, people-pleasers are afraid of being seen as harsh and unkind when they consider shifting how they show up. They’re afraid of being misunderstood.
Another misconception is tied to gender conditioning. Much of the gender conditioning for female-identifying folks feeds right into people-pleasing behavior. Like I mentioned before, being assertive is conflated with aggression. We hear and learn that women are supposed to be caretakers, prioritize the needs of others, apologize first, basically set themselves on fire to keep everyone else warm. And anything to the contrary makes them harsh or aggressive or cold. Being exposed to messages like these for years makes it hard to untangle from people-pleasing because women’s identities have been incorrectly linked to people-pleasing. It’s gnarly to break through that.
What role can therapy or counseling play in helping individuals overcome people-pleasing behavior?
What’s familiar feels safest. And new things, even if they’re good, often feel threating at first. So therapy can be a safe space to really go slow in trying on new ways of being and working through the rough drafts. You can practice authenticity and boundary setting and assertiveness with a therapist, breaking it down into smaller chunks that don’t feel so overwhelming. And all along the way the therapist is there to guide you, co-regulate with you when you feel overwhelmed or scared, and help you move through what comes up for you. Working through people-pleasing with a therapist creates opportunities for corrective experiences, where the therapist celebrates when you use your voice, when you speak up about not liking something, when you ask for what you need. And of course, it’s an important space for when you’re ready to dive deeper into what’s at the root.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Well helping folks break free from people-pleasing is what I already orient my life around and feel passionate about, so I’d love to see a movement for that. A movement of self-compassion. People rediscovering how absolutely amazing they are. I find that people don’t have to try very hard to hate themselves, and it breaks my heart. My favorite part of being a therapist is getting to witness people transform from hating themselves to genuinely liking who they are. It’s beautiful. And the world’s a better place for it.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
For nuggets of therapy goodness and the latest updates about my work with people-pleasers, folks can follow me on Instagram at fio.counseling. I publish a blog about people-pleasing and perfectionism and all things trauma therapy as well at fiocounseling.com. And I have some online offerings centered around people-pleasing, boundaries, and motherhood that I’m excited to share with the world later this year. Folks can keep up with those updates on social media as well.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewers:
Brooke Young is a multipassionate publicist, public speaking mentor, and communication consulting. She works with a wide range of clients across the globe, and across a diverse range of industries, to help them create, develop, and promote powerful messages through heart-centered storytelling. She has formerly worked On-Air with FOX Sports, competed in the Miss America Organization, and is the Author of a Children’s Book. She frequently works with children as a professional speaker where she educates on Volunteering and Therapy Dogs. She has over a decade of professional performing background and finds joy in sparking creative passions for her clients.
Yitzi Weiner is a journalist, author, and the founder of Authority Magazine, one of Medium’s largest publications. Authority Magazine is devoted to sharing in depth “thought leadership interview series” featuring people who are authorities in Business, Tech, Entertainment, Wellness, and Social Impact.
At Authority Magazine, Yitzi has conducted or coordinated thousands of empowering interviews with prominent Authorities like Shaquille O’Neal, Peyton Manning, Floyd Mayweather, Paris Hilton, Baron Davis, Jewel, Flo Rida, Kelly Rowland, Kerry Washington, Bobbi Brown, Daymond John, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Alicia Silverstone, Lindsay Lohan, Cal Ripkin Jr., David Wells, Jillian Michaels, Jenny Craig, John Sculley, Matt Sorum, Derek Hough, Mika Brzezinski, Blac Chyna, Perez Hilton, Joseph Abboud, Rachel Hollis, Daniel Pink, and Kevin Harrington
Yitzi is also the CEO of Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator which helps business leaders to become known as an authority in their field, by interviewing prominent CEOs, writing a daily syndicated column, writing a book, booking high level leaders on their podcast, and attending exclusive events.
Ali Arteaga of Fio Counseling On How to Recover From Being a People Pleaser was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.