How to Break the People-Pleasing Prison: The Hidden Key Your Body Holds

Do you feel run down from being everyone's rock – the one who never breaks down, never says no... even as you're dragging yourself through each day on four hours of sleep and your third cup of coffee?

Many trauma survivors pride themselves on always being there for others, not realizing that ignoring their body's warning signals is leading them toward emotional breakdown.

In this episode, I share inspiring client stories and introduce a practice to help you break free from exhausting people-pleasing patterns.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why people-pleasing isn't a character flaw, but a brilliant survival strategy that may have outlived its usefulness
• How to recognize and trust your body's warning signals before you reach emotional overwhelm
• A three-step practice to help you discover what you truly want, even when faced with others' requests

If you're tired of putting everyone else first and ready to start trusting your inner wisdom again, this episode will show you how to break free from the people-pleasing prison.

When you finish listening, I'd love to hear your biggest takeaway from today’s episode. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, share it to your Instagram stories, and tag me, @dranniecampanile!

While you’re there, make sure you follow me on Instagram so you can see behind the scenes how I help trauma survivors heal and thrive and discover how you can, too.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Do you pride yourself on being everyone's rock? The one who never breaks down, never says no, even as you're dragging yourself through each day on four hours of sleep and your third cup of coffee? I'm Dr. Annie Campanile, trauma survivor and professional coach, and today I'm revealing how your body holds the key to breaking through people pleasing patterns.

You'll discover how to decode your body's warning signals and begin trusting your inner wisdom again. Welcome to Heal Your Trauma, Find Your Voice, the podcast for trauma survivors ready to break free from people pleasing and self doubt. I'm Dr. Annie Campanile, here to help you trust your intuition, communicate clearly, and build relationships that fulfill you.

Each week, you'll learn practical tips to heal past wounds and turn surviving into thriving. Welcome back to Episode 4. Today, we're exploring the unexpected key to breaking free from the exhausting pattern of giving to others while [00:01:00] neglecting ourselves. When I was 14, my father pulled me aside one day and said he was worried about how often I put myself last, and didn't ask for, well, anything.

At the time, he was reading a popular book titled Looking Out for Number One, and he passionately tried to convince me that putting yourself first was the key to happiness and a good life. But here's the thing. Due to his alcoholism, my father was one of the most self absorbed people I knew. I resented the way he put himself first and seemed not to care about how his actions affected our family.

While he tried to convince me to put myself first, I remember feeling so angry and saying to myself, if you are an example of what looking out for number one creates, then I don't want any part of it. I'm going to keep doing exactly the opposite. That conversation with my father was just one of many moments that reinforced my belief that it was selfish to give attention to my needs or my desires.[00:02:00] 

I don't believe that anymore, but throughout my teens and twenties, I was convinced that giving to others was the only acceptable use of my time and attention, and I only looked outside myself for evidence that I was okay. It was decades before I learned how my internal cues could help me overcome the self destructive cycle.

Now let me tell you about my client. Let's call her Maya, a devoted mother of three who came to me for coaching after what she called her grocery store breakdown. She had been pushing through exhaustion for months, volunteering at her children's school, coordinating family gatherings, hosting playdates, all while trying to maintain a spotless house and launch her online business.

One morning at the grocery store while standing in the cereal aisle, her youngest had asked for a specific breakfast cereal. Maya had already said no twice, but her daughter kept asking. Instead of giving her usual calm, gentle response, Maya found herself bursting into tears right there in the store. [00:03:00] She told me, I felt like I was being buried under everyone's needs, and my voice was not being heard.

But I had no idea how to change that without letting everyone down. What Maya didn't realize is that she was making one of the biggest mistakes that caused trauma survivors to reach this point of breaking down. She was ignoring her body's cues. She had been so focused on her thoughts, managing to do lists, and coordinating her whole family, that she usually didn't even notice what her body was trying to tell her.

While we talked, Maya recognized that her body had been trying for months to tell her she was at her limit. She had frequent headaches, her shoulders were constantly tight, she was having trouble sleeping. But like many trauma survivors, Maya had learned to override these signals, pushing through with coffee and sheer willpower, so she could keep doing things for others.

Maya's experience shows how this strategy of overriding our body's cues can lead to emotional overwhelm. [00:04:00] It's important to know that people pleasing is not a character flaw or a sign of weakness. It's actually a brilliant survival strategy we developed when we found ourselves in an environment where it was not safe to be honest about our needs.

For Maya, people pleasing protected her when she was growing up with a mother whose moods shifted unpredictably and whose reactions were often violent. Maya learned to protect herself by constantly watching for signs of tension, stepping in to soothe conflicts, and setting aside her needs to focus entirely on others.

She learned to ignore her body's cues and her emotions while she gave all of her attention to her mother. This strategy served Maya when she was young and dependent on her mother for her survival. The problem is, The strategy of ignoring our needs and people pleasing eventually outlives its usefulness.

Even though Maya had grown up and no longer lived in the environment where she had to people please in order to keep herself safe, her behavior hadn't changed because she was [00:05:00] still looking outside of herself for the cues that told her what she should and shouldn't be doing from one moment to the next.

Through our work together, Maya began to notice something empowering. Her body would send her clear signals before she agreed to things she didn't truly want to do. It looked like a subtle nausea in her stomach, a tension headache starting at the base of her skull, her breath catching. These weren't random symptoms, they happened consistently and predictably whenever Maya agreed to something she didn't want to do.

In fact, they were her body's way of trying to protect her from ignoring her own wishes. After decades of healing my own trauma, I now think of my body signals like a trusted friend who always tells me the truth, even when it's hard to hear. But for many of us, especially those with unhealed trauma, we've learned to distrust or ignore this friend.

We override these signals because we learned early on that our survival depended on putting others first. And some of us [00:06:00] even came to view our body as our enemy. Many of my clients say, Dr. Annie, I can't even tell what my body is saying anymore. When I began my healing journey 35 years ago, I said the same thing.

This disconnection from our body is a natural and temporarily helpful response to trauma. Think of it like turning down the volume on a radio that was playing painful music. We turned down our sensitivity to our body's cues in order to survive. And now, we can gradually and safely turn it back up. This reminds me of my client I'll call Justin, whose story beautifully illustrates how we can begin reconnecting with our body's wisdom even when it feels impossible.

When Justin first came to my coaching practice, he insisted he could not feel anything in his body at all. Even after I gently pointed out that I could see the muscles of his jaw tightening and he had crowns on five teeth that had cracked from the force, He was unable to feel when his teeth were clenching.[00:07:00] 

To help Justin begin to notice his body's cues, we started with something that felt safe to him. Noticing the temperature of his coffee cup. Was his coffee cup warm or cool? Every morning for a week, Justin paused to notice the temperature of his coffee cup. Sometimes he asked his wife to check the temperature too, as a way of helping him recognize that his body's cues were trustworthy.

Within just one week of this practice, Justin began to notice other physical sensations. For including the way his jaw muscles felt when his teeth were clenched. As Justin discovered, rebuilding trust with your body starts with small steps. Once you begin noticing your body's cues, you can use them to guide your decisions and break free from the people pleasing patterns that no longer serve you.

One of the most effective ways to start reconnecting with your body's wisdom is through a practice I call The Truth Check. This practice will help you pause, tune in to your body's signals, and notice the difference [00:08:00] between what you want and what you think you should do to please others. It isn't about saying something different to others, it's about listening to the communication inside of yourself.

Here's how the truth check works. Each morning, before you start your day, take a moment and say to yourself, Today, I give myself permission to notice what I truly want. That's it. Just plant that seed of permission in your mind. And then, as you move through your day, whenever someone makes a request, whether it's your colleague asking you to cover their shift, your friend wanting help with a project, or or your partner suggesting a restaurant.

You can use the truth check to discover what you actually want, even if you choose not to express that. Here are the three steps to the truth check. Step 1. Before answering a request, pause for two or three full breaths. Step 2. While taking those breaths, imagine saying yes to the request and [00:09:00] notice how your body responds.

Your body might respond in different ways. You might feel your energy rise, your muscles relax, your breath deepen. Signs that saying yes to the request aligns with what you truly want. Or, you might notice your energy dropping, your shoulders tensing, your breath becoming shallow. Signs that this request does not align with the truth of what you really want.

Your emotions will respond too. After imagine saying yes to the request, you might feel happy or irritated or anything in between. Thanks for listening. Remember, our body responds to everything we think as if it's actually happening. So this is really, really helpful. Step three, write down what you notice.

Over time, this will make it a lot easier to notice your internal cues and recognize what you want. You don't have to stop saying yes in order for this truth check to be valuable. The more often you notice your internal responses, the easier it will be for you to get clear about what you [00:10:00] truly want and what you don't want so that you can eventually break that people pleasing prison.

Remember, every time you pause to notice your body's cues, you are taking a step toward freedom from people pleasing. It's not about perfection, it's about progress. If you'd like to help others break free from people pleasing, would you please post a review of the show? Next week, we're taking another step toward freedom by exploring how to pause before you people please.

I'll share a game changing strategy to help you respond to requests in a different way So that you can make decisions with clarity and confidence knowing that they are right for you. Until then, I'm Dr. Annie Campanile reminding you that healing is possible and you don't have to do it alone. See you next week.