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If you’ve been stuck in patterns of overgiving, overthinking, or shrinking yourself to keep the peace, somatic therapy for people pleasers can help you finally listen to your body—and trust what it’s been trying to say.
I’m a dual-licensed therapist in Los Angeles who specializes in anxiety therapy, trauma, somatic work, IFS, and attachment repair. I’ve been featured in TIME Magazine, HuffPost, Verywell Mind, and other major outlets for sharing honest, human insights about what real healing actually looks like.
You’re the one who remembers the birthdays. Sends the thoughtful text. Says yes when you’re already maxed out. You’re good at knowing what other people need—sometimes before they even say it out loud.
And yeah, it feels like part of your personality. You probably hear that a lot—“you’re so thoughtful,” “so easy to be around.” But most people don’t see what’s going on behind the smile. They don’t see the anxiety that kicks in when you think someone’s pulling away. Or the guilt that shows up the second you even consider saying no.
People-pleasing isn’t some random character trait you got stuck with. It’s something your body learned—probably early on—in your family, a friendship, or a relationship where being “too much” felt risky. So you adapted. You made yourself easygoing, agreeable, low-maintenance.
Because back then, keeping the peace was how you kept yourself safe.
Over time, it just became automatic. You tuned into everyone else’s moods. You made yourself less disruptive, less reactive, less… anything that might make someone upset with you. And let make this clear: it wasn’t about being nice. It was about staying connected.
And even now, when no one’s yelling, when your relationship feels mostly good, when your life is technically okay—your body still holds tension when you disagree with someone. It still pushes you to keep things light when you’re actually feeling something deep. You remain hypervigilante.
And there’s a reason for this. It’s your nervous system doing what it’s always done: trying to keep you close to the people you care about…even if it means disconnecting from yourself
If you’ve ever found yourself obsessing over a text that didn’t get answered fast enough… or feeling like you ruined everything because your tone was “off”… that might not just be anxiety. That’s rooted in attachment.
More specifically, anxious attachment. Which isn’t a diagnosis—it’s a pattern your nervous system built to keep you connected in relationships that didn’t always feel secure. And once it’s wired in, it doesn’t just go away because you know you’re loved. It still flares up…especially when things feel uncertain.
As a kid, if your connection to caregivers felt inconsistent—like sometimes they were available and warm, and sometimes they pulled away—you likely learned to monitor. To stay alert and scan for shifts in tone, energy, distance.
Your attachment system interpreted that closeness could disappear without warning, and that staying hyper-attuned might give you a shot at keeping it.
Now fast forward to adulthood—and that same wiring still exists. Even if your partner or friend is safe, even if they say, “You’re good, I love you,” your nervous system might still act like that closeness is fragile.
If you associate disagreement or disappointment with potential rejection, then of course you’ll bend yourself to avoid conflict. So maybe you:
At some point, this served a purpose. The only problem is they don’t fit your life now. Especially if you’re in a stable relationship, or with people who can actually handle your truth.
Even the healthiest relationship can feel unsafe to a nervous system that never learned how to relax around love. That’s the hard part. It’s not that your partner is doing something wrong—it’s that your wiring doesn’t recognize emotional availability as familiar.
So when they pull away for a day? It feels like abandonment.
When they say “I’m fine” with a weird tone? You spiral.
When they say they love you? You might still not believe it in the moment.
And instead of expressing that fear, your system might go straight into people-pleasing mode. Making everything okay. Reassuring. Shrinking. Managing the relationship instead of actually being in it.
A lot of clients come in thinking they have ‘high-functioning anxiety,’ and yeah—anxiety therapy in Los Angeles absolutely helps with that. But it’s often deeper. It may look calm from the outside. But inside? It’s a full-time job for your nervous system.
Think about it: You’re not just being agreeable—you’re calculating. Tracking every shift in energy. Wondering if your tone was okay. Replaying the way you said something two days ago. Bracing for disappointment before it even happens. And because you’re high-functioning, no one sees it. You’re the “chill one.” The easy partner. The supportive friend.
Meanwhile, your body’s screaming.
This kind of nonstop relational vigilance takes a toll. Not just emotionally, but physically. Your nervous system was designed to move between activation and rest, but people-pleasing keeps you stuck in a low-key survival state. Not fight-or-flight… but something quieter. It’s like a functional freeze with a smile.
You might feel:
Even if you want to stop people-pleasing, your body might not cooperate right away. But trying to think your way out of that state won’t work. Neither will self-blame.
Because the part of you that smiles while saying yes (even when you realllllly want to say no) isn’t actually trying to betray you—it’s trying to keep you connected to others. That part is trying to protect you from the threat your body still associates with disconnection.
Fawning is a trauma response. When you fawn, your body is trying to avoid danger by keeping other people regulated, comfortable, or close.
This response lives mostly in the ventral vagal and dorsal vagal branches of your nervous system. Your brain doesn’t see someone’s frustration and think, “let me handle this logically.” It reads it as a potential threat and kicks into appease-and-survive mode. And it does so fast.
That’s why fawning feels like walking on eggshells. Your system is scanning for the tiniest shifts in tone, body language, silence. And the second something feels off? You soften your voice. You fix the mood. You make yourself easier. And no, it’s not being “fake” or inauthentic. It’s just a body that learned to prevent disconnection before it could happen.
From a survival standpoint, this totally makes sense. Humans are social mammals. For most of our evolution, losing connection to the group could mean losing protection—and that wired us to prioritize belonging…even at the expense of authenticity.
So when your system senses a potential rupture—a shift in tone, tension in someone’s face, silence after a message—it reacts. Not with conscious thought, but with submission: agree, soften, soothe, fix.
Fawning reduces perceived threat by reducing friction. It makes others more comfortable (which your body interprets as increasing your odds of staying close and staying safe).
The tradeoff? You often disconnect from yourself in the process.
This is why fawning feels hard to “just stop.” It’s not about being polite or insecure—it’s about literal protection. And until your body feels safe enough to risk discomfort or conflict, the reflex will keep showing up.
This is where most people get stuck: they know they’re people-pleasing. And that’s the case with many clients I work with. They’re self-aware. They’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, maybe even been in therapy before. But the pattern keeps showing up because their body doesn’t feel safe doing it differently.
That’s what somatic therapy in Los Angeles is designed to shift. It’s body-based work. The kind that helps your system feel—and not just think—that it’s safe to stop constantly scanning the vibe of the room you’re in.
Somatic therapy starts with getting curious about what’s happening in your body—not to analyze or overthink it, but to simply listen. You’re not trying to “fix” the people-pleaser part of you. You’re learning how to notice when it’s activated… and slowly offer it another option.
That might sound abstract, but it’s not.
It looks like:
We don’t start by diving into your deepest triggers or ripping off the people-pleasing pattern in one go. That’s not how nervous systems work (especially when those patterns are tied to early experiences or unprocessed trauma).
We start small.
You might sit and notice what it feels like to take up space on the couch. You might track the tension in your stomach when you talk about a conflict with your partner. You might practice saying “I need a minute” and just notice what happens inside.
This work is slow. It’s gentle. And it’s powerful in a way most people don’t expect—because instead of just talking about boundaries, you start feeling your way into them. You literally heal from the inside out and it starts to become intuitive.
Believe it or not, one of the hardest things for people-pleasers to do isn’t actually saying no. It’s knowing what they actually want in the first place!
When you’ve spent years (or decades) anticipating what other people need, your own preferences can start to feel blurry. You might default to what’s easy or what won’t make anyone uncomfortable—even if part of you quietly knows it’s not right.
Somatic therapy helps you find that part again. The part that remembers your yes. The one that doesn’t feel guilty for having a boundary or preference.
Boundaries That Start in the Body
Here’s the thing no one tells you: boundaries aren’t just sentences. They’re sensations. You can write the perfect script for how to say no, but if your body is still in “keep them happy” mode, it’s going to feel like you’re doing something wrong.
That’s why we work with boundaries a little differently. We use your body.
In session, we might practice noticing what a “no” feels like in your chest. What a “yes” feels like in your stomach. How your voice changes when you’re performing okay-ness vs. when you’re actually okay.
It sounds simple, but it’s a shift most people never get to experience growing up. And it changes everything.
Once you start tracking your internal signals—the tightness, the softening, the pause before a people-pleasing reflex kicks in—you begin to respond instead of react. You start catching the moment you disconnect from yourself. You start experimenting with staying connected to you, even when you’re with someone else.
You don’t have to gear up to “set a big boundary.” You just notice your capacity, trust it, and speak from there. One clear no. One real yes. One nervous system that finally feels like home.
