How Do I Stop People Pleasing?
- Coach Rachel K
- Aug 6
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 7
We usually don't notice our people pleasing tendencies until they start to create problems in our life: problems like burnout, feelings of dissatisfaction, depression, and loneliness, or deepening resentment and anger about our needs going unmet.
We usually learned to people please as children. We received praise for being easy, obedient, and accommodating. We were punished (or ignored) when we were assertive about our preferences or desires or when we felt angry, sad, or anxious.
As we grew older, we learned that when we anticipated needs, listened and reflected to others in conversation, and generally took care of everyone around us, we got something we needed: stability, connection, or peace.
At its core, people pleasing is an attempt by the ego to avoid something we deeply fear: rejection or abandonment. The unspoken reasoning says: If I'm needed, I'll never be rejected or abandoned.
Except...we are sometimes rejected or abandoned by the people we're trying to please.
And we might realize over time that in order to people please, we have to reject and abandon ourselves.
Are you so sick and tired of your people pleasing and can't figure out how to change it? Subscribe to my newsletter to get my free workbook De-Trigger Yourself and take a look at the "Fawn" section.
People pleasing as a behavior goes deeper than our personal psychology, though. There are archetypes, symbols from the collective unconscious, that connect deeper meaning to people pleasing, caretaking, and being overly accommodating. Knowing about these archetypes can help us to recognize when an archetypal complex is constellating in us and understand how to address it.
Read on to learn how to stop people pleasing in your relationships based on the archetype that's activating in you.
The Healer
The Healer archetype is preoccupied with repairing the body, mind, or spirit. When a Healer complex constellates in us, we feel responsible for curing, fixing, or mending others' hurts. People pleasing might look like caregiving in this complex.
A Healer complex is most common in folks who grew up with a caregiver that was wounded in some way: physically, through injury or illness, or mentally, through mental health issues like depression or addiction. We might have learned that safety was found in caregiving and/or that caregiving gave us a sense of control over an unpredictable caregiver's moods.
Folks enacting a Healer complex might attract people who are helpless or who feel spiritually or mentally wounded. They might end up in relationships with addicts and unconsciously enable their addiction.
The irony of the Healer complex is that it constellates in people who are carrying heavy psychic burdens from their own lives: Chiron is the "Wounded Healer" from Greek mythology. It is very hard for folks in a Healer complex to admit to needing care. They might isolate themselves when they feel "needy" or create destructive coping mechanisms to numb their feelings, like smoking. Ultimately, the Healer complex might be a defense against the helplessness that they feel towards their own healing.
The Shadow Side
When the Healer complex constellates, a Shadow side also constellates. There are two potential Shadow archetypes to the Healer: the Wounded and the Sadist.
When it's the Wounded side, we might have bouts of feeling victimized, hurt, and helpless to help ourselves. When it's the Sadist side, we might find that buried anger, resentment, or bitterness cause us to lash out unexpectedly at others, or we may have an intense Inner Critic. (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. Douglas Gillette and Robert L. Moore. 1990.)
The Savior
The Savior archetype is preoccupied with rescuing and protecting others. There are Messiah-type savior complexes who are martyred, and therefore have a self-sacrificing element to them (we might also call this a Martyr complex), or there are Hero-type savior complexes that are focused on protecting others from harm. In both cases, people pleasing looks like rescuing people from the consequences of their choices.
This is one of the more subtle forms of people pleasing:
Overriding hunger and fatigue signals in order to keep caretaking.
Fawn responses like conflict avoidance and pretending things are fine.
Difficulty with receiving apologies, quick forgiveness or dismissal of the hurt caused to prevent shame or guilt in the other person.
Offering unsolicited advice to prevent or stop distress.
The Savior complex believes that our value comes from the people around us feeling good; rescuing and protecting people from consequences is really about rescuing and protecting people from their own feelings, often at the expense of our own well being.
The Shadow Side
The Shadow that constellates in the Savior complex is either the Persecutor (Messiah) or the Damsel in Distress (Hero).
The Persecutor is judgmental and critical. The person being held in the Savior complex might have outbursts towards others that are judging and critical, or it might show up as an intense Inner Critic.
The Damsel in Distress is helplessness itself: locked in a tower, waiting for the Hero to slay the dragon. This might show up as bouts of victimhood and overwhelm, even depressive episodes, especially when we've "failed" to prevent a loved one from experiencing something uncomfortable.
The Mother
When the Mother archetype constellates in us, we are preoccupied with nurturing. We believe our value comes from caretaking and we'll struggle with receiving care because that is not what mothers do!
People pleasing as the Mother archetype looks the way a mother caring for a baby or young child looks:
Anticipating needs.
Planning and organizing life around the partner and their needs.
Never sharing needs, desires, or preferences.
Caretaking is often couched consciously as showing love, but underneath, it's a need to feel needed. When we feel needed, we feel important, so this complex is about defending against irrelevance, about finding a way to feel worthy in a relationship.
The Shadow Side
The most common Shadow sides to the Mother I see in my work are the Devouring Mother or Athena. The Devouring Mother never wants her children (or the people she's people pleasing) to grow up and grow independent of her. She can be insistent on her care being received, smothering her loved ones.
Athena is a goddess of cold intellect and rationality. When our Shadow side is Athenian, we are cut off from feeling and can sap the "spontaneity, vitality, and creativity" of the people around us (Goddesses in Everywoman, Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD. 1985). We might freeze our loved ones out. Contrasted with the warmth of the people-pleasing persona, we become unrecognizable to our loved ones and to ourselves.
How to Stop People Pleasing
All of these archetypes are highly empathetic and have a desire to help people. These are wonderful qualities. The problem stems from the reason the archetype is constellating: it's a defense against something deeply painful or uncomfortable.
In each of these caretaking, people pleasing archetypes, we can see that the complex is a defense against:
Powerlessness
Helplessness
Uncertainty
Irrelevance
When we're defending against these feelings, we're not acting from inner authority, and our empathy and desire to help are being hijacked for darker purposes. People in relationships with people pleasers find themselves disconnected from their partner, because their partner is failing to see them as a whole, independent person.
The Healer sees the wound, not the person.
The Savior sees the need for rescue, not the fully capable (and culpable) individual.
The Mother sees a child, not an adult.
In order to stop people pleasing, we need to work with our conditioning and the archetype that's constellating in us:
1) Recognizing when these complexes are constellating in us is the first critical step. Notice the sensations in your body, your emotions, and the thoughts you have when you're falling into the pattern.
2) Building understanding of what the complex is defending against and why is the next. Ask yourself, "What am I getting to avoid when I people please?"
3) Finally, differentiating ourselves from the complex (and its Shadow sides) while also building a relationship with them prevents from from unconsciously falling into them again.
Note: There are many, many archetypes that might fit your experience of people-pleasing and the Shadow sides that emerge in you. Leave a comment to share your experience and get my take!
Want to learn more about your people-pleasing and how to stop it?
Subscribe and get my free workbook De-Trigger Yourself - check out the "Fawn" response.
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