An Interview With Brooke Young & Yitzi Weiner
Make sure that you know you can’t please everyone and that is ok. You are number one priority and only you can know that. If you say yes, you will be doing half a job rather than if its something that you love to do for yourself you will do such a better job. Journal out your thoughts and do this every day but don’t make it a task, do it only if you want to. Remember we are trying to make your day flow as easy as it can do. You are number one and if you are tired then say no, to anything that doesn’t light you up. Also, if you are female who has a cycle, remember to track your monthly cycle and when you are due on your bleed, rest for a few days. That’s our bodies way of saying I need to rest and recoup. I guarantee that the stomach cramps would have gone once you start doing this. Pain is a no no in any area of your body.
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 Gemma Nice.
Gemma Nice is the founder of The Relationship Coach and Easyoga. Are you stuck in your relationship with communication, trust, or intimacy and have tried all avenues but yourself? You haven’t had intimacy in such a long time, and you have become more like best friends than lovers? Gemma gets it. Gemma offers 3 different programs to high achieving women aged 35–45 which all dive deep into the relationship you have with yourself, using groundbreaking wellness techniques including movement, breath work, EFT tapping and so much more as well as talk therapy to come at your relationship from a place of healed rather than broken. Gemma gets to the nitty gritty of yourself love, past trauma and helps you to start healing from inside out for you to have the best relationship for you moving forward.
Gemma has a 23-year-old relationship with her husband Darren and they have 2 children. Gemma has been through trauma with their relationship nearly failing back in 2006 and then again via a miscarriage 2012. They came back from those to heal their relationship and are now stronger than ever.
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 had a wonderful family growing up. I am the oldest of three children. My brother and sister are twins. We went away on family holidays each year and I absolutely loved school. My parents are still happily married after 45 years. We grew up in a town called Brighton on the South Coast of England. I had a very happy childhood. I met my husband when I was just 17 and never looked back.
Can you tell us a bit about what you do professionally, and what brought you to this specific career path?
I am a Sex and Relationship coach and I’ve been doing this for 5 years now. Back in 2013 I qualified as a Yoga teacher and then that moved into relationships. I have been with my husband for 24 years this year and back in 2006 our relationship was struggling so we decided to go backpacking around the world to find some semblance of happiness. While in Thailand I found Yoga and never looked back. It changed my world as my partner, and I grew closer as I was able to go fully within and heal myself. Then back in 2012, I suffered a miscarriage, and I used tools and techniques from the wellbeing side of things to get my life back on track as well as my relationship or marriage at that point. So, we were broken and managed to come back from that, moving through and healing through the trauma that led us to go on and have two healthy pregnancies. Both my children are 10 and 6.
So I now help professional women reclaim their happiness through wellbeing modalities as well as talk therapy.
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?
That you put other peoples needs before your own which can then lead to burnout and exhaustion.
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?
It is a good thing but then its not a good thing. We’ve all got being kind within us and its great to have that as a trait but not all the time and especially if it’s affecting your ability to look after yourself.
Some of the challenges which come with this is that you always think you have to say yes, and you can’t really ever say no. You have low self esteem and think you can’t speak up for fear of being put down or shouted at. A lot of the time, it stems from childhood as you felt you needed or wanted to please your primary caregiver all the time for fear of not getting any attention. You constantly think about what other people think of you and this is a huge drain on your mental health. There is a lot in the mind and most of time that’s it, its all in the mind. Another one is that you want people to like you so you do what they tell you to do because you then get appraisal or the recognition you think you deserve even though it might be ruining your mental health. When in a debate situation, you always will agree with the other people and feel afraid to speak your own mind or truth for fear of not being liked. Another huge one is you never have any time or any spare time for yourself because you are running around taking care and pleasing others. This is where the burnout can happen.
Does being a people pleaser give you certain advantages? Can you explain?
Yes. Being a people pleaser usually means that you are an empath meaning that you take in people’s energies and know how they are feeling which allows you to have better connections with each other.
Because you do this, you are more seen and liked by people and you get the recognition of being kind and selfless. As I said before you are more likely to do things that others want you to do, so you will go above and beyond to make everyone else happy. You are always kind and compassionate and never say anything bad to another person.
Can you describe a moment in your life when you realized that your own people-pleasing behavior was more harmful than helpful?
Yes, it was back in 2015 and I was working as a Head Veterinary Nurse at a veterinary practice. There was this one time where a vet who would always go against what I was saying put me in an awkward position. I wasn’t comfortable and up until that point, I always would go along with whatever everyone did. I even had a best friend who I would do anything for a few years before that. Another story but she’d ask me to do things and I’d just do them, but now looking in from the outside, I could see this was all wrong. She was below me in the veterinary practice and never liked the fact that I oversaw her even though I would listen to her needs and try to sort it out. One day it got so bad with this one Vet and this friend that I snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore and I cried. My friend and I had a screaming match in the theatre shouting and crying at each other. She couldn’t see what she was doing but I could. From that moment on, I left the practice I was at and moved to a different branch within the same company. That was much better. My friend and I never spoke again. That was the moment I knew I needed to change something, and I’ve never looked back.
In your opinion, what are the common root causes of people-pleasing behavior?
It can stem from past traumas and especially from childhood as I explained earlier in the article. If you have suffered trauma through another person, you tend to people please around this person, so you don’t feel triggered by them. It can also come across as being insecure. You might have insecurities about people leaving you or that they wont like you if you don’t fit it with their schedule or with their own opinions. People who lack self-confidence or have low self-esteem will people please to fit in. They need that validation from the people pleaser to say ‘oh you look nice today’ or ‘thank you for doing that for me, I appreciate that’. The more validation you get, the better you feel about yourself. You may have had this from a care giver when you were younger or from an ex partner. So you carry on doing this as its hard to get out of. It also may come from anxiety of not being liked, so again you do things to fit in.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact personal relationships?
The people pleaser doesn’t actually know and can’t differentiate between what they need, and desire compared to the other person who is asking for what they want. The people pleaser will go along with whatever the other person wants but that might not be try to themselves. They can’t speak up and this then manifests itself in all manner of ways in a relationship. They will start to build a dishonest relationship not only with themselves but with their partner to. The trust to love and give yourself to someone doesn’t come easily and there seems to be lack of communication, trust and intimacy coming from the people pleaser because they just don’t know what their needs are there and then. Maybe they have been dismissed to many times, so they just go along with whatever it is and don’t give a thought to themselves. This is only a one-way relationship.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact professional relationships?
Within the workplace we are even more not ourselves when it comes to people pleasing because we might be an employee rather than an employer. This can have a profound effect on us as coming across like we want and need to people please all the time within the workplace. If we are more professional at work than we are in our home life, then we tend to people please to get through. Being professional might not factor into our lifestyle or personality and this is where we try to people please, especially within meetings and in the board room. We may go along with what others say compared to speaking our truth for fear of getting knocked down or not getting that promotion you have been after for months. This isn’t so much apparent now, but a few years ago when cigarette breaks were all the rage, people would go and have a cigarette even though they didn’t smoke, just to be with the crowd. This is a huge red flag because they may not want to even be associated with this, yet they do to fit in.
Overcommitment can happen when it comes to people pleasing in the workplace. You want your employer to look at you because you are amazing, so they pile on so much more work for you and then you get overwhelmed and cant cope. You have to schedule meetings which will make you later with your own work and you might have to have unrealistic deadlines which you cannot keep to. This where you can’t have boundaries in place because they will over run. You constantly are pleasing others more than yourself. This is where anxiety can set in within relationships and your mind goes into overdrive because you are constantly trying to keep up and you have unrealistic goals.
How can long-term people-pleasing behavior impact an individual’s mental health?
The stress and anxiety of long-term people pleasing can manifest itself in so many ways in the body. It can start to come out as pain, tension, headaches, back pain, even stomach cramps and breathlessness. You constantly feel tired, drained, and exhausted but you keep going on to please others. Again, this can manifest itself into more mental health diseases including cancer. You can also develop high blood pressure because of the amount of stress you are under. You start to feel anger or aim your communication at the wrong person allowing you to say things you wouldn’t normally mean. You become angry most of the time and this is negative energy looking for a way out of the body. This can also lead from anxiety and stress to other forms of depression of which to get out of it you might take yourself to the doctor and get prescribed medication. This medication will then have negative side effects and it’s a downward spiral from here.
In your experience, what is the role of self-awareness in overcoming people-pleasing tendencies, and how can individuals cultivate it?
Start to stand strong on your beliefs and stick to them. Notice how you feel when you start to say ‘No’ more often. How does that feel? Notice that from your own self awareness you are more likely to start engaging differently in conversations not only with friends but in the workplace to. Start to write down a journal each day and write three things that you are grateful for today. Read it back and really take it in. You know you don’t want to be in this position forever and by being more self-aware you will start to heal from the anxiety, stress and depression just be rewiring your brain. Be strong with your decisions and apply the below for you to have no more people pleasing.
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 . One of the ones I absolutely love, and certainly did it when I was a people pleaser was Mirror work. This involves writing three of four mantras on your mirror and saying them out loud to yourself each day when brushing your hair or getting ready in the morning. I still have mantras albeit different ones now on my mirror. But it really works because you are reframing your mind with mantras as in ‘I Am…’ ‘I am strong’. ‘I am not a people pleaser’ etc etc. The more you look at yourself in the mirror and state these facts, the more your subconscious mind changes.
2 . Setting your priorities will help you to determine if you need to really say yes to what someone is asking of you. Have a look at your ‘to do’ list and prioritise the three most important tasks. If then you have time, you can say yes to those other ones. Putting yourself and your health first is first and foremost as you then wont start to feel overwhelmed or stressed. I did this at the veterinary practice I was at with the vet. I had my three tasks that needed to get done and then afterwards I would do one of their tasks. Write these three tasks down and cross them off as you do them. Celebrate this after each task completed, either by doing a little dance around the kitchen or office or even going to make yourself a coffee. Then come back and do the next task. This allows you to break the ‘to do’ list up.
3 . Set boundaries with people who constantly ask you to do tasks. Picture a big ‘STOP’ sign in your head each time they call so you will be ready to say ‘No’ when they ask you. The first time you say no, they will be taken a back because they are automatically thinking you will say yes. That is the hardest one because you will feel you might need to state the reasons why you have said no. But really you don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to. There on in, they will be slightly reluctant to ask you because you said no. So, stick to it even though they may manipulate you to say yes. They don’t need a reason.
4 . This then leads nicely onto a possible ‘fallout’ if that may occur. This did happen with my friend and I but do you know what, it’s true, you don’t need people like them in your life so its best to fallout or agree to disagree and move on. Remember if you put it into an energetic state, the negative energy within your body will start to disappear and if you have any pain or out of alignment, you will start to feel better. This negative energy will start to move through the body and out. Think of it like a spring clean. When you come away from toxic people, that opens your world up to a better possibility of nicer people coming into your space who are more in alignment.
5 . Make sure that you know you can’t please everyone and that is ok. You are number one priority and only you can know that. If you say yes, you will be doing half a job rather than if its something that you love to do for yourself you will do such a better job. Journal out your thoughts and do this every day but don’t make it a task, do it only if you want to. Remember we are trying to make your day flow as easy as it can do. You are number one and if you are tired then say no, to anything that doesn’t light you up. Also, if you are female who has a cycle, remember to track your monthly cycle and when you are due on your bleed, rest for a few days. That’s our bodies way of saying I need to rest and recoup. I guarantee that the stomach cramps would have gone once you start doing this. Pain is a no no in any area of your body.
What steps should people pleasers take to establish healthier boundaries?
When it comes to setting healthy boundaries, remember that its ok to say no. Don’t feel bad that you say no and if you do, write it in your journal. Say ‘Why do I feel bad or selfish about saying no?’ This then allows you to come up with things that you can work around and eventually heal through this. If it’s something to do with having friends or being loved, you need to do some inner work around self-care and self-love. Because if we can’t love ourselves, we cannot love another. This person also may only like you because you always say yes. Test the waters by saying no to a couple of things tis person does and see if the friendship dissipates. I think you’ll find it probably does. Know what feels right and what feels to much when it comes to saying no. Take yourself out into nature an remove your shoes. Plant your feet on the ground and bring some grounding back into your body. Nature is truly our biggest teacher and healer. Keep your boundaries current and don’t revert back to the old you. The more you start to say yes, the more exhilarating it will feel.
How can someone who is naturally empathetic maintain their compassion while becoming more assertive?
Breath work is one of the best forms to find self-assertiveness here. Taking in three big deep breaths and allowing all this negative energy out of the body, then allows you to come at a conversation in a better more open mind. It will allow your emotions to come out before you start to speak and then you will be able to have a clearer mind, allowing you to speak from the heart and not feel bad about it. Choose how you word things when you are saying no. Instead of saying ‘Have to’ say ‘Choose to’ or ‘Want’ instead of ‘Need’. When you are assertive, reward yourself with a little happy dance or a hug. This the affirms that you are now in the correct mindset to say no even more and be ok with that. Good luck, you’ve got this.
What are the most common misconceptions about people pleasers, and how do these misconceptions affect their journey toward recovery?
That they don’t have their own opinions or values. This can stop them from healing through this and if you are in the workplace, it allows a more authoritative figure, carry on treating you the way they always have because that’s they way you’ve always been. Prove them wrong. Some people believe that when they are the caregivers, they must provide all the time. This can be misconstrued as bad and that it needs to be discussed because the boundaries are too high to achieve. People still feel like a burden so resist the help if some has come their way. They will feel this way until the inner healing has been done.
What role can therapy or counseling play in helping individuals overcome people-pleasing behavior?
It allows you to speak to someone in confidence who will be routing for you and will allow you to talk through the trauma or any past experiences which you have had to overcome. They keep you aligned and motivated to push past the barriers and allow you to talk openly and honestly with them. They will guide you through certain tools and techniques for you to come out a better person. Whether that’s a one session or a session per week for 6 months. They are always there for you.
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. 🙂
I would and have always loved Breath Work. So, my movement would be for people to breathe correctly as in everyday breathing we shallow breath. This doesn’t allow us the oxygen we need to our brains. Deep breaths into the belly area will transform your life.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
My website is www.gemmanice.com or you can find me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmanicerelationshipcoach/
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.
Gemma Nice of The Relationship Coach & Easyoga 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.