An Interview With Brooke Young & Yitzi Weiner
Start to become aware of your sensations. Do you feel sick, nauseous or clenched while meeting with someone or doing a certain job? This is your sign from your body that YOUR BODY DOESN’T LIKE THAT. In people pleasing we often forgo our own sensations and instead prioritize the feelings of others. How does it feel to orient towards your body’s experience?
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 Kallie Klug.
Kallie is a certified somatic practitioner who specializes in helping people heal from people pleasing. She uses a blend of somatic psychology and embodiment practices to support her clients in moving from the crippling exhaustion and burnout of trying to please everyone to living an authentic, confident, and ease-ful life. Kallie recognizes that after a life of people pleasing, finally choosing yourself can feel villainous- which is why she encourages her clients to embrace their “inner villain”.
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 grew up in a small town and was very involved in my local megachurch. I grew up wanting to be perceived as a “good girl”. I stayed out of trouble. I tried to make everyone happy and did everything I could to fit in. I actually was voted friendliest in high school for “senior favorites”. If people pleasing was a sport, I would’ve won a gold medal.
After that, I went to Belgium when I was 18 and lived there for a year. There was something about learning French- it felt easier to be myself in another language for some reason. There was a chink in the people pleaser armor. I felt more expressive than I ever had in my life.
After my year in Belgium, I got really into spirituality and self-help which ultimately led me to discovering somatics.
Can you tell us a bit about what you do professionally, and what brought you to this specific career path?
I’m a somatic practitioner- which means I help people heal on the level of the body instead of the mind. If you think of traditional therapy as unweaving the tangle of trauma inside your brain, somatics allows you to instead focus on the experience YOUR BODY has- how your body currently experiences the trauma. Somatic psychology is focused on seeing human bodies for what they are- bodies with mammalian nervous systems.
When I was 22, I went to the Himalayas of India and became certified as a traditional yoga teacher. I was really interested in finding ways to create harmony with my body since I struggled so much with anxiety. When I returned, I started learning about tantric yoga. In tantric yoga, instead of “rising above your bodily sensations and impulses” like in traditional yoga, you instead explore them. I had grown a bit tired of the “holier than thou” vibe that seemed to perpetuate so many spiritual and yoga communities. In tantric yoga, the goal is not enlightenment, but embodiment. This new ideology really fascinated me and I became certified in women’s embodiment.
After that, I got really into somatic psychology. I love me some science backed evidence! And somatic psychology seemed to back a lot of what I learned in the embodiment space. I became certified in Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy and Somatic Parts Work.
I started learning everything I could about the “fawn” response- the 4th of the four trauma responses. This response propels us to socially engage with others- compliment them, be their therapists even when it’s draining, have zero boundaries, overwork at our job, seek external validation, and so much more. This response drove my life and I began to see- the lives of so many others.
I began helping people to build a better connection with their bodies and heal from this response. That’s what I do today on my social media, workshops, and coaching programs.
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?
A people pleaser to me is someone whose primary trauma response is fawning. A people pleaser is someone who is practiced and good at fawning. They are unintentionally manipulative and seek to manage the behaviors of others in order for people to like them. A people pleaser is someone who sacrifices their own personality, preferences, and comfort in order to appease the people around them. They are often burnt out and exhausted.
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?
Being a people pleaser likely helped you as a child. Usually the fawn response awakens when we are children and have caregivers who are unpredictable or volatile. So in this sense, at one point in a people pleaser’s life, it’s very likely this response DID help them.
However, as an adult, chronic people pleasing is pretty sh*tty. It generally leads to an inauthentic life with very enmeshed relationships and lack of boundaries. This could look like having “friends” you actually don’t like that much or feel sick or tired around; oversharing with people you’ve just met and fabricating intimacy in relationships; finding yourself in a job you hate; overworking; and so on. I’ve noticed a lot of people pleasers end up with digestive issues and chronic pain. I’ve experienced both-crippling neck pain to the point where I couldn’t get out of bed and terrible and painful stomach issues.
When your body is in this chronic stress state, your immune system and digestive system can be negatively affected.
Does being a people pleaser give you certain advantages? Can you explain?
Absolutely, yes.
It allows you to read people and become extremely sensitive to small shifts in energy, moods, and behaviors. I think immediately of my business partner — Survivor winner, Parvati Shallow. She’s a great example of how you can use those skills from people pleasing to your advantage. She’s able to read people, their body language, and give them what they want to see to win the game.
When used intentionally, I think these can be great assets in business (and game shows like Survivor and Traitors!).
Can you describe a moment in your life when you realized that your own people-pleasing behavior was more harmful than helpful?
Oh man, how do I just choose one? There was a period of time where my lifetime of people pleasing came and bit me in the ass all at once.
A few years ago, two of my family members passed away back to back. I was so stricken with grief that I could not people please anymore. I just no longer had the energy to act; to feign excitement when it wasn’t there; to create chemistry in friendships when there wasn’t any.
I lost an entire group of friends that summer. I knew in my gut that they weren’t my people, but I kept making it happen. I kept pushing for us to be friends. And when I could no longer give the same energy as before, it just all fell apart.
In your opinion, what are the common root causes of people-pleasing behavior?
I believe the root cause of people pleasing is from enmeshment with caregivers in childhood. In an enmeshed relationship with a parent, you’re not allowed to have boundaries. They violate your boundaries emotionally or physically. And we learn to “make them happy” by fawning and appeasing them.
This relationship dynamic becomes standard for us as we grow up and become adults. We think it’s normal to have enmeshed relationships with everyone in our lives- lacking boundaries. But it’s not healthy. It’s so draining.
April Dawn Harter is a psychotherapist and social worker who does AMAZING work on this subject. I’ve learned a lot from her and she gave me a lot of vocabulary and context for patterns I saw for years in myself and my clients.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact personal relationships?
It usually creates a lot of relationships that end up feeling very inauthentic. There’s usually a lot of enmeshment. You get lost in the relationship or friendship since you don’t know where you end and the other person begins. What I’ve seen too is a lot of passive aggressive behavior since people pleasers aren’t practiced in expressing boundaries in a healthy way.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact professional relationships?
People pleasing is all pervasive. So if you’re doing it in your personal life, you will be doing it in your professional life.
People pleasing at work can look like enmeshing with clients, over offering and over giving, taking on too many projects. It can lead to a lot of resentment.
How can long-term people-pleasing behavior impact an individual’s mental health?
People who chronically people please are usually very stressed and experience burn out. Imagine playing a role your whole life- that’s essentially what people pleasing is. Remembering the right thing to say, projecting the right facial expression, making an effort to get on people’s good side. It’s exhausting. The toll is high. And you do pay with your mental and physical health.
In your experience, what is the role of self-awareness in overcoming people-pleasing tendencies, and how can individuals cultivate it?
I work in the context of somatics. So you must learn how people pleasing/ fawning feels in your body. For me, fawning feels like a tension in my chest or belly, an urge to smile and laugh, raise my eyebrows, and lean forward. When you explore how fawning feels in your body you’re then able to cultivate awareness around it in real time.
Most people I work with are self-aware. Like too self aware. And that’s why they resonate with somatics- they want to get out of their head and into their body.
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”?
1 . Start to become aware of your sensations. Do you feel sick, nauseous or clenched while meeting with someone or doing a certain job? This is your sign from your body that YOUR BODY DOESN’T LIKE THAT. In people pleasing we often forgo our own sensations and instead prioritize the feelings of others. How does it feel to orient towards your body’s experience?
2 . Notice where in your life you feel resentment and where in your life you complain. This will show you where you need more in your life you need more boundaries.
3 . A somatic practice I love is called the no-fawn walk. Walk through the park or grocery store and don’t emote or smile. This practice gives your body the opportunity to experience what it’s like to not mask or fawn.
4 . Practice truth telling. Be honest about how you’re feeling. What you like and don’t like. Even if it’s an unpopular opinion.
5 . Build your nervous system’s capacity to be disliked. When you feel tension in a relationship or like someone has an issue with you- see it as an opportunity to grow your nervous system’s capacity. Notice where in your body you feel tension, put a hand on that part of your body and take a few deep breaths into that part. Then, notice a part of your body that feels neutral or good and do the same thing.
What steps should people pleasers take to establish healthier boundaries?
Notice where in your life you’re resentful and where you complain the most. It’s likely these will point you in the direction of where in your life you need more boundaries.
How can someone who is naturally empathetic maintain their compassion while becoming more assertive?
Start by having compassion for yourself and your your body’s needs. Become motivated to be more assertive through having compassion for your body, its needs, and comforts.
What are the most common misconceptions about people pleasers, and how do these misconceptions affect their journey toward recovery?
I think a misconception is that to be a people pleaser you have to be an absolute doormat. People pleasing is more about the felt sense in YOUR body. That compulsion to appease the person. That externalization of validation and safety. It’s less about how it looks externally and more about how it feels.
What role can therapy or counseling play in helping individuals overcome people-pleasing behavior?
Therapy is huge. I greatly benefited from EMDR therapy and I recommend EMDR to all my clients as well. I think my work is most effective when done in tandem with or after experiencing EMDR or talk therapy. April Dawn Harter’s work and studies show that enmeshment and fawning can be treated when you address the core enmeshment trauma with EMDR.
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. 🙂
That you’re allowed to love the “unlovable” parts of yourself without shame. What would happen if you owned the parts of yourself that you feel shame around with humor and compassion?
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow me on social media at @kali.somatics . I also post a lot of free content on my Youtube channel and podcast (Your Own Medicine Podcast).
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.
Kallie Klug of Kali Somatics 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.