Does this sound like you?
- You wear a "Happy Mask": you smile when you're sad, pretend to agree when you don't, and hide your vulnerability. Deep down, you just want people to like you!
- You have been called "too nice" or "self-less"; you give, and give, and give.
- You are overly accommodating in relationships. You mold yourself to what the other person needs, even if that means over-extending yourself, or changing yourself, like a chameleon changes colour depending on its environment. You trade in your authenticity for approval.
- You leave yourself with just the scraps. Self-care, or asking for help, feels foreign. Selfish, even. It makes you feel guilty.
- You have a hard time setting boundaries and advocating for your own needs, particularly in close relationships. Maybe you secretly feel resentful, underappreciated, but you push that away. You don't "do" anger.
- You are your own toughest critic.
On the Outside
- You are conscientious, responsible, and caring.
- You are in a helping profession or take on a helping role in relationships.
- You help via your time or emotional presence. You are the dependable one people turn to when they are struggling. You are that strong shoulder that everyone else can lean on.
- You over-give to your workplace, communities, causes, or to individuals.
What You Want to Gain
- You want to learn how to please yourself; you want to live life more authentically and get your own needs met.
- You want to make more room for all of you - your True Self - rather than only the parts of you that seem most likable, most useful, or most of service.
- You want to balance and improve your relationships by making more room for you in them.
- You want to have more choice regarding your helping; you want to help in a more sustainable, less compulsive way.
- You want to learn how to be kinder to yourself, and to soften your harsh self-criticism.
How I Can Help
People-pleasing involves ignoring one's own feelings and needs, and silencing self-expression, in order to best "be there" for others.
Drawing on Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), I can help you feel and express your own feelings so that you can discover how to best "be there" for yourself. So that you have more clarity about what you really need, and how to get your needs met - by both you and others. So that you can have more access to your True Self.
People-pleasing involves ignoring one's own feelings and needs, and silencing self-expression, in order to best "be there" for others.
Drawing on Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT), I can help you feel and express your own feelings so that you can discover how to best "be there" for yourself. So that you have more clarity about what you really need, and how to get your needs met - by both you and others. So that you can have more access to your True Self.
15 Minute No-Cost Consult
Please reach out if you would like to schedule a no-cost video consultation to see if my approach is a match for your therapy goals.
Please reach out if you would like to schedule a no-cost video consultation to see if my approach is a match for your therapy goals.
You can also get a better sense of me through my blog.
