4 Signs You're Healing From People Pleasing (That Feel Selfish).

In today's video, I'm going to tell you four signs that you are healing from people-pleasing that are going to feel pretty selfish. Healing from people-pleasing does not feel like confidence first. It feels like guilt, discomfort, and wondering non-stop if you're a bad person. But what's actually happening is you're learning to stop abandoning yourself. Number one, you say no and you instantly feel guilty. That old reflex to make everyone happy does not go away overnight. When you finally decide to set a boundary, your body will react like you just did something wrong. I can think of multiple occasions where I had to respond to some invitation and say no that made me feel physically sick. My heart would race. My stomach would just be in knots, turning upside down. I felt like my body was plugged into a light socket just because I was saying no. When you feel those feelings in your body, it's not proof that you're selfish. It's not proof that you made a mistake. It's evidence that your nervous system is rewiring. So here's what you do instead. You let that guilt exist without trying to fix it. Allow it to be there and allow it to move through. That guilt is based on an old way of thinking and old beliefs that you had of what it means to stay safe and make other people happy with you. Your body needs to learn that it's okay to disappoint people sometimes. So take a breath and remind yourself we're going for safety first, not approval. Number two, you start to care less about what people think and that feels cold. There's this strange in-between phase where you stop performing in order to be liked. You notice that you're giving more honest answers, fewer explanations, and shorter replies. And this is going to feel overly harsh compared to the person that you used to be. The old version of you that over-explained everything and wanted to make sure everyone knew the exact reason why you weren't going to be able to do what they wanted you to do so that you could make sure that you stayed safe. But we are redefining what safety feels like. So here's what you're going to do instead. You're going to let your energy be neutral for now. You do not owe anyone extra words or an extra explanation to perform kindness and care. You have nothing to prove here. Simply speak, give your answer, and move on. Allow whatever emotions come up to just come on with you. Number three, you have less patience for one-sided relationships. When you stop people-pleasing, any imbalance in your life and your relationships is going to become very, very obvious to you. You're going to notice very quickly who is taking more than they are giving within your relationship. I went through seasons where every relationship felt off, and it wasn't that everyone around me changed. It was just that I stopped pretending that I was fine. So here's what you're going to do instead. Notice when you feel drained after interactions. You don't need to cut everyone off. You just need to notice where you're over-giving and not receiving anything in return. Number four, and the biggest sign that you're healing people-pleasing is you stop over-explaining yourself. You will have a moment where you realize that you don't owe everyone context for every choice that you make, and at first this is going to feel really rude. It's going to be different than the way that you've showed up in these relationships. You are going to catch yourself wanting to justify, to soften, and to just explain every decision you're making. You're going to feel this pull to make people understand why you are justified in making your decisions, but you're going to show up differently. You're going to stop mid-sentence. You're going to stop that ferocious typing mid-message, and you're going to take a breath, and you're going to realize, I don't need to be this person anymore. I don't need to do this anymore, and I'm not going to be this person anymore, and that will begin feeling more like freedom to you. That will give you the peace that you used to try to find in the over-explanation. So something you can start is practice saying less. You don't need to give all the extra details. You don't need to let your decisions speak for themselves. You can make your choices, feel whatever discomfort comes up, and move on. You will get used to explaining less. That will become something that's comfortable for you. It's very important when you're healing from people-pleasing that you know that you're going to need to collect a lot of experiences that disconfirm your prior beliefs. So if you believe that you needed to appease everybody, and you need to over-explain, and you needed to justify all of your decisions, and you needed to say yes when you wanted to say no, you're going to need a certain number of experiences that show your nervous system something different. The most important thing being that you can say what you need to say and make the choice you want to make. Let people have their feelings about that, and you make sure that you don't abandon yourself. That you don't let other people's opinions make you question what you ran through your filters and decided was the right decision for you. The more comfortable you get with explaining less, the more safe that's going to feel to your nervous system. So disappoint people. Disappoint people all day long and show yourself that you can survive that. Show yourself that even if that was a threat when you were younger, it is no longer a threat now. It is okay for people to judge your choices. It's okay for them to judge your opinions, and when you have your own back, you're safe no matter what. It's time to stop saying sorry for existing. To stop saying sorry for doing what's right for you. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you guys in the next video.