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How Somatic Therapy Helps You Break Free from People-Pleasing
- Bridget Cantarella
- Mar 19
- 3 min read
Do you find yourself saying “yes” when you really mean “no”? Do you bend, shape and mould yourself to fit others' expectations, losing touch with your own needs? If so, you may be caught in patterns of people-pleasing.
Why People-Pleasing Is a Trauma Response
When we fall into people-pleasing patterns—having trouble asserting our preferences, recognising our needs, or setting boundaries—it’s important to remember that our nervous system is doing its best to keep us safe in the only way it learned how: through the fawn response.
The fawn response is a deeply intelligent survival mechanism that helps maintain relational safety—but at the cost of self-abandonment. It arises when someone has learned that authentic self-expression is unsafe and that attunement to others is the only path to connection and security.
Fawning commonly develops in childhood when someone grows up in an environment where they feel they must appease a parent or caregiver to avoid conflict, neglect, or abuse. It can also develop later in our adult life from being in an emotionally abusive or narcissistic relationship.
Over time, chronic fawning disconnects us from our authentic needs, desires, and boundaries. We might struggle to say no, feel exhausted from over-giving, struggle to make simple decisions, or experience resentment because our relationships feel one-sided.
When we fawn, we typically give in to stop something from happening. It's almost like we are frozen, and our basic skills of acting on something, expressing our feelings and showing emotion disappear.
Breaking Down the Fawn Response:
Relational Threat Perception: The nervous system detects that asserting needs, desires, or boundaries might result in rejection, conflict, or loss of connection.
Self-Abandonment for Safety: The body instinctively responds by suppressing personal needs and hyper-focusing on reading, anticipating, and meeting others' needs.
Exhaustion & Disconnection: Over time, this leads to burnout, resentment, and a sense of feeling unseen or unknown—even in close relationships.
Why It’s Both Brilliant and Exhausting
Brilliant: Because it worked. It kept you safe, allowed you to navigate challenging relationships, and helped you maintain connection when autonomy felt risky.
Exhausting: Because constantly scanning for others' emotions, suppressing your own needs, and managing relationships takes an enormous toll on the nervous system.
How Somatic Therapy Helps You Unlearn People-Pleasing
Somatic therapy works by helping you tune into your body’s signals, regulate your nervous system, and develop a felt sense of safety within yourself. Here’s how it can support your healing:
1. Reconnecting with Your Body’s Signals
Many people-pleasers struggle to recognise when they feel discomfort or when their boundaries are being crossed. Somatic therapy helps you attune to subtle sensations—like tension, tightness, or a racing heart—that signal stress. By increasing body awareness, you can start making choices based on what feels right for you, rather than what pleases others.
2. Building Nervous System Resilience
A dysregulated nervous system keeps you in survival mode, making it difficult to tolerate discomfort or potential conflict. Somatic practices such as breathwork, grounding exercises, and movement help strengthen your nervous system’s ability to handle stress without defaulting to fawning.
3. Processing Repressed Emotions
People-pleasing often suppresses anger, sadness, or frustration—emotions that were once unsafe to express. Somatic therapy provides a safe space to release these stored emotions through bodily sensations, movement, parts work and vocalisation.
4. Establishing Boundaries from the Inside Out
Rather than setting boundaries from a place of fear (“I should say no”), somatic therapy helps you feel safe in saying no. When your body registers that it is not in danger, you can assert your needs with confidence and clarity.
5. Shifting from External Validation to Internal Trust
Fawners often rely on external cues to determine their worth. Through somatic therapy, you develop an internal sense of security, so your value isn’t dependent on how others respond to
Breaking Free From People-Pleasing: A Journey Back to Yourself
Healing from people-pleasing isn’t about forcing yourself to be more assertive overnight. It’s about retraining your nervous system to feel safe in authenticity, even when that means disappointing others.
Many people recognise people-pleasing tendencies in their behaviour but struggle to know what to do about them. I’ve created a helpful guide to help you retrain your nervous system to tolerate authenticity over appeasement. When you start exploring these steps, you’ll notice how much energy you are really giving away and how to reclaim it!
Are you ready to reclaim yourself and break free from people-pleasing? Download my guide of Practical Exercises to Heal from the Fawn Response.
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