28. Here's What To Do If You Are People Pleasing, Masking, and/or Self-Abandoning
Reframing Neurodiversity · Melissa Jackson
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Show Notes
Watch or read this episode here.
Hey guys.
Today I want to talk through something I've personally struggled with my whole life: people pleasing.
As neurodivergent people, we so often talk about this idea of masking and how it's a coping mechanism so many of us unconsciously adopted in childhood
* to feel safe
* to feel loved
* to feel accepted.
And many times it's not till we're much older that we realize we've created this false identity, or we don't have a real strong sense of self, because we've been people pleasing in order to fit in.
People pleasing falls into the bottom of the nervous system ladder- in the fawn state.
So how do we stop people pleasing when it feels literally unsafe in our nervous system?
The solution is the nervous system.
* So, for me, learning to rewire that thought process from an intellectual perspective, happened first.
* Then on a bodily level, I had to show my body, in titrated steps using specific self-regulation techniques, that boundaries externally and internally were safe.
So here are the 4 Self-Regulation Strategies that helped me get out of the Fawn State.
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