In this conversational video, Matthew AI and Audrey explore the psychological roots, emotional consequences, and practical strategies for overcoming people‑pleasing behavior. They begin by sharing audience comments that illustrate how people‑pleasing leads to inauthenticity, fear of disappointing others, and suppressed honesty. Audrey explains that people‑pleasing often originates in childhood or traumatic experiences where compliance was linked to safety and love, emphasizing the need for self‑compassion when unlearning it. Matthew expands on the emotional trigger of feeling upset when others are upset, proposing a logical analysis of relationship value: if disagreement threatens love, the relationship may be less valuable than believed. They discuss the cost of people‑pleasing—missed promotions, lack of respect, and emotional exhaustion—and argue that the individual who pays this price must own the change. The core strategy presented is “living dangerously”: deliberately taking risks by setting boundaries, refusing to fix every conflict, and allowing relationships to survive without constant appeasement. This experimental, dare‑devil approach is described as a pathway to new safety, greater self‑respect, and the attraction of authentic, equal‑effort relationships. The conversation repeatedly reinforces the importance of compassionate self‑acceptance, boundary‑setting, and the paradox that embracing vulnerability can draw more genuine connections. The video concludes with a call‑to‑action for viewers to reflect on which relationships are based on love versus people‑pleasing, and an invitation to a virtual retreat for deeper coaching.
Questions this video answers
mhvirtualretreat.com
November 11–13 (as announced near the end of the video)
Chapters
I want to know who in my life is here because I always please them and who in my life is here because they love me.
Well, we put a post out on Instagram, would you call yourself a people pleaser? And we asked them to leave a comment below and describe how that shows up in their lives. If they relate to that statement.
I love it.
Stephanie says it sometimes shows up as being inauthentic with how I actually feel and in order to make everyone around me feel comfortable and content. But it doesn't do any favors on my self worth and inner connection. And somebody called Sarah made a very similar point which I'm going to read out because I feel like, you know, we can answer both of them at the same time. Sarah says it stops me from being honest and sharing my true thoughts and feelings due to the feeling that I will disappoint people or, or cause conflict.
Yeah, I can relate to both of those. Almost. Part of me is like, I don't want to create a bad thing for everyone or create a problem or have someone think, oh no, Steve's upset. You know, because I think in a way it's like, I'll feel bad that I've made them feel bad. I would argue, Steven, correct me if I'm wrong, but I would argue that that's a. It's. I don't want to upset people because I don't like how it makes me feel when other people are upset. Right, Right. So then there's like a. It's worth almost assessing our relationship with other people being upset and where does it come from? Why? Why does it upset me or why does it distress me when other people are upset? Is it because. And I think the answers to those questions get really interesting because once you just follow them to their logical conclusions, I actually think you arrive in much more. A much more empowering place. The problem is we don't follow them to their logical conclusions in the right way. So if you say, I'm afraid someone's going to be upset with me because they'll no longer love me, then you can follow that to its logical conclusion and go, well, if me disagreeing with someone means they don't love me anymore, then that relationship isn't nearly as valuable as I think it is in the first place. And if it's not nearly as valuable as I think it is, then I, I'm. My upset is misplaced. Or we come to the conclusion that, oh no, this relationship is robust and this person can be upset with me and we make up. In fact, we have. They have been upset with me before and we make up. Or we could follow the logical conclusion that if they're upset, it's because they're learning a hard truth about themselves. But learning a hard truth about themselves actually is the thing that's going to allow them to improve. Anytime I've ever had to learn a hard truth about myself, it's given me a genuine opportunity to grow and improve. But when people around me who love me deny me a hard truth about myself because they don't want to hurt my feelings, they're actually denying me the opportunity to grow. So that conflict actually is a form of kindness in helping that other person to grow. I think what happens though, is if we have learned at certain points in our lives that being around someone and pointing something out just does more harm than good, if we have learned that all it does is make our lives more difficult and that that person doesn't change and maybe just puts it back on us and nothing shifts, then we begin to think we don't have any power in the situation and that anything we do is only going to make our lives worse, not better. And I think when we learn that lesson around certain key people, then we develop that instinct to either mold myself to the situation to keep the peace, or, or just remove myself so that I can keep my peace while not having to stay in the situation, which makes it impossible for me to stay unruffled.
I think it's super important to note where people pleasing comes from for the most part. And I was in a session recently with somebody who really, really suffers from the fact that she's a people pleaser and as a result doesn't have a lot of boundaries and doesn't know how to say no and stand her ground. And, you know, it was really clear from speaking with her that it came from. It was a behavior learned from childhood that had kept her safe. And people pleasing tends to come from childhood, teenage years, traumatic events where we have learned that if we make sure that we are agreeable and pandering to people around us, we will feel safe and loved and accepted. We can feel resentful of people pleasing, but it's really important to remember that it, it is, for the most part, it tends to be a behavior that's, that's, you know, we've learned along the way to keep ourselves safe. So trying to unlearn it, we have to be a bit compassionate with ourselves for how difficult that is because it's really counterintuitive to our survival. We, when we're trying to do something like that.
I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I sense that I agree. I want everyone to know that I agree. And I think, Audrey, it's always important that you know, you, you always come in with this preternatural, beautiful compassion that is the basis of self acceptance and grace and understanding why we are the way we are and to not blame ourselves for that. It's really important because if you're coming, if you're starting anything from a place of incredible, of huge amounts of blame, then it's hard to even do the things that would lift you out of that situation because you're taking all of your energy and directing it at self hatred and self loathing instead of moving forward. So the that realization and that compassion for what may have contributed to you being this way in life is essential to the self acceptance that provides the foundation for growth. I do, however, good way of saying but I do however feel it's extremely important that in Jurassic Park Dr. Hammond says, I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them. Now I always found that line really interesting because we don't and shouldn't have to sit here constantly blaming ourselves for things. It's not productive. But in a sense, unfortunately, we do all have to pay the price for the things that we do, for the behaviors that we have. No one can argue that's not true. We all pay the price for the way that we are. If you're a people pleaser, regardless of whether it's your, you were the original one to blame for why you're a people pleaser. You're the one who's paying the price through all of the consequences in your life that you're experiencing right now. You're not getting promoted, you're not getting the recognition that you deserve. You're not getting treated the way that you should be in your relationship. You're not getting respect from people. People aren't changing around you in appropriate ways. When they do things wrong, they're not apologizing. All of these things are the price that we pay for this behavior that we've at some point adopted. So if we're the ones paying the price, we better be the ones to take ownership for changing it, because no one else is going to. Why would anyone else be motivated to own that problem for us? They're not paying the price for it. We are. So we have to own that problem for ourselves and own that responsibility for changing it. And then the next question obviously is well, how do I do that? I've been doing this for so long. This is a hardwired pattern for me that feels so ingrained and so reflexive that it's my go to anytime. I mean, for many people in this situation, and I count myself among them, it's visceral. It's visceral. There's a feeling that you get when there's confrontation, there's a creeps into some part of your body is very recognizable. You know it when you feel it. It feels like an involuntary biological reaction to someone yelling or to something not being quite right in the room or sensing that someone's in need of something. And that's something that we have to break the cycle of consistently for us to start making a new pathway. The, the trouble is to make a new pathway like that requires a kind of leap in the first place. It requires us to do something outside of the well worn groove that we've been doing over and over and over again our whole lives. I think that the phrase that keeps coming up in my mind for this is that you have to at some point decide to live dangerously. And living dangerously is all relative. If you're mad at me, and that makes me deeply uncomfortable and I want to fix it. Living dangerously is me not fixing it. That's living dangerously. Living dangerously is. I'm going to take the risk that this relationship is going to be okay without me fixing this or that I'm going to be okay even if this relationship isn't okay. If I'm in a romantic relationship and I'm a people pleaser who's constantly trying to do everything for my partner because I'm worried they won't love me if I don't do everything for them. And I don't make myself indispensable with acts of service. Living dangerously is risking that you'll still love me if I don't do this for you this week. Now, logically we may know that they'll still be there, but emotionally we don't. And there's a big difference. Emotionally we don't believe that's true. Our trauma tells us that's not true. This person will disappear. Living dangerously is saying, I'm going to take the risk anyway. I'm going to risk that you not liking me right now will continue if I don't do this thing. I'm going to take that leap of faith. And to me, that requires. It requires a jump off a ledge that we're not used to jumping off of. But I have found in my life that these kinds of daredevil experiments reap really interesting rewards and often unexpected rewards. Because when, by the way, you do this and you get the unexpected, someone stays, or God forbid, they actually give you more respect or you lose a relationship and suddenly you feel more peaceful because you lost a relationship that was robbing you of your peace anyway, it starts to give you reference points and those reference points start to actually encourage you to do more of that thing. It becomes this kind of. You almost start to get excited about it because you go, whoa, there's this whole other world out there where I don't do this. And other possibilities occur. And that I found that it becomes an exciting addiction once you actually get used to living dangerously in that way. And when you live dangerously enough in that way, it actually starts to become a new form and a higher quality form of safety.
You know, if you start standing up for yourself and being your true authentic self, you will attract, you will repel and sort of eliminate relationships in your life that are one sided and probably a little bit toxic, actually. I know it's an overused word, but I think that's fair to say.
It's also just important to, to, to say that you'll also be surprised by the relationships that respond.
Well, literally what I was going to say, I was going to say you also, the moment you do that, you become a magnet for people who actually respect your true self and respect that, that self and that person who stands up for themselves and go, oh, I really like this person. This person's got a bit of edge to them. They're not going to let me get away with things because it's human nature, you know, And I think it's such an important point to make regardless of how much of a, an amazing person you are. We are all constantly pushing the boundaries with everyone in our lives all the time. Some people are more or less aware of this, but we're all doing it. And I think that by having strong boundaries, being true to yourself and calling people out or you know, when they're doing something wrong, or speaking up when you're not happy about something and not people pleasing, you do become a magnet for people who respect that authenticity and that truth. And I know that that's something that almost feels counterintuitive. You end up repelling people who just want to walk all over you and have a sort of slave master relationship and an imbalance in your relationship, whether it be friendship or romantic. And you attract people who are looking for a relationship of equals. And I think that's one of the most powerful shifts you can make, but it is really difficult. So I have a lot of. You're gonna laugh, but I do have a lot of compassion for for it.
Here's what I think don't you want to know don't you want to know which relationships in your life are founded on mutual respect and a sense of equality of effort versus the ones that are only using you and only interested in you for as long as you agree with them? Don't you want to know? I want to know. I want to know who in my life is here because I always please them and who in my life is here because they love me. That's worth knowing. It takes guts to want to know that. But I want to know. And the more the irony, the great irony is that the more you are the person who's willing to find out, the more people love you.
So true.
Because they just want to be around someone with that kind of integrity in life and that kind of courage and that kind of confidence. Let me know what you think about this in the comments. Don't forget to like subscribe and hit the notification bell so you don't miss the next video. I also want to tell you that from the 11th to the 3rd 13th of November, I'm running my virtual retreat. If you're listening to this video and you're realizing this is the deeper stuff that I need, I hope you come and join us. The link is mhvirtualretreat.com Come check it out and spend three days of immersive coaching with me and my team. I'll see you over there.
