10: People Pleasing and the Guilt of Choosing Yourself | A Session with Jessica

"You are not disappearing when you choose yourself. You are finally showing up."

-Anat Peri

In this episode of The Way Back to You, Anat guides Jessica, a new mom who gives everything to everyone and cannot find herself anywhere on her own list. Jessica already knows she is a people pleaser. What she does not yet see is why choosing herself sets off a wave of guilt she cannot think her way out of. Anat traces the pattern back to where it began, the comparison and the never good enough that shaped it, and then does the part most conversations never reach. Together they move it, in real time, in the body, and you get to hear a lifetime of guilt release in about ninety seconds. Anat unpacks why you cannot think your way out of a pattern that lives in your nervous system, what it really means to cut the cord without abandoning the people you love, and how to feel a hard emotion all the way through instead of carrying it for years.

Takeaways

• Why you cannot think your way out of people pleasing, and what actually shifts it
• The hidden script running underneath the guilt: your needs come last
• How childhood comparison quietly becomes "I am never good enough"
• What cutting the cord really means, and why it is not abandoning the people you love
• The two bodyguards we use to avoid a feeling, and how to catch yours
• The practice that moved a lifetime of guilt in ninety seconds: regulate, name it, let it move

Your practice this week

This episode asks you to stop running from the guilt that rises when you choose yourself, and to feel it all the way through instead. Cultivating Safety is my free guided breathwork and somatic practice to help your nervous system settle enough to do exactly that.

→ Cultivating Safety: Guided Breathwork & Somatic Practice

Want to be coached on the show, like Jessica?

The application takes a few minutes, and I read every one.

→ Apply to be coached on the show

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