Ep. 32 Why Can't I Just Say No (Breaking the People Pleasing Pattern)

Have you ever said yes to something and felt your whole body go "ugh" the second the words left your mouth? That's people-pleasing, and if you've spent your life calling yourself "a people pleaser," I want to push back on that a little. It's not who you are — it's a pattern in your body, and patterns can shift.

In this episode, I'm telling the story of two piano teachers, a pencil taped under my hand for "proper technique," and years of lessons I kept taking long after I'd earned the credit I actually needed — because even once the choice was genuinely mine, I still needed an excuse to take it. That excuse wasn't really for me. It was for anyone who might have asked why I stopped.

I break down what people-pleasing actually is underneath the fear everyone already talks about — fear of conflict, of disappointing someone, of being too much or not enough. But I go a layer deeper than that: people-pleasing is a self-protection strategy, not selflessness. It's not really about the other person at all. It's about whether you're safe, and whether you're still seen as good, even in the moments you don't feel good, or easy, or generous.

Underneath that self-protection is something I think gets missed even more: shame. Not "she'll be disappointed in me tonight," but "if she's disappointed in me, that means something is actually wrong with me." That's the belief that turns one uncomfortable yes into an entire way of moving through the world.

I also talk about where this actually starts — not just in your own childhood, but sometimes generations before you. If your mother, or her mother, never got to say no without real consequences, that gets passed down. This isn't just my story. Some version of it is probably every woman's story.

What you'll learn about people-pleasing in this episode:

• Why people-pleasing is a fear response, not a personality trait
• The self-protection strategy hiding underneath "being nice"
• Why shame — not just fear — is what makes the pattern impossible to stop at just one yes
• How people-pleasing can pass down through generations of women in a family
• A concrete way to notice the moment right before you say yes when you mean no

This is exactly the kind of pattern I work through with women inside my Intuitive Circle — pulling apart, live, where a yes actually came from in your body before you agreed to it. The Circle's on a summer pause right now, but the waitlist is open at lesleyturner.ca/theintuitivecircle for first access when it reopens in September.

If this episode named something you've felt but couldn't put words to, subscribe, leave a review, and send it to the woman in your life who needs to hear it. You know exactly who I'm talking about.

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Transcript

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There was a pencil under my hand every week. My first piano teacher put it there so my wrist wouldn't collapse. Proper technique. Every time my hand dropped, even a little, it dug in, which is a riveting way to spend a Tuesday. Those lessons happened right at school. I'd be pulled out of class to go do them, and I'd stare at the sheet music, not really seeing it, just doing the mental math on how many minutes were left in this lesson. I didn't hate piano for the record. I want to be clear about that, because this isn't a story about a kid who hated an instrument. I just, I didn't like that first teacher. And honestly, I didn't like the second one either. My mom would drive me to her house most weeks. And this teacher would get so worked up if I hadn't practiced enough that week that she'd actually yell at me, a nine-year-old over scales. I kept going anyway for years until I'd earned my grade eight piano and grade two theory, which was enough for a high school credit. Once that was done, the choice to keep going or stop was actually mine. Nobody was making me continue anymore. I was headed off to university that fall, somewhere that I probably wouldn't have a piano within reach. So that's the reason I gave myself for stopping. Not I don't want to do this anymore, just, well, I won't have access anyway. That excuse wasn't really for me. It was for anyone who might have asked. My parents, the teacher, whoever. I needed a reason that would hold up if someone questioned it because I don't want to anymore, has never quite felt like a good enough reason on its own. Even when I was the only person left who needed convincing, I stopped playing piano entirely. Not just playing less, but actually stopped. And I haven't touched a piano since, which is strange because this was a skill I supposedly enjoyed. I think it's because I never actually let myself choose it. Even at that one moment that I finally could have chosen it out loud for no reason other than being what I wanted to do. And this is what people pleasing actually looks like from the inside, not the version everyone pictures, the being extra nice, always saying yes with a smile. It's obligations so deep you can't tell anymore where it ends, and you actually begin. You're listening to the emotional truth, somatic healing and nervous system regulation for the midlife woman who's done everything right and still feels stuck. I'm Leslie Turner, somatic practitioner and intuitive coach. I work in the body, and I have a pretty uncanny ability to see what's actually running underneath. The stuff that therapy touched but never quite moved. Because understanding why you do something and actually stopping it are two completely different things, and that's exactly where we work. We cover people pleasing, mom burnout, perimenopause, relationships, money, and what it actually costs the woman who's always been the responsible one. Short episodes, real stories, specific enough to stop you in your tracks. Let's get into it. Piano wasn't really piano. It was the same theme over and over again. It was the babysitting jobs I said yes to when I was exhausted because my mom would remind me I could always use the money. Same pattern, different day. Someone else's expectation showed up, and I didn't check in with myself before agreeing to it. I just calculated what would happen if I said no. It was every activity I stayed in past the point of wanting to be there. It was studying hard in university less because I loved the material and more because I couldn't stand the thought of my parents' expectations landing in the garbage. None of that was really me choosing. It was me outsourcing the choosing. Because I thought my mom probably knows better than I do. So I'll do what she wants. I'll please her. Somewhere underneath all of this was a constant calculation. What does she need from me right now? And can I be that? That calculation is fear, plain and simple. Not my preference and not my personality or just being easygoing. Every one of those yeses was my nervous system running a quick risk assessment. What happens if I disappoint her? And then deciding that compliance was safer than finding out. I never got to a point as a kid where I trusted how I actually felt about something enough to let that be the deciding boat. That trust wasn't something anyone helped me to cultivate. Looking back now, as a parent myself, I can see how important self-trust and discernment actually are. But that wasn't what got valued in kids when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. Nobody was raising kids to trust themselves. They were raising kids to obey, to not talk back, to follow the rules without question. The odd time I did say no, there were always consequences. Guilt trips, punishment, having to sit there while mom and dad told me how disappointed so-and-so was that I didn't show up, or just watching that look cross their face. I don't feel like it was never an acceptable reason on its own. I basically had to be sick, genuinely visibly sick to get out of something my parents wanted me to do. And I'll give them this much. If I don't feel like it had actually worked as an excuse, I probably would have used it constantly, because I likely never felt like doing half of what I did. But there's another side of that too. It was never actually my choice to begin with. If no one's ever put this into words for you before, a lot of the reason we people please is out of fear. A yes that comes out of your mouth before you've even asked yourself if you want to, that's a fear of disappointing someone. Rehearsing an apology in your head for something you haven't even done yet, that's a fear of being judged or getting it wrong before you've had a chance to get it right. Walking into a room and clocking everyone else's mood before you've ever noticed your own. That's fear for your own safety. Are they upset? Is it safe for me to be here right now? That stomach drop at the thought of someone being annoyed with you when nothing's actually happened yet. That's fear of the relationship itself, of losing your footing with someone just because they're not thrilled with you in this moment. If any of that sounds familiar, that's a fear response. Your nervous system got very good a long time ago at keeping you safe using exactly that. Now that's the piece most people pleasing content stops at: fear of conflict, fear of disappointing someone, fear of being too much or not enough, and underneath it all, a protection strategy built to keep you safe. Which, if we're honest about this, is kind of selfish. Not selfish in the unkind sense, selfish in the sense that it was never really about the other person to begin with. It's about whether you are safe, whether you're still seen as good, as easy, as someone people want to keep around, even in the moments when you don't feel good or easy or generous at all. People pleasing get sold to us as selflessness. But if you follow it all the way down, it's actually self-protection wearing a very convincing mask. You're not managing her feelings out of love for her. You're managing your own exposure, making sure nobody has a reason to see you as anything other than the version of you your safety got built around. And if any of that is new information for you, please sit with that because it'll change how you experience every yes you didn't mean this week. But if you've already read a book or listened to a podcast about this, none of that is news to you. It's the layer underneath it that I think gets missed. And that layer is shame. Fear, think of fear more as the alarm going off, and shame is the reason you built the alarm system in the first place. Here's what I mean. Say your sister asks you to watch her kids again this weekend, the one weekend you're actually planning to just rest. You say yes anyway, really quickly, before you've even checked in with yourself about it. The fear underneath that yes is simple. If I say no, she'll think I don't care, or she'll be annoyed with me. That's the alarm system. But there's a belief sitting underneath that fear, and that belief is the shame part. It's not just she might be annoyed with me this weekend. It's if she's annoyed with me, that means something is actually wrong with me. I'm selfish, I'm not a good sister, I don't show up for my family. The annoyance stops being just an uncomfortable moment to get through, and it starts feeling like proof of something you were already afraid was true about yourself. That's why it never stops at one yes. If disappointing someone confirms your worst belief about who you are, avoiding that disappointment isn't just this one-time decision anymore. It becomes the whole operating system. You're not just managing this weekend, you're managing whether the proof ever gets to surface at all. And that belief didn't start with your sister or your friend or whoever's asking you for something right now. It usually started a lot earlier with whoever taught you growing up what happens when you disappoint them. And if you follow that back far enough, it usually goes past your own childhood too. Maybe your mother learned the same thing from her mother, who never got to say no without something a lot harsher than guilt tripping happening. There was abuse for a no. So this isn't just my own story. Some version of it is probably every woman's story. And to be clear, I'm not interested in blaming my parents here. They pushed me into things, jobs, lessons, activities, and some of that pushing built real skills and discipline I still use today. That part isn't the problem. The problem was that somewhere in all of that pushing, I decided my own I don't want to didn't count for much. So maybe you never took piano lessons. Maybe this shows up somewhere completely different for you. But I bet it does show up. Maybe it's the friend who texts you to grab coffee, and the second her name pops up on your screen, something in your body goes, Ugh. You don't pause, you don't check in with yourself first, you just say yes fast, because the thought of her feeling brushed off feels worse than the hour you're about to spend somewhere you didn't actually want to be. Or maybe it's smaller than that. It's agreeing to host the holidays again this year, even though you're exhausted just thinking about it. It's telling your team at work, no, it's fine. I got this, when it is very much not fine. It's staying 20 minutes longer at pickup, chatting with the mom you don't even like that much because leaving feels too abrupt. So here's what I want you to ask yourself the next time you catch it happening. What am I afraid will happen if I say no here? Am I afraid of losing this person? Afraid of being talked about? Afraid it means something bad about me if I disappoint them? Sit with that question for a second because the honest answer is rarely really about the coffee or the holiday or the pickup line. It's about what you think not showing up for someone else means about you. People pleasing patterns show up a lot in the women I work with, including inside my intuitive circle membership. That is where we pull these apart live, where we find out where a yes actually came from in the body before you agree to it. The circle is on a summer pause right now, but the wait list is open at Lesleturner.ca slash the intuitive circle if you want first access when it reopens in September. I didn't have one big turning point that helped me stop pleasing. It built up over years, not all at once, until I trusted my own reed on something enough to let it override the fear of letting someone down. The real shift came when I started my own business over, oh, 15 years ago now. Turns out when there's no boss and no parent and it's just you and your own decisions, you find out real quick whether you actually have any internal motivation or whether the whole thing was borrowed. Honestly, mine had been borrowed for a while. So for a while, there I was basically running on other people's disappointment as fuel, which is not a sustainable business model, by the way. What I noticed instead was that the motivation didn't vanish once nobody was left to please. It just changed owners. I stopped working so hard, so a client or a coach or you listening right now wouldn't be let down. I started working hard because I didn't want to let myself down. Same level of effort, completely different reason for showing up. I still couldn't tell you the exact day that that switch flipped. But the self-trust, the intuition, the discernment, the confidence in what my body is feeling and saying is the strongest it's ever been. So this week, I'd love if you sat with this. The next time you catch yourself saying yes when everything in your body is saying no, ask, why am I afraid to say no? Or what you think would be true if you did. That's usually where the real answer is hiding. There is fear, and you could stay with that fear for a little bit, but what is the belief just underneath it? I'm not telling you to go and quit piano or your job or anything else today. I'm telling you to notice the moment before the yes, the split second where you already know what you want right before you override it. That noticing is the whole practice. What you do with it comes after. Now, one more thing before I go. If you've spent your life calling yourself a people pleaser, I want you to push back on that a little. You're not a people pleaser. There's a pattern in your body that learned a long time ago that pleasing kept you safe. That's not your identity. That's something you learned, which means it's something that can shift. Thank you for being here. If you're here and listening, you're already doing this work. We will see you next week. If this episode landed somewhere, don't just let it sit there. That feeling you have right now, that's not a coincidence. That's your nervous system telling you something is ready to move. The Intuitive Circle is my membership where we stop talking about it and actually do something about it. Twice a month, live with me, body-based, real-time, and specific to what's actually running for you. Doors open back up in September, and the wait list is open now at Leslie Turner.ca backslash the intuitive circle. Go put your name on the list. And if this was the episode that made you pull over and think, wait, is she talking about me? Please subscribe, leave a review, and send it to the woman in your life who needs to hear it. You know exactly who I'm talking about. Find me on Instagram at the Leslie Turner. Until next time, the fact that you're here and listening means you're already doing this work.