People-pleasing, unspoken grief, and finding your way back to yourself

Many people come to counselling because they feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or emotionally stuck – even though they struggle to explain why.

On the outside, life often looks fine. They’re capable, caring, and dependable. They manage work, relationships, and responsibilities. Other people rely on them. They’re often described as “strong”, “kind”, or “easy to be around”.

But underneath, there’s often a quieter experience. A sense of disconnection from themselves. A feeling of always being slightly on edge. A tiredness that rest doesn’t quite touch.

This is often the starting point for our work.

When people-pleasing once kept you safe

People-pleasing is often misunderstood as a personality trait or a lack of confidence. In reality, it’s usually a learned response.

For many people, being agreeable, emotionally careful, or highly attuned to others developed early in life – often as a way to stay connected with a parent or caregiver, avoid conflict, or reduce emotional risk. Your nervous system learned what worked, and it kept using it.

You may have heard of fight or flight, and perhaps freeze too. There’s another, less talked about stress response known as the fawn response. This is what we’re referring to here.

When fighting or running away didn’t feel possible, and doing nothing wasn’t safe, the nervous system learned a different strategy: moving towards the threat. By being pleasing, compliant, or emotionally attuned, the hope was that the threat would lessen – that approval or harmony would keep you safe from rejection, anger, or withdrawal.

At the time, this adaptation made sense. It helped keep things calm. It supported belonging. It protected relationships that mattered.

The difficulty is that what once helped you cope can later become quietly exhausting.

You might notice that you struggle to know what you want, feel responsible for other people’s feelings, or find boundaries uncomfortable or guilt-inducing. You may feel resentful, flat, or emotionally overwhelmed without knowing why. These experiences aren’t signs that something is wrong with you. They’re signs that your system is still operating from an old set of rules.

The link between people-pleasing and unspoken grief

For some people, people-pleasing patterns are closely connected to grief – particularly grief that happened early, quietly, or without enough support.

Not all loss looks like bereavement as we typically imagine it. Some losses happen before we have language for them. Some are minimised, rushed, or never fully acknowledged. Others involve losing a sense of safety, consistency, or emotional attunement rather than losing a person.

When grief isn’t held at the time, it doesn’t disappear. It adapts.

It may show up later as emotional self-reliance, people-pleasing, difficulty asking for help, or a need to stay in control. Often, the body learns that relying on others feels risky, so it learns to manage alone.

This kind of grief is easy to dismiss. Many people tell themselves that nothing “bad enough” happened, that they should be over it, or that others had it worse. But grief isn’t a competition. If an experience shaped how you learned to be in the world, it matters.

Emotions that learned to stay hidden

In environments where harmony, calm, or coping were prioritised, certain emotions often felt unsafe – particularly anger.

Anger is frequently misunderstood, but it isn’t a failure of regulation. More often, it’s information. It tells us when something isn’t right, when a boundary has been crossed, or when a need hasn’t been met.

When anger wasn’t welcome, many people learned to swallow it. Over time, it can reappear as anxiety, guilt, resentment, or emotional numbness instead. If you don’t feel angry, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It may simply have learned to go underground.

Therapy isn’t about unleashing emotion or losing control. It’s about creating enough safety for feelings to be noticed, understood, and gently integrated – at a pace that feels manageable.

Therapy as a return, not a repair

The aim of counselling isn’t to fix you or turn you into someone new. Often, it’s less about repair and more about return.

Therapy can help you understand why you adapted the way you did, what your nervous system learned about safety, and how some long-standing patterns might be softened now that they’re no longer needed in the same way.

This work is subtle. It isn’t about dramatic breakthroughs. It’s about slowing down, listening differently, and allowing your system to stop performing quite so hard.

Over time, people often describe feeling more choice rather than obligation, more connection to their own needs, and less urgency to manage everything. There’s often a quiet sense of coming back to themselves – not by forcing change, but by understanding what’s been carrying the load all along.

If any of this resonates, it doesn’t mean you’re broken.It means you adapted.

And adaptation can be honoured, understood, and gently re-negotiated.

A gentle next step

If you recognise yourself in this, you don’t need to have everything figured out before seeking support. Counselling can offer a calm, compassionate space to slow things down, explore long-held patterns, and begin relating to yourself with more ease.

I offer counselling in Wickham, Hampshire, alongside online and walk-and-talk therapy in a natural outdoor setting. If you’re curious about working together, you’re welcome to explore the website or get in touch when it feels right.

There’s no pressure – just an open invitation to begin where you are.