Hi! I'm Erin and I want to help you get deeper than you have with talk therapy in the past...
. . . so you can actually shake out of the patterns that are keeping you stuck
. . . feel less anxious in your body
. . . and finally say what you want and need without worrying about disappointing your people
People Pleasing
is layered
It's hard to set boundaries if you're:
-
Not sure what you want and need
-
In survival mode (do freeze, fawn, and dissociation sound familiar?)
-
Used to being the peacemaker and taking care of everyone else
-
Surrounded by other people who either rely on you being a peacemaker, or who are also peacemakers themselves
Why Talk Therapy Alone Hasn't Fixed It
Too many therapists don't acknowledge this, but understanding why you people-please doesn't automatically stop you from doing it.
You can have years of insight — you know it started in childhood, you know it's connected to that relationship, you know it's not "really" about the dinner reservation you let your partner choose again — and still feel totally frozen when it's actually time to speak up. Your brain gets it. Your body hasn't gotten the memo, which is totally understandable given that you're a human and this nervous system shit is complicated.
People-pleasing — especially the deep, chronic kind — is stored in your body as a survival strategy. Fawning, freezing, shrinking, over-explaining: these aren't bad habits you can logic your way out of. They're your nervous system doing what it learned to do to keep you safe, usually a long time ago, in a context where being inconvenient, or too much, or just honest had real consequences.
Somatic therapy works differently than traditional talk therapy because it works with your body, not just your story about your body. Using Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, we slow down and pay attention to what happens physically when you're about to say something real — the tightening in your chest, the way your breath goes shallow, the urge to smile when you're actually frustrated is your nervous system flagging danger. All of that is information.
Over time, we help your body orient to the safety you have today, so that it feels possible to do things differently.
Who This Is Actually For
You're probably a good candidate for this work if you've been described — favorably or not — as "so easy to be around." If you're the person who can read a room in seconds and adjust accordingly. If conflict feels less like an inconvenience and more like a full-body emergency.
This work is especially for you if your people-pleasing is tangled up with identity. If you're someone whose needs, values, or existence have been dismissed, invalidated, or flat-out ignored — by family, by systems, by past therapists — and you've learned to make yourself smaller to avoid that happening again.
You don't have to come in already knowing what you need or what you want to change. Most people I work with have spent so long managing everyone else's experience that they've genuinely lost track of their own.
You don't need another vent session.
You've tried to figure this all out on your own or with a different therapist
When I talk about "emotional jet lag" (when your body and your brain feel like they're in different timezones), you know what I mean
Life is kinda telling you "stop putting this off"
You've checked out my vibes and you feel excited about working with me
