People Pleasing and Self-Abandonment: The Cost of Always Being "Good"

People pleasing and self-abandonment often begin with the pressure to be "good." Learn how compliance disconnects you from your authentic self, joy, and inner truth.

For much of our lives, the highest praise we can receive is that we are "good." A good child, a good partner, a good friend, a good worker.

But if we look closely, what does "being good" actually mean?

In most cases, it has nothing to do with deep moral integrity. It is simply a code word for being agreeable, compliant, and convenient. It means we don't rock the boat, we don't ask for too much, and we prioritize the comfort of others over our own truth.

When we spend our lives trying to be "good" according to someone else's rulebook, we essentially trap ourselves in an invisible cage. We contort our personalities, our desires, and our boundaries to fit a mold that we never chose.

The parts of you left in the shadows

To stay perfectly within the lines of "goodness," we have to leave parts of ourselves behind.

The template of the "good person" rarely has room for the parts of us that are messy, loud, purely joyful, boundary-setting, or fiercely passionate. It tells us that our healthy anger is "too aggressive," that our desire for pleasure is "selfish," and that our need for rest is "lazy."

So, we exile those pieces of ourselves to the shadows. We learn to perform a curated version of who we are, hoping it will guarantee our safety and belonging. But this performance takes an enormous amount of energetic toll.

Why "being good" blocks your joy

This is why we can be doing everything "right" in life and still feel a lingering sense of numbness, exhaustion, or low-grade dissatisfaction.

You cannot selectively numb your experience. When you suppress the parts of you deemed "unacceptable" by outside programming, you simultaneously suppress your capacity for deep joy, expansiveness, and freedom.

Joy requires your whole self to be present. It thrives on authenticity, not people pleasing and not compliance. True, vibrating, embodied joy cannot exist in a cage of "shoulds" and "supposed-tos." It needs the wild, unfiltered parts of you that you have been taught to shrink.

Redefining your inner compass

True liberation begins the moment we change the question that guides our lives.

Instead of asking, "Is this good? Will they approve of this?" we turn inward and ask your body: "Is this true? Does this feel alive? Does this belong to my authentic self?"

Giving up the performance of "being good" is a courageous act of rebellion. It means you might occasionally disappoint others' expectations, but in return, you finally stop disappointing yourself and self-abandonment.

You possess a vast, beautiful spectrum of human experience waiting to be lived. You deserve to experience all the facets of who you are. Letting go of the script of "being good" is the only way to claim the profound, unapologetic freedom of being real.

• To reflect on today: Where in your life are you currently settling for "being good" instead of being real? What is one small way you could prioritize your own truth over someone else's comfort today?

Catalina Uribe-Kling, LMFT

Invitation: If this resonates with you and you would like support, I offer a free 15-minute consultation. Email me at catalinauribekling@gmail.com or call/text (415) 580-0463 to schedule it.

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