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Part 4: Enrich Yourself shows how breaking the people-pleasing pattern will make your life better. You'll learn how to stop playing small in your relationships with others; how to eradicate people-pleasing from your sex life; how to reconnect with play; how to approach your healing with nuance and discernment; and how to discover the joys of giving from a genuine and self-respecting place.

When I began writing this book, I knew I wanted it to expand the conversation about people-pleasing in two key ways: by offering nuance and acknowledging the inevitable growing pains of this important healing work.

As concepts like people-pleasing and self-care become more mainstream, complex ideas like boundaries are often diluted in ways that ultimately discourage us from building healthy relationships. We're told that if someone doesn't bring us "love and light at all times," we should "cut them out." We're told that if someone disagrees with us, we should leave them behind to "protect our peace." We're told that if someone can't meet every single one of our needs, we "deserve better."

These one-dimensional platitudes ignore the reality that human relationships are complicated. They impede our healing by encouraging us to seek an unattainable standard, and they prevent us from looking inward to assess how 'we' may be contributing to our own unhappiness or disempowerment.

That's why Stop People Pleasing incorporates nuance to help you break the people-pleasing pattern while also encouraging sustainable and realistic relationships. This book takes seriously questions such as: What is the difference between kindness and people-pleasing? How can we have self-compassion for the painful circumstances that led to our people-pleasing while also taking personal responsibility for breaking the pattern? When is it appropriate to compromise on our needs, and when is it appropriate to hold firm to them? And how can we distinguish between when other people are violating our boundaries and when we're violating our own boundaries by giving more than we're comfortable giving? 

I believe this nuance is where our true healing lies. By the same token, I believe that we must speak to the emotional nuances of healing: the fact that this inner work is not only empowering and freeing, but also difficult and, at times, deeply uncomfortable. As we break the people-pleasing pattern, we often feel afraid to make requests of others, no matter how reasonable those requests are. We often feel guilty after setting boundaries, no matter how necessary those boundaries may be. We often feel grief when we leave behind toxic relationships, no matter how harmful they were to us.

It's not only normal, but inevitable, that we face these growing pains as we leave people-pleasing behind. If we don't acknowledge them, we can't soothe ourselves through them—and if we don't soothe ourselves through them, we're more likely to renege on our boundaries and retreat, once again, into silence. For this reason, Stop People Pleasing offers practical tools for normalizing, and self-soothing through, guilt, fear, anger, uncertainty, and grief as we step into our power.

*  *  *

Remember that years-ago version of me who stood on that busy Boston street, who listened to that man at the bar, who went on that godawful series of soul-crushing dates?

She would have never, in a million years, believed that, one day, I would be sitting here, typing this introduction on my laptop, really, truly feeling like I've left people-pleasing behind.

Ridiculous, she would have said. Impossible.

But it is possible. I've witnessed it within myself; I've witnessed it from hundreds of my clients; I've witnessed it from thousands of individuals worldwide who have taken the time to email me and say, "I never thought I could do this, but I did."

This healing isn't a one-time event; it is a process of rededicating ourselves 'to' ourselves, over and over again. Every time we redirect our attention back to our feelings, our desires, and our dreams, we are healing. Every time we soothe ourselves through our guilt instead of reacting to it, we are healing. Every time we use our voice where we would have once stayed silent, we are healing.

I owe my thanks to the hundreds of recovering people-pleasers who gave me permission to include their personal stories in this book. While names, ages, and other identifying information have been changed to preserve their privacy, the vignettes you'll read are real stories from real people around the world.

I hope that Stop People Pleasing serves as your companion, support, and cheerleader as you break the people-pleasing pattern. This work is not easy, but I can assure you: it is worth it a hundred times over.

—Hailey Magee, Seattle, WA