The Life Of Bryony - The Life of You – Emma Reed Turrell on How She Keeps Her People Pleasing Persona in Check

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

People‑pleasing psychotherapist extraordinaire Emma Reed Turrell is back! In our main episode we talked about why so many of us are terrified of letting people down; now Emma is sharing the three things she personally leans on to keep her own people pleaser in check. We talk about the tiny nudges that help her move from “whatever you like” to “this is what I want”, how she spots the early warning signs in her body, and why the right friendships and family dynamics make all the difference. It’s gentle, honest and weirdly reassuring – like eavesdropping on your therapist’s real life. If you struggle to say no, or slow down, this one’s for you.BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEMy new book, People Pleaser, and Emma’s book, Please Yourself, are both available to buy now.WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram.If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xxCREDITS:Host: Bryony GordonGuest: Emma Reed TurrellProducer: Laura Elwood-CraigAssistant Producer: Tippi WillardStudio Manager: Mitchell LiasEditor: Rowan JacobsExec Producer: Jamie East  A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, lovelies, and welcome to the bonus edition of The Life of Briney. Today, Emma Reid Turrell is back to share what she leans on to make sure her own needs are met, the small, gentle nudges that help her move from whatever you like to this is what I want. For me, I am not going to seek social interaction if my people pleaser is kicking off, because the chances are I've overpressed, I'm already about to under-deliver, I'm spread thinly and I can't take on anymore. My chat with Emma coming up right after this. Marie Turrell, welcome back to the life of you.

It's all about that last episode, that main episode, I did make it all about me. I've made it about you. Which the people, that's such a thing I would say as a people pleaser, isn't it? I don't mean to make it all about me. And then you did anyway, you see. Yeah, you see. But isn't that, what are the other phrases that we say, which are like, that you hear as a therapist? Oh, my God, that's it.

There's so many, isn't there? There's just all of them that say start with kind of like, I'm sorry, but. Or would it, I don't know if this is me or I might have got this wrong. Yeah. Am I making sense? Does that make sense? Sorry, I just, forget it, ignore me. You do it.

Also, the other one I really love so much that I actually bought a cushion with it on because I saw it the other day. an outfit is no worries if not. Oh, you're so right. I've got one that says, please leave by nine. I need that as well. Please leave by nine massive worries if you don't. Yes. Which worries?

Okay, so, right, Emma, as a psychotherapist and the host of the Dalemma podcast, an author of many, many different books about just being a better person generally. What would be your first. non-negotiable for keeping the people-pleaser at bay? The first is going to be my body. Your body? My body. It's a useful thing to have?

It's handy. It's generally available. So it is my body that now tells me first if I've strayed into territory that is too much people-pleasing. Oh, wow. And how does it do that? Lots of different ways. And our bodies will do it in different ways as well as individuals.

so I'm going to encourage you to tune in. But for me, I will get cross. And I get cross because I've started saying yes to things I didn't mean to say yes to. And what I notice is I get a fizzy feeling. When I'm working with clients, I'll say, don't worry about giving it a name. What's the texture? What's the colour? If it had a flavour, what temperature is it?

For me, I get this cold, fizzy feeling across my forehead. And that is my body telling me, you have. started to dissociate. And I start to dissociate when I'm giving away too much because it's my numbing out. Wow. So my body keeps me grounded. I'll also use my body to keep me grounded. So if I notice that, the second thing that keeps me really grounded body-wise is moving a lot more slowly. Really? One of the things our nervous system really likes is if we just slow down. So if I started to notice my fizzy feeling. Maybe there are other symptoms that I'll get.

I'll get a kind of a racing mind at night. That's not very original, but we get it. I might start to get a kind of prickly sensation, just something like I'm wearing something that doesn't quite work. I'll become more aware of my waistband or my socks. I start to feel constricted. If I notice those sensations, I'll start to move more slowly. I'll make a cup of tea, but it won't be that I dash in and I dash in.

You said in the last episode that we recorded, I popped into Sainsbury's. You also dropped in that you'd run a 10K. That idea that we can just do both, and it's a popping in, a popping out. Dashed in. Yeah. We are not accounting for the toll on our body. So to slow right down, to make taking a cup of tea, take 15 minutes, to make walking across

your kitchen twice as slow as it would ordinarily be, these are the things that actually just tell your body that you're safe. When I'm safe, I can start thinking clearly, when I can start thinking clearly I can get my people pleaser back in checks. I'm going to say body. Okay. That's a really good one. And just working out what your tell is. Do you know what yours is?

I do, yeah. It's definitely a kind of breath thing for me. And I have... That one. Yeah, there's that. But I also have an arrhythmia, which I unfortunately have. And I find it's manageable. But I definitely...

I mean, my heart literally goes into atrial fibrillation when I'm in a state. Yeah. And it's like, wow, like you could not have a more telling tell than your heart beating irregularly. Yeah. Yeah. It's okay now, though. Is it? Yeah, I'm not in atrial fibrillation.

But I go a bit dizzy and all of that. And I remember when I got diagnosed with that arrhythmia and they did all the investigations, because obviously it's quite serious and it has implications. And they said it's idiopathic by which they mean they had no idea. There was no structural reason I have it. And I have, this was three years ago and I do think that it is my body's in that sort of very body keeps the swarthing way of saying to me, Brian E. Yeah.

Slow down. Slow down. Yeah. And quite literally slow down. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I'll walk to Sainsbury's, actually slow down. I'll walk 10K. Yeah.

Yeah, I still struggle with that, though. I mean, I still struggle with slowing down. And that in itself is okay, right? It's like, it's, again, not to beat ourselves up. No. Because we're not doing life perfectly. Exactly that. And if you can slow down, even if you slow down for one minute,

it's going to have a bigger impact on you than trying to slow your whole. life down. So for anyone listening now, whatever you do next, just make it last twice as long as it would do ordinarily. Just let that be that you wash up and you don't rush, that you fill the cart up with petrol and you don't rush, that you check your email, just don't rush, see what happens if you just do a real micro reset by slowing a unit of time down. Okay. Number two. I'm going to say my best friend. Your best friend.

My best friend is absolutely an energy source that will keep my people pleaser in check. Your best friend, I know your best friend. Your best friend is Elizabeth Day. She is lovely. She is Elizabeth Day. Host of How to Fail. Yes. General all-round superhuman.

I've known Elizabeth for very long, not as long as you, because you went to university together, didn't you? But we worked together 20 years ago. She's been kicking around for years. God, we all have. And so that friendship, friendship is so important, isn't it? Exactly. I think that's the thing. So for me, I am not going to seek social interaction if my people pleaser is kicking off.

Because the chances are I've overpressed. I'm already about to under deliver. I'm spread thinly and I can't take on anymore. What I do need is someone to hear me, catch me, hold that space. And she has this incredible way of saying, not no worries if not. But if I have said, I don't know if I can come to insert a event I've said I'd come to. She will say, I don't want you there. I don't want you there.

You've already told me you've got too much on your plate. You've told me you're spread really thinly and that you're feeling stressed. I don't want you there. And the permission I get from that, whether I then show up or not, I'm allowed. But there's something incredible about the way she'll even say on the day, just like text me an hour before and let me know if you still want to. What a good friend. What a good friend.

So unique. I've never met anyone quite like it. I do have a couple of friends in recovery who are like that. Because I do find like you, and we've had this conversation before, that going out in the evening is a, is a, you know, it takes it out, you know, leaf by nine o'clock, all of that kind of thing. And I do, and I always feel guilty, you know, and people, I do have a couple of friends who'll say, I'm doing this thing in the evening. I'm going to ask you that I don't expect you to come.

Exactly. And that is like such a lovely acknowledgement and acceptance of you as you are. Yeah. You know, this is who you are. I say that quite often to people, you know, when people say, oh, I just really want to see. you, and I'll say, well, this is me. Me is someone who doesn't go out. Yeah, you're going to have to come around.

So do you want to see me? Because I think you want to see a version of me that you wish I was. But I'm not. I'm not someone who wants to do that. So to have a best friend who not only says, don't come or make your mind up an hour before or I'll quite often go to something and then just stay an hour and leave. Yeah. When we get together, we'll just watch Merritt at first night on the sofa and there'll be no

conversation apart from, you know, whatever some nonti's doing. And that for me is anti-people pleasing. Yeah. In a really people-pleasery way, I'm going to say, do you have space for a third in this friendship wheel? A hundred percent. There is, this is an open invitation. There is come and watch math sweet. Always space on the math sofa. Always. So your body, your best friend, what's number three? kids. Kids. Because they motivate me. So I could probably see this lifetime out as a people pleaser, but I do not want that for them. And so it's really important to me that if my people pleaser starts to kick in, I remember that there is a reason why I'm putting myself through the agony

of saying no to things, friends, work, social situations, because I want for my children to know that I practice what I preach and that they can trust me when I say you can have a boundary. So you're modelling the behaviour. I have to. Also as a parent, I was wondering if there are any parents listening who the people pleasing has reached such a level that they feel incapable of, I guess, getting things wrong in their parenting. I think that is often, that is a way that people pleases are born, is that we, see parents trying to be perfect.

Yeah. And, you know, don't be upset. Don't be angry. You know, everything is very, actually, it's really healthy for kids to see their parents admit that they get things wrong. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

And take ownership of that, isn't it? Completely. It broke my heart in my recent years when my mother said that she realized that an argument we'd had when I was 14 years old was something that she'd handled badly. And it broke my heart because I thought, I wish I'd known that sooner, because I've carried with me the idea that I was wrong and I was the problem. And she had been able to find a space of understanding, probably later that day, that that was an argument handled badly by another human figuring it out as she went along. And so I really want to make sure that my kids get those words promptly. I don't want them to have to find out 30 years later

that there were things that I knew I was getting wrong. And when we get things wrong, which we will, right? So here's the other thing, and with people pleasing, is that we over-apologise. How do we take accountability for things without taking so much accountability that we are going back into people-pleasing, basically. Yeah, that's tricky, isn't it?

I think it's that, you know, I'll refer you to our first episode. When we talked about the idea of we see this differently, and I'm okay with that. Yeah. So I don't need to apologise to you until you submit to my apology. I actually can apologise for what feels like mine and let you be responsible for you. your response. Right. Okay. And also I wonder whether as people pleases, we have inadvertently

surrounded ourselves by people who appreciate what we do to please them. And perhaps if there were other people in our lives who were fresh to the non-people pleasing party, we would find that they accept our apology much more quickly. I have found that. The new people in my life post-people-pleasing if I say I'm sorry, they say totally okay. But some of the previous people might have pouted or sulked or pushed back and led me into that over-apologising. So there's something co-created that I think we need to watch. Wow.

This is literally going to change our lives. This conversation is going to change our friendship groups. We are all going to be cuddled on that sofa with you and Elizabeth Day. Yes. watching maths. Not talking. Not talking. If you are up for that friendship group, none of us are going to be people pleases. We don't have to go out in the evening. No. We don't have to do anything we don't want to. Apart from Leave by nine. Leave by nine. Please send us a message at at Life

Briny Pod. Emery Turrell, you are amazing. And I'm not people pleasing when I say that. That is just a general, genuine fact. Thank you so much for being on the life of you. Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me. And there you have it. Emma's go-to practices for staying connected to who she is, not just who other people need her to be. If any of these sparked ideas for your own boundaries, then let me know on Instagram at at Life of Briny Pod. You can also leave us a review or hit follow. It makes such a difference. But most importantly, look our to yourself, speak to yourself as kindly as you do everyone else, and I'll see you on Monday.