The Life Of Bryony - The Toxic Trait We’re Told is Good for Us, And How to Kick It to the Curb with Emma Reed Turrell

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

This week I’m joined by psychotherapist and author Emma Reed Turrell, the woman I basically tried to blag a free therapy session from. With my new novel, People Pleaser, out this week, I’ve asked Emma to help me – and you – untangle our chronic urge to keep everyone else happy. Emma specialises in people pleasing: that paralysing fear that someone’s cross with you and that you’ve let the whole world down. Together we dig into why people pleasing is actually a survival response, why it’s not as kind as it looks, and why it might even be selfish not to put yourself first. Emma shares why it’s essential that some people are annoyed with us, how to let others be “wrong” about you, and why co‑regulation (not bubble baths) is what our nervous systems really crave. If you’ve ever lost sleep over a throwaway text, casual email or simple work critique, this episode is for you.BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEMy new book, People Pleaser, is available to pre-order and is out on 23rd April. And Emma’s book, Please Yourself is available to buy now.LINK FOR SPA VOUCHERTo be in with a chance to win a £200 spa voucher to celebrate the release of People Pleaser, enter the competition here.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.

Now, everyone, do you wish that you care less what people think? Are you paralyzed with anxiety that someone's crossed with you and that you're letting people down? If so, you're in the right place. This is the podcast for you and I am the podcast host for you. Today, I have psychotherapist extraordinaire Emma Reid Turrell. She's the host of the Dial Emma podcast, an author of Please yourself. And she's going to tell us, or more specifically me, how to keep people pleasing in check. I think I have a kind of unpopular view, which is actually that I love judgment and I'm all for judgment. Really? Yeah. And sometimes I feel that our anti-judgment era leaves us a little bit open to forgetting that we can be discerning. We can decide whether we

want this person in our space or not. My conversation with Emma coming up right after this. Emma Reed Turrell, welcome to the life of Briany. I'm so thrilled to have you here. That's actually quite believable the way you've just said that. I looked at you and I'm thinking, do you mean it? I do mean it because I feel like I'm about to get a private therapy session. This is like I didn't tell her that this was really what I was up to, which was to get a free. hour-long therapy session with psychotherapist extraordinaire, Emery Tertoral. Now, the reason I'm excited is because, so some listeners may be aware because I haven't stopped going on about it on my social media or anywhere else.

I'm like contractually obliged to wang on about it is that I have written another book. Have you? And yes, I have. Tell me about it. Thank you, Emma. Thank you, Emma. It's called people. Pleaser. Great name. And it's my first novel for grown-ups, which is to say that it's fiction.

It's, most of my books have been non-fiction, even about mental health experiences I've gone through from alcoholism to OCD. But I couldn't write a non-fiction book about people-pleasing and how I'd triumphed and come out the other end of it, because, reader, I have not. I am still a chronic, people pleaser. But I wanted to write about this because I feel like it's something that really affects so many of us and that is coming up more and more. And so I sat down and I wrote a novel about a woman who wakes up one morning, Emma, and she can no longer people please. I know. I've read it. You've read it. I'm pretty brilliant. I'm sort of telling you purposes of telling everyone else. Oh, and by the way, everyone else. If you pre-order, there's a special competition that you can enter

Maybe we'll put the stuff on the, the producers looking at me, like, what is this plug? And where does it come from? It doesn't matter. Keep going. If you pre-order, there's a special pre-order competition where you can win a £200 spive voucher. No. So you can please yourself. Anyway, but it's, yes, so this woman called Olivia Greenwood, she wakes up one morning and she's fresh out of fuchs and she can't people please anymore. So she goes, so she can only tell the truth.

and she sort of goes on strike at home and at work. And it was like writing it was like wish fulfillment. It was like what would happen if I actually behaved like this? Yeah. It was like the only way that I could get, you know, I could explore the extent of my people pleasing was just through this other character. And it was like therapy to me.

However, it wasn't, it's not quite done the trick because I am obviously sitting here now with it coming out in a couple of days and I'm in absolute terror and fear that everyone's going to hate it. And genuinely, just generally, Emma, I'm in constant fear that people are cross with me, that I've let someone down. I mean, I'm mildly irritated with you right now. You're mildly irritated with me. I think that Laura, the producer, is just going, this is a load of shit.

Especially with that plug. Yeah, no one wants this. No one's going to listen to this. sound guy, Mitchell, he's going to be annoyed. Just sack me now. Anyway, so I feel this. And so, but while I was writing this book, I listened to a book by you when I was going out for my runs

called Please Yourself, how to stop people pleasing and transform the way you live. Apparently, yeah. It was like a good, I was trying to, it was my way of researching this character, Not that I really needed to, given that I am her, clearly. But I thought, why don't I ask Emma to come in and talk to me about how to, if not knock people pleasing on the head, then at the very least kind of keep it in check.

Yes. And I feel like you're the woman to do it. Yes, like a sort of antihistamine. That's what I can offer you for your people-pleasing flare-ups. Can anyone, now, if you are still listening, if you haven't switched off, I just hope that hearing that about antihistamine for your people pleasing flare-ups has made you feel giddy and excited. Because actually, Emma, this is a serious issue.

Yes. And it's a serious affliction, I would say, that has serious consequences, doesn't it? 100%. This is it. This is a kind of a way of life that I think has a certain runway. and when you get to the end of it, you fall off. And that's often when people come to me and say, it would turn out that I've been doing something all my life

and not even realising. And it doesn't work anymore. So it's very serious, especially because in this culture that we live in, it's absolutely masquerading as something that looks like being kind or a nice person or easygoing, which is a kind of, you know, cultural gaslight of its own. Well, it's kind of what we're taught,

and it's specifically as young girls, isn't it? Be a good girl. Sugar and spice. Yeah, be considerate. Be nice. Care. Is that caring, isn't it? Yes.

But as you say in Please Yourself, it's not about caring less. It's about learning to care better. Because when people say, put yourself first, I mean, I instinctively go, but that would be selfish. And actually, it's about using up your resources in a way that actually makes you be more, useful to other people in the long run, right? Totally. The thing is that it isn't selfish to put yourself first and it is possibly selfish not to. And that's the bit that drove me to write the book, that sense that actually

fucking hell, I am people pleasing for myself. This is primarily a survival trauma response and it isn't for other people and I'm kidding myself and everyone else. In fact, it's grandiosity if I think that I'm doing this because I'm such a just straight up gal. I'm not. I'm doing it because I can't yet cope with other people being upset with me. And that puts so much pressure on other people to not be upset with me to the point where I could end up forcing them into situations, organising their reactions to be something that they're not and shouldn't be. Just because I can't handle my emotions, that didn't start to. I didn't feel as selfless as I kind of thought it had been.

Yeah. And also what I'm feeling as I'm listening to you talking is, and this is something I've only really realized in the last couple of years I've only really been able to get to grips with is the fact that it is okay for people to be upset with me and annoyed. It's essential. Yeah. And why is that? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, eyes light up like, ooh, why? And why? I think because there's a truth to it, which is that, you know, sometimes we teach disagreeability as a skill in therapy. This is something that's going to help you move further in the world and be more authentic, which is an incredibly overused word now, but also just be someone that people can actually know and connect with. So if you're not willing to let people disagree with you and be upset with you, then you're not willing to have a relationship with them. of any meaning. This just has to be a 2D version in which they're okay with you and you're okay

with them. And that isn't life. I write so much myself now about this idea of why are we all trying to find these positives? Why are we all trying to kind of stay in an area of life that feels safe when the life that we're living won't deliver that. And ultimately, we will be really vulnerable if we've aimed to keep ourselves and everyone else happy. That's not the truth. That's not my truth. Can I ask you something? Because as I'm sitting here, I am in this kind of like paralyzing fear, which I have been for the last 24 hours, about a piece of work I've done, a separate piece of work. And the editor, my editor, not liking it or not, you know, being happy with it. And it literally sometimes, I know this might sound ridiculous to some people listening again, if they're still listening.

But it actually feels, I think for me, that need to please people and to be almost like perfect, like paralyzingly perfect and not get anything wrong. It now almost feels like a kind of physical pain. Yeah. Like what it reminds me of is the earth. I had in the last days of my drinking to pick up a drink. Like I'm just like, this isn't right. It doesn't, it doesn't sit well with me. I know it's not healthy.

But I don't really know what to do with it, you know? And I suppose that's the bit, isn't it? It's like at that point, whether it was going to alcohol or whether it's going to pleasing, we're looking for an escape, some kind of jump off from a feeling that we haven't yet learned to tolerate. And you started to name it, paralyzing fear. I mean, you'd have to be slightly sadistic to want to stay in the space where you're feeling paralyzing fear. That's not much fun. But if we can get past the jump-off point, we probably start to find that a lot of other options open up. So say, take that example. What happens if they don't like it? I mean,

what actually does happen? Is there a reality to what happens if they don't like it? Um, they will ask me to change it. They will ask me to do some edits. They'll give me a constructive feedback that will help me to make it better. Bastards. And what if, what if they do then suggest those changes? Does that mean that you're no good? Yes.

That's actually, you've just got to the heart of it, which is that I'm letting them down and I'm not good. And then I'm not secure in my job. Yeah. Yeah. And then where we go to quite quickly, which is the kind of madness of this, is I'm living in a skip. You know, I'm trying to like, well, how can I make this skip nice for my husband and daughter, you know? And suddenly everything just sort of like spirals. And it is, I can see deeply controlling, but it actually, yeah, it's quite painful.

But even in the skip you were trying to make it nice for your husband and your daughter. Yeah, well, you'd have to, wouldn't you? But you're making it nice for them. It's not even a moment there where you're like, where would I like to put my empty cans? I guess that the way that I'm, I realize this and I know this, is that I'm happy if you're happy. So right now, I'm happy. If you're happy, if Laura the producer is happy, if everyone listening, thinks, oh my God, this podcast is like so life-changing and helpful.

And, you know, I appreciate that that is kind of mad. But I also appreciate that that is kind of how I definitely feel as a woman in her mid-40s, who, you know, in the 80s, the 90s, that was what we were told, you know, do well, get a good great. grades make people happy, you know, don't be sad, don't be upset, don't be difficult. No, don't be difficult. You know, and I think I am aware that it is, it is sometimes I feel like my inability to deal with other people's difficult emotions is incredibly childish of me.

But there is something quite infantile about it. Well, where do you want to go with that? because it's not childish, but it will be childhood. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think it was just a fear of, I definitely, I mean, I think this is the interesting thing as well in your book, is that you taught, and you've touched on this already, which is that people pleasing is actually a kind of trauma response.

Yeah. So we hear about fight, flight, freeze, but what we don't hear about so often in which I kind of explore a bit in, people pleaser, is fawn. Yeah. And it's a way of controlling things so that if I make this person happy, then I suppose the what the households will be, will be happy. We'll be safe. Talks me about children and how this gets kind of rooted into us quite early on and how kids, because I find it so fascinating this notion that kids internalize things and they blame themselves for things

because it's genuinely safer for them to do that than to assume that the parents are not capable of parenting properly. Yeah, correct. Which makes sense, right, because I suppose if we're really little and we're in a world where we've got no power, we've got no agency, we've got no autonomy, and we have to be really honest and acknowledge that the person who is tasked with taking care of us is flawed, that could be terrible. terrifying existentially. I have no options to take care of myself and the person who is taking care of me isn't okay. Well, we are fucked royally. Like this somehow for me to keep going, somehow for me to feel that I can do something here, I'm going to either have to put them in a position where they're on a pedestal and nothing can touch them so they're great and or I'm going to have to find some agency here. So what have I got control over? Well, I've got control over. Well, I've got control over trying harder, being better, being quieter, being smaller.

Being someone who, you know, from a very young age, even as early as six months, can learn to form a smile to organise a facial expression in their caregiver. So this is, so we learn about people pleasing from the get-go before we're even conscious and remember. Absolutely long before we're conscious. In fact, that's probably where it's most set up, long. before we have language, long before we have memory, but we notice if I do X, caregiver comes closer, if I do Y, caregiver moves further away. And that might not be literal. That might be that

sense of this evoked this response from them. And that felt really good in me. You know, we know about oxytocin. We know about mirror neurons. We know how we can generate responses in other people and we create this virtuous relationship that feels good for us. That gets hardwired. Ironically, we then become quite good at it because the more we do it, the better develop that muscle becomes. So we might be given responsibility for other people's reactions. We might find ourselves in situations where we're naturally vigilant. We're really good at absorbing. We can read the room. We can help people feel more comfortable. Well, maybe we now even end up in a career where we do it, where we're doing that and we have a literal

reward structure attached to it. We might find a relationship in which somebody really wants to be pleased. So many of the clients I see who have breakdowns in relationships at some point and they're bringing people pleasing issues, it's because they've trained someone to come to them, to get pleased. And that has a symbiosis that, well, in some relationships probably can last a lifetime, but enter stage left, perimenopause, bereavement, addiction, parenting, redundancy. It's much less likely that you're going to be able to get there with what got you here. I think it's really interesting. You mentioned addiction there because when I really like dig down into all of my big problems in life,

by which I mean alcoholism, drug addiction, eating disorders as well, what was at the heart of them all, the things? that linked them all, I mean, other than me. Oh, yeah. What was that common in a moment? That was, is this need to please? To people please? Or to be happy myself, you know?

It's this inability to deal with difficult emotions. And that would be why I drank. That would be why I took drugs. There was also, if I think about eating disorders, bulimia, that was me trying to control the body I was in and then everything will be okay. You know, essentially it's all about if I do this, then that, then everything will be okay. And actually the thing we need to do for everything to be okay, because actually it is okay, you know, regardless of what's going on. The thing I need to really learn how to do is tolerate very difficult feelings.

Yeah, you do. Yeah. I mean, that's what I, that's what I. You do. But how do you do it? Yeah, so how do I do it? Emma, how do I do it? It's a great question.

I'm so glad. I'm so glad you asked me. I think the thing is that in this day and age, we've got a bit too good at talking about things like self-care and self-regulation, and it winds me up a bit. Really, does it? It does wind me up a bit. Why?

Because that isn't where we learn to tolerate big emotions. We learn to tolerate big emotions through co-regulation. Right. And co-regulation is... With another person. Yeah. Or in my case, a dog, probably. But, you know, I see the point that there is something about our...

a nervous system, go back to that six-month-old, they're not doing it for fun. They're doing it because they need to find a space in which actually their nervous system can come out of this fight or flight space and come to, you know, colloquially what we would call the rest and digest space. So we come from this place of parasympathetic to sympathetic. We find ourselves able as a baby to grow, to develop, to do all the things we need to do. But we did that by, in getting aging with another human. There is a co-regulation that we seek out. If you were me growing up, you would then become frighteningly independent and self-sufficient

when you realise that actually you couldn't rely on that being consistent, so you become more avoidant. And we could have a whole other conversation about attachment styles. Maybe we will. Maybe we will. Maybe we will Emma, we will get Emma back if she'll come. If she doesn't hate me. Told you, mild.

irritation. We're going to learn to tolerate it. But in this scenario, that that child growing up learns actually, well, I'm probably going to need to stay at arm's length instead from people. That's my best bet, because if co-regulation is not consistently available, maybe it would be better just to dull down my feelings entirely. Oh, brilliant. People are telling me now to have hot bubble baths, go for walks, maybe, I don't know, cream tea is good. I should listen to some more podcasts like this one called Life of Brianing. There are certain. Or dilemma.

Right? Where we can feel better by ourselves. And yet we miss this fundamental piece of the puzzle, which is co-regulation, spending time body to body, even as we are doing right now, just with another person, your nervous system and my nervous system, chewing through some of this stuff together, co-regulating each other. This is where therapy comes in because this is the relationship. and it's through relationship that we learn to tolerate big emotions. You know, when I sit down with my kids now,

I sound like perhaps not the perfect parent because they will say to me this happened and this happened. And in my childhood, that would have either been fixed, tidied up, dismissed, minimised, discounted, insert other. With my kids, I'll say, oh, that sucks. Yeah, but you said you were going to do this and you didn't do it or I want this. and you're saying no, I know that sucks. So you're listening.

And agreeing with them. It does suck. I've just said that they can't do what they want to do. That does suck. That someone came to them at school and said something that hurt their feelings. That does suck. Actually just being in that space of not doing anything, but equally not telling them that they must find a way to change their experience.

We're just co-regulating. They do it to me all the time as well. We had a situation in which I was trying to fix something under the sink. The sink broke. I'm now in floods of tears on the floor because, you know, long story, but I didn't need that to happen right then. And I can have a 12-year-old come in the room and go, oh, that sucks. And then that's like, yeah, it does it really sucks?

It's like also not trying to solve the problem because that's what we do try to do, don't we? In a people-pleasing way. Yeah, because we can't tolerate their feelings. Yeah. So actually we desperately need co-regulation and we need to offer it too. It wouldn't help my children if I pleased them. Yeah. It helps them if I help them sit with big emotions, like how annoying it is when their mother says or does something that they didn't want to hear.

They mean they don't thank me for it. But that's okay because I've written a book. They will. They will, though. When they're in their 40s, they will thank you for it. Maybe they won't. Maybe they won't. And I'm all right with that too.

No, right? Sorry. No. These other polarities. And this is, again, you've nailed it. This is the kind of the addiction polarities. It's, can I do it? No, then fuck it.

And life is lived in the middle. And staying in the middle and staying in the space of tolerance of, you know, this is a dialectical behavioral therapy approach. But to have that wise mind that says not rational, not reasonable, not logical, okay, maybe when they're 40, equally not just emotional. emotional, fuck them. There's something in the middle that says, maybe they won't. And I still feel that it's the right thing to do. Yeah. So it's also tolerating, like someone said this to me recently, is that they said, learn to be okay with people being wrong about you. Yes. And I was like,

what? Yes. And I think it was like, I remember when I got sober and my sponsor in AA said to me, what other people think of you is none of your business. And I was like, I think you'll find it's my only business, you know. And then changing what they think of me. Yeah, yeah, manipulating it. And it is highly manipulative. And I don't, but I kind of want to be, I don't want to shame people that, who people please and to go, you know, because I think we already do that quite a lot

ourselves, you know, but it is dishonest. Yeah, it is. And yeah, it is. And I think that's one of the points that I really wanted to make when I wrote, please yourself was for someone and genuinely, you know, speaking for myself, for someone who really, really, really wants people to be okay, it's a very dishonest way of going about life. I really want the best for people. I really care. And so it's really important that I don't people please. I'm doing myself a disservice if I lean back on that, especially because in the

spirit of not shaming, we all learned to do it for very good reasons. It was the right thing to do at that time. When we were kids. Yeah. It was absolutely the right thing to do. Smart kids. Well done. It's just that as an adult, we've got other options and it might not be as smart or as useful an adaptation anymore. Now we would call it a maladaptation. It's not serving us. In fact, it's quite possibly creating the very problems that we hold that deep terror about. And we hold that deep terror about abandonment rejection. Right. So by not experiencing those feelings,

we're actually making it worse and making it more, the more we refuse to engage with those feelings, the bigger that they actually are going to get, right? They are going to get bigger because they're there for a reason all of our feelings are. Okay, so let's talk about

how one would go about starting to remedy the people pleasing. I want to start with that. And then I want to kind of go into a bit about the afterburn because I can be, I can put boundaries down, right? And I can say, no, that doesn't work for me. Unfortunately, what happens is about five minutes later, if that long, I am then hit with this sort of like afterburn.

where I feel terrible for putting the boundary down. And I will just sort of row back on it or the feeling is so terrible that I won't want to do it again. So let's, can we go through that whole process? Yes, I love that. Okay, let's start from the beginning. Go for it. So how does one start to put boundaries down when one, talking about this as if like it's not me?

How do we start to put boundaries down if we're not used to doing that? Yeah. Let's start and fuck up. I mean, it's one of those, isn't it? It's the only way to start is to not attach anything to the outcome. So I'm going to put boundary down, and I don't have an expectation that it's going to be okay. So I'm going to break people pleasing recovery down into two parts. It always goes this way.

I must have worked with thousands of people in the therapy room who are recovering people pleasers. And without fail, we will do a big piece of work about starting to put boundaries down, start small, rings of relationship, stay in the outer rings, put a boundary down in Sainsbury's, don't put it straight in with your mother-in-law. Try the things. Who are we putting the boundaries with the checkout person? Maybe. Yeah.

Maybe the person who's just pushed in front of you in the queue. Yeah, asshole. Asshole. Maybe it's okay to say, I don't know if you noticed, but I was here. Yeah. Maybe it's okay to take the last tin of beans. How did you know that I beat myself over that up over that yesterday? I was in Sainsbury's, can I just say, I was in Sainsbury's in Ballum.

Yeah. And I had popped in there to get, oh, the caretaking, the caretaking. I popped in there to get some pesto so that my daughter wouldn't have to have baked beans for lunch today. And I then thought, I'm going to go and get myself some Epsom salts, right? I love an Epsom salt, bath. Self care. So, turns out, I shouldn't be doing the self-care. I should be sitting with Emma at all times.

And I go and there was only one packet of Epsom salts left. There wasn't. And I genuinely thought to myself, Briney, there's someone else who needs those Epsom salts more than you. You're being quite selfish taking that. And I was like, what the fuck? I know. Who is this imaginary person who hasn't got, to any of the people that bought all of the Epsom salts before me? Did they think about me?

I ran like 10K just now. Do you know? And I was like, this is like pro max people pleasing, you know? There are so many things we need to say. Firstly, if anyone was in Sainsbury's and Ballam and wanted to buy up some salts and couldn't, there's boots next door. Brian is very sorry. I'm very sorry.

She's very sorry because no, I'm joking. That was what I'd say. No, you wouldn't. You would say, okay, again, catch it, right? I don't know. Body language, you and I both just really folded our arms because we both entered this really like, Yeah, aggressive. Yeah, fuck it, space.

Yeah. And that's the danger with boundaries that we only know how to either give everything away or, like, stamp our feet and hold our ground and say, no, fuck you. Put barbed wire up. Right? These are my Epsom salts and I'm going to fight you to the death for them. Yeah, I will. I heard you say was, I just ran a 10K.

Yeah, I'm justifying my need. That's what justifies my need. Yeah. As soon as we're doing that, we're just giving our power away because, of course, there's nothing logical really in that. It's just a bag of of Epsom salts that's on sale in Sainsbury's. But I would say you're better of having that experience there

and, you know, we can laugh about it than doing it somewhere like a workplace. You know, a really key relationship, maybe family of origin, because that's always the last to change, if ever. I don't try and change anything in family of origin. I leave that well alone.

I stick a pin in that. Because there's so many other relationships that I can work on this within. I can feel all of the rewards and the benefits of recovery from. I don't need to go to source. That is such an interesting thing. So to anyone listening, tuning in, who feels like I need to deal with the people pleasing

in terms of the family I grew up in. Actually, maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. You know, there's probably some lower hanging fruit here that you could get some more. bang for your book. People pleasing recovery book. Yeah. And that that would make you, if in the rest of your life you're putting in boundaries, you can sort of allow a few to go awry with your mum and dad. Spoiler alert, it will get easier with your mum and dad because you'll have built up some

confidence and muscle memory around boundary setting that means that when you do go back at Christmas and you're in your childhood bedroom in your rainbow bright duvet cover, you might find that actually you've brought some of that newer confidence back with you into that environment as well. And so you're able to make some shifts there. What I'm saying is don't aim at them. Don't point yourself at them to begin with. So part one, we're putting in some boundaries now. We're starting in some lower risk, lower reward relationships.

We're expecting failure. We're expecting someone in Sainsbury's to come up and have an argy-bargy with you about the Epsom salts because we're going to be able to have this conversation. like this, with a friend, with a therapist, we're going to be able to say, a bit of it worked, a bit of it didn't work. So don't expect the person you're putting the boundary down with to be over the moon that you're putting the boundary down with it. They might not thank you for it when I say to my daughter, that sucks.

She doesn't say, you're right, mum. Let's move on. God, you're so helpful, mum. Yeah, I really appreciate you putting that boundary in. But what I would say is that without fail, a recovering people pleaser will then come back to therapy and say, it hasn't. worked. I shouldn't be changing this. I need to go back to the way I've always done it. I'm stuck. It has to be. This is just my lot. And I'll say, why? What happened? And they'll say, well,

I put a boundary in and someone was really pissed off with me about it. They've had a lovely run of putting in boundaries and everyone's been okay. And then they'll hit a point where they put a boundary in and someone won't be okay. And that's when part two of people pleasing recovery starts. Okay. So that's the afterburn that I just spoke of. So this is the bit where you will have a situation in which someone, not as lightly as we're saying, not as lightly as, thanks, mum, that really helps or I want those Epsom salts. But they actually say, no, that's rude, you're selfish. How could you? You've changed. What makes you think you're so special. They say something that really hurts because it will go to the core of why you've been people pleasing all your life. And now we're in a therapy room, let's say,

and I'm teaching you to say a phrase which goes a little bit like, okay, we see this differently and I'm okay with that. What a fantastic eyebrow raise. Anyone who is listening and not watching on YouTube won't have just seen my eyebrow raise to like the ceiling. We see things differently and I'm, okay with that. Yeah.

Try it again, though. Just try it again. Without sounding like a creature from Star Wars. You can do Star Wars at the end if you need to. Whatever helps. Okay. We see things differently and I'm okay with that. Okay.

So I hope if you are watching on YouTube, you can see how many of what we're going to call safety behaviours because now we're doing a little bit of exposure therapy, which I didn't tell Brian I was going to do. But here we are. I want Brianie now to soften the safety behaviours, which means she's not going to raise her eyebrows. She's not going to shrug her shoulders and kind of roll them around in a way that says, whatever. She's said and she's going to say it in her calm, natural voice. We see things differently and I'm okay with that.

We see things differently and I'm okay with that. And this time I'm going to ask you to do it one more time. Without laughing at the end. without laughing at the end and without that nod. Just let the words carry. You don't need to persuade me with your body language. I'm closing my eyes and taking a deep breath just in case you're not watching on YouTube. We see things differently and I'm okay with that.

How does that feel? Harsh. Harsh. It feels harsh. Like not nodding along that. Yeah, right. Even just taking that out of the equation or smiling or, you know, like what you've done. done is you just made me realize how much people pleasing invades every element. Like I hadn't

even thought about things like the facial expressions, the body language. Like that hadn't even occurred to me. No, and you can feel the difference when you start to do it. So if I'm doing this with a client, we will. And, you know, it feels like you're kind of being cruel because I'm asking a client to not nod. Don't persuade me with your body. language, drop the voice, you know, you had a higher pitch when you wanted me to agree with you. Let it be your full voice. We don't have to open your eyes wide, you know, which is what we see mammals do when they're... Or close them. Or close them if you need to shut out someone's reaction. All of this is about learning to feel, back to this point, tolerate the big feeling, because

everything else is helping you avoid the big feeling. The other thing I would say, though, about the last way I delivered it was that weirdly I felt a little bit more powerful. You sounded more powerful. Yeah. And I felt like I had kept a bit of my power. That's the thing, isn't it? Yeah. Like it's so interesting, isn't it? Because I think this is where we as people pleases can get somewhat confused that we want to put boundaries down and then we want everyone to like be happy with it. And so again, we're still stuck in that people-pleasing behaviour where we are avoiding the discomfort and where we are putting down boundaries and everyone is just like, yay. And then we get upset when they don't.

And actually, so the real kind of Jedi, to use a Star Wars, another Star Wars analogy, the real Jedi-level work is putting down a boundary and letting go of the outcome. Absolutely. Mike drop. I think this is where I, this is one, possibly been one of the most kind of revolutionary things that I have realized over the last couple of years. In my recovery from alcoholism, which isn't very much a kind of recovery from, involves a lot of the kind of people pleasing work. is that I are, it's okay for people for me, it's okay for me, A, to not get things right the whole time. It's also okay to annoy people. It's okay for people to not agree with me, you know, and to, like that's, that's just life. Yeah. It is. And I'm going to say the word again,

I think it's essential. Yeah. For people to not be okay with you. not for everyone to not be okay with you. And of course, part of this, and I write about it in the book, is it's really important that we listen for the seed of truth in what people do level at us. So if someone isn't happy with the boundary and there is something that they say, it's not for us to dismiss that as, well, fuck you. I'm in my no-fucks given era and I'm going to do what I want now. This is my time.

It's up to us to be accountable. And listen for the seed of truth. Have they got a point? Is there a leaf out of their book that we could take without it being the whole book? Could we understand their point of view as well as hold our own? You see, that's where I also get lost a bit, which is because sometimes what I'll do is I will only look. It's not the seed.

I'll see the tree of truth in what they're saying. And I'll go, no, they're right and I'm completely wrong. And I just count everything that I think. And I go, oh, no, I shouldn't have thought, yeah. Do you know what? I haven't thought it from their point of view. And God, and God, you're so selfish, Brony. Yeah.

So this is all about safety, you know, particularly for you in the way you're talking about it. But this idea that there is only one right, one wrong, there is either sober or addicted, there is either I'm okay or they're okay. This idea that we have to fix ourselves to one polarity, which will. absolutely hold us hostage because it won't be the truth and we will discount this huge area that is life lived in the middle. But it's tempting because of course we don't want to be wrong if our safety was reliant on not being. So we swing for something that might feel right but it can't hold us because it's not the whole truth so we'll have to swing back. And then we lose sight of ourselves because we're ricocheting between two perspectives that are just

glimpses of something at the edge. This is something I really tried very hard to kind of explore while writing people please it. Because at the beginning of the book, Olivia Greenwood, who is the main character, she has very kind of staunch views on her mother and her father and which one is in the right and which one is in the wrong. And as the book goes on, she starts to see the grey area. And she starts to see how sort of, blinded she has been by that sort of, she's bad, he's good, don't know what I mean?

And actually how all of us are a little bit, something in the middle. And just as you say, just as we can't all constantly be in our no fucks given era as much as we want to. Yeah. You know, sometimes we do have to wear shit. Yes. Yes, we do. We have to wear shit. Is that the phrase I was looking for? It is now. It's the one I found. Which means it's good enough. It's good enough.

Well, good enough as well is such a good phrase, isn't it? Yeah. Although, again, it's been kind of, it's been appropriated in some less and helpful ways. I think this idea of being good enough because good enough still actually does need to be good enough. Whereas I quite often hear people talk about good enough and it's a bit shit. Right. So that's where I'm back to this point about accountability. You know, you don't get to say, I'm not going to care anymore about other people.

I'm good enough. So, well, are you? Are you? Not by their standard, but by your own. Like, let's develop a moral compass that we can listen to and not be afraid of because sometimes we outsource our approval to other people because we don't deep down think we should be doing what we're doing. Yeah. Well, we don't even know who we are. There's a phrase that you use, which I find really helpful as a boundary in itself for how to deal with this kind of. of not being too careless or holding yourself accountable, while also being boundaries, right? And that is, it's not me first, it's me too.

Yes. Because it's sort of like, I count as well, you know, as much as equally to the next person. And I think that's the thing. We just discount ourselves, don't we? And then in the swinging to the other extreme, were like, all that matters is my opinion. And actually it's somewhere in the middle.

Like, we are as worthy as the next person. Yeah. As the person we're caretaking for. Yeah, entirely. And I think that's the piece about I need to remind myself and my clients that we have to count ourselves within the number that we care for. We can't be the exception. Kindness isn't kindness if we're only kind to others.

there is something about how do we show up for ourselves in a way that's at least as caring as we are for others. And it's not from a place of you've got to fill your own cup first. It's from a place of being able to have a regulated nervous system that can then connect with other humans. So that is where the self-care stuff comes in? Yeah, in a kind of responsible way, which made it sound a bit less glamorous, I suppose. Well, no, because I suppose it's not about bubble baths, is it? It's about, for example, catching yourself when you start going, oh, like I did this earlier. I was like, oh, Brian, you're being such an idiot.

And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're just being a human on a Monday morning. Yeah. I know, but it does make me laugh because I think generationally, obviously, as mid-40s women, we are really trying to learn this stuff sort of for the first time. Whereas I listened to my 12-year-olds, she was very, she has a kind of way. of making it sound like she's really caring, but the words are kind of so, so cutting. She has these beautiful, long, dark eyelashes, you know, 12-year-old girl gifted with this kind of

youth. And she was there and she was playing with my eyelash curlers. And I was like, bloody hell. She's like got proper camel eyes. She said, show me then. So I said, okay, I'll show you all my kind of like perimenopausal eyelashes that remain. Exactly. I'm catching you out on that one, Emerit, Farron.

That's what she did. She was like, don't speak to yourself like that. I was like, fuck. And I was saying it as a kind of absolutely lighthearted throwaway comment. And she was the one who heard it as, no, no, no. Don't be breeding, don't be kind of weaving that in. I thought, oh, it does take them. But also, I've heard, you know, when I get very woo-woo and read very woo-woo books,

they often talk about how our brain doesn't know the difference between us talking and jest to ourselves, joking to ourselves or being serious. So when you say, when you even are saying, oh, you're such an idiot briny, all your brain hears is you're such an idiot briny. Poor brain. You have such like brittle perimenopausal lashes, Emma. You know, and your brain goes, what the fuck? I'm just a person trying to deal with life.

I'm doing my best guys. But I do think that comes, like, when you start trying to please yourself, you know, and by that, I mean not trying to, like, stop talking to yourself in a way that you wouldn't dare speak to your worst enemy. Like, these are the basics. These are the ways we start. And it might, it might seem hard. And it might, you might think, well, I don't understand how not calling myself a dick is going to make my life better. but bit by bit over time it will. I agree with you because I think when we say that we're a dick,

we're doing it so that we don't have to hear it from someone else. But as you say, a poor little brain, poor big brain, just heard that we weren't even on our own side. How shit is that? Yeah. The other thing I would say is that I heard something yesterday as well, which is that the way, you know, when we go into judgment about someone not taking our boundary or not, like something like we are as judgmental of ourselves as we are of other people.

So the more, I guess the more empathetic we can get generally towards everyone, including ourselves, the better it sort of reflects. Yeah, I know. That's a funny one, isn't it? Because again, I think I have a kind of unpopular view, which is actually the I love judgment and I'm awful judgment. Really? Yeah.

Why? Because I want the judgment to be honest, which means not judging other people critically, but giving yourself permission to judge if their behaviour is at odds with this phrase I use moral compass, it's okay to judge that that's not okay. If somebody is happy for you to continue to put them first and react badly, when you don't, it's okay to judge that that is not an appropriate response. And sometimes I feel that our anti-judgment era

leaves us a little bit open to forgetting that we can be discerning. We can decide whether we want this person in our space or not. So I think it's about judging honestly, fairly. I don't have shit perimenabors or lashes. My lashes are fine. Also, as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself, if I do choose to be discerning and say, I don't want this person in my space so much, I don't discount the person entirely and think to myself they don't deserve to exist or have any other friends, which is kind of what my brain tells me. If someone's annoyed with me, that's what they're thinking about me. And it's not.

It's not. And you said it yourself, this piece about if my editor doesn't. like every word I've written, that doesn't mean they hate the piece. Yeah. We can be discerning. Your editor's job is to be discerning and to make that piece as brilliant as it can be. It's not a reflection on you, the writer, or all the words that remain. So somehow to be discerning actually helps me be more, there are more surfaces of me

available to connect with others if I'm allowed to sense and respond fully, which means that there'll be some things I like and some things I don't like. And actually, as a part of a peri-menopausal journey, I had loved discovering things I like and don't like. It didn't even occur to me that I don't really like red meat. Don't you? No. I just used to eat it all the time because... What do you like? I like Greek yoga with granola. Even for dinner? Could be. I would, I would, I don't, do you know what? Tell me. I don't like Greek yogurt with granola.

Do you know what? We see this differently and I'm okay with that. Yeah. I'm not completely going, well, that's Emma deleted out of my phone book. No, not yet. We are never going to hang out ever again because she wants to eat granola and I want to eat steak. Yes. And I'm not rushing to get a Big Mac just to help you feel that I'm aligned with you.

Yeah. Or actually, there's a difference between red meat and a Big Mac. I don't think there's any read me in a big Mac actually. Oh, that's for another podcast. Emma Reed Turrell. You have, I'm going to just like validate you now. Love it. Because I do feel a lot better for our chat.

And, yeah, as I said, I've put you in the acknowledgments of my new book, People Pleaser, because I found Please Yourself so helpful, not just to the formation. of my novel, but also to me, as I was, because obviously writing a novel and writing a book, as you know, there's, there's, you know, again, there's another editor who's like, I'm like, will they like this? Will they hate this? Is my career over? And it's okay. The book's here. It's been turned into a natural book. It's available to read this week. It's out on the 23rd of April. Please, Yourself is out already. I have it on audiobook, e-book, and we've got a copy here. It's really helpful. There's all sorts of stuff in there, like the different types of people

pleasers. We didn't even get on to that. We didn't get on to that. Maybe we can do that in the bonus episode. Emma Reed Turrell, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on the life of grinding. It's been, yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you, Emma, for that eye-opening conversation about people-pleasing and what it looks like to step out of it, one tiny boundary at a time. I'd love to know your thoughts on our chat. Come and tell me over on Instagram at at Life of Briny Pod. Emma will be back on Friday for our bonus episode, The Life of You, where she'll share what helps her stay centred

when her own people pleaser starts piping up. In the meantime, don't forget to follow, subscribe, rate, and generally rave about us to your friends. But most of all, keep being you. And I'll see you next time.