Lorwen C Nagle, PhD

Your anxiety didn’t start in adulthood. It started when you became "The Good One."   

People-pleasing is harmful.  It rewires your brain and fractures your sense of self. Here's what most therapists won't tell you: 

Being a people pleaser is an adaptation that hides your true self.  

Over time, people-pleasing:  1. Reshapes your brain for survival. 2. Destroys your sense of identity. 3. Sets you up for chronic anxiety. 

Here’s what you were never told:  1. Most anxiety is learned in childhood.   A form of self-abandonment developed to preserve your safety in emotionally unpredictable environments.   You weren’t born anxious—you were trained to be nervous. 

The “good child” archetype is a survival role.  You stayed quiet and calm because you wanted to survive.   1. You read the room better than the adults in it.  2.  When chaos struck, you became what everyone else needed.   You disappeared to keep the peace. 

3. Chronic people-pleasing changes your nervous system. It activates the dorsal vagal shutdown: Your system enters fawn/freeze mode—constantly managing others’ emotions to avoid conflict and rejection. Over time, the brain associates authenticity with danger. So it silences your needs to protect you. 

4. Your brain adapts through emotional suppression.   To stay loved, you learned to repress:  • Your anger • Your core needs • Your deeply felt opinions • Your personal boundaries  Emotional suppression isn't passive.  It takes a lot of psychic energy to repress who you truly are. Neurobiologically, it dulls the prefrontal cortex and overactivates the amygdala.  Repression of your true self leads to hypervigilance.  You get into a habit of scanning the environment for safety.  Not just sometimes.  All the time! 

 5. According to Dr. Gabor Maté:  "If a child is given the choice to choose between attachment or authenticity, they'll choose attachment every time."  Why?  Because the child wants to survive!  Their authentic self is sacrificed because it is too unsafe to reveal.  And, over time ...

 6. The emotional cost of being “the good one” often shows up later.  • You can’t say "no" without guilt. • You don't know what you really want. • You perform calm while feeling chaos. • You feel broken but don’t know why?  The truth is this is not your true personality.  It’s ...

 7. You became successful by staying small or hiding your real self.  You might be respected, admired, and reliable, but underneath, you don't value yourself.  You need to break this pattern of self-loathing. Relevant people     

 Harvard-trained psychologist. Ph.D. @UTAustin  Mental health is wealth. My work helps you build financial success, become fearless, and destroy anxiety.