What I Learned About People-Pleasing in an Empty Gym on Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve. The gym doors slid open and… nothing.
No one on the treadmills. No weights clanking. No man doing curls directly in front of the mirror while maintaining intense eye contact with himself.
Just me. And a lot of high-end unused gym equipment.
For a split second, my brain did that thing it does. This is weird. I am weird. People don't do this on Christmas Eve. You're supposed to be with your family right now.
And the guilt.
Honour the tradition. Grit your teeth and play along with the conversations that have been happening in the same format for years.
I stood there, holding my gym bag, and felt an internal wobble. The one that asks, Am I really doing this?
The People-Pleasing Pattern in Action
The thoughts came dressed up as reason.
You can work out post-Christmas. Don't be difficult. Don't embarrass Mum by being the daughter who won't play along.
They weren't loud thoughts. They never are. They sound mature. Cooperative. Socially fluent.
They also sounded incredibly familiar.
These are the thoughts that show up when you're about to do something mildly inconvenient to the collective. The ones that appear right before you swallow a need, delay a desire, or decide that now is not the time.
I could already picture the alternative timeline. Staying put. Crocodile smiling. Being present but not quite here.
Instead, I walked into the gym.
The Shadow Underneath
Here's the thing no one tells you about being "easygoing."
At some point, it stops being a personality trait and starts being a role.
The one who doesn't make waves. The one who adapts. The one who quietly absorbs the inconvenience so no one else has to feel it.
The people-pleasing pattern doesn't come from nowhere. It's learned early. It's usually rewarded. And it's very good at convincing you that choosing differently is selfish, strange, or somehow disloyal.
Standing alone in that gym, I could feel it.
And that is often where shadow work lives. In the tiny moments where you feel oddly exposed for doing something entirely reasonable.
Integration, Not Advice
I didn't feel virtuous. Or particularly evolved.
But I chose it. And then I felt calm.
The kind that settles in when you stop negotiating with yourself.
Shadow work doesn't always show up as big emotional breakthroughs. Sometimes it looks like noticing the exact moment you usually override yourself and… not doing that.
No lesson. No resolution. Just a small, clean choice.
I locked the gym behind me an hour later. Still empty. Still quiet.
And for once, so was my head.
Try This:
What do you automatically talk yourself out of, simply because it goes against the grain?
Not the big life-changing stuff. The small, ordinary moments where you override your own needs without even noticing.
That's where the people-pleasing pattern lives.
If you're ready to explore these patterns more deeply, my discovery sessions are designed exactly for this.
