Everyone's talking about boundaries. Self-care. Choosing peace. Protecting your energy. The internet is drowning in gentle reminders to "put yourself first" and "walk away from what doesn't serve you."
But here's what nobody's saying in those pretty Instagram posts with the soft filters and the sage burning in the background:
When you stop people-pleasing, you will feel more alone than you've ever felt in your life.
Setting boundaries? You might lose people you love. Saying no after years of yes? You might spend Saturday nights alone while everyone else is still caught up in the chaos you finally walked away from. Choosing yourself for the first time? You might discover that some people only liked you when you were exhausted, overextended, and putting everyone else first.
Nobody warned you about that part, did they?
This is what I see every single day working with recovering people-pleasers in my practice and through People Pleasing Academy. My clients do the hard work. They learn to say no. They stop overextending themselves. They create healthy boundaries with family, friends, and coworkers.
And then they message me, often with tears streaming down their faces: "I thought I'd feel free. Instead, I just feel alone."
That's because growth doesn't happen on a mountaintop with a sunset backdrop and a gratitude journal. Growth happens in the middle of the night when you're questioning whether you made the right choice. It happens when your phone is quiet because you stopped being the one who fixes everyone's problems. It happens when you're at a family gathering and everyone's giving you the cold shoulder because you finally said "I can't do that anymore."
Recovering from people-pleasing is lonely because you're literally leaving behind a version of yourself that everyone else was comfortable with.
And that comfortable version? She made sure nobody else ever had to feel uncomfortable. She absorbed everyone's emotions. She managed everyone's reactions. She sacrificed her own needs so thoroughly that people forgot she even had them.
Now you're changing the rules. And some people are not going to be happy about it.
Why No One Talks About This Part of Recovery
The self-care industry has sold us a lie. They've made people-pleasing recovery look like bubble baths and affirmations, like saying no should feel empowering from day one, like boundaries should bring instant peace and celebration from everyone around you.
But that's not how the human nervous system works. That's not how enmeshed relationships work. And that's definitely not how deeply ingrained people-pleasing patterns change.
Here's what actually happens when you start recovering from chronic people-pleasing:
People get confused. The ones who benefited from your endless availability suddenly don't know what to do with this new version of you. Your mother who could call you at midnight with her problems. Your friend who needed you to drop everything when she was in crisis. Your coworker who counted on you to cover their responsibilities. They might even get angry. After all, you were supposed to be the reliable one, the one who always said yes, the one who sacrificed yourself so they didn't have to be uncomfortable.
You feel like the worst person alive. Even though you know intellectually that you're doing the right thing, every cell in your body might be screaming that you're being selfish, mean, cold, ungrateful, and a terrible daughter/friend/employee/person. Your nervous system was wired through years (maybe decades) of conditioning to believe that your worth comes from what you do for others. Unwiring that doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't feel good while it's happening.
The silence is deafening. This is the part that breaks people-pleasers. When you stop initiating all the time, you discover who was actually invested in mutual connection versus who just liked having you available. When you stop being everyone's therapist, problem-solver, or emotional support system, you find out how many relationships were built on you giving and others taking. And sometimes the answer is: most of them.
You grieve. You grieve the relationships that couldn't survive your recovery. You grieve the version of yourself that everyone loved because she never caused problems by having needs. You grieve the fantasy that people would celebrate your healing instead of punishing you for it. You grieve the years you spent believing that if you just did enough, gave enough, sacrificed enough, you'd finally be valued. And you grieve the painful realization that some people never valued you at all, they valued what you did for them.
The Specific Loneliness Recovering People-Pleasers Face
In People Pleasing Academy, we talk a lot about the patterns that keep us stuck. But we also talk about what happens when you start breaking those patterns. And I'm not going to sugarcoat it: the loneliness hits different for recovering people-pleasers because we tied our entire sense of worth and belonging to making other people happy.
The loneliness of your first real boundary: You finally tell your mother she can't just show up at your house unannounced. Or you tell your sister you can't be her free therapist anymore. Or you tell your friend you won't be loaning her money again. And instead of respect, you get silence. Days of it. Weeks of it. The people you bent over backward for suddenly act like you're the unreasonable one. You wanted them to understand, but what you get is the cold shoulder and accusations that you've "changed" (you have, and that's the point, but it still hurts).
The loneliness of saying no after years of yes: You turn down the favor, the extra shift, the last-minute request. People stop asking you for things. You thought you wanted this, but now you're realizing that being needed was how you stayed connected. Without the neediness, there's just... nothing. Your phone is quiet. Your calendar is empty. You have your time back, but you also have this creeping feeling that maybe you don't matter if you're not useful.
The loneliness of stopping emotional caretaking: You used to absorb everyone's big feelings so they didn't have to sit with discomfort. You managed your father's anger by walking on eggshells. You regulated your friend's anxiety by being available 24/7. You soothed your partner's insecurity by making yourself smaller. Now you're learning to let people feel their own feelings. And they don't like it. They tell you you've become "cold" or "selfish" or "not the person they thought you were." The loneliness here isn't just about being alone, it's about being misunderstood by the very people you sacrificed yourself for.
The loneliness of choosing yourself: This is the big one. After years of putting everyone else first, you start asking yourself what YOU want. What YOU need. What would make YOU happy. And you realize you have no idea. You've been so busy being who everyone else needed you to be that you don't even know who you are. So now you're alone AND you're having an identity crisis. You're sitting in a quiet house trying to figure out who you are when you're not performing for an audience, and it's terrifying.
The loneliness of outgrowing relationships: You start healing. You go to therapy. You work through your people-pleasing patterns. You realize your worth isn't contingent on how much you do for others. And then you look around at your relationships and realize most of them were built on a foundation of you being small, accommodating, and self-sacrificing. Your friends are still complaining about the same things they complained about five years ago. Your family is still operating from the same dysfunctional patterns. And you're trying to build something healthier. The gap between who you're becoming and who they need you to be gets wider every day. Nobody prepared you for how isolating it would be to heal in a world full of people who benefit from you staying sick.
Why People-Pleasers Feel This Loneliness So Deeply
Here's what I've learned working with hundreds of recovering people-pleasers: we feel this loneliness more acutely than other people because our entire identity was built on connection through service.
Most people learn as children that they're loved for who they are. We learned we're loved for what we do.
Most people learned their needs matter. We learned our needs are burdens.
Most people learned that love is reciprocal. We learned that love is earned through endless giving.
So when we start recovery and those old patterns stop working, we don't just lose relationships. We lose our entire framework for how love and belonging work. We lose the only strategy we've ever known for keeping people close.
That's why the loneliness feels existential. It's not just "I miss my friends." It's "I don't know who I am or how to exist in relationships if I'm not constantly sacrificing myself."
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me (And What I Tell My PPA Students)
When I started my own recovery from people-pleasing, nobody warned me about the loneliness. I thought setting boundaries would feel empowering. I thought saying no would bring relief. I thought choosing myself would lead to better relationships.
And eventually, all of that did happen. But first? First, I was so lonely I could barely breathe.
Here's what I wish someone had told me then, and what I tell every person who joins People Pleasing Academy:
One: The loneliness means it's working. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but stay with me. When you start setting boundaries and people get upset, that's actually proof that you were giving too much before. When you stop initiating and some relationships fade away, that's confirmation that they weren't actually mutual. When you choose yourself and people call you selfish, that's evidence of how much you were abandoning yourself to maintain connection. The loneliness isn't a sign you made a mistake. It's a sign that you're finally addressing an imbalance that should have been addressed a long time ago.
Two: You're not losing real relationships. You're losing transactional ones. This is hard to hear, but it's true. If someone only wants you around when you're saying yes, solving their problems, managing their emotions, or making yourself small, that's not a relationship. That's an arrangement. And yes, losing arrangements still hurts. But you're not actually losing what you thought you were losing.
Three: Your nervous system is going to freak out, and that's normal. For years, your survival strategy was to please others. Your brain learned: "If I make everyone happy, I'll be safe. If I meet everyone's needs, I'll be loved." Now you're changing the pattern, and your nervous system thinks you're in danger. The anxiety, the guilt, the overwhelming urge to go back to people-pleasing, that's not a sign that recovery is wrong. That's your nervous system trying to pull you back to the old pattern because it feels safer. This is why we spend so much time in PPA working on nervous system regulation. You have to learn to tolerate the discomfort of the new pattern before it starts to feel natural.
Four: Loneliness and solitude are different. In the beginning, it all feels like loneliness. But as you heal, you start to notice a difference. Loneliness is painful because you're missing connection. Solitude is peaceful because you're finally comfortable in your own company. There's a period where you need the solitude, where you need space from everyone else's demands and expectations so you can hear your own voice again. That solitude isn't punishment. It's healing.
Five: The right people will meet you where you are. Not everyone. Not quickly. Not always the people you hoped for. But as you recover from people-pleasing, you will attract different people. People who value reciprocity. People who respect boundaries. People who don't need you to be depleted for them to feel secure. People who celebrate your growth instead of punishing you for it. This is what we talk about in the community aspect of PPA, learning to recognize and build healthy relationships while you're healing from unhealthy ones.
What To Do When You're In The Lonely Part of Recovery
If you're reading this from the middle of that lonely wilderness, I see you. I've been there. Most of the people in People Pleasing Academy are there or have been there recently. Here's what actually helps:
Feel it without fixing it. Your people-pleasing brain is going to want to fix the loneliness immediately. You'll be tempted to reach out to people who weren't good for you, to apologize for boundaries you shouldn't apologize for, to go back to old patterns because at least then you weren't alone. Don't. Sit with the feeling. Let yourself be sad about it. Cry about it. Write about it. But don't fix it by betraying yourself again.
Find your people. This is exactly why I created People Pleasing Academy. Because recovery from people-pleasing requires community with people who GET IT. People who understand that saying no feels like you're dying. People who know the guilt is overwhelming even when you're doing the right thing. People who won't tell you to "just be less rigid" or "give people another chance." You need support from people who are walking the same path.
Remember your why. You didn't start this recovery process because you wanted to be alone. You started because the people-pleasing was destroying you. You were exhausted. You were anxious. You were depressed. You were losing yourself. You couldn't sustain it anymore. Write that down somewhere and look at it when you're tempted to go back to old patterns because the loneliness feels unbearable.
Trust the process. I know that sounds like an empty platitude, but in this case, it's not. There's a reason every people-pleasing recovery journey includes this lonely wilderness period. You can't know who you are when you're not performing for others without spending time alone with yourself. You can't build authentic relationships without first clearing out the inauthentic ones. You can't learn to value yourself without sitting with the discomfort of other people not valuing you the way you hoped. The loneliness is part of the process, not a detour from it.
Do the work anyway. Keep setting boundaries. Keep saying no. Keep choosing yourself. Even when it's lonely. Even when it's hard. Even when you're not sure it's worth it. Because the alternative, going back to chronic people-pleasing, will cost you even more than this loneliness is costing you now.
The Part Where It Gets Better
I'm not going to lie to you and say the loneliness just disappears one day and everything is perfect. But I can tell you what I've seen happen over and over again with people who stick with the recovery process:
Eventually, you start to notice that the quiet isn't quite as heavy. That the solitude isn't quite as painful. You realize you've gone a whole day without that gnawing feeling that something's wrong because you're not needed.
Eventually, you look around at your life and realize it's smaller than it used to be, but it's also real. The people who are here actually want to be here. The relationships you have don't require you to betray yourself to maintain them. You're not as busy, but you're also not as exhausted. You're not as popular, but you're also not as anxious.
Eventually, you start to like the person you are when you're not performing. You discover interests you didn't know you had because you were too busy managing everyone else's lives. You find peace in the quiet because you're no longer using noise to avoid yourself.
Eventually, new people show up. Not everyone from beforeāsome of those relationships really were only built on you people-pleasing. But some people who can meet you where you are now. People who value reciprocity. People who respect your no. People who don't need you to be depleted to feel secure around you.
And eventually, you realize the loneliness wasn't a mistake. It was the doorway. You had to walk through it to get to a life where you don't have to choose between being yourself and being loved.
To Every Recovering People-Pleaser In The Lonely Part Right Now
If you're in it right now, the lonely part of recovery where everything feels hard and you're questioning whether it's worth it, I want you to hear this:
You're not doing it wrong. You're doing it exactly right. This is what it costs to reclaim yourself.
The loneliness is proof that you're no longer willing to abandon yourself for connection. The silence is proof that you're no longer filling voids that weren't yours to fill. The grief is proof that you're finally valuing yourself enough to feel the loss of relationships that required you to stay small.
Keep going. Not because it will feel better tomorrow. Not because the right people are definitely just around the corner. But because you deserve a life where you don't have to choose between being yourself and being loved.
And if you need support while you're in the wilderness, that's exactly what People Pleasing Academy is for. It's a community of people who understand that recovery isn't pretty or easy or Instagram-worthy. It's messy and lonely and hard. But it's also the most important work you'll ever do.
Because on the other side of this loneliness is a version of you who knows her worth. Who sets boundaries without guilt. Who says no without apologizing. Who shows up authentically in relationships that are actually mutual.
That version of you is worth the lonely journey to find her.
Growth is lonely. Recovering from people-pleasing is especially lonely. Nobody warned us about that.
But maybe knowing it's supposed to be hard makes it a little easier to keep going when it is.
You're not alone in feeling alone. And in People Pleasing Academy, we're walking this path together.
Ready to stop walking this path alone? Join People Pleasing Academy and find your community of recovering people-pleasers who get it. Because healing is hard enough without doing it in isolation.
Are you in the lonely part of people-pleasing recovery right now? What's the hardest part for you? Share in the comments if you feel comfortable, your story might be exactly what someone else needs to hear today.
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