#208 My Christmas Wish for Women Who Built Their Identity on People-Pleasing

We are almost at the end of the year, and if you are anything like the women I work with and I, this year has been both a shedding and an expanding. A kind of homecoming to yourself. A groundedness and clarity that maybe you did not have before. Christmas has a way of surfacing all of that at once.

This is my Christmas wish, my manifesto, and a reflection on what I have learned this year.

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When Overfunctioning Became My Identity

There was a version of me with unhealed super traits, overfunctioning in relationships with men who did not want to be held accountable. Men who gaslit, manipulated, and blamed. I worked harder, tolerated more, and forgave more. Like so many women, I blamed myself and believed there was always something more I needed to do to fix it.

At the same time, my identity was wrapped up in my successful women’s health clinic, in the patients I was helping, in the money I was making, and in my ability to overgive, burn out, put out fires, and somehow keep going. Being capable and indispensable became who I thought I was.

Who Are You If It All Goes Away Tomorrow?

A coach once asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks. Who are you if it all goes away tomorrow?

At the time, I could not answer it. The thought of it being just me, starting over, letting everything fall away, felt panic-inducing. Not because I was weak, but because I had not healed the patterns that taught me overgiving was connection and being needed was safety. I had not restored my capacity for pleasure, and I had not retrained my body to receive without effort, without earning, and without self-abandonment.

When we have unhealed super traits, our identity is built around survival. And survival leaves little room for knowing who you are beyond what you produce or hold together.

When Super Traits Turn Into Survival

When super traits are unhealed, brilliance becomes a survival strategy. Empathy turns into emotional labor. Loyalty turns into self-abandonment. Tolerance turns into endurance.

You learn to read the room before you read yourself. You learn to hold the tension so others do not have to. You learn to be indispensable because being indispensable feels like safety. And when your pleasure, desire, health, and sense of self begin to collapse, you blame yourself instead of the systems and dynamics that required you to survive this way.

Stripping Everything Away

This year, I started jujitsu, and stepping onto the mat became a physical version of that shedding. No jewelry. No long nails. No symbols of identity or achievement. It was activating and uncomfortable, and it showed me every place I was still performing and using my super traits to exert effort in relationships and situations.

In that letting go, something shifted. I am starting my second book, and I have built some of the healthiest relationships of my life. Relationships that do not require my overfunctioning to exist.

What My Client Said That Cracked This Open

A client recently shared something with me that named what so many women feel but struggle to articulate. She said she learned to be valuable so she could be safe. Being impressive became her armor. Overgiving kept her safe from the terror of being ordinary, needy, or imperfect. But the more she gave, the more disconnected she felt.

What she wanted was a relationship where her presence was enough, where she was met rather than admired, where she could rest in connection rather than work for it.

If that lands in your body, you are not alone.

My Christmas Wish for You

My Christmas wish for you is that you know you are worthy of a pleasure-centered relationship. A relationship where you do not earn closeness through effort, where you do not perform or overgive to secure belonging, and where your nervous system can finally exhale because you are met, held, and felt.

You did not lose your desire, your spark, your life force, or your health. Your body learned to survive within systems that taught you to be good rather than fulfilled, to give rather than receive, and to be resilient, loyal, and quiet about your truth. None of that was your fault.

Two Questions to Sit With

These are the same two questions I ask my clients when patterns keep repeating.

What underlying need of yours is it serving to keep overfunctioning?

What truth do you need to accept about this situation or relationship for you to stop overfunctioning?

Sit with them and see what they answer back.

If you recognize yourself here and want support untangling these patterns, I work with women inside the Pleasure Centered Society.( APPLY HERE) to decondition survival responses, restore pleasure capacity, and retrain the body to receive without effort or self-abandonment. The work begins with a brief call to confirm the container is the right fit.

Or grab a Super Trait Audit HERE for women who want to start with a single one-on-one session.

This is not the end of your strength. It is the beginning of learning how to receive.

Merry Christmas.

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