Overpleasing: A Barrier to Healing & Self-Love

Embracing Wholeness & Letting Go Of Others

I learned early
to read faces like scripture,
to sense the shift in the air
when love threatened to leave.

So I smiled.
I quieted my hunger.
I offered my hands, my heart, my body
as tokens of worth —
proof that I was enough to be kept.

My body said no
in so many quiet ways:
the heaviness in my chest,
the ache in my spine,
the fatigue that felt like drowning.

But fear said —
if you stop moving,
if you rest,
they will go.
And so I moved,
even as pieces of me fell away.

“There is no holiness in your erasure.“

I tucked away my feelings
into the corners of the room,
smoothed over every ripple,
became the balm for their storms.

If I could keep them calm,
keep them smiling,
then maybe — just maybe —
they wouldn’t leave me
like all the others did.

I dissolved my edges,
softened my voice,
revised my truths
until they matched theirs.

I became agreeable,
pliable,
a mirror reflecting only
what they wanted to see.

Because difference felt dangerous.
Disagreement felt like exile.

Even in my prayers,
I performed.
Made myself small,
virtuous,
palatable to a God
I feared might abandon me too.

But the soul grows weary
of disguises.
It whispers:
There is no holiness
in your erasure.

And in the deepest intimacy,
I said yes
when my whole being
was crying no.

I gave myself away,
hoping to be wanted,
but each offering
left me emptier,
haunted by the shame
of betraying myself.

This is the shape of overpleasing:
a thousand tiny deaths
offered in exchange
for the illusion of love.

“You are not loved for what you give away.
You are loved for all that you are when you stay whole.”

If this stirred something in you…

Where have you quieted your no, softened your edges, or dissolved your needs in the hope of being kept?
What might it mean to let the truth of who you are remain — even if it risks the loss of what was never love?

You do not need to earn belonging here.

In tenderness,
A. J. Ashé | Being Human