Therapy for People-Pleasing and Boundaries in Calgary
You Know How to Say No. It's the Aftermath You Can't Afford.
You've already drafted the text, deleted it, redrafted it softer, added an exclamation point so it didn't sound mean, and said yes anyway. This isn't a knowledge problem. It's a wiring pattern, one probably installed early, where other people's comfort registers as your responsibility and their disappointment registers as danger. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild's “second shift” described how women, even working full time, come home to a disproportionate share of the unpaid work of running a household. And psychologist Dana Crowley Jack documented what she called self-silencing, the learned habit of suppressing your own needs to keep a relationship steady. The guilt you feel when you set a boundary isn't proof you did something wrong. It's the sound of an old rule being broken.
Using Internal Family Systems (parts work) and Emotionally Focused Therapy, we get underneath the guilt and the over-functioning, not to shame the pattern, but to understand what it was protecting. We name it for what it is, not a character flaw. We find what's underneath: the guilt, the belief that your needs come last. Then we practice, out loud, in the room, and take it back out into your real relationships. We review progress openly, and when the work is done, we say so.
HOW WE WORK TOGETHER
Common Questions
Will I become selfish or "too much"?
This fear is nearly universal, and it is revealing. Your settings sit so far toward accommodation that ordinary self-respect looks like aggression from where you are standing. In practice, people do not swing to cruelty. They swing to normal. Sessions with Chanelle or Kia, RSW.
In person in Calgary's Kensington neighbourhood and online across Alberta. Individual sessions 50 minutes, $190. Free 15-minute consultation. Direct billing available.
You are allowed to take up space. Book a free 15-minute consultation to find your fit.