Inner Work With MaryAnn Walker: Life Coach for People Pleasers
Are you a people pleaser or a highly sensitive person who somehow became the unofficial emotional support human for everyone in your life… and now you’re exhausted? If so, you’re not alone—and this podcast is for you.
I’m MaryAnn Walker, and I help people pleasers and highly sensitive people break free from people pleasing, stop abandoning themselves, and finally find peace (without turning into someone they’re not).
Each week, we explore how to set boundaries without guilt, stop over-accommodating, and rebuild self-trust—so your relationships can feel more balanced, safe, and mutually supportive.
Through practical tools, gentle coaching, and real-life examples, you’ll learn how to care for others without losing yourself, trust your own voice, and create emotional safety in your life.
It’s time to stop people pleasing, put down the weight of everyone else’s emotions, and start experiencing the peace and self-respect you deserve.
Hit subscribe now and let’s help you feel more grounded, confident, and at home in your own life.
If you’re ready for more customized support, I would love to work with you. You can have a life filled with peace, clarity, and connection—and I can show you how.
Today we are talking about the importance of embracing discomfort and experiencing rejection as a way to grow and overcome fears. We emphasizes the idea of celebrating failures, being willing to put oneself out there, and accepting rejection as a natural part of life in order to achieve personal development and success.
Stress can't be eliminated. But we can learn to navigate through it more easily.
well, hello and welcome back. Now, this is episode 101. And if you guys have not had a chance yet to listen to episode 100, I encourage you to go back and listen. Usually I do shorter episodes on Mondays, but Monday was my 100th episode. And I wanted to make it memorable. So I decided to invite my children, my adult children. To come onto the podcast and kind of talk a bit about their experience being raised by a people pleaser. That's me. So we had so much fun just talking about what things I did. Well, what things I maybe didn't do so well, what things I wish I'd done completely differently. And we try to share some tips there to help you fellow people, pleasing parents learn how to raise children that don't fall into that same trap. And so if you have not listened yet, come and listen to that. Also, if you are a visual person, I know several of you commented on how fun it was to see me and my daughters engaging, on my social media reels. And so if you are a visual person and you want to actually see those interactions, then you can come and watch on YouTube. I will be sure to link the YouTube in the show notes as well. But yeah, there are a lot of fun. And honestly, that idea came from one of my social media followers. So thank you again, Carolina, for having that idea. And if as you were listening. If you have ideas on things you would like to learn a bit more about something that you either want me to teach you, or if you want me to bring my kids back on. Let me know. I really want to know how I can best show up in love and support for you. And I am open to your ideas. So let me know if you have a show idea, I would just love to know. So today I have permission to share an experience that my middle child, Keziah had you met her last week on the podcast, or I should say Monday on the podcast. And so lately, Keziah has been having some skin issues. She's developed a rash on her arms as well as her face and her neck. And we were really trying to figure out what is going on here. What is happening. So we changed out her laundry detergent. We've been trying to look if she's tried any new foods recently. If she maybe is put using a new face cream, we were trying to figure out, okay, what is happening? What is creating this rash? And we kind of use Dr. Google because that's what we do in my house. Those are waiting to meet with the doctor. We use the internet, right. To kind of get ideas about, okay, what might possibly be going on and how might we possibly fix this issue? And it was really interesting because we kind of narrowed it down to maybe three or four different things. And every single one of them that we narrowed it down to said the same thing at the bottom, they said may be exacerbated by stress. Okay. Now I want you to just think for a moment. Imagine being a beautiful young 18 year old girl, what the rash all over your face and your neck and your arms, and you want to go to the store and just do some errands, just go pick up something or you want to go and hang out with friends. Now imagine doing that. And just thinking, oh, this is no big deal. I'm not stressed out at all. So I had to kind of laugh with my daughter when I saw that I was like, okay, Keziah, just don't stress about it. It's going to be so much worse due to stress. So just don't stress about it. And so today I thought I would kind of talk about what happens when we experience those negative emotions and what happens when we're resisting it, because essentially we are resisting all of these emotions. Right. It's kind of like when somebody says, don't think about pink, elephants, it's all we can think about is, oh, I'm not supposed to think about it. Oh, don't think about that. Don't think about that. So this might be, if you have an addiction and you just to think, okay, don't think about it. Don't think about it. And it's all you can think about. It might be, if you can feel your blood pressure rising at work, and it's like, oh, I better breathe. I better calm down. Don't stress out. I can feel my blood pressure going up or, you know, with that rash. Oh no. Okay. Don't be stressed. It's going to make it worse. If I'm stressed. We have so many situations in life where, because we are resisting emotion, we are actually creating even more discomfort for ourselves. And so I just want to make it clear. This episode is not on how to just relieve stress and never be stressed again. Stress is a part of life. Discomfort is a part of life. We cannot avoid these things. Okay. Life is 50, 50, it's 50% positive and it's 50% learning how to navigate the stress and the discomfort that we experience with life. So we can't eliminate it completely, but we can in fact, shorten its duration. And that's a little bit about what I wanted to talk with you about today is what can it look like to actually just allow for those emotions and not be. So hyper-focused on not feeling them, that we're actually exacerbating them and creating even more severe symptoms for ourselves, either in our physical body, our mental body, our emotional body... they can all be exacerbated by resisting these negative emotions. Now a lot of people really do experience a lot of negative emotion around having the negative emotion. Right? So now we're not just feeling bad, but we're feeling bad because we're feeling bad because we think that we should be feeling good. Right? So we really have a significant amount of resistance towards this, and it can really limit what it is that we're able to create in life. So for example, I have one client who is seeking new employment. However, she hasn't told her current employer yet. And she hasn't applied for any new jobs yet. She's kind of stuck in that space of anxiety in that space of resistance. She's too anxious to talk to her employer about not only her leaving, but also just letting you know, Hey, I'm going to be going somewhere else. I'm going to be applying other places. She's nervous about applying for a new job, because, well, what if they end up calling my employer first and that's how my employer finds out. So, because she's feeling so anxious about it, she's really feeling quite stressed and she's not getting the result that she wants. She is stuck in that space. Okay. By the way, I do have permission to share this as well. So, um, so what's really interesting is if she could just learn to lean into that a little bit, which she is working on, right. Leaning into it a bit, she could actually alleviate so much stress. You can't eliminate it completely, but she could shorten it's duration K knowing, okay, it's going to be uncomfortable. If I have this conversation with my employer. And the sooner I have that conversation, the sooner I can get to a job that actually does fulfill my needs and meets my financial requirements so I can pay my bills. Right. Cause how much has this stress going to be exacerbated? Not only around the fear of talking to the employer, but also the fear around inconsistent paychecks and not being able to get those bills paid. Right. There's a significant number of insecurities around all of that. But leaning into the discomfort of, okay, I'm going to talk to my employer. I'm going to apply for those jobs. We cannot avoid the discomfort, but we can shorten the duration. The sooner she can lean into that discomfort. The sooner she can get a new job, get those bills paid and experience more financial freedom and less stress. Now my daughter's recently told me about somebody on Tik TOK, and I'll have to ask them who it was. Cause I cannot remember the name. If I can find it, I will post it in the show notes, but they were talking about this tic talker that was really stricken with anxiety. She was so anxious that she was really stunted in her growth. She wasn't able to create the results that she was looking for because everything just felt too big and too scary. She was so afraid of rejection. That she wasn't initiating anything. And I'm trying to remember how it came about that she had this idea. I don't remember if it was a suggestion from a coach or a therapist, or if it was her own idea. I honestly can't remember, but she decided to just go out into the world and just apply for ridiculous numbers of things. Make ridiculous requests of people. So that she could practice being told no, and get that evidence for herself, that things would be okay. So for example, she might walk up to a total. stranger and ask for money or for a meal. She also applied to jobs that she was very under qualified for. So she did all of these things, trying to see essentially how much rejection she could take, so that essentially, you know, she gains any immunity to it. Right. So if she keeps getting hit again and again and again with rejection, then ultimately then she's inoculated, right? Now it's not going to bother her as much when somebody tells her no. And what was really fascinating was when she was willing to put herself out there, amazing things started to happen. She put herself out there assuming that she would get a no. But she started to get yeses. So yes, she did get a significant number of nos because some of these things were quite extreme. But for example, she was offered jobs that she really wasn't qualified for. She was experiencing amazing things because she was willing to experience the discomfort of being told no. And as she was willing to experience those nos, she started to experience more yeses. So it did in fact shorten the duration of her discomfort because now there was this amazing. Reward at the end of it. Okay. So I'm jumping back on super quick. on a totally different day. So if you're watching this on YouTube, yes, I'm in a different outfit. and that is why. But I asked my daughters about that girl that I was telling you about. And they said, it's actually, becoming a trend on Tik TOK. And so if you go over to Tik TOK or I'm sure anywhere, and just put in a search for rejection therapy, I think that you'll be blown away at everything that people are experiencing. As they're actually putting themselves out there and really opening themselves up to the idea of rejection and that they're doing it in an effort to overcome their fears of rejection. But it is just amazing what things are happening. So hop on over there. and check it out. Now I want to share another example that I was reading about recently, but this family, as they would sit around the dinner table, instead of saying, what was the best part of your day, and what's the most amazing thing that you did. Instead, they would go around the table and they would say, okay, how did you fail today? And that is what would be celebrated. And I thought that that was so interesting. They talked about their experience and how it really kind of broadened. What their perception was of the world. And so as they were going into the world and thinking, okay, I'm going to do a brave thing and I'm probably going to fail and I'm going to learn and grow through it. It shifted things so much more into a growth mindset, which is fascinating because we think oftentimes that the growth mindset comes from focusing on our wins. But also, as we sit and take the time to think through. Okay. You know what I'm going to, you gain this evidence for my brain, that I can experience growth through putting myself out there. Even when I get a no. And this is something that my teacher and mentor Brooke Castillo talks about as well, is looking out and seeking those nos. When she found herself single, for example, then she decided, okay, I'm just going to ask out a bunch of people. I'm going to go on 100 dates. And just sort through as many people as possible, get as many nos as I can, either my no or their no. But my goal is just to go on dates with as many people as possible and see how many nos I can get, because I know the more nos I get, the more yeses I will get. And she really had a lot of success with that. You know, the truth is that when we really broaden it and we just see, okay, I'm willing to experience no's we're going to also get more yeses and it's going to significantly increase the odds of us finding that person that. we really want to be with. And this is something that it really applies to business as well. And just life in general. Right. I remember when I first started coaching, that was a lot of the instruction I was given was, Hey, if you are not asking somebody yes or no question, if they can't actually reject you. They also can't really embrace you. Right. And so that was something that I really applied into my personal life was okay. I'm going to make more offers. I'm going to put myself out there so that people can give me a yes or a no. And if they give me a no great. Now I know better where I should be investing my time and my energy. Now as I'm sharing these examples, I don't want you to think that I just jump up and down every single time that I'm told no in life. Right? Sometimes I still experienced that discomfort or those feelings of rejection. That's just life. But when we're able to just radically accept that, okay, this is a part of life. I'm going to experience these emotions and it's going to be okay. I can just work through those emotions. It makes it so much easier for us to actually create the life that we really truly want, rather than being just paralyzed by fear and insecurity.. Experiencing that discomfort. Yeah. We're going to experience it either way. So just keep that in mind. Like I said, in the beginning, you're going to experience discomfort either way, but you can actually shorten its duration. By number one, practicing, feeling it being okay with being told no. Leaning into that fear, that insecurity, whatever it is, that's holding you back. Right. And just being willing to celebrate. Okay. How did I fail today? What happened? Where did I experience a no. Where did I put myself out there? It's really celebrating, kind of like we talked about last time on the podcast, on the parenting podcast. It was really celebrating the journey rather than the end result. There is so much to be learned in the journey and just coming to know and love yourself enough to recognize, okay, you know what? This is going to be uncomfortable and I'm going to do it anyway. So this week, just be willing to put yourself out there. See how many nos you can get. Look for ways that you can really put yourself out there. See if you can fail this week, tell me how many times you can fail. And then kind of take those notes about, okay, I failed this many times and I won this many times. I didn't think that I was going to be getting that job that I was under-qualified for. And amazingly enough, I put myself out there and I got it. Right. There's so many situations in life where we don't even know what it is that we're capable of unless we're willing to actually put ourselves out there. And Hey, if you would like some help and support, actually putting yourself out there, come and work with me. I do have some openings coming available for my one-on-one coaching. So if that interests you and you want to come and work with me right now, I'm working with six week coaching packages. So I encourage you to just come and give me six weeks. Let's spend six weeks together and see how much growth you can experience in those six weeks. It is truly one of my most favorite things is helping people along on their journeys and seeing their personal growth. So if you would like to work with me, there is a link in the show notes. We can come to apply to work with me. And yeah, I look forward to chatting with you. Okay. I hope you have a great week. Let's go and fail hard and feel all of our feelings this week. Talk to you soon. Bye now.
