177: The #1 Fear of People Pleasers Part 1: Fear of Abandonment

When we live in fear that others will abandon us, we often end up abandoning ourselves.

In this episode of Inner Work with MaryAnn Walker, we’re exploring the #1 fear of people pleasers: the fear of abandonment. This is part one of a two-part series where we’ll uncover how this fear develops, how it shows up in relationships, and—most importantly—how it leads to chronic self-abandonment.

If you’ve ever caught yourself silencing your needs, over-giving to prove your worth, or staying in unhealthy relationships just to avoid being alone, you’ll see yourself in this conversation. And you’ll begin to understand why these patterns leave you feeling more disconnected and unloved than ever before.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why fear of abandonment is the root fear behind people-pleasing.
• How past experiences—like conditional love or emotional neglect—train us to equate being alone with rejection.
• The painful cycle: fear of abandonment → people-pleasing → self-abandonment.
• 5 common self-abandoning behaviors that stem from fear of abandonment:
  • Overgiving in hopes of proving your worth.
  • Avoiding conflict to keep others happy, even at the cost of your truth.
  • Taking responsibility for other people’s emotions while neglecting your own.
  • Staying too long in unhealthy or toxic relationships out of fear of being alone.
  • Downplaying your needs to make yourself “easier to love.”
• Why these strategies create the illusion of connection but actually deepen disconnection and loneliness.

Challenge for the Week
Pay attention to the moments when you silence yourself, minimize your needs, or overextend to keep someone close. Ask: Am I abandoning myself right now out of fear that they might abandon me?

Work With Me

If you’re ready to stop people-pleasing and start building authentic relationships rooted in love and mutual care, I’d love to support you. Email me now at maryann@maryannwalker.life to check for availability.

Don’t Forget to Subscribe

Be sure to subscribe to Inner Work with MaryAnn Walker so you don’t miss next week’s episode, where we’ll explore how to shift out of fear and start cultivating relationships based on love, safety, and authenticity.

Connect with me!

Contact me: https://maryannwalker.life/contact-me
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Transcript

0:17

well, hello and welcome back. My name is MaryAnn Walker and I'm the life coach for the helpers, the healers, the recovering people pleasers. And today I wanna talk with you about something that really impacts a lot of people pleasers. In fact, it's the baseline for their programming, for how it is that they're showing up in a relationship, and oftentimes they're not even aware of it. And it's a fear of abandonment. So if you ever found yourself working overtime trying to keep somebody else happy or trying to stay in a relationship that just doesn't feel good, or maybe you're even silencing your own needs because you're scared of being left alone or being left behind, then this episode is for you. So first I want to say that a fear of abandonment, it absolutely makes sense for you, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. This fear often has roots in very early experiences, so maybe at some point in life you felt emotionally neglected. Maybe you felt that love was conditional, or maybe somebody really important to you did leave you behind. And because of that, your nervous system has learned. If I want to keep people close, I have to keep them happy at all costs. And this is why for many people pleasers, their number one fear is a fear of abandonment. Because for them being alone is the worst thing ever. It's essentially rejection. And that's really a hard thing for them, which is why they wanna make everybody happy, right? And so then at that point then people pleasing becomes a survival strategy. So I really want you to hear me when I say that there's no shame here. You were doing the best that you could with the tools that you had. And today as we talk about how this fear of abandonment might be showing up for you, I hope that by the end of this episode, you're really going to feel empowered about how you can create lasting change now that this has been brought into your conscious awareness, so again, there's no shame here. You were doing the best that you could with the tools that you had. But here's the thing. If we're showing up in a relationship through the lens of fear, it makes it very hard to show up through the lens of genuine love. If you're showing up through fear, you're going to constantly be feeling anxious in a relationship. You're always going to be wondering in the back of your mind, am I too much? Am I not enough? And that's no way to live. So here are a few ways that fear of abandonment might be quietly showing up for you as a people pleaser. The first one is overgiving. This looks like pouring more and more and more into others and saving less and less for yourself, or even asking for less and less for yourself. You keep hoping that if I can just prove my value to them. Then they'll stay. They will see my worth, and then I will never be alone. So it's score keeping. Yes, but it's not being done in a tit for tat way. It's not being done in a, you owe me this kind of way, but instead this kind of score keeping is coming from a,"I must prove that I have enough worth so that they'll stay" kind of way. Another way it shows up is by avoiding conflict. It's agreeing to things that you don't want because disagreement, it feels like a threat to the relationship. So you avoid having the conversations, you avoid making a request. You avoid letting them know that you're really actually not doing okay in relationship. You avoid letting them know what it is that's actually upsetting you in the moment because you think that a lack of conflict equates to connection. But the thing is you're experiencing a lot of anger and resentment inside. So, while things do look quite peaceful externally, internally, you're creating a lot of conflict for yourself. So you're not actually avoiding conflict at all. And also avoiding conflict means that oftentimes you have to hide who it is that you are. You have to mask yourself. You have to be showing up in the way that they want you to show up, because conflict would be the worst thing ever. So you find yourself living out of alignment with yourself, out of alignment with your own integrity. You're not showing up as your authentic self. You are pretending in relationship, pretending that nothing is wrong, pretending that you are who it is that they want you to be. Another way it might be showing up is taking responsibility for other people's emotions. This means that if somebody's upset, you feel like it is your personal job to fix it, and preferably you get it fixed real fast because if you don't fix it, they're going to walk away. And this is where you start to feel like you're really walking on eggshells. It is hyper. Diligence. It is constantly working to be attuned to the needs of others, constantly trying to predict how they're going to feel, constantly trying to soothe other people's emotions. And this might also look like over owning your piece in a conflict. So yes, you may have a part to own in this co-opted experience, right? Most problems are co-created, so yes, you do have your piece to own, but rather than asking for mutual accountability in this co-created conflict, then you've now made yourself the fall guy. You are taking on all of the blame. You are sparing them from having responsibility or accountability in the situation, and you're hoping that as you're sparing them this responsibility and accountability, that it will just magically inspire them to change. They'll be a new person. They'll be so grateful that you did that for them, that they will change. But the truth is that people rarely change when there's no accountability. And because of that, then this cycle continues where you keep trying to be the bigger person by taking on more of the responsibility, but they're not actually expressing appreciation, and in fact, it's creating more disconnect in relationship than it is connection. It might also look like staying too long in unhealthy relationships because the pain of being alone feels scarier than the pain of staying. The thing with the brain is, is that the unfamiliar is always going to feel scarier. So we would rather stay in a situation that is toxic, but we know all of the variables in it. Then try something new, then seek out a new relationship. Then sever the current relationship because the unknown can feel scarier to the mind. So this is when one tends to assume that. Well, their red flags, they'll eventually turn green, right? We tell ourselves that lie in relationship, that if I stay long enough, those red flags will turn green, or at the very least, then they'll start to turn pink over time. So instead of seeing the red flags and then adjusting who it is that we're choosing to invest into, then instead, the people pleaser doubles down on their efforts. They commit more to this toxic relationship. They people please more. They take on more responsibility. They take on more accountability. They take on more of the mental and emotional labor in relationship thinking that over time the other person will change. They'll be so appreciative that they will change, right? And then they'll stay again, that constant cycle of that fear of abandonment, another way it might show up is downplaying your own needs, because we really have that fear that, oh well, asking too much, then that's gonna make them walk away. I don't wanna be seen as too needy or too clingy. And so you work yourself to the bone. You maybe relaxed or completely erase your personal boundaries. You let the other person walk all over you without telling them what it is that you need, without telling them, Hey, that's too much for me. Or, Hey, I need a break over here. Hey, I need some reciprocation here. You keep doing this, thinking that, well, maybe if I don't have any needs in a relationship, if I just make it really easy for them, if I'm just really accommodating for them, then they'll love me and then they'll choose to stay. But this ultimately leads to a relationship where you are doing all the heavy lifting, and rather than proving love in relationship, you're actually proving usefulness, which leaves you feeling used, right? When you're only proving usefulness in a relationship, it's going to leave you feeling used, and that's actually gonna leave you feeling more lonely than ever. Now these patterns, they can create the illusion of connection. I mean, you're there for them all the time, right? But the truth is that these actions, then they create a connection that's built on fear, not authenticity and love. Now, if this sounds a little bit too familiar, I want to remind you of two things. Number one, this is a shame-free zone. Remember that these behaviors, they came about out of a need for survival. You're okay here. Don't shame yourself if you've been experiencing these things. And number two, if as you're listening, it's resonating with you, that is such an amazing and positive thing because it's bringing these behaviors into your conscious awareness. And once they're in your conscious awareness, then we can create change. These are all the things that have been your default setting from the beginning. It's been your programming from the beginning that, oh, if I just do this, then I'll get this. But now we're seeing that, okay, maybe that's not quite working. It's time to upgrade the thinking. And the first step is having that self-awareness that, oh my gosh, I can't believe that I've been acting through fear all this time. Now, up until now, you've been running on your nervous system safety default settings. But now you have the opportunity to upgrade that baseline fear response into a love response. Love for both you and them. That's what's going to create that change. It's switching from fear into love. So fear says I have to perform for love. Love says I can be my full self and still be loved. Fear says, if I show my true feelings, they'll leave me. Love says, if they leave me because I'm showing up as my authentic self, then they weren't meant for me in the first place. Fear says, I must prove my worth. Love says my worth is inherit. Fear says, if I don't do this, they'll abandon me. Love says if I do something that's out of alignment with my own integrity, I would be abandoning myself. When you start to lead with love, love for yourself first, then you stop trying to earn your place in someone else's life, and you start building relationships that are actually built on more positive things. Instead of fear, you're now building relationships on trust, authenticity, and mutual respect. When you truly come to love yourself and prioritize not abandoning yourself, then that's when you're going to be in the right energy to find that true love and connection with other people that you've actually been seeking. And maybe this is kind of a new idea to you. You've never advocated for yourself, you've never prioritized self before. And I can get it that it can be kind of scary to try something new and to assess your own personal wellbeing before committing to another person. But there is so much growth that comes from leaning into that discomfort and finding that strength within self. And starting to prioritize self, I also want you to know, it doesn't mean that you're gonna turn into a big, fat jerk face, and I'm saying that because I know a lot of you feel that way. You think, oh no, if I have boundaries, I'm gonna be such a jerk. I know a lot of you feel that way, and that's why I actually have an entire episode dedicated to that very subject. So if you are worried that you're gonna turn into a big, fat jerk face, check out the show notes and find a link to that episode for more. But for now, I want you to know, number one, you're not gonna turn into a big, fat jerk face. And leading with love. It doesn't mean that you're never going to compromise with another person. It just means you're now committed to not compromising yourself any longer. It doesn't mean that you stop caring about other people's feelings. It just means that you're going to start prioritizing your own wellbeing so that you can show up for other people. You can, yes, continue to show up for them, but now you're doing it from a place of wholeness and abundance rather than fear and lack. This means that you can start to set boundaries because you actually value yourself. This means if you're overbooked, then you're not committing to be the class your mom. If somebody mistreats you, then you get yourself to safety rather than making excuses for their poor treatment of you. If somebody raises their voice at you, you tell them that, Hey, we can continue this conversation when you can speak to me with respect. You're kind. But you're also boundaried and you're treating yourself with kindness first and foremost by removing yourself from those toxic situations and those toxic relationships. When you are really acting through that lens of love, you're communicating honestly, even if it feels vulnerable, you're being brave. You're willing to give voice to it when something just doesn't feel right to you to tell them when your feelings have been hurt, when things aren't sustainable for you. When you need a little bit of extra support. You let people show you through consistent actions whether they're safe to trust or not, and I wanna be very clear on this, that yes, watch their actions. It is watching and observing how they're actually showing up, not how they say they're going to start showing up, not noticing and putting all of the attention on that one random weekend that they were kind, but noticing how is it that they're consistently showing up and trusting that. It's watching for consistency rather than that sporadic change and adjusting accordingly. It is choosing friends and partners and connections who can meet you where you're at, not just where they wish that you would stay. These are the people that really love you for you and yeah, they definitely also appreciate what it is that you do for them, but you are loved for who you are outside of what it is that you do for them in relationship. This is what it looks like to operate from a steady and grounded self-love. And doing this is going to create such a beautiful and authentic ripple effect where you're now going to have more beautiful and authentic relationships. You're no longer going to feel like you're walking on eggshells, trying to prove that you're worthy of love. All of that insecurity that comes with walking on eggshells, you're going to notice that it's going to be diminishing over time because now you're seeking genuine connection over performance based acceptance. And when you operate from love instead of fear, you stop gripping so tightly to the wrong people and instead you open your hands up to those who genuinely want to stay. They genuinely want to be in your life. So your challenge for this week is I just want you to start to notice where in your relationships are you acting from fear of abandonment rather than from that place of self-love? And then ask yourself, if I led with love for myself and for the other person, what would I do differently? Maybe it's speaking up instead of remaining silent. Maybe it's pulling back a little bit from the relationships where they're getting a lot more than they're willing to give in a relationship. Maybe it's simply telling yourself, I am worthy of love without overworking for it. So remember that the goal isn't to erase fear entirely. You're going to experience fear, and yeah, it might even be scary as you make these changes, but that's completely normal. The goal from here on out is to recognize when it is that fear is sneaking in, especially that fear of abandonment, acknowledging its presence, and then choosing into love and authenticity anyway. Because love, real love the kind that is rooted in authenticity and mutual care. It is the only way to get to those real lasting connections that you've been seeking. And when you lead with that love for yourself, you'll be absolutely amazed the kind of relationships that start showing up for you. Because fear is now in its place. And because fear is now in its place, you can enjoy those relationships from a place of true love and abundance. Now if you are ready to do the inner work to build relationships free of fear, then I would love to support you. I'm currently offering six week coaching packages designed for the highly sensitive people and recovering people pleasers to help you to better step into confidence, set healthy boundaries, and create more genuine connections with others. You can book a free clarity call by coming to my website, www.maryannwalker.life or click the link in the show notes. Your future self, the one who is free and confident and deeply connected. They will absolutely thank you for booking this free call. All right, well, thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a great week, and let's talk soon. Bye now.