HOW TO STOP PEOPLE-PLEASING,
PERFECTING, AND OVERFUNCTIONING
A guided svadhyaya practice for recognizing old survival patterns
The FitZen Project • Rachel Fitzpatrick
Rachel Fitzpatrick • 00:01
What if the thing you keep calling your personality isn't actually who you are? Maybe being the responsible one, the perfectionist, the person who never asks for help—those things may not simply be who you are. Maybe it's who you learned to be when you needed to feel safe.
Today we're using the yogic practice of svadhyaya, self-study, to recognize the voice that has been protecting you and decide whether it still gets a vote.
Rachel Fitzpatrick • 00:35
Welcome to the FitZen Project, where you are your most important project. This is the podcast for the high-functioning human who can manage a career, a family, a color-coded calendar, and everyone else's emotional emergencies. But somehow you ended up riding Shotgun in your own damn life. Your life may look perfectly fine from the outside, maybe even successful.
But if you've ever thought, wait, is this what I actually want? Or am I just incredibly good at handling what landed on my plate? Then you're in the right place. Around here we use honest conversations, yoga, and project management strategy to help you get out of autopilot. Own your shit.
And make courageous choices before another five years disappear into your to-do list. Because alignment is the new hustle. And you, my friend, are your most important project.
Rachel Fitzpatrick • 01:45
So this week Christopher Wesley introduced us to survival scripts. like the voices and behaviors we developed to feel safe, accepted, noticed, or in control. And maybe your script tells you to keep everyone happy. Or your script could tell you that you cannot rest until everything is finished, which is hilarious because everything is never finished.
And maybe it also tells you to overprepare or stay quiet, prove yourself, handle everything alone, right? And when you've listened to one of these voices long enough, it stops sounding like a script. And it starts sounding like your personality. Right? Like I'm just a perfectionist or I've always been the responsible one. Or I'm not good at asking for help.
And here's my favorite. That's just who I am. But is that really who you are—or is that who you learned to be? Let's call it what it is. So today I'm gonna pull in this yoga practice, and the yogic principle is called svadhyaya. Now I'm going to break this down: sva-dhyā-ya. And that simply means self-study.
So Svadhyaya isn't about judging yourself or diagnosing yourself or turning every childhood memory into a three-hour investigation. It's actually the practice of observing yourself honestly. Like be the actual mirror, right? Observe yourself honestly enough to recognize what is driving your choices. And that's a big deal.
Because you cannot change a pattern you cannot see, and you cannot choose your response when you're automatically obeying the loudest voice in the room. And even when that voice is inside your own head. So let's practice. Let's make this a practice. If you're driving, walking, or doing anything that requires your attention, keep your eyes open and simply listen.
Otherwise, I want you to find a comfortable position. And you can sit in a chair with your feet on the ground or on your mat or lie down with your knees bent and plant your feet. But get in a comfortable position and let your hands rest somewhere easy. And if it feels comfortable, close your eyes or soften your gaze.
Want you to take a deep breath in through the nose. And let it flow out through the mouth. Again, breathe in. And exhale. And allow your breathing to settle into a natural rhythm. So there's nothing to fix right now. There's nothing to perform. And you don't even have to be good at this.
So for the next few moments, your only job is to notice. Bring to mind a recent situation that created tension in you. For example, maybe someone asked you for something when you were already depleted. Maybe you wanted to share an idea but stopped yourself. Maybe you made a mistake.
Maybe you considered making a change and immediately started listing every reason it wouldn't work. Don't choose the most painful moment of your life. Choose something small, small enough to observe without becoming overwhelmed. So picture that moment. And picture what happened. And what did the voice inside you say? For example, maybe it said don't disappoint them, don't mess this up.
They're going to judge you. Or you don't have enough experience. Or you can rest later. Like I want you to notice the exact language if you can. And now notice the tone. Does that voice sound critical? Urgent, afraid, controlling. Does it sound like you or does it remind you of someone else?
And without trying to make the voice disappear, I need you to ask, ask the voice, what are you trying to protect me from? Rejection. Embarrassment. Failure. Conflict. Being misunderstood? Feeling like you aren't enough? Don't force the answer. Just listen. What are you trying to protect me from?
This is what Christopher calls breath space: the room to hear what is happening inside you before it makes the decision for you. So take another slow breath in. Let's let the exhale be slightly longer than your inhale. Again breathe in. And slowly breathe out.
Now let's go back to the voice and let's ask yourself: Is this voice helping me in this moment? Not whether it has ever helped or whether it is completely wrong. You simply need to know: Do I need this protection right now?
And if the answer is no, then you can place a hand on your heart and silently say, or whisper aloud, Thank you for trying to protect me. But you're off shift now. I don't need you to make this decision. And I want you to notice what happens in your body when you say that. Maybe something softens.
Maybe nothing changes at all. That is okay. But the goal isn't to silence it forever. The goal is to recognize that the voice exists. Hearing it does not require obeying it. Let's ask one final question, okay? If I didn't need to protect myself in the old way, what would I choose now? So maybe you would say no.
Or ask for help. Maybe you would submit your application before it feels perfect. What if you could rest without earning it first? Or maybe you would finally admit that you don't want what you've been working so hard to maintain. It is okay to let the answer be small.
Because you don't have to blow up your life or reinvent your entire life. This is svadhyaya: simply noticing where your choice becomes available. So take one more breath in, and slowly exhale. And begin to notice the space around you, okay? And if your eyes were closed, you can gently blink them back open.
This is the practice of svadhyaya, where we aren't fixing ourselves or shaming a pattern. We're not even pretending that the voice was never useful because it was. In this practice, we are learning to recognize the difference between who you are and what once protected you. And your practice this week is to catch the script once. All right.
And when you feel yourself automatically people-pleasing, proving, perfecting, controlling, or overfunctioning, pause and ask, what is this trying to protect me from? And do I need that protection right now? And what would I choose if this voice didn't get the final vote? And that pause, that's where your self-leadership begins.
In the next FitZen Mini, we are taking this episode with Christopher Wesley one step deeper. We will take what we have noticed here and run it through a project management process. This is new, but this is what it means to be in the FitZen Project.
We're gonna create an identity change request to decide what stays, what needs to change, and what is officially ready to be released. Because awareness matters. And eventually we have to manage that change, right? But until then, I need you to remember, you are your most important project.
Alignment is the new hustle | You are your most important project |
