Episode
The Shadow of the People Pleaser: A Tarot Exploration
- Podcast
- The Tarot Diagnosis
- Published
- Oct 12, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 1874
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Summary
This week on The Tarot Diagnosis , we’re exploring one of the most commonly misunderstood behaviors that exist in many of us: people-pleasing. Inspired by real conversations in the therapy room and the archetypal patterns of tarot, I explore people-pleasing through a trauma-informed, psychological, and tarot-based lens. While people-pleasing is often viewed as a virtue and praised as kindness or empathy, the truth is way more complex. From a clinical perspective, people-pleasing is often rooted in early childhood conditioning, or what therapists might consider as part of the “fawn response,” as well as the development of what psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott refers to as the false self. I shed light on how people-pleasing is actually a survival skill - a way of staying safe by tending to others' needs, moods, and perceptions, often at our own expense. In this episode, I explore how tarot archetypes reflect the nuance and shadow of this survival style. Drawing from both psychological theory and tarot symbolism, I unpack this behavior pattern as a form of emotional manipulation born from a deep need for control, approval, and connection, which might be difficult for many of us to hear. I also guide you through a therapeutic, three-card spread designed to help you explore your own patterns of people-pleasing along with what’s underneath it, what it protects, and what it might feel like to step outside of it. For the collective, I pull… Card One: What emotion am I attempting to prevent or manage by people-pleasing? → The Tower Card Two: What would it mean to allow another person to feel disappointed, angry, or uncomfortable without taking responsibility for it? → Two of Cups Card Three: How can I tell the difference between being kind and giving so much that I lose mysel…