Why F*** Off is My New Mantra

F* off.**

It started as a joke. A silent hiss under my breath when someone crossed a boundary, asked too much, or expected too little of themselves while draining too much of me. But then something strange happened. The more I let the words rise—not screamed, not tweeted, just breathed—they became holy.

F*** off.

A prayer. A spell. A reclamation.

Not at you. Not even at them.
But at the whole charade of playing nice when the body says no.

The Psychology of Pleasing

Let’s be clear: people-pleasing isn’t just a bad habit or a cute quirk.
It’s a deeply wired survival response.

Specifically, it’s part of what trauma experts call the fawn response—a lesser-known but just as primal cousin to fight, flight, or freeze. First described by therapist Pete Walker in his work on complex PTSD, fawning is what we do when we feel emotionally unsafe but can’t leave or fight. So instead, we merge. We please. We disappear into the needs and expectations of others, often losing access to our own.

If you had inconsistent or emotionally unpredictable caregivers growing up…
If love was earned through behavior…
If saying “no” led to punishment or shame…
Then at some point, your body likely learned this:

Approval equals safety. Connection at all costs.

This kind of attachment blueprint, often formed through anxious-preoccupied or disorganized attachment styles, wires your nervous system to prioritize the other. Even when it costs you your truth. Even when your body is screaming.

What’s the Cost?

Self-Silencing and Identity Erosion
Psychologist Dana Jack coined the term self-silencing, describing it as a pattern in which individuals—especially women—suppress their true thoughts, needs, and emotions in relationships to preserve attachment.
In clinical studies, self-silencing has been directly linked to:

• Increased depressive symptoms

• Lower self-worth

• High levels of rumination and resentment

• Emotional numbness or identity confusion

If you’re always curating yourself for others, who do you become when you’re finally alone?

Chronic Stress and Physical Illness
The body keeps score. Quite literally.

Neuroscientific studies show that suppressing emotional expression—especially around anger, boundaries, and grief—activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, flooding the body with cortisol. Over time, this leads to:

• Immune dysregulation

• Gut-brain axis dysfunction

• Hormonal imbalance

• Chronic fatigue and inflammatory diseases

Dr. Gabor Maté, in his groundbreaking book When the Body Says No, argues that chronic people-pleasing and emotional repression can create physiological conditions for illness—especially autoimmune disorders.

“You repress your anger to stay lovable. The body absorbs the rage.”

Studies show that self-silencing is linked to depression, identity loss, and even physical illness.
And still—many of us would rather be sick than be disliked. Isn’t that insane??

The Turning Point: The Practice

There is a yogic science for dismantling people-pleasing. In Kundalini Yoga, this isn’t a psychological process—it’s physiological, energetic, and experiential. Since people-pleasing is a learned nervous system response rooted in fear, hypervigilance, to break the cycle you need practices that retrain the system toward self-authority, inner connection, and emotional regulation.

Nervous System Regulation

When the nervous system is weak or dysregulated, it defaults to survival patterns like over-giving, fawning, or collapsing under perceived pressure. Kundalini Yoga strengthens the nervous system by introducing measured challenge, creating capacity to remain steady under stress.

Practices:

• Long posture holds (e.g., Stretch Pose, Ego Eradicator)

• Rhythmic kriyas involving repetition and breath

• Cold showers (Ishnaan) to build tolerance and reset stress response

Effect:
Increased resilience, less reactivity, stronger ability to hold boundaries without collapse or overexplanation.

Heavy Breathwork

Breath is the most immediate tool for shifting the state of the nervous system. Shallow breathing correlates with sympathetic activation (fight/flight/fawn). Conscious breath practice moves the system into parasympathetic balance. It also clears fear imprints completely from the nervous system, allowing you to actually drop the past pattern and move on.

Practices:

• Heave O-Mouth Breath of Fire

• Breath of Fire through the nose (rapid, rhythmic breath)

• One-Minute Breath (inhale 20 sec, hold 20 sec, exhale 20 sec)

Effect:
Greater emotional regulation, reduced anxiety, increased clarity, grounded decision-making, removing the past imprint.

Holding the Mother Freaking Pose

Staying in a difficult posture trains the body and mind to stay present in discomfort. This is essential for unlearning automatic people-pleasing responses that arise from wanting to exit tension or avoid disapproval.

Practices:

• Arm holds (e.g., Arms at 60°, Shoulder Shrugs, Warrior poses)

• Static holds with breath focus

• Timed kriyas that push past mental limits

Effect:
Increased tolerance for internal pressure, ability to withstand discomfort without abandoning the self.

Listening to the Inner Voice

Chronic people-pleasing disrupts the ability to hear one’s own needs or intuition. Yogic meditation practices calm external reactivity and reorient attention inward.

Practices:

• Kirtan Kriya (Sa Ta Na Ma with mudras and visualization)

• Silent sitting after kriya

• Shabad Kriya (sleep regulation and subconscious clearing)

Effect:
Improved discernment, intuitive decision-making, restoration of the inner compass.

These practices, done consistently, restructure the inner landscape. They don’t just manage people-pleasing—they build the internal conditions where it is no longer necessary.

The Death of the People Pleaser is Loud

There is a trap in some spiritual circles: that your higher self is always soft, accommodating, and “in service.” That boundaries are unspiritual. That anger is low vibration.

I used to think saying yes made me spiritual. Made me feminine. Made me successful. But the truth is, it made me sick. Energetically emaciated. Over-polished and under-truthed.

“Be the light,” they say. But sometimes light is lightning. Sometimes it’s the fire that clears the field.

Feal boundaries aren’t against others.
They are for truth.

And truth, in its rawest form, sometimes sounds like:
F* off.**

We don’t need to be polite while our souls are bleeding. We don’t need to twist our spiritual practice into a PR campaign for approval.

We need inner permission. To speak clearly. To walk away. To not explain. To say the thing.
To live with ourselves first and best.