From People Pleaser to Empowered: How I Overcame “Good Girl Syndrome”

Wondering if you can relate? You’ve got the title of Achiever of the Year or Helper of the Year (or both!) locked down. 🏆

You’re the one everyone can count on, always reliable, always productive, always on. 

And you’ve got the stress to prove it. (and maybe the IBS, chronic headaches, muscle tension too…)

Maybe you’re thinking, This is just who I am. Stress is part of the deal. 

Or maybe you’re holding out for that magical day ✨ when everything will finally feel easier:

🤞🏼 when the kids are older, 

🤞🏼 when work settles down, 

🤞🏼 when life is less demanding. 

But if you’re anything like I was… 

That magical day never seems to come. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sound familiar? 

Let me tell you a story about how I found my way out of the cycle and discovered something I never thought possible: calm, confidence, and me.

My High-Achieving, People Pleasing To-Do List

For most of my life, I thought I was just wired this way. 

I was the quintessential “good girl”—quiet, hardworking, helpful, and always on a mission to make everyone around me happy. 😇

My greatest fear? Disappointing anyone.

I lived by the unspoken rule that if I just kept being productive, helpful, and kind, I would finally check off that unwritten to-do list:

✅ I would be successful.

✅ I would be of value.

✅ I would be loved.

✅ And everything inside me and around me would settle down and be OK. 

Except…I didn’t – and it wasn’t okay.

The High Cost of Good Girl Syndrome

Looking back, I see now how much stress I carried—every minute of every day. 

🚩 My shoulders lived up by my ears – tight and knotted as if I’d been carrying the weight of the world (duh – I was).

🚩 My mind was always racing – darting from one worry to the next, like a playlist stuck on repeat with no off button (or at least I hadn’t found it – yet!).

🚩 My stomach was always in knots – either from that constant low-grade nausea that came with worry or from the tight, anxious churning that showed up whenever I had too much on my plate (which was always). 

I thought this constant state of stress was just “normal,” part of who I was.

And aside from assuming it was just me, I believed my stress came from external circumstances. I’d tell myself, 

I’ll feel better once I get my degree…Once I’m licensed…Once the baby arrives…Once the kids aren’t so young…Once the world isn’t on fire. 🔥 

👉 There was always a new “once” – and the stress never…Went…AWAY.

The breaking point? Motherhood.

I could see how my anxiety and constant reactivity were affecting my kids, just as I had been affected by my parents’ stress and tension growing up. 🫣

🔄 I didn’t want to pass this down to them – I wanted to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

But I had no idea where to start – so I just kept swimming…

Until things got so much worse.

High Achieving My Way Out of People Pleasing

When my son experienced a year-and-a-half-long medical trauma, I desperately wanted to help him. But the first set of doctors—and even the heads of the hospital—wouldn’t take his illness seriously. 

💔 They dismissed us, ignored my concerns, or patted us on the head like worried parents were just another chore on their rounds. 

The gloves had to come off. 💪🏽

Being a good girl, a people pleaser, wasn’t working to solve this problem.

To save my son I’d have to get assertive and achieve my way through it instead—by digging deep and finding something, anything, that could help him. 🤓

I poured myself into research, combing through every peer-reviewed study I could find. 

💡 Until one day my frazzled, mom-terrified brain was finally reminded of an approach that had been quietly helping people for decades (but hidden in the shadow of BigPharma’s big ad-spend). 

Neurofeedback (EEG Biofeedback or brain training) had been on my radar for years—thanks to an early mentor and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score.

So I decided to dive in, joining the Trauma Research Foundation-sponsored Neurofeedback training program to learn how to help my son.

What I didn’t realize was that I’d end up helping myself instead.

How I Broke Free from Chronic, People-Pleasing Anxiety and Found Myself

As I dove deeper into Neurofeedback during my training, I uncovered something surprising—and it explained so much about why I always felt on edge. 

⚡️ My brain was producing an unusually high amount of Fast Beta brainwaves. 

This “fast mode” was keeping my mind constantly spinning, stuck in patterns of anxiety, worry, rumination, and hypervigilance. It wasn’t just a mental habit; my brain was physically wired into a state of overdrive.

😰 And my autonomic nervous system? It was no better. 

I was perpetually stuck in fight-or-flight mode, with only occasional detours into freeze when the overwhelm became too much to bear. 

These “freeze” moments didn’t look dramatic—they showed up as daily bouts of exhaustion where I felt too drained to do anything but collapse. Over time, this cycle led to full-blown burnout, a state where even rest didn’t feel restorative.

🫨 My body wasn’t just carrying the mental and emotional load; it was storing the stress physically, too. 

Chronic tension in my shoulders, jaw, and back was a signal that my fascia—my body’s connective tissue—was holding onto the stress I couldn’t release. 

This trapped tension was disrupting the essential signaling between my nervous system and my body, making it even harder to break free from the cycle. 

🔄 It was a revelation to see how all of this—the fast beta waves, the stuck autonomic responses, and the physical tension—was keeping me locked in patterns of stress and survival. 

And it helped me understand why conventional approaches to “calming down” hadn’t worked for me. Meditation felt impossible with my racing brain. Deep breathing exercises sometimes made me feel worse, not better. 

My brain, body and nervous system were too dysregulated for these surface-level techniques to reach the root of the problem.

Curing My “Good Girl Syndrome”: Creating Safety at the Root 

Armed with this perspective-shifting knowledge…

🧠 I began using Neurofeedback to train my brain out of its Fast Beta dominance. 

And at the same time, I leaned into other practices that deepened these shifts – by regulating my autonomic nervous system at a deeper level and helping release tension in my fascia:

🧘🏽 Restorative and Yin yoga, 

💓 HeartRate Variability (HRV) coherence training, 

💫 Vagus nerve stimulation

✍️ and neuroscience-based journaling using the Yoga Sutras 

Together, these powerful techniques addressed the source of the problem, not just the symptoms.

They gave me access to a level of calm I’d never experienced before: true calm that came from my system being in a genuine felt-sense of safety.

❌ Not “I’ve got a free minute, let me quickly relax” calm. Not “things are finally going well (for now)” calm. 

This was a deep, steady calm that existed independently of what was happening around me.

I started noticing changes immediately:

✅ Minor frustrations—like spilled milk or a client rescheduling—no longer sent me into crisis mode. I could handle them with ease, moving on without overreacting.

✅ My nightly stress dreams and catastrophic nightmares? Gone! For the first time in my life, I was sleeping peacefully and waking up truly rested.

But here’s the moment that really made me stop and take notice: 

One day, I was hanging out with my son when – BAM! – a random knick-knack fell from the shelf with a loud crash. 

⚡️ Normally – before I even knew what caused the loud boom – my body would’ve flooded with adrenaline, my brain instantly interpreting the noise as “danger!” 

But this time? Nothing. 

My first thought was, “I wonder what that was,” and I calmly went to investigate.

❌ No panicked racing heart. 

❌ No tension hijacking my body. 

❌ No spiraling thoughts or reactions.

This wasn’t just a fleeting win.

Because the real game-changer? 

✅ I didn’t have to deal with the ripple effects that would’ve normally followed—overreacting to my family like it was a crisis, taking time to “come down” from that state, and then having to repair the aftermath of my own meltdown (cue cascading mom guilt).

For the first time, my nervous system wasn’t on high alert. 

I didn’t feel like I was constantly bracing for impact. 

I wasn’t spending extra energy fixing what my over-reactive brain and nervous system had created. Instead, I had the freedom to stay grounded and present.

And that wasn’t all. 

👉 It was as if my constantly spinning brain had been given room to pause, to breathe.

I found myself with space—space to think, to dream, to create, to feel joy and confidence in ways I’d never experienced.

And the lasting legacy of powerful nervous system regulation work?

Healing didn’t change who I am.

🌟 I’m still driven. 

🌟 I still care deeply about others. 

🌟 I still want to help and make a difference. 

But now, my drive comes from a place of curiosity and care—not a desperate need to prove my value. 

I feel that value at my core now.

I’ve built a thriving business, created Embodied Neurofeedback^TM, and developed new techniques –  like the NeuroYoga Journaling Method^TM– to help others. 

👉 I’m more energized, more creative, and have more mental space than ever before.

But perhaps the most meaningful change is the way I show up for my kids: 

💞 I’m no longer stuck in emotional reactivity, repeating the patterns my brain and nervous system developed in childhood. 

💞 I’m breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma – giving my children a calm environment to grow up in and a mom who models resilience.

Ready to Stop People-Pleasing and Find Yourself?

If you’re stuck in the cycle of people-pleasing, chronic achieving, or feeling like you’re never enough, I want you to know this: 

Change is absolutely possible. 

Not the surface-level “fake it till you make it” kind of change, but the deep, lasting transformation that frees you to be truly you.

When you work from the brain and nervous system level, everything starts to shift. 

Imagine what it would feel like to handle life’s challenges without feeling overwhelmed. You stop living in survival mode, trying to prove your worth, and instead start living with a sense of calm, clarity, and confidence:

✔️ Your constant inner critic quiets down. 

✔️ Knee-jerk reactions—like saying “yes” to avoid conflict or beating yourself up over a mistake—lose their grip on you. 

✔️ A tense conversation doesn’t leave you spiraling into guilt or shame. 

✔️ A loud noise doesn’t send your heart racing or flood your body with adrenaline. 

And those moments of joy and ease you’ve been chasing? They start showing up on their own, unforced and sustainable. 💃🏽

This isn’t about changing who you are. 

You’ll still be the kind, driven, compassionate person you’ve always been—just without the heavy weight of anxiety, guilt, or the need for external validation holding you back.

Your fuel becomes curiosity and care, not fear or a desperate need to prove your value.

The best part? 

You’re not just helping yourself. 

💫 You create a ripple effect that goes far beyond your own life.

Healing from “good girl syndrome” isn’t about losing your spark—it’s about igniting a brighter, more authentic flame. 🔥

👉 Your shoulders will feel lighter, your mind quieter, and your days filled with more ease and energy. 

This journey is for you, but it’s also for everyone you care about.

So, are you ready to stop living for everyone else and start living as yourself? 

The transformation starts when you decide to go deeper—to the brain and nervous system level—where true healing begins.

Hi! 🙋🏻 I’m Dr. Naomi Iguchi – licensed clinical psychologist and creator of Embodied Neurofeedback^TM in Richmond, VA. 

If you’re ready to let go of people-pleasing and cure your “good girl syndrome” – for good – book a free virtual consultation with me today. 

Don’t leave future-you waiting – let’s get started. 💛

Or keep reading to learn more about the secrets to:

👉 Overcoming Emotional Overwhelm, 

👉 Calming Your Racing Mind for Sleep 

👉 Making Nervous System Regulation Tools Finally Work for You

👉 or Breaking the Cycle of Intergenerational Trauma.