#131 Why You Say Yes When You Mean No | The Trauma Response Behind People-Pleasing#131 Why You Say Yes When You Mean No | The Trauma Response Behind People-Pleasing
The Trauma Recovery School
Bonita Ackerman du Preez talks about the fawn trauma response and how it drives automatic people-pleasing and difficulty saying no. She outlines how working gently with the nervous system can make honest boundaries feel safer and open the door to more authentic relationships and self-respect.
3:45•24 Aug 2026
Why Saying Yes When You Mean No Is a Trauma Response, Not a Personality Flaw
Episode Overview
- Fawning is a fourth trauma response where pleasing others becomes a strategy for safety and connection.
- Saying yes when you mean no is recorded by the body as self-abandonment and stored as resentment.
- Chronic people-pleasing can lead to exhaustion, numbness in relationships and leaking irritation.
- Working with the nervous system through small, deliberate experiences helps make saying no feel safe.
- Honest boundaries rarely cause the feared collapse of relationships and can mark the beginning of real self-love.
“Your honest no is not the end of love and acceptance. It’s the beginning of real relationships, and more importantly, the love for yourself.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety when their default setting is saying yes to everyone else? This episode of The Trauma Recovery School zooms in on the “fawn” response – the trauma pattern that hides inside what most people call being nice, easy-going or endlessly helpful. Bonita Ackerman du Preez breaks down why so many people keep agreeing to things they don’t actually want to do, then spend the rest of the day stewing in resentment.
She explains that fawning is one of the four main trauma responses, alongside fight, flight and freeze. It looks like being kind, flexible and always available, but underneath, “a reliable nervous system has learnt very young that pleasing was the price of connection.” You’ll hear how the body keeps score when you say yes instead of your honest no. Bonita explains, “Your body records it. It records it as an override.
It records the abandonment of yourself and it stores the resentment somewhere.” That stored resentment can show up as exhaustion, numbness in relationships that seem fine on the surface, or irritation that leaks out in ways you don’t intend. Rather than simply telling people to set better boundaries, Bonita talks about working directly with the nervous system through the "reprogram" phase of the Trauma Recovery Method.
With small, deliberate experiences and tools, people start to learn that saying no isn’t about survival or losing love. Step by step, a post-trauma identity is built, where a real yes is possible because a real no exists. A key message running through the episode is that the feared fallout from saying no usually doesn’t happen.
Relationships often stay intact, and “a new piece of you becomes available to you.” Bonita closes with a powerful reframe: “Your honest no is not the end of love and acceptance. It’s the beginning of real relationships, and more importantly, the love for yourself.” If you’ve ever felt safe only when you’re pleasing others, this conversation may get you wondering what your first honest no could make possible.
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