I Am Behind in Life

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

In our fast-paced NYC world, with the power in the palm of our hands to research anything, know what’s happening anywhere in the world, and peer into the lives of both friends and strangers, it is so easy for us to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others and defining our lives based on the expectations and pressures all around us.

While many of these resources are meant to be inspiring, they can in fact be discouraging and paralyzing. As a therapist in “the city that never sleeps,” I have had many clients who felt overwhelmed or left behind by life. It can be very challenging to make the necessary changes in our thought patterns to overcome these feelings. Talking to a professional counselor or therapist can really help you address these feelings and set you on a path to peace and what is successful for you.

Cultural expectations, family expectations, and the plans and expectations you place on yourself can create the perfect storm when things don’t follow the path you’ve planned. You see others taking the path you wanted, and you ask, “Why not me?” You see others with the career or financial success you thought you’d have, and you ask, “What have I done wrong?” You see others with a romantic partner, a happy marriage, cute little children, and you ask, “When is it my turn?”

If you set specific deadlines for yourself, this feeling of being behind can be even stronger: “By 36 I will be married with three kids and have an executive position in the tech field.” That’s quite a lot of pressure to put on yourself! Such an expectation also requires a lot of other things to go right, over which you have minimal control.

The fact is, we are not living in “Monopoly” or “The Game of Life.” The milestones that you imagine for yourself or others imagine for you don’t have to come in a certain order or a certain timeframe. You’re not on trial, and the world is not your jury. Satisfaction in life is more important than the outward appearance of success. Doing good for others matters more than climbing the corporate ladder.

What are your values? What is important to you? How can you focus on offering friends and family your presence, your companionship, and your compassion while you work toward success and fulfillment in your chosen field? Evaluating what truly matters and repositioning your inner expectations around it can be the key to peace of mind.

As a psychotherapist, I work with people to find their true, foundational goals, values, and desires and identify those obstacles or patterns of thought that may be blocking their fulfillment. It is a very enlightening journey that leads to a new outlook on life and a new path forward. If you’re in the NYC area and you’d like some help balancing expectations and finding both contentment and success, reach out to see how I can help.

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Disconnected from Your Own Life

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

The experience of feeling disconnected can be unique to each person. Maybe you feel like you’re on autopilot, just going through the motions, not emotionally connected to the world or the people around you. Maybe when you are talking to people, you appear normal on the outside, but inside you feel distant and unengaged. Or you just don’t feel like yourself anymore, not recognizing the person you are. Sometimes you look in the mirror and don’t really recognize yourself. The world seems hazy and slightly unreal.

Whatever your particular experience, these feelings can be frightening. But surprisingly, they are common and can be caused by a variety of life stressors. The most common include:

  • Chronic or prolonged stress
  • Family difficulties or worries
  • Emotional overload
  • Heavy expectations placed upon you—sometimes by yourself
  • Difficult or traumatic experiences
  • Significant life changes
  • Chronic sleep deprivation
  • Anxiety or depression
  • Childhood emotional neglect
  • Substance abuse

If the disconnectedness is more pronounced or continuous, it could be a form of dissociation, when the normal sense of being a part of the world, your own body, or yourself becomes disrupted. Two common types of dissociation are depersonalization, in which you feel like you are detached from yourself, and derealization, when the world around you seems like a dream or seems unreal.

The “why” behind feeling disconnected

Why does your mind do this in response to these stimuli? Your nervous system is protecting you. When you are in a place of extreme or chronic stress, the nervous system can partially disconnect you from the situation to prevent overload.

Many people who feel disconnected only feel it occasionally, not on an ongoing basis. However, there is the danger that your body will develop the habit of taking you back to that space whenever you are beginning to feel overwhelmed, which could lead to a chronic state of disconnectedness or to some level of dissociation.

What you can do

Don’t ignore this feeling. You need to take steps to reverse this tendency and develop new patterns of thought. For some people whose disconnectedness is occasional and not too powerful yet, creating new habits to cope can replace the habit your nervous system is falling into.

Most immediately, you can use mindfulness techniques to reconnect with the world and yourself. Some approaches include methods that force you to notice the world and your body. For instance, when you are feeling disconnected, stop and try a few of these techniques:

  • Focus on your senses: Close your eyes and name three things you can hear, three things you can feel, and three things you can smell, then open your eyes and name three things you can see. If you have something to eat, you can try it and think about the taste.
  • Take a walk outside in nature without any technology to entertain you. Use all your senses again to experience the world around you.
  • Close your eyes and breathe deeply, concentrating on the feeling of the air going in and out of your body. Allow parts of your body to relax. Notice what part doesn’t want to relax, and try talking to that body part in your mind. “Relax, shoulders, relax.”
  • Choose a period of time each day when you will not look at your phone or check social media. Gradually increase that period of time until you only look at the internet once a day, or even less. Begin to remove apps from your phone that you realize are causing you stress. Turn off pop-ups.

Of course, you may also need to make lifestyle changes, such as eating healthier and getting more sleep, and in the long run you may need to address any particular stressful conditions in your life. But these techniques can help you start to get some control back.

You may need more help

These are great first steps for reversing disconnectedness, but some people need the help of a mental health professional, especially if the feelings are chronic or severe. Some helpful therapies include cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, somatic therapy, and EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing).

Find an experienced psychotherapist in your area who can help you identify the root causes and work with you to free yourself from them so you can reconnect with yourself, your loved ones, and your life.

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Overthinking Conflict

Posted on September 17, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

Most people, after they have a conflict, find themselves thinking it through—what happened, why, and what to do about it. Depending on the intensity of the conflict, this can be a difficult evaluation, but it is an important step to take in order to get clarity on the cause of the conflict and your next steps.

However, few of us can evaluate a conflict calmly and rationally. That’s because conflict signals danger, and our fight-or-flight nervous system responses often kick in. One’s personality, past experiences, and physical health are all factors that determine the intensity of your response. If you find yourself ruminating on the conflict, unable to stop overthinking, you will need to take some steps to learn how to get your thoughts under control, get out of fight-or-flight, and make rational decisions about your next steps.

The hidden cause of overthinking

You’ve just had a fight with your spouse. You find yourself awake in the middle of the night, thinking: Why did he use that tone of voice or that facial expression? Or why am I always the one who has to give in and apologize? Why doesn’t she give in and apologize first sometimes? Or he was late for dinner again tonight. It was natural that I asked why. What made him so touchy? Is he having an affair?

Overthinking can fall into several categories:

Blaming: Whether you blame yourself or your partner: I’m so stupid. He’s so selfish. That was a reasonable question; why did she jump down my throat like that?

Controlling: I’m just trying to help, and I’ve done all this research—why doesn’t he listen to me? I’m the rational one; she needs professional help.

Doubt and worry: What if he’s seeing someone else? She’s bored with me. Is our relationship going to last?

Though these ruminating thoughts seem different, in my experience as a psychotherapist, the hidden cause of all these different forms of overthinking and ruminating is fear. All these questions, in different ways, are asking the core questions we have in our relationships:

Am I safe with you? Are we safe as a couple? Are we OK? Do you really care?

We desperately want to solve the problem in our heads, going over and over it in our minds to try to find safety signals, and all we keep finding are danger signals—which we ourselves may be generating with our constant thinking and replaying, and sometimes replaying incorrectly. Give our brains a narrative, and we’ll replay it forever, if we let it.

So, what do we do?

Recognize the biological component

If you’ve just had a conflict with your spouse and you’re able to sleep like a baby afterward, you are clearly feeling safe and secure in your relationship. But if you’re having trouble sleeping, you want to discuss it again first thing the next morning, or you just feel like checking out emotionally, you are still in fight-or-flight mode. Your first step, before anything else, is to recognize that mode and turn it off.

  1. Ask yourself: Where am I feeling this in my body right now? When you shift your attention from your thoughts to your body patterns, you interrupt those thoughts and return to the here and now.
  2. Notice where you feel your stress. Is it in your stomach? Your head? Are your muscles tight? Your jaw? Recognize it and consciously acknowledge it.
  3. Speak out loud your recognition that you are in survival mode. The brain responds differently to spoken words than silent words. Say something like, “I can’t think about this rationally while my body is in survival mode. I have to get out of fight-or-flight before giving this any more thought.”
  4. Break the cycle of fear: Take long, deep breaths with exhales longer than inhales; take a walk outside and notice nature; do something energetic (your body is keyed up for fight or flight—give it a release); splash cold water on your face or wipe yourself with a cold washcloth; ground yourself by feeling your feet on the grass or leaning against a tree.

These steps are important for calming the nervous system and bringing yourself back to a feeling of relative safety. You may still need to address the conflict, but you need to be in that calm state to do so.

If you approach your partner about the conflict, don’t start with “When you said this, I felt that.” Start with the real cause. “Last night when we had our disagreement, I got pretty upset, because I was feeling afraid that we weren’t ok.” This tender vulnerability usually helps both partners remember their love and commitment, even in the face of disagreements.

Getting help

The steps I’ve outlined are helpful to break the cycle of rumination when you’re in it. But if this is a common occurrence with you, you may need to seek professional help. Habits are formed for a reason, and they are hard to break if that reason still exists. But once you have resolved the reason for the habit, it becomes fairly easy to change.

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I have helped many clients identify the root causes of their overthinking or rumination so they can resolve them in a safe, encouraging environment and move into a future full of inner peace and healthy relationships. If you’re in the NYC area, reach out to see how I can help you.

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Do You Feel Emotionally Exhausted?

Posted on September 17, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

Emotional exhaustion can range in severity from mild to quite debilitating. If you can recognize it early enough, you can take some steps on your own to course-correct and regain your strength. But if it goes on too long and continues to build, you may need professional help to identify root causes and take the steps necessary to relieve the pressure and feel peace again.

As a psychotherapist in New York City, the “city that never sleeps,” I have seen many cases of emotional exhaustion. By walking clients through a few basic steps, I help them identify stressors and make healthy choices to get their lives back to equilibrium.

Common causes of emotional exhaustion

Stress is usually a combination of external factors combined with our unique life experiences and personalities. These multiple influences determine how well we handle certain stressors and how emotional exhaustion presents itself.

Everyone has different levels of tolerance for various stressors. Don’t blame yourself or compare yourself to someone else just because you think they are able to handle stress better than you.

Some factors that may lead to emotional exhaustion include:

  • Loss of a loved one or relationship tension, including a breakup
  • Caregiving (children, parents)
  • Being overworked, burnt out
  • Trauma
  • Inability to say “no,” lack of boundaries, people-pleasing
  • Personal stressors (infertility, unfulfilled goals, etc.)
  • Unresolved physical health problems
  • Unresolved emotional pain
  • Major life transitions (new baby, new house, new job)
  • Having a perfectionist personality or low self-esteem
  • Chronic stress

Signs of emotional exhaustion

Any one of the factors above may be enough for a person to begin to show emotional strain. As stressors pile on, exhaustion can set in. Try to evaluate yourself to determine which of these signs are starting to creep into your life:

  • Feeling overwhelmed
  • Starting to second-guess yourself or developing self-doubt
  • Having trouble remembering what you were just saying, about to do, or came into the room for
  • Thinking of too many things at once
  • Feeling “checked-out” – turning off emotionally or socially, not answering texts or calls
  • Feeling stuck, unmotivated, hopeless or helpless, depressed
  • Constant worry or anxiety
  • Ruminating, cycling through “what ifs”
  • Physical fatigue, poor sleep, or wanting to sleep too much
  • Headaches, stomachaches, hives, other health problems
  • Muscle strain, back pain, shoulder or neck pain, even if you think you can blame it on exercise, picking something up, or other strain
  • Decreased work performance
  • Irritability with friends, family, or loved ones
  • Road rage or other unreasonable outbursts of anger or even tears

Working to reverse and release the strain

If you have identified some of the root causes of your stress, I encourage you to take immediate steps to try to calm your emotions. Here are a few first steps:

  1. Be honest with your friends and family. Let them know that you need to take some steps to calm the stressors in your life. That may mean making a few temporary (or permanent) changes. If they love you, they will encourage you in this effort and will be ready to help. However, I don’t recommend discussing this at work. You may have to make some changes at work, but it’s best to determine your strategy before addressing it in the workplace. (This may be a good thing to discuss with a counselor or therapist.)
  2. Evaluate what things you can change, decrease, or eliminate in order to allow you to make the first important changes, which include healthy food, healthy sleep, and a healthy exercise routine. You may not need to make drastic changes; a few tweaks can make a world of difference. Eliminating added sugars and junk food and taking a walk in the sunshine and nature at lunch can really help lift your spirits.
  3. Unplug! Science is finding that the technology we have become so dependent on – computers and phones, and even earbuds shouting music or podcasts directly into our ear canals – is actually bad for our health. They are unquestionably the source of a great deal of emotional stress. When you take your walk, don’t use earbuds, and either leave your phone at home or put it on airplane mode. Have some peace and quiet! Think happy thoughts, meditate, pray, or just enjoy the beauty around you.

These first three steps can really help to alleviate mild to moderate emotional exhaustion. If you feel like you need more help to develop a strategy to find peace, or you need help to make a longer-lasting, deeper change, reach out to an experienced, professional counselor or therapist. If you’re in the NYC area, reach out to me to see how I can help you.

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How to Know You Have Outgrown a Relationship

Posted on September 17, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

Sometimes, if you have been dating or have been married to someone for a long time, the relationship can feel as comfortable as an old shoe. You know each other through and through, and you really connect. But sometimes, a long relationship can actually start to unravel, though you are so used to having that person around that you’re not sure what to do. How do you know if it’s time to move on or to work on the relationship?

As a psychotherapist in New York City specializing in individual and couples therapy, I help couples find clarity in their relationship. When couples makes a public, legal and/or emotional commitment to one another, their relationship challenges require some effort toward understanding how they got to a place of misunderstanding and dysfunction.

Are you dealing with tension in your relationship?

There are common signs that the relationship is strained. You may need to reboot your relationship with couples therapy or permit it to end. Here are a few considerations that may suggest your relationship is in trouble:

  • Your life has changed, and one of you is growing in a new direction
  • You have nothing in common, and that has become a problem
  • You feel personally drained by the relationship
  • You feel held back from reaching your full potential by the relationship
  • One of you no longer prioritizes your relationship
  • You are not getting along, and disagreements are becoming unpleasant
  • Conversely, your interactions have become very businesslike or even friend-like, but have lost any sense of romantic connection and attraction

Now is the time to talk seriously together about the next steps. Does your partner feel the same way about your relationship? Is he or she willing to work on improving the relationship so that both of you are experiencing the joy and the emotional support that you both need?

If your partner is willing to examine the relationship, an experienced couples therapist can help you both talk through your feelings, grow in understanding of the other person’s needs and desires, develop strong communication skills, and show you how to support each other emotionally. I have seen many couples, married and unmarried, come back from the brink of breakup to have strong, loving, lifelong relationships. Sometimes, however, counseling can help you both see that it might be time to move on.

I encourage you not to make a decision to break up without the help of a couples therapist. You’ve spent so much time together and have many shared experiences that may be worth saving. If you’re in the NYC area, feel free to give me a call to see how I can help you.

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Learning to Trust Yourself

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

Trust is critical for any healthy relationship, and that includes the relationship with yourself. You are your own best friend. You are the only person who will be going through all of life with you, the person who should know you the best. Sometimes, though, we realize we don’t really know ourselves very well, or we have developed an opinion of ourselves that is not healthy.

There are many people who seek out help to explore a fundamental problem with self-trust. By developing self-trust, clients can heal in other areas, as well. Trusting yourself is crucial for your mental, emotional, relational, and physical well-being.

When you don’t trust yourself

Most of us don’t go around saying, “I don’t trust myself.” So how do you know if you don’t? Here are a few red flags:

  • Inability to make decisions or second-guessing every decision you make
  • Needing others to affirm your decisions before taking steps. This may masquerade as team-building or consensus-building, but you don’t need to do that for your personal life (unless you have a family that will be impacted)
  • Not sticking up for yourself
  • Having low self-esteem or low self-confidence
  • Having a negative internal voice, sometimes spoken out loud – “Dummy! You screwed up again!” “I’m so stupid!”
  • Avoiding self-reflection, afraid of what you may find
  • Needing people around all the time to avoid being alone with yourself – may masquerade as being extroverted or friendly
  • Needing to stay busy so you don’t have to be alone with your thoughts or feelings – may masquerade as “Type A” personality, workaholic, or industrious
  • Believing everyone else’s ideas or answers but not your own
  • Living with regret over past decisions, paralyzing future decisions
  • Perfectionism, which prevents you from completing projects or making decisions that might be wrong
  • Fear of making mistakes
  • Anxiety about consequences that may occur with any of the possible choices you have when you have to make a decision

Healing and rebuilding confidence and trust

We are not born mistrusting ourselves. Most babies and small children try new things with confidence and joy, whether it’s learning to walk, feeding themselves, or piling blocks. They try and try again until they get it, and they usually have the encouragement of those around them. But over time, most of us have experiences that cause us to begin to doubt ourselves. We develop habits of thought and behavior that further engrain that doubt in our hearts.

The good news is, if self-doubt has been learned over time, it can be unlearned. It takes effort, and it usually takes a trained counselor to help you recognize those patterns of behavior and thought that are keeping you trapped. But it can be done.

Start by recognizing that we don’t have value based on what we do. We have value simply because we are. YOU have value. YOU matter. And YOU are enough, just as you are. Begin by affirming that to yourself, out loud and in front of a mirror. If you can’t start there, start by saying it to yourself, then out loud quietly, then, when comfortable, looking yourself in the eye and saying:

“I am a valuable human being. I have value simply by being me. I am enough as I am. I don’t need to be more. I have worth, and I can trust myself.”

You may feel like you’re lying to yourself at first, but you’re not. If it makes it feel more honest, you can add:

“I may not feel it right now, but it’s the truth, and I will feel it eventually.”

Affirming your value is the first step to loving yourself and trusting yourself. This statement does not say that you are perfect as you are; it says you are enough. You have value. Maybe you still have things about yourself that need work. But guess what? We all do. Once you value yourself, you will have the confidence to work on those areas that need improving.

If it helps, think of it this way: A very historic house or a classic car may need to be fixed up, but it has value as it is. You are worth more than any building or vehicle. You are a unique, special, valuable human being who has great worth. It’s time to believe that about yourself.

This is the first step to healing and trusting yourself. I walk my clients through the next steps when they come to me for help. If you’re in the NYC area, reach out to see if I can help you. If not, find someone nearby who is trained to help clients build self-esteem, self-trust, and self-love so they can reach their full potential and be their own lifelong best friend.

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Your Life Is Perfect, but You Feel Unhappy

Posted on July 9, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

You thought that once you achieved a certain goal, you would be happy. You assumed that a certain lifestyle, level of income, or circle of friends would be satisfying. But somehow, you’re not happy. Why does this sometimes happen?

Success doesn’t always guarantee happiness. The big promotion, new job, family, or anything else that defines success in your life cannot generate happiness within. Only what’s inside of you can do that. And sometimes we need a little help figuring out what it is inside that’s keeping us from being happy.

The feeling of happiness is a response to a pleasing stimulus. It’s a temporary and pleasant emotion, but it’s not the same as being happy. Being happy is a general state of contentedness and well-being. There could be a number of factors in your life that are impeding your inner sense of contentment, even when everything external suggests you should be content.

Reasons for being unhappy

What could be going on inside that is feeding this discontent? Of course, everyone is unique and has different personalities and life experiences, but here are a few reasons that often show up in therapy:

  • Lack of meaning and purpose in one’s life
  • Holding onto past wrongs and resentments
  • Stress or anxiety
  • Social media use
  • Unhealthy social circles
  • Monotony
  • No free time or leisure
  • Unprocessed trauma
  • Comparing oneself to others
  • Negative thought patterns such as assuming the worst, focusing on the negative, or assuming other people are having negative thoughts about you
  • Feeling unfulfilled
  • Feeling unchallenged
  • Mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or ADHD
  • Sleep disorders
  • Physical health problems
  • Feeling incompetent, even when you aren’t
  • Focusing on yourself too much

How to build internal happiness

The methods for generating internal happiness depend on what is causing the unhappiness. Sometimes, if the reasons are deep and stem from previous life experiences, a trained therapist can help you look closely at what causes your automatic responses to triggers and help you reprogram your thinking so you can start to let go of the pattern that contributes to your sense of unhappiness.

You can take some steps on your own, starting with eating a healthy diet and creating a consistent schedule to get plenty of sleep. Your physical health is the foundation of your mental health, so don’t discount this important component of overall well-being.

Create time for relaxation in your life. Leisure is more important the more stressful or hectic your life is. Make relaxation a priority, like you prioritize eating (hopefully you do!). Create quiet alone time or fun time, even if it just means sitting quietyly with your coffee or tea in the morning. But also plan time with loved ones who actually build you up and bring you those moments of emotional happiness that we all need. The more moments of emotional happiness you experience, the more opportunities for your internal happiness to grow.

Look at your values and what motivates you. Are they healthy goals and values? Usually, values that include concern for the well-being of others have the unexpected effect of creating a sense of well-being in us as well.

Stop comparing yourself to other people. This can be particularly hard to do with social media use. Decrease or eliminate social media if you have a problem with comparing yourself to others. Develop healthy self-talk responses every time you catch yourself comparing. For example, you can say, “That person’s life is different, but that doesn’t mean it’s better.”

When you think people are imagining negative things about you, it is often difficult to stop that thought process. This is probably coming from a place of insecurity, which likely has some deep origins that need to be uncovered. It is important to question what you imagine people are thinking by first looking for any evidence to support the thought. It is also important to feel more in control by telling yourself you can’t control what people think.

If you feel like you need help creating these changes in your life or if you feel like you need to more deeply evaluate the roots that may be causing your discontent, reach out to an experienced therapist near you. If you are in the NYC area, reach out to see how I can help you. We will create a safe space to explore, discover, and help you build a new paradigm that can lead to a more peaceful sense of self.

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Getting Lost in a Big Life Change

Posted on July 9, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

You’ve had a big life change for the better! So why do you feel so anxious or lost? These are natural responses to change, but they should not be overwhelming or interfere with your joy.

Whether you are pregnant, have a new baby in the house, started a new job, or earned a big promotion, your identity shifts. You’re now a parent to a new human being; or you’re navigating a new environment; or maybe you’re now the boss over your former workmates. How do you work this into your busy NYC life?  

The loss of familiar routines and the need to build new schedules and procedures can leave you feeling lost and confused. Greater responsibilities can be frightening. Changes in relationships can cause loneliness or isolation. How do you manage these changes?

Why we sometimes feel overwhelmed

If you’re a new mother, the biological changes you’re going through only add to the confusion and fear with a new baby in the house. If you’re a father or the parent of an adopted child, you’re still going to experience physical changes from lack of sleep and new routines, which could impact your ability to cope with basic stressors of life that previously did not bother you or that you had under control. Relationships with friends may change, as you’re not as available as you used to be. Add to that the new demands of the new little life in your care, and it’s easy to see why sometimes people get panicky.

Perhaps the big change is at work: a new job or a promotion. Certainly, a whole new job means learning the company culture, getting to know people, learning your job responsibilities, and navigating company politics. A promotion may leave you isolated from old friends while having to navigate new relationships and new dynamics around authority. You may experience jealousy from previous peers who didn’t get a promotion or from other employees who see you as a threat to the status quo. This can be quite stressful.

Sometimes you may feel grief over the loss of your old life, maybe wanting to go back to the way things were, just because it was safe and stable. But we don’t grow as human beings by staying still. We grow by stretching ourselves, learning new things, and sharing our lives with others.

Getting help to manage change

For most people, emotions stabilize fairly soon after the transition, and new routines fall into place. But if you’re having difficulty reaching that place of peace, or if your confusion or feeling overwhelmed are making it difficult to function, please reach out to an experienced therapist who can help you navigate these feelings, evaluate and resolve them, and develop new mental structures and habits to find peace and joy in your life again.

If you’re in the New York City area, reach out to me to see how I can help. I work with clients to identify underlying causes of the issues that you need help with. Finding the roots will help you understand and manage the problems so that you can feel more prepared for future life changes.

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The Emotional Cost of People-Pleasing

Posted on May 26, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

What’s the difference between being generous and being a people-pleaser? The distinction can be nuanced and difficult to discern. Usually, however, a person’s emotional health is a strong indicator of whether the tendency to people-please comes from a healthy or unhealthy source. If you are dealing with any kind of anxiety, fear, or overwhelm in your life, you’ll likely need some help developing boundaries so that you can continue your generosity from a healthier space.

Defining people-pleasing

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone tried to care more about others than about themselves? Absolutely! But a spirit of generosity must not come at personal expense. There are always going to be people who are in need, important causes to volunteer for, and friends who need help. All of us should care enough to provide necessary support in any of these ways.

So if these are all good actions, what are some warning signs that something is wrong?

  • Feeling internally compelled to help
  • Feeling guilty if you say “no”
  • Feeling anxious, exhausted, or overwhelmed
  • Putting aside the needs of your spouse, children, or close family in order to help someone else or to do volunteer work
  • Ignoring your own physical, emotional, financial, or familial needs to help someone else
  • Agreeing with something or someone just to avoid conflict
  • Allowing yourself to be a doormat for others
  • Wanting the approval of others
  • Defining your own self-worth by how much you do for others
  • Trying to be agreeable all the time; never asserting oneself
  • Avoiding saying anything unpleasant, to the point of making “little white lies”
  • Feeling like a “martyr” and letting people know how much you are giving up for them

A few specific examples may include:

  • Loaning money or helping someone buy a big-ticket item because “they need it” or “it will make her happy,” when you can’t really afford it, or giving small amounts of money repeatedly until it causes you financial problems
  • Always saying yes when people ask you to do something, large or small: finishing up a job at work so someone else can leave early but you stay later; babysitting a child so that the mother can go out, even though you had plans
  • Taking on additional tasks at a volunteer organization, which cut into family time, because there’s “no one else who will step up to do it”

Notice that in all these examples, it isn’t just the kind or generous act that is in question; it is what effect it has on you and your family. And once people know that you will say “yes,” you will be asked more and more often. Without healthy boundaries, you will continue to feel pushed in an unhealthy direction.

Motivations behind people-pleasing

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I can tell you that there are almost as many reasons for people-pleasing as there are people themselves. Our emotions and behaviors are, to a large extent, formed by our life experiences. However, what may cause people-pleasing in one person may have no effect on another.

When I work with a client, we work together to review and evaluate past experiences that may have led to the root causes of people-pleasing, which may include:

  • Low self-esteem or insecurity
  • Fear of loss
  • Fear of conflict
  • The feeling that you need to earn other people’s love
  • The belief that your value is dependent upon what others think of you
  • The desire to control the thoughts and feelings of others (possibly unconsciously)

Anything could have caused these feelings to develop in you. Maybe you grew up in a high-conflict household and tried to be the peacemaker, which earned the approval of certain family members. Or maybe one of your siblings was unhealthy and got the lion’s share of the attention. You found yourself often forgotten, or you did more to help around the house because of the family crisis. Maybe you were bullied and developed a habit of passivism to avoid further conflict. Or maybe you grew up in a great family where service was part of the atmosphere, but you never developed healthy boundaries.

Whatever the cause, we can find solutions to help you redefine how you serve others in a healthier way.

Making healthy changes

Your internal motivations are what make the difference between a generous, caring person and a people-pleaser. Your feelings of anxiety, overwhelm, worrying about what people think of you, inability to say “no,” and other unhealthy tendencies are signs that your good works and generous actions are not coming from the right interior motivations and are actually hurting you.

Let’s work together to redefine your thought patterns, heal some of those wounds, and help you develop healthy boundaries so that you can continue to help others without hurting yourself or those who depend on you. If you live in the New York City area, feel free to reach out to me to see how I can help.

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Depressed Because You Feel Left Behind

Posted on May 26, 2026 by Alisa Hafkin

You had big plans, and maybe some of them were successful at first, but now your life feels stuck. You created timelines and expectations for yourself that aren’t being met, and you feel like your peers are moving ahead while you’re being left behind. You’re anxious about aging and not making progress. You feel pressure from family and friends, and generalized anxiety is turning into depression.

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I see that pattern all the time. New York is the city that never sleeps. It’s a place that, by its reputation, can make or break you. As the song goes, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere!”

Unrealistic Expectations

But it doesn’t have to be that way. When we construct unrealistic expectations and develop unhealthy belief systems – about ourselves, the place where we live, what our friends and family are thinking – we set ourselves up for anxiety, depression, and eventually a feeling of failure, even if objectively we are very successful. How we view ourselves and the events in our lives determines how we feel about them and sometimes how well we perform. It’s critical to redefine, recreate, and re-envision ourselves and our lives.

Most people internalize beliefs about success from their childhood experiences and their family culture. Oftentimes, these are positive influences that may be taken too far. For instance, your father started his own business, worked hard, and became successful, supporting his family very comfortably. You want to do the same, but you have put upon yourself the added pressure, perhaps, that you need to “make Dad proud” or “prove yourself” to your family. These are the kinds of unhealthy expectations that may only take a few sessions to review and reframe so that you can move forward successfully, with a peaceful persepctive.

But perhaps you had negative experiences in the past: growing up in poverty, making a mistake in your career that caused you to lose a promotion, or low self-esteem from childhood bullying. There are myriad past events, large or small, that could be causing you to pressure yourself in unhealthy ways or that may actually be undermining your success.

Using Therapy to Move Forward

As a psychotherapist, I utilize psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapies. These practices enable me to provide a safe and secure environment that fosters self-awareness and the motivation necessary to make a change.

Psychodynamic therapy is a deep and sensitive exploration of problems and issues affecting your life in order to understand your unique history of thoughts, relationships, and behavioral patterns. Uncovering the origins of behaviors and emotions leads to the potential to resolve them in a safe environment and an ability to make more conscious rather than reactive choices.

Cognitive behavioral therapy offers a concrete approach to uncovering automatic thoughts that lead to specific behaviors. By becoming aware of your thoughts, you gain insight into how and why choices are made in life. Some techniques include relaxation exercises, mindfulness homework, positive thinking, self-talk practices, and journaling, all of which help you positively retrain automatic reactions and thoughts.

In my first session with a client, I encourage the client to share freely, guiding them with expert questions that help me determine the best approach. With the help of these therapies, I will help you find the underlying beliefs that may be causing your depression and your unfulfilled expectations, develop methods and habits of thought to overcome these feelings, and then work with you to redefine where you are now and where you want to be, chart a realistic growth plan, and reconstruct your timeline to help you reach your goals. If you’re in the New York City area, reach out to see how I can help you.

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