June 3-week:
Boundaries + Consent
For People Pleasers
for organizers, artists, helping professions, + anyone who needs help identifying and expressing their needs
VIRTUAL: Mondays and Thursdays, June 2–16, 10am–noon PT / 1–3pm ET. Class recordings will be available to those who register for the full program in advance.
Are you a people pleaser?
Are you giving past your capacity and then resenting other people for it? Are you struggling to feel your boundaries? Do you freeze when it’s time to say “no”?
If you frequently find yourself in this state of people pleasing, you’re likely concerning yourself more with how you’re being perceived than how you feel. You may be estranged from your desires, not feel safe in your own mind or body, and therefore be disconnected from your agency and creativity.
People pleasing (often called fawning or the appeasement response in Polyvagal Theory) is characterized by difficulty saying no, putting others’ needs before yours, and doing what you think people want in order to avoid conflict.
Often what looks like enthusiasm is a form of people pleasing. It’s very hard to trust chronic people pleasers because their truth changes constantly. This can make consent really fraught. You may do things you didn’t want to do, and then blame yourself because you didn’t speak up. But maybe you didn’t speak up because you didn’t know your boundaries or know how to advocate in the moment. Perhaps you were in a stress response.
People pleasing is a survival mechanism, but it’s harmful to all parties involved, as are many vestigial survival mechanisms that worked at one point but are no longer fulfilling the intended function.
Is this class for you?
This is a great class for organizers, activists, artists, and people in helping professions. You’ll learn practical tools and skills to identify and express your boundaries, needs, and desires.
Now is the time to hone our communication skills so we can work together to create the world we want to live in. Let’s not let poor communication clog up the gears. Learn to identify what you want and need, believe you deserve it, and ask for it.
This is a trauma-informed, neuro-diversity-aware approach to consent that takes the gut-brain axis into account. Consent is more than “no means no” or getting permission. Consent is a language and an embodied practice.
This class is likely not a good fit for those who have only just dipped their toe into consent, or are at the beginning of their journey saying no. If you’ve just discovered that you haven’t been saying no, I’d recommend waiting until you’ve found your footing a little bit before signing up. This class contains some tough love and you may want to start with a gentler approach <3
“Problem is, I left my creative compass to rust while I navigated life by other people’s standards, and now, when I really need it, it’s stuck and I don’t know which way to go.”
What will we be doing?
This course will give you practice tools to access your confidence, ask for what you want, say no, take rejection with gratitude, advocate for yourself, harness stress so you can propel yourself to act, and apply these skills outward through examples from TV and film.
This is a hybrid live & recorded class. Included with registration, you’ll receive recordings of my classes Practice Saying No and Nonverbals, as well as a copy of my Boundaries + Consent for People Pleasers workbook.
Class 1: What is Consent + the Consent Iceberg
Class 2: Confidence - Finding your voice
Class 3: Self-Advocacy - Harnessing stress
Class 4: Practice Exercises - Bringing it into the body
Class 5: Media - Examples from film and TV
You’ll take away a deep and intuitive understanding of power dynamics. You’ll begin to access the embodied sense of your boundaries. Consent and boundary knowledge can help you find evermore nuance and subtlety in your communication. It gives more options, expands structure, and can even open up space for creativity.
This is a skill-building and embodiment practice course. You’ll learn…
to confidently and easefully advocate for yourself and others.
vocab that will help you express yourself more clearly.
to feel your boundaries and communicate them.
to practice saying 'no.'
to get more in touch with your needs and desires.
to feel your capacity and not go beyond it.
breathing techniques and practice exercises that you can share with others.
“[This] class allowed me to learn and grow in a community of people who understood and shared similar experiences... Setting boundaries has always felt scary for me. It consistently feels as though I am letting others down. Through this class I have learned how setting boundaries and turning away from my people-pleasing tendencies not only helps me feel safe, but it also helps the loved ones close to me feel safe too. Trusting my own ‘yes’ and ‘no’ has given me so much more confidence. I have ended relationships that have hurt me, I have grown closer to relationships that feel safe and include constant communication. I feel so much less scared to practice this stuff every single day... I am honestly so grateful and excited to continue practicing it.”
A lot of grief comes up in this work. Relationships fall away as you begin to stand up for yourself and voice your boundaries. You will likely experience grief (or anticipatory grief) for those relationships, as well as grief for your past self and how different things could have been.
Your standards will go up. This will contribute to relationships ending, but it will also help you gravitate towards and pull in more aligned, fulfilling, easeful relationships.
The consent concepts we’ll go over in class are things you cannot unsee. I mean this in the best way. The world around you will become clearer, more specific, and you’ll see communication in granular detail. You’ll be able to not monitor or constrain yourself because you will become fluent with the concepts. It will becomes easy and intuitive. However — and this isn’t intended to scare you, nor is it an exaggeration — your life will change and there’s no going back.
Tough shit comes up in here. Old stuff gets the dust kicked off of it. Trauma can come up. I (or the guest teacher) am the only facilitator in the room so we cannot come support on an individual basis. You will have time in Class 1 to develop your care plan.
Some things you should know about this course…
… and about me:
I am a white, queer, neurodivergent, trans nonbinary, chronically ill anti-Zionist practicing Jew with a college degree. I speak from my own experience and no one else’s.
I am invested in restorative justice practices, which means I am deeply opposed to cancellation. This includes how cancellation happens online as well as how we participate in such things internally. We don’t police people in these classes. We meet people where they’re at and we assume good intentions. When (not if) harm is caused, we tend to it with care for all parties, typically outside of class time. I believe that people learn through osmosis and exposure and this requires patience from me and you.
I prioritize connection, which requires me to expand my tolerance for activation. I run classes with this at the forefront of my mind. I prioritize vulnerable sharing over the need to give a content warning. You will have time to develop your own care plan on day 1, and I trust you to use it, to manage your own feelings and needs as they come up, and to take care of yourself as needed.
I believe that consent is a shared responsibility, not that of one person or one demographic. I believe we have to take responsibility for risks we take knowingly and choices we make, and move through regret when it comes. I don’t believe in blame and punishment when we miseducate people through media and poor consent education. I believe in rehabilitation and repair. I believe we have an obligation to each other to learn our own boundaries and communicate them, as much as we have an obligation to ask and check in. I think if we redirect resources towards healing, support, and education and away from trying to identify who’s at fault so we can punish them (often with incarceration), we would all be better off.
This is me, Mia Schachter (they/them)
“My approach is to zoom in so we can slow down, and begin to make the unconscious conscious.”
Payment + Pricing
This class is $199.
You can read about why our prices are what they are on our Business + Financial Transparency page. If this is cost-prohibitive, you are always welcome to make us an offer, especially if you are in a country where the exchange rate makes this class financially inaccessible.
Please note: The deadline for refunds is 24 hours before the first class.
Your job should sponsor you!! If you need a letter from me or any further information, I’m happy to help. Just email me to let me know what to provide.
Have questions?
Email me!
Register
HERE’S WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT “People Pleasers”:
“Before this class, I noticed myself saying I didn’t want to do a specific thing, but then somehow I ended up doing it anyways. Thanks to the class, I got better at noticing when I really don’t want to do the thing, and get more comfortable at saying No before I get into a situation where I might end up doing it anyways. I’m noticing and celebrating the small steps that lead me towards more noticing, more embodiment, and feeling more comfortable saying No. I also used to think I’m bad at noticing things in my body, and Mia was the first person to actually give me helpful instructions and pointers towards working through that. And now, lots of things are falling into place, and I feel like I’m on a great trajectory towards getting what I want and spending less time feeling bad about myself or forcing myself into things I don’t want to do.”
“Just wanted to say thanks for your course last spring and for your work in general. I have had a lovely week of asking for the things I need from people and seeing those things come to life, and it feels like magic! [You are] a constant reminder that this is possible.”
“Through these classes I have grown a much more rounded picture of consent, self consent, and the systems and dynamics in place that impede our consent practices. I have been able to cultivate a self consent practice that has helped me listen to myself and my boundaries, and in turn helped me to better hear others and their boundaries. I’ve deeply appreciated the class discussions and learning what different peoples consent and care practices look like. Thank you so much for compiling these resources and for facilitating these discussions. It’s been truly life changing.”
“When Boundaries + Consent for People Pleasers appeared [in Mia’s class list], I literally paused ... Something spoke deeply to my core about how I wanted to engage, and this was what I needed in this particular time... I sometimes struggle to discern where I’m at on the yes-no spectrum (and what I want or even am willing to do, or what I might offer or need) so that I can provide a response. I have been actively working on staying present and curious with where I’m at and wanted a space to continue this journey. I anticipated that the course would be scary awesome. I did not anticipate how grateful I would be or how much I would look forward to the classes each week. Thank you. Thank you for helping me to learn how better to trust myself and heighten trust with my relations ... by receiving my no’s, yes’s and pauses.”
“I have a lot of anxiety around setting boundaries and advocating for myself (thinking people will push me away), and honestly, I have trouble knowing what I actually want in certain situations, too. I normally defer to other people’s needs, believing that will make them happy. Because of this, I’ve found myself becoming passive in some of my relationships. I didn’t know how effective the class would be, as I’ve always struggled with this and have found it scary to overcome.
Through clear information, exercises, and discussions, I was able to understand why I act the way I do and practice actions that are scary to me ([such as] just saying no to something without any follow up explanation or apology). The class has been a real breakthrough for me — I’m finding myself changing my actions and being able to show up for myself and others. Not only do I have the tools now to slow down and work out what I want from certain situations, I’m less anxious, and feel more comfortable opening up and being vulnerable and sharing more of who I am. I’m excited to take the tools and ideas I’ve learnt and continue to grow. Thank you, Mia.”