Becoming a Kindness Warrior: How to Break Free from People Pleasing and Reclaim Your Power | ANEW Insight Ep. 72

Welcome to Episode 72 of the ANEW Insight Podcast with your host Dr. Supatra Tovar—clinical psychologist, registered dietitian, fitness expert, and bestselling author of Deprogram Diet Culture. In this powerful follow-up conversation, Dr. Tovar continues her dialogue with MD, author, and podcast host Dr. Marcia Sirota. In Part 2 of their compelling interview, the two mental health professionals explore how to break free from people-pleasing patterns, heal trauma, and become what Dr. Marcia Sirota calls a “Kindness Warrior.”

Drawing from her book Be Kind, Not Nice, Dr. Marcia Sirota shares her most effective strategies for helping clients overcome the fear and anxiety that drive self-sacrificing behaviors. From the impact of childhood trauma to the roots of compulsive giving, this episode reveals why many women (and men) find it so hard to say “no”—and how to rewire the mindset that equates love with over-functioning.

Key takeaways include:

• The emotional cost of people-pleasing and how it keeps you stuck in toxic dynamics
• A mindfulness-based challenge to stop pleasing others and watch what happens
• The difference between being loving and being used
• How self-compassion starts by questioning your inner critic
• The importance of self-trust, inner safety, and emotional clarity
• What it really means to be a Kindness Warrior—and why it matters now more than ever

Dr. Marcia Sirota also delves into her therapeutic philosophy, which integrates trauma-informed healing with practical tools like the Inner Warrior, Inner Wise One, and what she calls “ruthless compassion”—a form of clear-eyed, boundary-driven care that fosters true self-love. This episode also addresses trauma recovery, addiction, and why healing requires a multidisciplinary approach that includes body, mind, and spirit.

Together, Dr. Tovar and Dr. Sirota challenge long-standing myths about trauma, including the stigma of personality disorders, the limits of self-sacrifice, and the belief that healing must come from external sources. Through their deeply personal and clinical insights, listeners are guided toward a new model of strength, one that embraces empowerment, personal responsibility, and radical honesty.

Whether you’re recovering from burnout, navigating codependent relationships, or simply trying to reclaim your time and energy, this episode will inspire you to build a new foundation rooted in self-worth and agency.

📘Dr. Marcia Sirota’s  Social media channels:  https://marciasirotamd.com/, https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00DXGVO3A, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6i7Wq-bh3faMBvCc5F0fPg, https://podcast.reelmental.com/, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ruthless-compassion-with-dr-marcia-sirota/id1085239678, https://ca.linkedin.com/in/marcia-sirota.

Ready to reject diet culture and start your own healing journey? Visit anew-insight.com and enroll in the 7-step online course Deprogram Diet Culture today.

Thank you for joining us on this journey to wellness. Remember, the insights and advice shared on the ANEW Body Insight Podcast are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making any changes to your health routine. To learn more about the podcast and stay updated on new episodes, visit ANEW Body Insight Podcast at anew-insight.com. To watch this episode on YouTube, visit @my.anew.insight. Follow us on social media at @my.anew.insight on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Threads for more updates and insights. Thank you for tuning in! Stay connected with us for more empowering stories and expert guidance. Until next time, stay well and keep evolving with ANEW Body Insight!

Transcript

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:00

Welcome back to the ANEW Insight podcast. We are back for the second half of our interview with the board psychiatrist, author, and Ruthless Compassion, podcaster, Dr. Marcia Sirota. Marcia gave us some valuable insight into her inspiration to spread her message of Ruthless Compassion. I cannot wait to pick her brain some more.

Dr. Marcia Sirota: 0:01

There's a lot of different things they can do, including I forbid them. Sometimes I say, okay, no people pleasing for a week. You're not allowed to do anything for anybody for a week. And, you're going to feel really anxious. And I just say, watch your feelings. Do a mindfulness exercise. Is just to work on building self love and self esteem, starting by seeing that the things that happened to you when you were young, the bad things that happened to you were not about you. If you experienced neglect, abuse, exploitation, crazy making. It was about the people who did it to you, whether they were your parents, guardians, teachers, people in the community, respected authority figures, whoever, anybody who hurt you or neglected you or exploited you. It wasn't about you. It was about them. Tree, person, puppy, dog, everybody's lovable. And if we can recognize that there's nothing special about me, okay, maybe I hate myself, but there's nothing special about me. I say, what's different about you then? What makes you different from all the billions of people on the planet? Nothing. I go, exactly. You're not that special. You're just like everyone else, which means that you're perfectly imperfect and equally lovable to everyone else. And so when they see how illogical their thinking is, because they would never be that cruel abusive to anyone and they would never look down on them in that way, they can see that they're no different. And that helps them to build that self love to see, to not take it personally what happened to them and to see that they're no different from anyone else. That's the foundation of self esteem. And then from self esteem, we can work on realizing that people will love you if they're capable of love. I always say love is given freely or not at all. So when people are capable of loving, they will love you. And if they're not capable, there's nothing you can do. And so, just be a regular, pleasant human being. And those who are capable of loving you will.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:05

And it is not. And I think really clarifying that for people, especially people pleasers helps them discern what they should give and what they shouldn't give. I'm super curious though, when you do that first exercise with people where they cannot, you know, people, please. They're not allowed to give, except for where it's absolutely necessary.

Dr. Marcia Sirota: 0:06

I'm glad you're not exhausting yourself. Cause it makes me uncomfortable when you do too much. So, they were around compassionate people who are happy for them to do less. So I've seen everything I've seen it all because it really depends. Sometimes it's just the luck of the draw. You happen to, meet some nice people or you happen to meet some, terrible people. So to me a Kindness Warrior is a person who does the right thing, even if it's not the popular thing, or even if it's not well understood. So, back in the olden days when women were suffragettes and they were, working hard to get women to vote, nobody around them liked that. They were all, you're troublemakers, you're difficult, but they wanted other women to have enfranchisement. but you're doing it out of a place of loving kindness and compassion. That's a Kindness Warrior because, you might get pushed back, people might disapprove of you, but you're doing it regardless because it's the right thing to do. And yeah, it takes quite a lot of courage to be a Kindness Warrior. And for example, I do cat rescue and I say to my friends, it's not for the faint of heart because there's a lot of sad stories. Right. And so you have to be a bit of a warrior because you have to also be strong and willing to tolerate outcomes that are not the ones you want or just, the sadness of the situation. So being a warrior is not just fighting, but it's also being able to tolerate the difficulty in general of the fight, of whatever the program or the project or the mission you're on, right? If you're trying to do good things, It's always going to be difficult. There's always going to be setbacks and being a warrior, having a warrior mentality is, I'm going to keep going. Even when it's hard, I'm going to keep going. Even when people don't understand, don't approve push back at me because it's the right thing and I want to do this thing and so, I'm going to be able to bounce back even when I have a bad day or a bad minute, and I'm going to do all the things that I know that will replenish me and make me feel better because I have to keep going. And so that's a kindness warrior. It's fighting on and it's being strong in the face of adversity. So it's not like one particular system, but it's a bunch of things that seem to work effectively. But I have it sort of focused around that, the child adult parent and the inner warrior and the inner wise person. And so really getting the person to feel empowered and safe within themselves and to have that self love and self compassion. Letting go, and so that we can let go of our pain. And then instead of using compulsive behaviors, which I'll talk about in a second to take care of ourselves, finding activities and relationships that are meaningful and fulfilling and enriching. And actually feed our body, mind, soul, spirit, right? So I'm going to go to the addiction piece. So I feel like addiction is really a trauma response. It's a way of addressing unmet needs or inner emotional wounds. And we get caught up in a compulsive behavior because the addictive behavior gives us a dopamine hit, which then makes us crave the behavior more. And we also have a psychological belief that more of this. behavior, even though it's the wrong behavior, it's not working because it's not enough. So if I do more of it, it'll finally work, but more of the wrong solution is not going to turn into the right solution. So the way to feel addiction through Ruthless Compassion is to really understand what we're craving. So if we're craving food, maybe what we're craving is nurturing or soothing or distraction. If we're craving alcohol or drugs, maybe we want oblivion or we want a social disinhibitor. And so, that's something if we're craving, gambling, maybe we need a high, we need a distraction, right? Letting go, and so that we can let go of our pain. And then instead of using compulsive behaviors, which I'll talk about in a second to take care of ourselves, finding activities and relationships that are meaningful and fulfilling and enriching. And actually feed our body, mind, soul, spirit, right? So I'm going to go to the addiction piece. So I feel like addiction is really a trauma response. It's a way of addressing unmet needs or inner emotional wounds. And we get caught up in a compulsive behavior because the addictive behavior gives us a dopamine hit, which then makes us crave the behavior more. And we also have a psychological belief that more of this. behavior, even though it's the wrong behavior, it's not working because it's not enough. So if I do more of it, it'll finally work, but more of the wrong solution is not going to turn into the right solution. So the way to feel addiction through Ruthless Compassion is to really understand what we're craving. So if we're craving food, maybe what we're craving is nurturing or soothing or distraction. If we're craving alcohol or drugs, maybe we want oblivion or we want a social disinhibitor. And so, that's something if we're craving, gambling, maybe we need a high, we need a distraction, right? Maybe you need to have a conversation with someone who really loves and accept you as you are, think about it. Maybe you need to move your body and dance and just feel joyful, right? There are lots of things that we can do that will give us what we need, because the problem with pursuing addiction is that we're filling ourselves up with all this empty calories. And we still feel as empty and as hurt and as lonely and as sad as we felt, in fact, more so because we haven't been putting our energy into feeding what we really need and healing those wounds. So addiction makes our wounds get bigger, our needs get bigger. So when we are actually giving ourselves what we need and healing those wounds, we feel better and better. So you have to deal with the physical part always. And, even if it's not a quote unquote, typical physical addiction that dopamine response in our brain gets set up. So any kind of compulsive behavior becomes a physical addiction in our brain. So you got to deal with that. You have to detox off of whatever it is you're doing. I would say—How do they do that? Well, There's lots of different ways. You can do detox, a detox program. You can do rehab, you can do a supervised detox through an inpatient or outpatient center. There's lots of different ways for people who don't have a typical addiction. There's groups that you can go to a hospital programs, different programs that help you sort of detox off your addiction of choice. I would work on self trust, because if you want to escape, it's because you don't trust yourself to face the truth. So my first step in dealing with any kind of pain or need is face the truth. So you want to escape because you don't feel that you're capable, you don't feel like you're strong enough. So helping the person to understand that they are actually not that helpless child that they once were when they were experiencing trauma, so they're still identified with it. They're actually an empowered adult and help them see examples of their life right now in which they are actually empowered. Look at your relationship with your spouse, with your kids at work. Look at all the things that you're doing that are empowered. Look at all the ways in life that you have agency, that you're effective, that you have a voice, that you have a say, that you have influence and help them to recognize with real life examples that they have power and that they don't have to run away from this particular thing that makes them anxious because they can actually face it and it won't kill them and it won't drive them crazy and remind them it didn't kill you or drive you crazy when you were little and helpless. It certainly won't do that when you're now a strong person who has power and influence in your life. And so helping them find that self trust so that they can turn and face that thing and, face it in a therapeutic setting with support so that if they get really scared, we can work on doing some breathing exercises, some grounding exercises, help them to just keep staying calm. and face that thing that they're afraid of and see that this big boogeyman in their head is really just this tiny little thing that they've, of course, because they were a child, they've blown it out of proportion because everything to a child seems bigger and more overwhelming and to an adult it's actually you know, not that big, and we just have to get, gain that perspective. So helping the person to understand that they are actually not that helpless child that they once were when they were experiencing trauma, so they're still identified with it. They're actually an empowered adult and help them see examples of their life right now in which they are actually empowered. Look at your relationship with your spouse, with your kids at work. Look at all the things that you're doing that are empowered. Look at all the ways in life that you have agency, that you're effective, that you have a voice, that you have a say, that you have influence and help them to recognize with real life examples that they have power and that they don't have to run away from this particular thing that makes them anxious because they can actually face it and it won't kill them and it won't drive them crazy and remind them it didn't kill you or drive you crazy when you were little and helpless. It certainly won't do that when you're now a strong person who has power and influence in your life. And so helping them find that self trust so that they can turn and face that thing and, face it in a therapeutic setting with support so that if they get really scared, we can work on doing some breathing exercises, some grounding exercises, help them to just keep staying calm. and face that thing that they're afraid of and see that this big boogeyman in their head is really just this tiny little thing that they've, of course, because they were a child, they've blown it out of proportion because everything to a child seems bigger and more overwhelming and to an adult it's actually you know, not that big, and we just have to get, gain that perspective. It's been so much fun. I started it because I really wanted to hear people's stories. I love people's stories, people's stories are golden because everyone has their unique experience. And although human beings are so similar in so many ways, our experience is so different and so unique. And so hearing every person's story. Has been so much fun, such a joy. And I've gotten to talk to so many amazing people who I never would have met in my life, including you. So having, yeah. So having this podcast has connected me with so many marvelous people and. I've really seen that are some commonalities in our human experience, even though our experience is tremendously diverse. We all want love. We all want to feel safe. We all want to feel like we belong. We all want to feel like our lives have some kind of meaning and focus and purpose. And I have also found that, the people who suffer, who start out suffering more, but suffer less are those who take responsibility for themselves and don't walk around saying, I am a victim. You guys owe it to me to be nice to me because I've been hurt. They're the ones who say I was hurt and now I have to do something about it. And I ask for help for sure. But I don't have to identify myself as this victim for the rest of my life. And always walk around with a chip on my shoulder expecting to have kid glove treatment because, something bad happened to me. Cause really everyone goes through hardship. We all suffer. We all have, just because of being alive, we all have difficulties. But those who really thrive are the ones who take responsibility and look for that empowerment through compassion, through wisdom, through personal growth, through facing the truth. So I think those were the biggest lessons that I saw through this podcast.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:20

Who do you seek out as guests? Like you had me on there and I loved it. And I, I was able to talk about my book and my mission of, deprogramming people out of Diet Culture and creating a revolution. Who else do you have on your podcast?

Dr. Marcia Sirota: 0:21

wonderful message message, right?

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:22

I love that. As far as this podcast, my hope and takeaway for people is that I want them to be empowered to go on their own journey to reach optimal health. What is your deepest hope and desire for people to take away from your podcast?

Dr. Marcia Sirota: 0:23

But if they can do the things that are available to them to see things differently, to do things differently, to think about things differently, to interact with people differently. That's my goal. And and there will be less suffering and the world will be a more joyful and compassionate place.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:24

You're just one of the most empowering people that I have met. And I love that you are imparting this message on your clients. They're so lucky, but just everyone who listens to your podcast and hears these. Stories do unite us. And I think really being able to empathize and, hear other people's stories help inform ours.

Dr. Marcia Sirota: 0:25

Well, they can go to my website and, MarciaSirotaMD.Com. So MD for medical doctor, and I have pretty much everything there and they can sign up for my free bi weekly newsletter where I curate content. So there's always fun content. I have two podcasts. Actually, I have another podcast called Reel Mental, R E E L Mental, where I speak with film people about current films. I really do. I have, I'm very lucky. I'm not good at a lot of stuff, but I've always been good at time management for some reason. And so I always carve out time to rest. After this podcast, I'm going to go and chill out. So yes, I definitely make time to rest and recharge. I go for my hour long walk every single day. Rain or shine, snow or sleet and it's, I think you can't walk the walk and talk to the talk if you're not really doing it. So I

Dr. Supatra Tovar: 0:27

Yes. And I think if women especially can pick up on that message to put the oxygen mask on themselves first, take care of themselves, feed themselves well, move their bodies. They are so much better able to take care of everyone else. And so you do walk the walk. You do talk the talk. You do everything, Marcia. Yay. Well, we'll have to do it again soon. And I really want to talk about the the movie podcast that you have, because that's so interesting. We could go on for hours about different shows The Substance being one of them that I just watched. Oh my gosh. Okay. Everybody, we're out of time. Tune in next time for the next exciting episode of the ANEW Insight podcast.