The Boundary that Stops Self Abandonment

What if the biggest boundary you need isn't with someone else?

What if it's with yourself?

In this episode, I share the foundational boundary that has transformed my life,  healing, relationships, and the lives of countless women I work with every day:

I will be my own best friend.

Many women struggling with betrayal, people-pleasing, self-doubt, or unhealthy relationships don't realize they're abandoning themselves. They ignore their intuition, silence their needs, explain away hurtful behavior, and prioritize everyone else's comfort over their own well-being.

Not because they're weak.

Because somewhere along the way, they learned that self-abandonment felt safer than disappointing someone else.

In this episode, you'll learn:

✨ What self-abandonment actually looks like in everyday life
 ✨ Why so many women learned this survival strategy
 ✨ The hidden cost of constantly putting yourself last
 ✨ How boundaries help you stay true to who God created you to be
 ✨ Why "being your own best friend" changes everything
 ✨ How self-trust is built one decision at a time

I also share a powerful perspective on how Jesus modeled healthy boundaries, unwavering identity, and self-respect—even when others wanted Him to abandon His mission.

If you've ever found yourself asking:

•  Why do I keep allowing this? 
•  Why didn't I speak up? 
•  Why do I keep putting everyone else first? 
•  Why don't I trust myself anymore? 

This episode will help you begin answering those questions with compassion, clarity, and truth.

Because healing doesn't begin when everyone around you changes.

It begins when you decide you will no longer abandon yourself.

❤️ Ready to become your own best friend and create the life God intended for you?

Book your coaching call using the link below.

Until then, remember:

You matter.
 Your voice matters.
 Your needs matter.

And you are worthy of the same love, compassion, and loyalty you so freely give to everyone else.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the other side of the struggle. Okay, I'm talking about my core foundational boundary today. And this is a big boundary, this is a big deal because your boundaries are going to be what anchors you into your results. Okay. When I talk about boundaries, I'm not talking about the wall that's between you and another person. I'm not talking about what you're going to tell somebody else to do. I'm talking about the line that you draw for yourself, that this is how far I'm going to go. Because this is who I am. This is who I choose to be. And I like myself this way. See, boundaries are all about who you're going to be, how you're going to show up the way that God created you to be. And there will be people in our life that want us to please them, to show up a different way, and simply to make them more comfortable. And this is why I say boundaries are really important because when we just stand as ourselves, it clarifies what we will and will not tolerate. And it's really a result of not having boundaries. And it's not necessarily your fault. If you find that you are someone who self-abandons, I don't want you thinking that you somehow it's your fault or something's wrong with you, etc. It's more like we need to fix the response to a trigger. That's it. Okay. Because you've been taught, I mean, if you've learned self-abandonment, you've been taught that that as a coping and as a self-survival technique. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you're wrong or you're bad or something's wrong with you. It just simply means that we need to fix the response to certain triggers. And we do that through thinking the through boundaries. Now let me explain this, okay, a little better for you in a way that I think you'll probably understand and jive with, I should say. I want you to think about Christ for just a minute. The Pharisees and the Sadducees demanded that Christ abandon his mission, abandon his principles, abandon who he was, abandon his ministry. They wanted him to self-abandon. But Christ refused to do it. The reason why they wanted it was because he threatened their power. His very message threatened their power. People were leaving and following Christ in droves because he had the truth. And these Pharisees and the Sadducees, they were the Jewish leaders of the time, and people were leaving them for Christ. They didn't want to give up their power, they didn't want to give up their authority, their money. People were paying them, right? And so Christ challenged that. But can you imagine where we would have been if Christ actually shrank? Actually abandoned. I have a feeling he knew what was coming, what the Pharisees and the Sadducees would do. But yet he never apologized for being himself. He always claimed his true identity. I am the Christ, he said. I am that I am. I am the one that God sent. He spoke it boldly with truth. He didn't shrink or feel ashamed of himself. Now you might say that's because he was perfect, and I actually think it was because he knew he was, and that's why he was perfect. The thing about this is we can do the exact same thing. But it comes down to one boundary. Because you gotta ask yourself, you know, it's so easy, and I'm gonna get into this boundary by the way in just a second, but it's so easy to abandon yourself, especially I think as women, when fear or danger is detected. And you know, whether we're talking about relationships, healing, money, confidence, trust, parenting, faith, or business, whatever relationship it is, whenever you're feeling threatened, you need to ask yourself, am I gonna stay with me or am I going to abandon me? Because if you've ever asked yourself, do I keep allowing this? Why didn't I speak up? Why did I ignore my gut? Why did I say yes when I wanted to say no? Why do I keep putting myself, putting everyone else first? That's self-abandonment, my loves. And that's not standing in who you are, and you might not know who you are yet, but we're gonna go on a journey of self-discovery. But I can tell you that abandoning yourself will never allow you the chance to know you ever. You won't ever get to know the real you because you're always hiding the real you, you're always putting the real you away, and God didn't create you to be hidden, He didn't hide, He didn't create you to be boxed away or abandoned. You are the one person, the one person that you actually cannot truly leave. You could move up in the mountains totally secluded without anybody else around you, but you still have to deal with yourself, you still have to deal with you, even in death. You are the one person you will always have to deal with. It would make sense then that we don't abandon ourselves, and the truth is the self-abandonment might not necessarily feel super dramatic, it might feel normal, and it might look like keeping the peace, avoiding conflict, making excuses, staying quiet, ignoring your emotions, talking yourself out of what you know, giving one more chance, and then another, and then another, waiting a little longer, explaining away behavior that hurts, prioritizing everyone else's needs while yours collect dust, putting making someone else sound like they're the good guy, and just giving them another excuse. And it was because a lot of women, I would say generationally, women were praised for these behaviors growing up, they don't see it as self-abandonment, they recognize it as being nice, being patient, being understanding, being loving, being feminine. But there is a difference between loving others and leaving yourself. And like I said, you know, this is a survival technique. This is also a generational thing that we've been taught. Women have historically been taught to shrink, but now in today's society, women have the ability to earn their own living on property, etc. And those are good things. We've been literally handed, you know, a much better life, but sometimes I think that we sit back and we're like, I don't want a relationship with a man because men are they they they tend to disrupt my peace. And I don't want to say that that viewpoint is necessarily wrong either, but I do think that we as women do want healthy relationships too. We might say it seems like it's getting harder and harder and harder to find those types of relationships, and you might be right. But I do also want to say that we can find those healthy relationships. As a matter of fact, they attract to us when we learn to stop, you know, abandoning ourselves. And like I said, I mean, you might have you you've learned this. This is a learned strategy. I mean, as children, as I think, especially as women, our nervous systems were taught to believe if I make everyone else happy, I'll be safe. If I don't rock the boat, I'll be safe. If I stay quiet, I'll be safe. If I take care of everyone else, I'll be safe. And maybe that worked as a child, and it might even have helped you survive. But survival strategies often become big problems when we carry those things into adulthood. And the very thing that once protected you is preventing you from having these fulfilling relationships, from being able to stand for yourself, I think, in a lot of ways, and to actually be able to attract the right relationships into your life. And that's a big cost, and because self-abandonment is expensive. It costs your peace, your confidence, your clarity, your voice, your energy, your relationships, healthy relationships, and trust in yourself. And it eventually will start to cost you your ability to realize what it is you actually want out of life. And I see this all the time. Women come to me and they don't know what they want. And again, I get it, it's not your fault. It's you've spent years asking and looking for what everybody else wanted, and you just kind of eventually lose touch with yourself. And it's not because you're incapable, it's because you've just become disconnected. So, what is the boundary? What is the boundary that actually changes all this? What is the boundary that stops you abandoning yourself? And I will honestly tell you, it's my core foundational boundary. I will be my own best friend. Now I want you to think about that for a second. I want you to consider what you would do for your best friend. See, especially the woman who is kind of the people pleaser. What efforts do you go to to for your bestie? If she was in struggle, if she was in fight, flight, freeze, or fond, if she was having the same exact struggles you were, what would you do for her? Once you get clear on that, you can you can actually see some actions here, and then I want you to start implementing those with yourself. Because a lot of times women will go to the ends of the earth for their friends, they will bend over backwards for them, but they won't do that for themselves because they don't necessarily see themselves as worthy, but yet they do their friends, and this is why if you will live this foundational boundary, there's many other boundaries to add into this because being your own best friend looks like I'm going to be respectful because I desire respect. And if somebody doesn't want to be respectful to me, I'm still gonna be respectful to them, but respect doesn't look like kowtowing and bending over just to be kicked. That's not respectful for them, it's not respectful for you. When you become your own best friend, you start to clarify what your actions need to look like so that way you be the very best version of yourself, you be the version that God created you to be, and you stay with yourself no matter what. Staying with yourself means listening to your emotions without letting them ruin your life. Would you do that for your best friend? Sit there and listen to what she has to say, honoring your values even when they're inconvenient. Would you sit with your best friend and honor her values even in inconvenience? Trusting your observations. Would you do that with your best friend? Telling yourself the truth. Are you gonna be honest with your best friend? Keeping promises to yourself. Would you keep your promises to your bestie? Allowing your needs to matter. Would you allow your besties' needs to matter? And giving yourself compassion. How much compassion do you give your bestie? And if she was struggling, would you ask her what she needed right now? And would you ask yourself the same question? What do you need? Do you see how these things and these this mindset about being your own best friend actually starts allowing you to show up for yourself in a completely different way? You start to ask, what do I need right now? What do I know to be true? What decision would make me proud of myself? And this is where healing begins, because healing is honestly a decision to do things differently in a in a way that is best for you. Thinking of yourself as your own best friend is one of the most healing boundaries that can possibly be implemented. Because it's not about everyone else changing just so you can have peace, it's about you stop leaving yourself so that way you can act in accordance with you in a way that you're not disappointed. So remember that remember how I was talking about the savior at the beginning of this podcast. I want you to really think about his best friend behavior. He treated everyone around him like his best friend, even the Pharisees and the Sadducees. When he called them hypocrites, that wasn't being cruel, that was kind, he was being honest, and bluntly so because they needed the bluntness. They needed him to be that blunt. But yet, because he told the truth, it was still loving, and he still had boundaries, he still served people, but he still withdrew to pray. He cared deeply about everyone else, and he cared deeply about himself. He wasn't controlled by other people's actions because he was deeply controlled by himself, he was his own best friend, and therefore he was able to give that best friend energy to everyone else around him. But he also held everyone else to the same standards that he himself lived. He didn't excuse somebody else's bad behavior to be quote unquote nice, he let them know it was not okay. That's what being your own best friend looks like, and that's what being a best friend to somebody else looks like. Calling them out when you know that what they're doing isn't good for them. That's a best friend. But think about this for just a second. Christ disappointed people, and it isn't because he failed, it's because he remained true to himself, he remained aligned in truth and dignity, he remained his own best friend. And if we're going to try to follow him, then our goal can't be to make everyone else happy. Our goal has to be to simply be what God created us to be, to have a relationship with him, and that brings self-trust. This boundary creates self-trust because every time you stay with yourself and be your own best friend, you send your nervous system a message. I've got you, I'm gonna listen to you, you matter, I'm not gonna ignore you, I'm not gonna leave you, I won't betray you, I'm here, I'm willing, and I'm going to get in and get my hands dirty and do the work to make sure that you know how much I think you matter, how much I care, and you begin to trust yourself again because who doesn't trust someone who cares that much? And it's not because you're going to be perfect, it's just because you're going to be consistent with being your best friend. You're becoming someone that you can rely on completely. Healing doesn't begin when everyone around you changes. It begins when you decide to stop abandoning yourself and start being your own best friend. When you decide that you matter, that your emotions, values, needs, and voice matter. And from this day forward, I really want you to start implementing that you're going to be your own best friend. Even what's uncomfortable, scary, and hard, even when you want to slip back into those same patterns of behavior and belief where you feel like it's just easier to make everyone else happy. You've got to shift the synapses in your brain to being your own best friend. It's not unkind, it's the kindest thing you can do for yourself and everyone else around you. Because whatever you put inside of yourself is exactly what you kick back. So if that's what you want to be giving, you have to receive it first. All right, my loves, if you want help being your own best friend specifically, and you want help implementing this boundary so that way you can become the person that God created you to be, and you can start living a life regardless of what everybody else around you is doing or saying or being themselves, and that you can make decisions with power, clarity, and support. Book that call. The link is below in the description, and let's work on this boundary of becoming your own best friend. All right, my loves. Until next time, I'll see you on the other side. Bye.