165: Reclaiming Your Worth Beyond What You Give (Breaking Free of Transactional Relationships)

You, my dear, are not a transaction. You are not worthy only for what you DO, but for who you ARE. 

If you've ever felt loved only when you're helpful, useful, or emotionally available, this message is for you. True connection isn't about how much you give—it's about being accepted for who you are, even on your empty days.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why tying your worth to your productivity leads to burnout and imbalance
• The painful truth about conditional relationships and emotional labor
• How over-giving creates relational deficits and fuels people-pleasing cycles
• Why emotional explosions and burnout are not signs that you're broken
• How to reconnect with your inner child and rewire your nervous system for worthiness
• A gentle invitation to shift from performance-based love to true connection

Challenge for the Week
Take a moment to reflect on where in your life you may be performing for love or shrinking to stay needed. Journal on this prompt:
"What would shift if I believed I was enough—even on my empty days?"

Work With Me
If you’re tired of being seen only for what you can give and you’re ready to feel safe, seen, and supported just as you are, I would be honored to walk beside you. My coaching is designed for empaths and highly sensitive people who are ready to unlearn survival roles and build something deeper. Visit my website or reach out to explore how we can work together.

Don’t Forget to Subscribe
If this episode resonated with you, be sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s episode. And if you're listening on a platform that allows ratings or reviews, leaving a quick review helps more sensitive souls find this show.

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

• 🔗 Join the Waitlist for my Empowered Empath Course here:  https://maryannwalker-life.kit.com/93175104be

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Transcript

0:17

Well, hello and welcome back. My name is MaryAnn Walker. I'm the life coach for the helpers, the healers, and the people pleasers. And before we jump into today's episode, I wanna share something really fun with you. So this morning that I was Googling myself, I do this from time to time to see if the little tweaks that I'm making, if it's helping the algorithms, I just like to kind of keep tabs on things. And this morning I saw something. Really cool you guys. They've been promoting me as a subject matter expert on HSP tools. This is a website dedicated to helping highly sensitive people to find different resources to get the support that they need. And they chose to share my work to support their audience, and I was so touched and honored by that. So thank you so much for sharing, for inviting your friends to listen in, for finding those things that resonate it really is making a difference. And I wanna just thank you for helping me to grow my audience. It means a lot to me. Now today's episode is going to be pretty short, but I also believe it's going to be pretty impactful for you, so I really want you to listen closely. You are not a transaction. Let me say that again. You are not a transaction. You are a whole complex worthy human being. You are not a checklist of how helpful you are, how giving, how emotionally available you are, how physically available you are, but for many of us, especially the empaths and the highly sensitive people, we've been taught, oftentimes unconsciously, that our value lies in what we do and how much we give and in how much we fix for other people and how much it is that we hold space for other people. We became the emotional support system for everybody else, the problem solver, the one who always makes it better. And we learned maybe even as kids that love was something that we had to earn. That we'd be accepted if we were more useful, if we made people a bit more comfortable, if we could fix it or make it better, if we made it so that other people didn't have to take on any of the emotional labor. We learned that being helpful is what made us worthy. But I wanna say something really clearly today. If someone only values you when you're giving, fixing, doing, and performing, that's not love. That's convenience. I mean, yes, if they're also contributing, then it can help to create that balanced reciprocation and relationship. Right? But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about overgiving and associating your personal worth and value with what it is that you're doing for other people. Often for those who believe that they're loved for what they do rather than who they are. These are the same people that are really good at creating imbalanced relationships. And I'm gonna say that again, right? The people that have that belief that they're loved for what they do rather than who they are, they're the ones who creating imbalance in relationship. When you have the belief that love must be earned, it makes it a lot harder to receive, and that can make it a lot harder to create those balanced, reciprocal relationships. Essentially, it's pushing somebody to create a deficit in relationship where it's like, no, I have to always do more than them so that they'll see that I have value. So while we're working really hard to increase our value, at the same time we're saying, no, no, no, don't give me anything, because that's gonna shorten the gap between what I'm investing, what you're investing, and the gap needs to be really big so that you can see the value that I have to offer this relationship. But the thing is, when you're constantly pouring into other people, soon you're left with an empty bucket. You're left with burnout, imbalance and frustration. Now, I cannot tell you how many coaching calls I've had where somebody thought that they were broken because they just finally lost it. They finally realized this was unsustainable and I just can't do this anymore. So they became snappy in their relationship, or they just had a big explosion? They gave and they gave and they gave to the point of burnout, and then they snapped. And when they snapped, then they started to judge themselves. Ugh, I should have done it differently. I'm not a nice person anymore. Right? A lot of judgment comes on after that. I just want you to know that it does not matter how emotionally intelligent you are. It doesn't matter how nice you are. Everybody has their breaking point. The key is learning to see the signs of burnout ahead of time, to look at those relationships and see where it is that you might be creating imbalance and adjust things accordingly so that your bucket can also be filled. Because true connection, it's not built on your usefulness, it's built on your presence, your spirit, just the essence of you. You deserve relationships where you're wanted, not because of your helpfulness, not because of your emotional labor, not because you're holding everybody else together, but simply because you exist. You are not a role. You are not a resource. You are not a transaction. You are a person, a full feeling, sacred being. And I wanna share a few more truths. And for these ones, I really want you to listen with your whole body and allow these words to really impact your nervous system: you are enough, even when you have nothing to give. You are worthy even on your empty days. You are lovable even when you're not holding everything together. Now, maybe as I shared those words, maybe you really struggled to feel it. Maybe you actually experienced some resistance in your body. Now, if so, that's okay. We're just acknowledging where it is that you're at. But I want you to just think for a moment about a cute little baby. Babies are adorable and they are so lovable, aren't they? Everybody just loves babies. And also, babies do nothing for us, they can't cook. They can't clean. I mean, you might think that they're listening to you, but they can't actually process and understand. They can't articulate a reply. They can't validate you. And yet babies are pretty universally loved. They're loved not for what they do or don't do, but simply for existing. So I'm gonna speak those exact same words again, and this time I really want you to listen through the lens of your inner child, that inner child, that, yeah, maybe they're sometimes clumsy, they're still learning, they're still growing, they're not perfect, but they're so pure and they're so innocent, and they're so worthy of love, and they want to receive love. So listen to these words again, through the lens of that inner child. You are enough, even when you have nothing to give. You are worthy. Even on your empty days. You are lovable even when you're not holding everything together. Now, if you have found that you've been in relationships where your worth was measured, not by who you are, but by your level of output and investment into others, then this message might be stirring up some emotions for you. Just let those emotions come up. Maybe you're experiencing grief. Maybe it's anger, righteous indignation, sadness, or maybe it's even confusion. That's okay. Just let it be there. Let those emotions come to the surface because awareness is the beginning of change. You don't have to keep shrinking yourself to stay needed. You don't have to keep performing to be loved. You don't have to keep abandoning yourself just to feel safe in connection. If you're tired of these conditional relationships, tired of being seen only for what it is that you can provide for others, and if you're ready to feel safe, seen and supported exactly as you are, I want you to know that I would be honored to be a part of your journey. I help empaths, recovering people pleasers and highly sensitive people, just like you unlearn those old survival roles that are now keeping you stuck. Yeah, they served a purpose, but now they're just keeping you stuck. I help people to build something deeper, something more authentic, something that finally feels like home, where they no longer have to walk on eggshells. So if that resonates, if your heart is whispering, yes, while you're listening to this, then reach out and let's connect because you don't have to walk this path alone. You are not a transaction. You're worthy of love. So additionally, before I close out today, I wanna let you know about something I'm going to be doing that I've never done before, and I would love for you to join me. Lately on my free consultation calls, when I ask people, Hey, what is it that you're hoping to gain through coaching? Then they tell me, you know what? I am just so burned out and I'm seeking more balance. What I would really love is some practical tools, or maybe even some energetic practices for empaths and highly sensitive people so I can feel a bit more grounded and a bit more secure in myself. And they're asking that because they can see that I've been able to shift from burnout to balance. I'm no longer triggered as easily when somebody else is upset, I'm better able to identify what belongs to me and what weight belongs to others to carry. And so for that reason, for the first time ever, I am going to be teaching a small select group of students how to find peace, balance, and clarity as a highly sensitive person living in a very chaotic world. So if you're tired of trying to manage other people's emotions in an attempt to create peace for yourself, make sure that you click the link in the show notes to join my wait list for an opportunity to be a part of this life-changing course now, because I want to keep the training as safe and intimate space for workshopping your specific problems, then this course, when it does launch, it will be limited to 20 people, so be sure to sign up on my wait list so that you can be the first to know when the doors are open for registration, because I would love to have you there. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here, and I'll see you next week. Bye now.