What Choosing Yourself Actually Looks Like (When It's Uncomfortable)

Choosing yourself sounds empowering…
 until it actually requires you to do it.

In this episode of Shift Happens with Shay, we’re moving beyond awareness and into action, exploring what it really looks like to choose yourself in everyday moments, especially when it feels uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or even wrong.

For many high-achieving women, self-abandonment was once a form of safety. Saying yes, overgiving, and prioritizing others helped maintain connection—but at the cost of your own needs.

So when you begin choosing yourself now, your nervous system may respond with guilt, anxiety, or second-guessing.

That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
 It means you’re doing something new.

In this episode, we explore:

•  Why choosing yourself can feel uncomfortable or unsafe 
•  How people-pleasing and overfunctioning are rooted in nervous system patterns 
•  What self-trust looks like in real-life decisions 
•  Small, grounded ways to begin honoring yourself without overwhelm 

This episode weaves together High Achieving Women, Nervous System Healing, and Inner Child Healing, reminding you that choosing yourself is not selfish… it’s a return.

✨ Affirmation from this episode:
I am allowed to choose myself, even when it feels uncomfortable.

—

🎧 If this episode resonated, share it with someone who is learning to stop abandoning themselves.

If something in today's episode landed for you, if you recognized yourself in the patterns we talked about, I made something for you.

She Left Herself to Be Loved is a free guide I created for the high-achieving woman who has been running on survival mode and quietly knows it. Seven signs, nervous system cues, somatic reflections, and journal prompts to help you start seeing what's actually been happening underneath all the strength.

No email required for the episode. But if you're ready to go a little deeper, it's yours, completely free.

→ Download the free guide: She Left Herself to Be Loved

And if you're ready to take it further, Coming Back to Self-Discovery is the 28-page guided workbook that picks up right where the guide leaves off.

→ Get the workbook: Coming Back to Self-Discovery

Continue the conversation with Shay on her Instagram, Facebook page, Youtube, website, and linkedIn! You can also email Shay at shay@shif...

Transcript

0:00

Hey, love. Welcome to Shift Happens with Shay, your soft space for mental health, relationships, and self growth. Let's shift into healing together. Hi, beautiful out here, getting our tea. Let's get ready to empower, elevate, and evolve. Let's shift into today's episode. So we're here. If you see me looking over, it's just because I have, I have notes. I, I always have notes for you guys. You know, and I, I didn't even say it, but welcome to Shift Happens with Shay. I'm Shay licensed Marriage Family Therapist. If you're new here, welcome to the Show. Oh my God, you're joining us during the awakening phase, and that's amazing. If you wanna start from the beginning of the playlist, of course. Go for it. Go ahead and start when we were in our cocoons and emerging as we are now over here in the emergent stage, after our cocoon stage, after we understood our patterns and we're trying to figure out what to do now that we have all this insight. But if you're down for the ride, stick with me. Okay. And welcome and of course. Like, comment, and subscribe. I appreciate it. Let's move into here. So here we are, back in episode 24. What choosing yourself actually looks like when it's uncomfortable. Ooh. Like what's that about? Okay, so let's get into it. I wanna start with something simple and honest. Choosing yourself is not always going to feel empowering. Isn't that wild? It's insane. Come on now. Life just doesn't wanna make anything easy for us sometimes. Sometimes, not all the time, but yeah, sometimes choosing yourself feels uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and it can even feel wrong. And if you've ever tried to choose yourself and immediately felt guilt, anxiety, or second guessed it. This episode's for you, boo, because today we're not just talking about choosing yourself as a concept. We're talking about what it actually looks like to choose yourself presently in real life, real time. Not just cute Pinterest boards of what I envision choosing myself will look like. No, we're gonna talk about exactly what that is, and of course we'll review some patterns because we need to be aware of what we're doing because a lot of us, as high achieving women, say we wanna choose ourselves. A lot of us say, oh my God, it's my era, it's my time. But when the moment actually comes, something else takes over. You know that pause I'm talking about when you start saying. Yes to things you meant to say no to. There's this pause, this hesitation within you that you're just like, oh, I don't even know why I said that. But just yesterday we made a declaration saying, we're gonna choose ourselves. Wait, why are we saying yes to things we know we don't wanna do? Then we get to overexplaining our boundaries. Well, you know, I don't wanna do this and it's not having anything to do with you, but I just feel right now in this time, I need to look out for myself. I need to go. Mm-hmm. You don't need to explain your boundaries. No, I don't have, unfortunately, I don't have the time for that. I do have other engagements that I have for the evening, but I would love for us to reconvene. Let's get together again though. Let's find a different date. Maybe something that works for both of us. I'm not overexplaining a boundary and you shouldn't either. So let's go ahead. And talk about it. You also see that you might not even might, you are prioritizing someone else's comfort over your own. Yeah, I know. Shay, why are you attacking me right now? I'm not attacking, I'm bringing you awareness, my love, but we're noticing that you have somebody in mind, an instance, a situation where you prioritize someone else's comfort over your own. And then also going back on decisions that felt right in the moment when you did it, it settled. It felt like, yes, this is for me. And then you let doubt and anxiety take over and you backtracked on yourself. And remember we talked about in previous episodes about building self trust. I even actually just literally talked about it still in the last episode. When you keep making promises to yourself and falling through, your nervous system is rolling its eyes at you because it doesn't believe you. Then after all of that, you sit with that quiet feeling of just being like, why didn't I just listen to myself and sit with it? It's okay. 'cause we all go through that. And I'm not saying that I'm any better. I'm human too. Don't matter what these letters after my name say I'm human first before I was licensed. So I understand that. Just like why didn't I just follow through what I said I was gonna do? Why didn't I listen to the plan I set for myself? I felt so good last night saying, this is what I was gonna do. This is how I'm going to do it. This is how I wanna be. This is my time, my year, my day, my month. Why don't I have the strength? To follow through for myself and it's not a lack of strength. Beautiful. It's not. That is a pattern your nervous system learned because what we like to call in very clinical terms, your adaptive information processing, so your AIP, it does exactly what it's supposed to do for us. I achieving women choosing ourselves was never modeled as safe, so your nervous system does not understand nor see that as a safe choice. Despite that you went through all the ways of how this was gonna be good for you. It doesn't have enough examples of when it was good, it just knows when it wasn't, and so it's trying to predict every type of way to stop you from hurting your nervous system cares. So that's why you learned being agreeable, kept at peace, being selfless, earned love and being easy, avoided conflict. So your nervous system associated. Choosing others means safety. Choosing yourself that bad boy is risky. Don't ask me to do that. 'cause when we do that, it hurts. It's uncomfortable. That's understandable, but we can't stay in this comfort of false safety. But I am going to honor and I'm gonna show you that it's okay to honor your body for choosing others because it, it sees it as safety, and that doesn't just disappear. Just because you decided to grow your body still remembers. So when you start choosing yourself now, it can feel like you're doing something wrong. But you're not. You're just doing something new. And we gotta get our nervous system up on game to know that it's something new. And new isn't always bad. New doesn't always hurt new, doesn't always say, oh my God, I'm gonna come out with a bigger scar. New could be, this is relief. New could be, this is when I'm finally gonna be able to breathe new. Could be. Waking up and not feeling on edge or sitting with a pit in our stomachs or a headache or just dread new, could be our new safety. But we have to teach our body that it's okay. It's gonna be uncomfortable, and it's okay for discomfort right now. I am uncomfortable. This isn't danger. I'm uncomfortable. We are teaching our body. To know the difference between danger and discomfort, because oftentimes danger is where triggers lie. This feels dangerous, triggered alarm, but this feels uncomfortable. Hmm. I don't like that, but I, this is manageable. I can, I can move through this. No. Discomforts can lead to new and we could form new safety. That's how we're telling our inner little one, that inner little girl, your inner child, baby. Trust me. Trust me, we couldn't trust the other adults. We couldn't trust all those people in the past before we were let down. You're right, that did happen. But trust me, I am you of today and I am capable of guiding you through this. Trust me. This new, even if it's scary, I'm gonna get us through this. New is for us. We deserve it. That's nice. Tell like your girl that take that moment to tell your inner child that right now. I got us. I got you. I know we've been let down before, but I got you. Trust me. 'cause now I see the errors of their ways and all that we did to protect ourselves. You did your part, you did what you had to do to get us through. Now it's my turn. It's my time to take over. Yes. You know I love me. Some inner child work. Ugh. Yeah. I love it so much. It always starts at the beginning, even when we have little teas, big teas. No teas. And tease me. Traumas here? Mm-hmm. Or gimme a cup. Gimme a moment. Gotta get my throat ready when I be in here 'cause I be on a roll. Yes. So. Now that we took that time to ground our little cells that's feeling that discomfort, and you probably felt it in your chest. You probably felt it in the pit of your stomach as I kept describing it, talking about it, you're like, oh, that's me, Shay. And, and that's okay. 'cause it's me too. It's me too, boo. It's okay. We're riding this out. We're gonna go through this. We're moving. So let's move forward and talk about. What it's gonna actually look like when you say yes to you, and not in theory, but in practice it is gonna look like you're pausing. Oh, there goes my New York accent. I'm sorry. Well, not sorry, it's me. It looks like you're pausing before you respond. Actually, can I just pause right there for a moment so you guys can get a little bit of insight on me. When I get super excited and passionate about something or I'm really upset, my accent comes out. I haven't lived home in years. I moved from New York when I was 12, but occasional visits here and there and that part doesn't leave me. Maybe you guys heard it in other episodes and I didn't realize it was coming out because. I'm passionate about women and I'm passionate about us in mental health and just becoming our best selves. Okay? Just so if you hear me pausing and water and whatever else comes outta my mouth from this point forward, um, that's what's happening. I'm just getting very passionate or I'm upset about something because why would they do that to us? Okay, going back. So choosing yourself in practice looks like pausing before you respond. Yes. Taking that moment to really reflect, do I wanna say yes right now or do I wanna think about it? It looks like saying, let me think about it, instead of immediately agreeing let me think about it. You don't have to say yes no right then and there. You can think about it and you can get back to people because we have to make sure this decision aligns with who we are and what we are doing and what we're about. And if it doesn't, it's a no. If it does not align with your values, it's a no. If it goes against who you are at your very core, it's a no. It also looks like noticing when your body tightens and honoring that signal. Remember, your body does hold wisdom. Yes. The alarm system. We're learning to dismantle the expectations and the codes that other people have put in. And we're putting new ones in, but your body does know when. Mm. What that person just said did not land right with me. Think about it, you know, a moment like that, someone says something and you kind of just mm. Mm-hmm. Right? You, y'all know. You know, and I know for the people who are just listening to this, you can't see my face, but I feel you could tell from my, mm-hmm. You know what I'm talking about. When you just kind of pause and your face tightens up a little bit, you purse your lips and you kinda look up and down at the person, or you kind of do a side eye. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Honor that signal. 'cause it means something for you. It also looks like allowing someone to be disappointed without rushing to fix it. I know for my recovering people, pleasing, high achieving women. I know. I know. Boo. It's so uncomfortable seeing someone else feel hurt or sad. You know, I get that we don't want our loved ones or other people to be disappointed in us, but we have to let people know what it feels like to sit in disappointment because not everything they wanna do is gonna happen, and you're not gonna be the person that's always gonna say yes to making it happen. That no or not disappointment for them can be what they need to readjust and rewire themselves on how they wanna approach situations. And how they can get their needs met without forcing you to meet them at the expense of your own needs. Ooh, that's a gem. That's a gem. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, this can help them rewire themselves on how they can get their needs met without looking to you to meet them at the expense of your own needs. That's what it looks like choosing yourself. It's not always gonna be loud. It's not always gonna be a party, a shebang, confetti like, woo, look, you did your thing. Sometimes it will be, you have the right people surrounded by you. It will be 'cause they'll be like, girl, you did that. Yes. Yes, that's exactly what my clients get actually from me. I get so excited when a woman chooses herself. I love it to my core. Hmm, we'll do that in session, but in the moment you may not even realize it. It's like, Ooh, I did that. It's a quiet reflection. It's a quiet thought, but it's intentional and that's what really matters. Diego rule. So over time those small choices begin to rebuild something powerful. Self trust. That's what we're all about here at Shift Happens with Shay, we're all about rebuilding self-trust and having you stop performing to belong in order to do, to stop that. I gotta teach you how to rebuild your self trust. I have to teach you how to connect to your inner child. I have to expose the attachment injuries in your life. We gotta process all that. We gotta get through it. Self-trust is gonna help us. Every time we gonna rebuild it, we are going to rebuild it. So Shay, so I know it's gonna be uncomfortable and it looks like that. And in my day to day, it's looking like, oh yeah, it's looking like you gonna get a text from somebody asking for your time. And instead of responding right away, you're going to take a few moments before you give a response. I know your anxiety is gonna go through the roof from my anxious girlies. I get it. Tightness in the chest. I get it. Tightness in the chest, the pit in your stomach. Maybe the clamminess, oh my God, they're gonna think I don't care. We're choosing ourselves. Remember, it's gonna be uncomfortable. It's not dangerous. Uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable not responding right away. It's not dangerous, not responding right away. Okay. Give yourself space, give yourself time to think about whether this request honors your time, your boundaries. It's gonna look like someone expects something from you because you, you know, we built a role where we were always there. We fulfilled every need for everybody else whenever they need it, at a drop of a dime. You found the answer solutions. Print. Here you go. We're gonna change those expectations because we're no longer performing. Remember that? And you're going to realize you don't actually have the capacity. So you're going to say, what are you gonna say? You are gonna say no. You're gonna say no to that request. That that's, that's, that's the answer I wanna hear. We're not gonna push through. We're gonna say, I can't commit to that right now. We're not gonna do long explanations. You're not gonna over justify your needs don't need to be justified. They're your needs. Your capacity does not need to be justified or over explained. It's your capacity. You are learning to reprogram your capacity for things you truly want to do, for things you want to get done. And, and don't get me wrong, I understand to have a community. Means to have inconvenience, but you shouldn't be inconvenience 24 7. As our community, you're being taken advantage of. Oh, came off a little harsh like Shay, who hurt your friend. Lots of people actually, and my clients. So yeah, I'm gonna get mad, but we're not gonna push through. Just to be taken advantage of. No, we're gonna honor ourselves now because we're choosing ourselves. We're choosing. You're choosing. You choose you. No long explanation, no overexplaining, no over justifying just honesty. Or maybe you're going to feel the urge. To go back on a decision that felt right earlier. Remember that what we said earlier, kind of going back on yourself and not following through. Mm-hmm. We're gonna feel that urge. 'cause that's, what is it? Discomfort. It's not danger. It's just an urge because that's what we've been doing. It's what we've done because we thought choosing others meant choosing safety, but that's not safety. We are rewriting the program and learning that choosing us is the safer option. You are going to feel that urge to wanna go back on something you decided for yourself just to make someone else more comfortable. And this time you don't, you don't go back on yourself. 'cause I'd rather that person be disappointed than I be disappointed in myself. My disappointment in myself is higher than your disappointment in me. So this time. You're not going to go back on yourself. You're gonna continue to choose yourself every time, every night, every morning, every month, every day. Some days you might, you know, fall back. We're human, that's okay, but we're choosing ourselves more often than not. So it's gonna be uncomfortable at first, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means it's new. You've been taught that choosing yourself has to be bold and dramatic and it doesn't, it, there can be a softer way. Softer doesn't mean no discomfort though that's not what it means. It just means we ain't gotta go through like this crazy strife and going through the storm every time we choose ourselves. It, it doesn't have to always be that way. Some storms are not even thunderstorms. Some storms are just water patterning on your window, right? Those are soft storms, so it could be a way that doesn't force you into confrontation, but still honors your truth. I want you to keep that in mind. Choosing yourself doesn't always have to be confrontation in whatever way you choose your, you choose to choose yourself. Just make sure it honors your truth. That's what matters most. You don't have to become someone completely different overnight because you didn't become who you are today, overnight. That was years of experience, years of different interactions, years of different beliefs and different expectations of you that formed you to who you are. So you don't have to be someone completely different overnight. You just have to become honest. More honest weight yourself. Okay? Hmm. Take a breath here and ask yourself, 'cause you know I love me some reflection. Where do I feel the urge to override myself most often? Where are those situations, those key words, those things that keep popping up, that make you wanna override your decisions for yourself? What does your body try to tell you that you ignore? What is my body telling me that I often ignore, and what is one small moment this week? Where you can choose yourself differently. What is one small moment this week where you can choose yourself differently? Not perfectly. Just intentionally take some time. And as always, if you are in a car listening to me, do it out loud. You'll notate later. We have time. So here is our affirmation for episode 24. Repeat this with me. I'm allowed to choose myself even when it feels uncomfortable, even when it's new, even when others don't understand. Let that settle. Let it marinate. Let it integrate. Choosing yourself isn't something you master overnight. It's something you practice in the small moments, in the quiet decisions, and in a way you respond instead of reacting. And yes, it will be uncomfortable at first. But that discomfort is not a sign that you're doing something wrong. It's a sign that you're no longer abandoning yourself. And that is where everything begins to change. 'cause we're done neglecting ourselves for others. We're done with that. So if this episode resonated with you, let me know in the comments below. You know, interact with me, talk with me. And if you're not here watching this on YouTube, then find me at, on Instagram at Shift Happens with Shay. You can DM me, you could comment on Post there, let me know, or send me an email at Info at Shift happens with she.com. I'm here. I love to hear all the stories. I love to read, you know, what's going on, and you wanna pick my brain a back. Of course, this doesn't constitute us as starting a therapeutic relationship, y'all know that. So, but I'm, I'm here to help where I can. So I hope if this resonated with you, cool. Tell me about it. Let me know. Leave down below in the YouTube choosing me. So I know that you got the message, and if you have a friend in mind that you know that this would fit beautifully for, send this to her. She could definitely use some loving right now, and a reminder and ways to choose herself, ways to do it, like not just theory, practical ways, and what to expect when she starts choosing herself. So I'll see you on the next episode. Remember, like, comment. Subscribe and also you can go at go to shift happens with shade.com and join my newsletter where I give you groundings affirmations, you know, manifest those, maybe some freebies here and there, resources to use on the go. So I'm happy to help. I'm loving this soft living with Shay and she happens with Shay. Peace out my loves. You're doing amazing. Thanks for spending this time with me On Shift Happens with Shay. Be sure to subscribe and check the link in the description for more ways to shift into healing.