Break Free from Anxiety and People-Pleasing

What if the real path to power isn’t armor, but undressing the layers that never belonged to you in the first place? Mary sits down with Nedjma Belaid—modern priestess, mentor, former pharmacist, and clinical hypnotherapist—to trace the journey from people pleasing and anxiety to a grounded, luminous self that doesn’t bend for approval. Their conversation pulls no punches: they name the “good girl” programming, the swing into rebel isolation, and the quiet cost of building a life around other people’s comfort.

Nejma shares how she stepped off the medication carousel and dove into psychology, NLP, hypnosis, and yogic philosophy to heal and then guide others. Together, we explore the Sacred Undressing Journey, a spiral path through four archetypes—Queen, Warrioress, Lover, Mystic—that helps women rebuild self-trust, express with composure, keep the heart open, and align with something larger than ego. Expect practical tools: noticing triggers without fusing to them, repairing after missteps, and choosing strategies that match your energy so your work feels congruent, not icky.

We also get personal about family, faith, and identity. How do you love and be loved when religion or culture diverge? How do you model humility and repair for your kids while staying rooted in your truth? Self-responsibility emerges as the secret sauce—attractive, stabilizing, and deeply freeing. If you’re tired of shrinking to fit a script, this conversation offers a map back to yourself, one gate at a time.

Loved this conversation? Follow and share with a friend who’s ready to stop dimming her light. If the episode helped you, leave a quick review and tell us which archetype you’re exploring next.

Chapters

• 0:05 Welcome And Purpose
• 0:39 Mary’s Story Of Leaving And Healing
• 2:01 Meet Nejma: From Pharmacist To Priestess
• 2:47 Flashpoints: People Pleasing And Panic
• 5:14 Ditching Meds And Seeking Deeper Tools
• 6:48 The Unmessable Woman Metaphor
• 7:23 Science To Soul: Blending Modalities
• 8:36 Good Girl Vs Rebel Pendulum
• 11:01 Triggers, Choice, And Repair
• 13:19 Modeling Imperfection In Motherhood
• 14:39 The Sacred Undressing Journey
• 17:14 Queen And Warrioress: Self-Lead And Express
• 19:34 Lover And Mystic: Openness And Oneness
• 22:01 Parents, Religion, And Repairing Bonds
• 25:56 Self-Responsibility Is The New Sexy
• 27:18 Offers, Challenge, And Sisterhood
• 39:28 Share And Closing Blessing

Transcript

Mary: 0:05

Welcome to No Shrinking Violets. I'm your host, Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist and certified integrative mental health practitioner. I've created a space where we celebrate the intuition and power of women who want to break free from limiting narratives. We'll explore all realms of wellness, what it means to take up space unapologetically, and how your essential nature is key to living life on your terms. It's time to own your space, trust your nature, and flourish. Let's dive in. Hey Violets, welcome to the show. Every now and then I find a guest whose purpose and motivation for their work so closely mirrors my own that I feel that inner vibration that tells me I'm connecting on my own energy frequency. When I made the difficult decision to save my own sanity and leave a job I loved, I was too shell-shocked to know much. But what I did know was that I didn't want any other woman to experience the spirit-diminishing doubt I did when the cascade of crazy disrespect came crashing down. I kind of forgot who I was in the face of all that. And I know for a fact that it would have been different if I hadn't been a woman. So that is a big part of why I do what I do. And the rest is that I had three decades of hearing my female clients talk about doubting their own worth or of allowing limiting narratives to keep them small. And one of the worst, allowing someone to do something to their body that they didn't really want to do because it was easier to go along than to protest. I decided one way to amplify what I've done with individual women through therapy would be to consistently put messages into the world that counteract all of that, and to share guests that are inspiring and even courageous and that use what they learn from their own struggles to help other women. Well, I have a feeling my guest today has blown those limiting societal scripts to pieces in her own life and is now on a mission to help other women do the same. Her name is Nejma Balaid, and she is a modern priestess and mentor who empowers women to stop dimming their light to fit in, to be their true selves, and to shine their goddess within so they can experience levels of love, joy, and fulfillment they never thought possible. A former pharmacist and Tony Robbins coach, she has studied various coaching and healing modalities and was certified as a clinical hypnotherapist, NLP master practitioner, and was ordained as a yogic priestess. She is the founder of With Kind Awareness and the creator of the Sacred Undressing Journey. And we're gonna take some time and explore all of that today. Welcome to No Thrinking Violet's Nejma. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. It's so good to be here. Okay. So I start with all my guests by asking them to share the parts of their story that they see as like those flashball moments where they've had realizations or something happened where it showed them sort of the next path to take, and then all culminated in helping them end up where they are in helping other people. So could you tell us some parts of your story?

Nedjma: 3:10

Absolutely. You know, I can think about two really main events. One was when I was all the way back in college in my dorm room, and I grew up in a family where both my parents were divorced and also from different cultural and religious backgrounds. And so earlier on, I had picked up the people-pleasing tendency. So I could fit in everywhere and make sure everybody loved me. And I felt the pressure to be more of my dad's religion, even though it wasn't necessarily aligning with me. So I was this master chameleon, not really looking within or understanding what I liked or wanted, but really much focus on the outside, and that created a lot of anxiety. But there was that moment in my dorm where something had happened that made me realize that there was not, it was not going to be possible to please both my parents at the same time. And for any kid, I know I wasn't a kid anymore at that point, but still as the kid of my parents, it was kind of a shock. Like you, we have this deep-seated desire to be loved and accepted by both both our parents. And so it took me down a very dark place, a negative spare spiral. And what really took me out of it was this thought. And I thought, okay, by trying to please everybody else all the time, it's me. I'm not pleasing. So I'm gonna go out and please me for a change. Of course, I was 18. I had no back then, I don't think YouTube was a thing. There wasn't that many like pre-recorded courses. So I was kind of on my own. I didn't have mentors' courses, but I did the best I could, and that really was, I could say, the earliest start of my journey. Um, and there was a time later on early 30s where I had moved from Canada to New York. And I had I was a pharmacist, I had been a pharmacist for a year, but I had to transfer my license. So that required like a two-year of studies and an internship. It wasn't like an automatic thing. And really, because of the people pleasing, I had developed generalized anxiety disorder over the years, had taken medication, but stopped it due to side effects. But during that transition period in New York to get my license, that there was a lot of self-study. There was no courses, it was me and my textbooks day in, day out. And so my ADHD started to flare up. And so the doctor decided to prescribe me stimulants, which is what you prescribe for ADHD. And if you can think, if you're stimulated, your anxiety will rise as well. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. So I decided to like have rashes on my neck, on my body. I was just so wired that my doctor wanted to slap on top of it and then tie anxiety medication again. And I just thought there is no way. There is no way I'm doing this medication to treat side effects of another medication. I'm a pharmacist. I know there are non-pharmacological ways to go about these things. So I brought the prescription to the pharmacy and I never picked it up. And later on, also with my doctor stopped my ADHD medication. So always away with your doctor. Um, but it really took me down. I'm like, okay, like I need to figure out this thing. Like, I don't want to be dependent on these medications, but I also don't feel well. So I did a deep dive in YouTube, like anything psychology, books. I traveled overseas, did so many certifications. Yes, I got trained in many different modalities, but initially it was more like to heal myself, to understand myself, to undress the layers of stuff I had picked up along the way that was clouding my true self and really being on the path of what I call today the unmessable AF woman. But not unmessable like you would think, like in your face, this is me, take it or leave it. That's a little bit more of the rebel energy that I talk about in my system. We're talking more about this metaphor of the naked with no weapons. Like imagine this metaphorically, this naked woman walking down a path. And on each side, there's like lines of people locked and loaded with layers and fur coats, and they're just shooting and throwing. But everything passes through because there's nothing to grab onto.

Mary: 7:17

Wow. Very powerful image.

Nedjma: 7:20

Mm-hmm.

Mary: 7:22

Yeah. So you had to do a lot of soul searching, a lot of, I think it sounds like just searching for answers, seeing what fit for you, and just hearing the big steps if we look at your career. So starting with pharmacy, which is very scientific, always get you know, learning the next thing. And what I learned early on is that pharmacists know way more about medication than doctors do typically. That's true. So from that, then going into a situation where you're coaching people, which there's a little science to that, but it's much more interpersonal, and then expanding into these other spaces. And I think I've talked to a lot of women that they want something that is more on maybe the pharmacy type, like tell me how to take up my space by setting boundaries, by things that are very concrete. And it sounds like you got training and you learned some things that I'm gonna say are maybe more esoteric, a little more mystical. And I think those things are very important also, especially for women, because of the energy we have. So, could we start by having you tell a little bit about what is a yogic priestess, first of all? What sort of training? How do you use that to help women expand? Because I always say take up your space, and that seems to be your message. How do you use that to help women?

Nedjma: 8:52

Yes. So I want to preface by saying all of my training, there's nothing that I use specifically as okay, let's say I'm a neurolinguistic um programmer, neuro NLP practitioner, right? I'm not like, okay, now we have an NLP session. Even if I'm a um hypnotherapist, I don't necessarily do who do hypnotherapy sessions, but I will lead people on the unconscious. I'm utilizing everything I've learned. It's the same thing for my training as a yogic priestess, which was a seminary studies with the Temple of Kriya Yoga, and really about studying Eastern philosophies, yogic philosophies, obviously, world religions, spiritual counseling. So for me, that was about a two-year journey deep into consciousness, deep into understanding really the variety of perspectives around the world, because that's how I see the different philosophies and religions. And I think what it got me was really this concept of oneness. Like of course, religion has been a big thing in my journey because of the conflict with my parents. So it was quite healing to me to see like the connection around religions and philosophies that there's some differences, obviously, but it all comes down to the main core ideas of like love, compassion, ending suffering, liberation, things like that. And so in my coaching, it allows me to be with people or women in my case from all over the world, from whatever background, for whatever they bring. I I'm not surprised because I have studied all of these ways. I have worked with, of course, in my coaching studies and psychology studies and everything, Tony Robbins. So it just made me a lot more apt to be with whatever is presented with me to me and do the inner work with that person.

Mary: 10:50

Yeah. Well, and when you say you don't use one approach, I think that is really a huge key to being effective because it sounds like you're able to sort of be with whoever's whoever you're with, truly be with them. And it kind of, I even know as a therapist, I would not say, Oh, I use this approach for every client. You sort of sense like what does somebody need and go from there.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Yeah.

Mary: 11:14

And so the one thing that when you talk about the religion, the struggle with that, and you also use the term good girl several times on your website, I was raised in the Catholic faith. And that is the hallmark of what you want your daughter to be, a good girl. And so when you say that, yeah, what do you feel like some of those narratives are? When we're raised to believe we're supposed to be certain things to be good, what does that look like?

Nedjma: 11:44

I think at some level we're all raised that way, irreligion or not. I think definitely some cultures or religions definitely amplify it. But if you just even if I see my son, he's gonna be nine years old, and I'm not raising him that way, but there's kind of more of that black and white mentality. I'm not a child psychologist, but I'm just noticing that. Like this is good and bad, this is right and wrong. Like I need to, because I'm understanding the world now, so I need to put things in boxes. And so we grow up, whether the environment reflects it to us or not. I think as children, we want to be loved. We're dependent on our caregivers. So naturally, we'll want to do the right thing, fit into a group. And then at this at the age, my son's nine, so it's like the friend zone now. It's like so learning to be part of a group outside of the family unit. So I think all of these learnings, whether we like it or not, we start picking up layers, and some people will go one way or the other, but people pleasing, like on the good girl side, right? The people pleasing, codependency, wanting to do everything perfect, having like almost metaphorical hives when we are wrong or make mistakes, being so hard on ourselves, and a little bit of like this disempowered feminine here, just kind of like, Well, you love me, um, a bit of a needy energy. Um, and I think I talk about the good girl in this axis and the opposite with the rebel.

unknown: 13:12

Okay.

Nedjma: 13:13

With the rebel, it's kind of like the other side of the coin. If you take a pendulum, I like to use a pendulum. If you go to one extreme and you let it go, it's gonna go all the way to the other side. And so we can get stuck in this dance. The rebel, it's for me in my journey. That's what happened. You awaken a little bit from the good girl, and you're like, you know, screw you, excuse my pendulum. Yeah, I don't need anyone, right? I'm gonna, I'm better off on my own. Plus, it's so freaking tiring and draining to read the room and just make sure I please everybody. I need a sense of inner peace. So I'm gonna be in my hermit cave here for a while, right? And and I don't need anybody. And it's a little bit more like that toxic independence or the overactive masculine. I'm gonna structure it, I'm gonna do it all on my own, but then we're lonely. So what happens is we relapse back into the good girl, and then we can get stuck in that dynamic or trap. And so that's what the sacred undressing journey really undressing the layers, not just like deep soul searching, which is also amazing, but also just sometimes just simply like, what are my triggers? Where is that coming from? Is it really who I am? Or is it coming from a wound or what I think it should be? Or am I just defending because I can't bear the idea of maybe I was wrong and I could just sit with it? Um, you know, all of these things help us undress all of these programming, so to speak, what I which I call layers or veils, and come home to this more regulated dancing in the middle place. Because when we're here, we can have the benefits of not the extreme of the good girl, but like, okay, loving people, wanting to be around and and belong, and not necessarily the extreme of the rebel, but like I can stand on my own two feet and speak for who I am and and and honor myself.

Mary: 15:00

Yeah.

Nedjma: 15:01

Um, and so that's that's the ultimate goal.

Mary: 15:04

There are so many themes in there. So the one you talked about black and white thinking. So we do that so often. We use those words good and bad, even if it's only to describe what we ate that day. I was bad. It's like you're not bad for eating a cupcake. You know, you know, there's no bad food. If you eat 17 cupcakes, we might want to look at some health issues. But I think we imbue every little decision with so much weight and we weigh it based on does that fit the good girl script or does that fit the rebel script? And if we do the rebel stuff, we're bad. If we do the good girl stuff, we're good. And really we're all in the middle. And I think as women, we have a lot of trouble owning some of the best parts of us. I think our energy is amazing, but we're so we're so often told we're too much. That energy is too much. And I think it's interesting to use what you've said. Like there's there are two extremes, and everything in the world is a continuum. So it's figuring out what is what do I want to own? What is really true about me? And I use the term essential nature that under these layers you're talking about, we used to know who we were as little girls. We just knew. And then in comes the messages, whether it's parents or other things from society, or I'm thinking maybe in your training as a pharmacist, you were not in the majority. I mean, I would think there were more males in those classrooms. I don't know. But I think there are a lot of things about we're living up to certain things. So I love this idea of peeling back those layers and also looking at it like we're we have we are this pendulum. And when we figure out where we belong, we're gonna kind of come to rest, even though not forever, right? We never fully arrive. We're always learning.

Nedjma: 16:55

That's right. That's right. Yes, absolutely. And and that's the thing, it's a journey. I don't know if we get like I tell my client, I'm not this like monk levitating atop of a mountain in the Himalayas. Okay, like I'm still a human being, but it gets to be better and better. Like, yes, something happens, and I might be like, what the heck? Right. And and have these reactions. No, it's her fault. And but I catch myself instead of just going unconscious, yeah, and then just being this ping pong ball between ping pong paddles every time I leave the sacredness of my hermit cave.

Mary: 17:30

Yeah, yeah. Well, and when life happens, I think that's when we become the ping pong ball. Because if we stay in our hermit cave, it's pretty safe in there. And that's where you know life begins at the edge of your comfort zone, you know, the bumper sticker. But I think too, when we are confronted with the hardness of life, the difficult things, or something happened. And then later, 20 years later, something happens that mirrors that and creates the response. We call it a trigger. All of those things, that's what knocks us off balance, I think. And that's the true test. Do we know ourselves well enough to stay grounded in those moments? So we don't start swinging from one thing to the other. And that movement is not quite as dramatic. It's more, okay, I know myself. I'm gonna learn more from this, but I know myself well enough that I can keep myself grounded through most of it.

Nedjma: 18:26

Yes, absolutely. And and sometimes it can also be in the little things. Like it could be you're stuck in traffic and someone cuts you off, and and it's like, well, what's going on? Right. Because if you go unconscious, it could just ruin your day. Right? You go get to work and the traffic stuff, and then you bump your toe and oh my gosh, this day, right? And it can just snowball. Um, but you're right, like it's the self-awareness. I always say it's the basis of everything because if you don't know, you don't know how you can do anything about it. Yeah, and it's really when we're so associated, when we're so in it, there's no choice. Like when we start to take a step back, be the observer, and just in that space, there is choice. And then it's up to us. And we don't always do the most evolved thing, and but that's okay, like learning to also let go and be imperfect and accept that we're perfectly imperfect, and we'll do better next time. But if we reflect and think about it, we can also complete with someone if we feel like okay, like you know what? I I overreacted here. Sorry, I love you. And that can be okay too. But the good girl would very much struggle with that because that would mean admitting she was wrong, and that's too painful. And the rebel might just be like, screw them, I don't need anybody, it's them and the blah blah.

Mary: 19:46

Yeah, yeah. And we can have a lot of energy tied up in past things that we've done. So you're right. How do we move on from that and just have grace not only with ourselves, but know when to go to someone? And it happens rarely, but when we can go to someone and say, you know what, I was totally a jerk this morning, and it breaks something open. I think when we're able to own something or we have somebody come to us, very few people are gonna make you pay again for that. They're gonna be very gracious and accepting, but we're afraid to try it because we don't know what's gonna happen.

Nedjma: 20:22

I even do it with my son since he was very young. Like sometimes motherhood, there's all these demands, and you know, you're at the end of your rope and they're hungry again, or oh, but uh my head hurts. I need the medication, or can you tell me a story? Like at some point, it's just like we just and I would go after and say to my son, hey, listen, I'm sorry, mommy just was a bit stressed and it has nothing to do with you. And I got impatient, but I just wanted to know, I love you, and it has nothing to do with you, and I'll do better next time, you know? And I think every time it made us closer, and and he appreciated that.

Mary: 21:01

Well, there's so much power in that because when we don't get the explanation from our parent, we interpret it, and we typically interpret it like I was bad, I did something wrong to make mommy mad. And by having that conversation, it normalizes that just because you're the mom doesn't mean that you're not a human. You don't have, and I think then that helps our children to know that they're gonna mess up, they're gonna have emotions that are big or messy, and you're modeling for them what to do when that happens to them. So powerful.

Nedjma: 21:38

Thank you. Thank you. That's my intention. Like, you know, it's it's not always perfect, right? We do the best we can, but the intention is to model what he can do and allowing himself to also be imperfect and and be human, but also take ownership for things and take responsibility for his self for himself.

Mary: 21:57

Yeah, for real. So tell me a little bit more about the sacred undressing. What is that? What what does that look like? What are some parts of that?

Nedjma: 22:07

Yes. So the sacred undressing journey is just at at the highest level is really undressing the layers of conditioning, limiting beliefs, uh, limit false identities, stuff we picked up along the way, right? But that's very general, very like, and I can do that easily one-on-one with someone without necessarily needing a structure. But um so we can grab on and really understand how we can move through this journey. Um, I there is four sacred gates along the way, which are archetype-based. So we have the queen, the warrioress, the lover, and the mystic. And each of these gates have four keys that specifically undresses something and reclaims a certain power. So the queen in is you can start anywhere, it's a spiral path. I don't like to prescribe step one is the queen, but it's an easy first step. And it was really the first step for me in my journey, and then that I see with my clients is this more internal part about taking self-responsibility. Like, know yourself is the first key. We talked about that. It's the the the base of everything. So it's like if I don't have self-awareness, it's gonna be hard to be on this journey. So knowing yourself and then taking responsibility, looking within, making sure you honor yourself. And how are you also leading yourself in the sense of am I being my word to myself? Because that can hurt our self-trust. If we keep breaking our own words to ourselves or just behind closed doors when no one's looking, we don't say what we what we said. We don't do what we said.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Yeah.

Nedjma: 23:44

So that's really that internal journey. And then the warrior-ess is about now the external expression of that. So we're still like grounded here with the queen and the warrior-ess are two grounded archetypes, but now I'm going outside. How do I express myself in a way that's artful, not just like people pleasing, or I'm just gonna tell you what it is and you deal with it, right? These two dynamics, but how do I artfully express myself? What is my self-expression? Could be also a place to start. How do I compose have composure in the face of challenges? How do I believe in myself? But also this is where the purpose comes in because it's an expression of me. Like, what's what lights me up? What do I want to bring into the world that is coming from my court, my truth, my goddess within? And then we move more to the ethereal. We the next one is the lover, which is still externally focused, which is all about obviously lover, unconditional love, but self-unconditional love, also unconditional compassion, the ability to remain open. Women oftentimes tend to close. No, I'm okay. All right, no, it's fine.

Speaker 2: 24:53

Like this is kind of a makeup uh you can't recognize that.

Nedjma: 24:57

And so, how do we stay open? That that's a skill that requires something that that using vulnerability as a strength, vulnerability as a strength, and then also how do we connect ourselves? How do we give and receive? How do we play in that balance? So we're not in over overgiving, or we're not also in the calculated giving. So, how do we be pretty much the lovers that state of overflow? And then the last one's the mix stick, which we're coming back more internal and maybe a bit higher up, where this is where my training in Korea yoga comes into place as well. The concept of unburdening ourselves, like all the expectations. There's also tuning ourselves not only to whatever your belief is about the divine or the unseen, but also tuning your state. What's your emotional state? How are you tuning yourself also in this life? So it has two dimensions there, and and also the concept here of transcending ourselves. So now it's the concept of like I'm not just this 3D self, maybe the soul, we're all one. Like, how do I transcend just this simple concept of me and choose who I am? Like this concept of being myself at a higher level. What is that identity underneath this role that I might have here? And how can I also amplify the parts that I want to that not that I want to, but that will support the greater expression of me in this life? Yeah. And again, and again, because you know, there's always layers to all of this, and so, but that's the general journey.

Mary: 26:37

Yeah, and I love the idea of archetypes because those go back. I mean, Carl Jung talked about archetypes, and we all have both sides of an archetype, tends to have sort of like you were talking about the pendulum. So we all have some masculine and feminine in us and all of those things. And what I love about what you've just said is I think it helps women who, again, I feel are more trapped by limiting beliefs, maybe than men are, not to stereotype, but I think what it allows women to do is to see all the possibilities. You give them a framework to think about parts of themselves in a way that we would never do in everyday, in the everyday world. And I love that because I think that it expands just by talking about those things. And I think that's really very cool. That's very beautiful. I love it.

Nedjma: 27:29

Thank you. Yeah, I love it too. Is it's really nice to have this kind of path, and then it can go so much deeper too in each of these. Yeah.

Mary: 27:40

Well, you talk about it with such passion, and you've had so many different parts to your own story that I think people sometimes can make a mistake with thinking someone who really seems to have her shit together and she's helping all of these women again has this linear path, and she's arrived, and everything is perfect. So, one of the questions we know that's not true because everyone has struggles and life is more sort of like you know, the windy road than the straight highway. But I'm curious about as you went through all of this and you had your own little rebel phase, right? When you try when you became an adult, how did your parents react to this journey that you went on?

Nedjma: 28:28

That's a great question. My mom has and I are very similar. She's always been interesting in like spirituality, personal growth. So I think she really welcomed it. Um, she did not like my rebel that much. Most parents don't. Because uh, you know, I wasn't letting her in. You know, she I had moved to the United States, she was still in Montreal, Canada, so she wasn't seeing me a whole lot. And it was she was trying to get into my world, but I was just acting from triggers, going away, blaming her. So it was very much hurting our relationship. So when I started to take responsibility for my own world and my growth and started to undress that, I think it just helped in making your relationship better. And I think also being on this path for me has allowed me to be able to love and receive people as they are. We think we talk about ourselves, and but there's also this dynamic of like we want to be love for who we are, but how are we actually doing the same for people? We still have expectations. Well, it's not how you said it's not what you said, is how you said it. And you should have said that that way. And you know, that's not something you say or do. And we have these judgments and we expect people to fit into the box of how we want them to behave so we feel good. And so that was a that was kind of a hard realization that you know, what I thought was right was actually a way for me to control my experience. World, so I feel good about it.

unknown: 30:02

Yeah.

Nedjma: 30:03

So when I turned the mirror within and started to do the inner work, then I started to need less and less. Again, not perfect, not like arrived there and meditating on my mountain. Okay. But less and less needing the outside world, people, places, things to be a certain way in order for me to feel good, but come more from the inside out. And so definitely benefited my relationship with my mom. And she started to take on some of these things just by seeing me grow. She also started her own journey without me doing anything. So that was really great. On my dad's side, I think because of the religion and different things along the years, like we weren't necessarily all that close. And of course, I was away. And I think that aspect of I was always on the lookout for him to accept and approve of me as I am. And I always felt that because I was not of the religion, I was the black sheep. I was the not really a part of the family. And actually that happened about a month ago. But I had a conversation with him very hard to heart because I came back to Montreal um a few months ago. And so uh reintegrating a lot of this. And um I shared with him what how I had felt all these years. And I'm sure at some point I mentioned it, but it was more from like high emotional, you know, charge. And he I was probably not hearing him, but a few like a month ago, we had that conversation, and he was kind of shocked. How could I even think that I was less of his daughter, not as part of the family because of that? Of course, he would want me to be a part of his religion, and he was pushing for that because he felt it was his responsibility, but he came from a good place, and the I really heard him, but that's only because I've done this work, and I was able to see that my dad loved me all along just as much as my sister's just maybe it was seen in a different way, whatever, but it was there, and so everything was a story that I told myself, and just being able to receive his love the way he's able to give it to me.

Mary: 32:20

Yeah, well, and the irony of that is you had to shed what you thought those expectations were and become who you really want to be in order to get to the point where you're where you have the conversation and realize, oh, like I was okay all along. I just didn't know it.

Nedjma: 32:40

Yes, absolutely. And it's not, it's not like, oh, now, you know, we're never gonna have struggle or disagreements. Like this is still there, it's still very present. I'm sure it will still come up, I'm sure it will still lead to heated conversations and disappointments. But I got to a point where I don't necessarily have to take it personally and make it mean that there's something wrong about me and that he wouldn't love me because of that. Even I think to this point that I am, and I don't think that would happen. But we had times in our journey where we didn't talk for periods of time. And I think if that were to happen now for some reason, I would have the absolute certainty that my dad loves me without the shadow of a doubt, even if that happened. Yeah.

Mary: 33:29

Yeah. And there's again so much power in knowing somebody loves you and they're seeing you exactly as you are. They're not loving what you're pretending to be. And that's another reason, I think, to navigate all of this and really figure out who do you want to be and how do you want to stand in your space. Because then the people that are there with you, you know they're there and they're seeing you and they're loving you for exactly who you are.

Nedjma: 33:55

Yes. Yeah. I don't know if my dad would say these words that way, but he definitely loves me because I'm his daughter, and period. That there's just no, he might not be in love with my choices, exactly, with my decisions. Um, but that we make this connection between these things, and it's actually not related.

Speaker 2: 34:17

Yeah.

Mary: 34:18

Wow. So cool. Um, okay, so there's one more thing that I want to ask you about, and then I'm gonna have you share where people can find you and you know, uh what you can offer. But one of the things that I saw that you wrote somewhere, it's um self-responsibility is the new sexy. Yeah. Tell me what you mean by that, because I love that.

Nedjma: 34:40

Well, yes, and there's nothing in my perspective, tell me what you think. But there's nothing sexier than someone that is not just like always twisting your words, blaming you for saying things one way or the other. Gosh, I I spend my life sometimes just being frustrated. I'm myself, and then someone like the next day, like, I really didn't like what you said yesterday, and then it becomes this whole freaking drama. Oh my gosh. When I started to meet people that had taken on the self-responsibility thing before me, and they just had compassion for me. Like, oh, I'm so sorry I'm late. Don't worry about it, things happen. What? Like, well, yeah, you made me wait here, and like uh what what time did you leave? Okay, well, there was traffic. Did you check Google Maps? Like, there's this, this is what I had received from people like great people, love them, but when we don't do the work, that's just how we tend to behave. So when a woman just walks about and is not out there to point fingers to everything that's going that makes her feel X, Y, and Z, and turns the mirror inside, there's nothing sexier. Like you want to be around this person.

Mary: 35:57

Yeah, very true. And social media has made that harder because we can indulge that blaming behavior and judgmental behavior. So, but I think you're right, and we know the friends we have that do that, that yeah, that really know what I need to do to live in a way that is benefiting me and you know makes it easier to connect to me and all of those things. So, yeah, I do, I do love that. So I want to be cognizant of our time. Share with us a little bit more about how you can help women and where they can find you, and then I will link it in the show notes.

Nedjma: 36:36

Brilliant. Well, right now the easiest way is to work one-on-one with me. And so you can DM me on Instagram at WitKind Awareness or send me an email, nejma at witkindawareness.com. I also have a free challenge that is fully self-based called Unmessable AF, which is packed with the sacred undressing journey and going through the archetypes and as a bonus, an hour and a half kickoff um training in there. So it's amazing. So you can join that at any time. Just again, email me, send me a DM. I'll also give you the link, Mary, if you want to put that in the show notes to just kind of join the challenge directly.

Mary: 37:15

Yes.

Nedjma: 37:16

And for women who are actually either network marketers or starting their own business, out of working with my client who is a network marketer, we're creating this group coaching group or called Becoming the Brand Sisterhood, which utilizes the secret undressing journey, the undressing your layers, but in the um in the light of business, because what we have found is that she would came come to the sessions being like, it's the messaging problem. If I could just find the right words, and then we would realize, like, oh, it's actually some layers and things underneath, right? It's like I I don't know, I can't find my audience. But then I wasn't sure if I should put my freebie link on my last post because I need to make it more perfect. So we realized that there's actually a lot of stuff going on under the hood. And so we're doing the sacred undressing journey to support the support those women who want to start becoming the brand, offering themselves and utilizing their gifts for the world.

Mary: 38:19

I love that so much because as someone who is still trying to get some things off the ground, we're always told here's the way to do it. And if it's not congruent, some things just feel icky. And and and you're so told like you have to do this if you want to be successful. But I think the other side of the coin is if you do what really connects to who you are, you're gonna be successful. It's just giving yourself permission. So I love that you offer that. Thank you. Thank you.

Nedjma: 38:51

Yeah, it's the secret scripts, the the five steps to make millions overnight, right? I'm exaggerating. But and these strategies are amazing. But when we are strategy forward, it's easy to get lost in our heads and stuck, as opposed to if we go more energy forward, which is from the secret on dressing and looking what's actually under the hood. And then we just fly and use the strategies that align with us, like you said.

Mary: 39:16

Yeah, so cool. Well, thank you so much for being here today. What a great conversation!

Nedjma: 39:21

Thank you so much, Mary. It was a pleasure, and thank you for everybody watching or listening.

Mary: 39:26

Yeah, and thanks everyone for listening. Please share this episode with another amazing woman who you feel would be empowered by this message. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.