Ep #61: How to Say What You Want Without Pushing Them Away

In this episode, we’re getting into one of the biggest patterns I see holding women back in dating and relationships: struggling to communicate what you actually want and need. And not because you don’t know how… but because your body doesn’t feel safe enough to do it. I’m walking you through a real client scenario where everything looked “good on paper” — consistent communication, a secure partner, no major red flags — but one small shift triggered her into a spiral of self-doubt and fear of abandonment. From there, we unpack what was really going on beneath the surface, and how quickly things can unravel when old wounds take the lead.

We talk about the difference between reacting from your anxious patterns vs responding from your secure self, and the exact process I guided her through to move from panic and self-sabotage… to clarity, groundedness, and confident communication. This episode will show you why communication isn’t just about what you say — it’s about how regulated you are when you say it. Because when you feel safe in your body, speaking your truth becomes a whole lot simpler.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
• The real reason you spiral over small changes in someone’s behaviour
• How your core wounds (like “I’m not good enough”) show up in dating
• The difference between reacting vs responding in relationships
• What secure communication actually looks like in early dating
• The two biggest communication mistakes to avoid (that push people away)

🎧 Tune in now! And if this episode resonates, send me a DM on Instagram — I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway.

PEACEFULLY ATTACHED: https://www.mimiwatt.com/

MIMI SOCIAL MEDIA
Come say hi 👋 (or DM me your biggest takeaway) on Instagram HERE!

Transcript

0:00

You are listening to the Secure Love Club podcast. I'm your host, Mimi Watt. Hey friends. Welcome back to the club. I'm coming to you live today from the back seats of my car. Yeah, that's right. As you may have seen on my Instagram stories. Just last week, uh, moved house, which is very exciting. And the renovations are still being finished. So there's about a million tradies in the house right now drilling, hammering yabbering away. And I was like, I really need to record a podcast episode because watch me skip a week. You can't. And I thought, what the hell am I gonna do? Because I just wanna get this. Done. So I thought Mimi, be resourceful. Go and sit in the car. So you're welcome. I'm sitting here in the backseat. I've got my mic hooked up and we're getting it done because you can fight for your excuses or you can fight for your dreams. No, but for real, it's been a really, exciting week because the move has been about eight months in the making, the renovation. So it's really nice to be set up in the new place. And I've been getting my vibe back. You guys might have seen, I've been posting a shit ton on Instagram and my creativity is flowing. So that's been feeling really, really good. What else do I wanna update you on? You guys, I have been doing breath work every single day and I can't tell you how much it has changed my life and how much it's going to change your life because I'm gonna be bringing breath work into my spaces for my clients and it's a game changer. Let me just rattle off a few of the tangible changes and occurrences that have happened for me literally in the last two months of doing consistent breath work. Okay, here we go. Number one, I booked a trip to the Gold Coast and went by myself to see if I wanted to live there. Something I had been putting off for probably six months. Number two, I. Started going on dates again, something I'd also been putting off. Number three, I quit Fake tan. Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, I quit fake tan for good something. I've been trying to quit for like five years. I'm noticing that I'm craving sugar less. I'm sleeping better. My creativity is just through the roof. I am less stressed with work. I'm just getting stuff done. Like I can't tell you, I'm gonna keep screaming it from the rooftops. Self-regulation. Self-regulation, self-regulation. And as I'm experiencing true breath work is one of the. Fastest ways to regulate our nervous system and come out of a chronic state of fight or flight, which is what I believe I was in. So I'm really excited to be practicing that and learning all about it. And I think I may have mentioned, but I'm getting certified as a breathwork practitioner slash facilitator. I'm learning all the things and I'm gonna be bringing that to my spaces. So stay tuned for that. It's going to be absolutely amazing and. Aside from those personal life updates, let's talk about what today's episode is going to be about. I've been talking a lot about communication, on my socials this past week because communication is, I would say, the cornerstone of our relationships. It is what sets the tone. It is what creates the standard of intimacy. The ways that you're going to feel seen and understood by your partner. It's just so, so, so important. And I actually had a call, a one-on-one call with a peacefully attached alumni client just this week, and she brought a very specific scenario. To the conversation, about her dating life and something that she's navigating and it involves communication. And so I want to discuss that situation here today. Without giving away any personal details, but I think it's gonna be something that you can really relate to, especially if you have anxious dating patterns, and you struggle to use your voice to speak up, to really say what you want and say what you need. Usually because you're afraid that it's going to lead to the other person leaving. Let's talk about the types of communications that we want to be tackling in relationships and some of the biggest blocks or mistakes that I see people making that I also used to make when it comes to getting our point across and feeling seen, heard, and understood by our partner or by the people that we are dating and what to do about it. So that's enough yapping for this intro. Let's get into it. My beautiful client came to me and she has come so far in her attachment in her dating life. She used to be very anxiously attached, and after going through peacefully attached, she is so much more secure and confident within herself. And of course, when we change our inner world, it begins to change the types of people we are attracting. She recently attracted in a beautiful, secure man who is like a walking green flag as she described him, and they've been dating for about six weeks. Everything has been going smoothly. The communication has been great. He's been consistent. He's been initiating, he's been checking in every day, and she shared with me, you know, I feel really grounded. I don't really feel anxious. It's all good. Until something that happened the other weekend. And so what she shared with me was that he didn't initiate plans with her for that weekend, which was a new thing'cause that hadn't really happened before. And she said he didn't initiate plans. However, he did stay in touch with me throughout the weekend, keeping me in the loop with what he was up to. And he initiated plans for the following Friday. Right. So we could look at that from an outside perspective and say, that sounds pretty solid. That sounds great. However, that one instance of her, of him not initiating plans activated her. Okay? That felt like a trigger for her, and that's completely understandable. When we are moving out of anxious attachment, going into secure attachment, old wounds are likely to flare up and this is a good thing. Okay? It might feel like a bad thing, but. We want to see these triggers, these moments as opportunities because they're highlighting to us where we still need to do a little bit more work or where we need to deepen our healing and give some more love and attention and presence to that wound that is being activated. And so I wanna take you through a bit of a step-by-step process of what I took her through to come out the other side feeling completely different from when she came into the session and. I'm going to explain how the communication piece ties into this on the backend, but the reaction that she had was for her mind to go into the worst case scenario, right? She was thinking, okay, he's definitely seeing another girl. He's not into me anymore. Like, this is fucked. I, I don't wanna do this. I'm basically, her cognitive bias was coming online where she. The part of her that was afraid of being abandoned and rejected was scanning for threats. And when this happened and he didn't initiate plans, she basically took that as proof of, yep, see it's too good to be true and he's going to like, he's gonna leave, or, yeah, he's not interested in me anymore. And so her initial instinct was she wanted to. And the connection. She wanted to shut it down and basically call it before she could get hurt, and this is just a self-protection mechanism. It's completely understandable. However, I said, okay. I. Before we go and do that, and this is the value of having a mentor or a coach, someone you can turn to for support in these moments when, you know, you don't wanna just automatically react and go into your old default patterning. You wanna get a, a fresh perspective and change the way you're looking at a situation so that you don't self-sabotage. So I asked her, I'm like, okay, so this activated something in you. And I said, the first question I asked her was. What did you make that mean about you when he didn't initiate plans? It triggered you. What did you make it mean about you? What was that core belief that was being poked out there? And she said that I'm not good enough. Ah, okay. Now we have something we can really work with in an empowering way rather than a self-sabotaging way. And so I got her to tune into her body and I said, I want you to bring that situation to mind. That moment when he didn't initiate something. What did that bring up in your body? I want you to tune into what did you feel in your body? What can you name the emotion? And she said frustrated was the first thing she said. Frustrated and angry. I said, right, okay. Let's just tune into that feeling for a moment. Let's give it some space to breathe and to be seen and acknowledged. And I know this was necessary because I did ask her at the beginning of our call, I said, have you been doing any, inner child work? Have you been doing any self-regulation? And she said, no, I haven't. I said, great, now we know where we need to go. So we gave space for that feeling to just be witnessed in her body without trying to fix it right away, without trying to numb it or avoid it or distract. We just gave it some attention and some presence. When we avoid our emotions, they don't go anywhere. They stay stuck in the body. It's like pushing it down and down and down. It's like a garbage can. There's no bottom. The more rubbish you push in, it's just gonna get fuller and fuller and fuller until one day it explodes usually at a pretty inconvenient time. And when it explodes, that's when we end up doing something that we later regret. Think of it like a, a slow cooker. Where it has a little hole at the top and it's gradually releasing steam. That's what we also need to do with our emotions. We need to be feeling them and processing them in real time so that they don't boil up and then lead to behaviors that we're going to regret. The more you just allow your feelings to be there and you tune in and you feel those vibrations in your body. The sooner they're going to pass an emotion actually passes very quickly when you just give it the air space that it needs. So that's what we did. We began to tune into the emotion and gave her space to feel it, to honor it. And then I asked her, I want you to check in. And I said, what does this feeling remind you of? Is there a certain age or a memory, something that comes online for you? And she said, yeah, my childhood. There was a certain time in her life where she didn't feel seen and she didn't feel safe to be her true self to speak up to take up space. So, ah, again, we're going a layer deeper. We can really see where this activation is stemming from. And so once she was able to locate that part of herself, the part that was not feeling seen. That didn't feel safe to speak up, that was hurting. She could work with it. And so this is where I took her through an inner child process where we wanna connect with that inner child and that part and figure out what is the emotional need that is not being met there. And then how can you begin to meet that need for yourself. And so after we went through this process, she came out the other side. Feeling already so much better. And I said, okay. Now that we have come back to a grounded place and we can think more clearly, the next step, which is very important, is how would the secure version of you approach this situation? What would she do differently than maybe the anxious version of you that wants to self-sabotage and ruin a good thing? And she said, oh, well. She would communicate, she would check in, and she actually said to me, I was actually already planning on doing this on Friday, I said, okay, what were you gonna say? And she said, I wanted to have a check in with him and just say, you know, how are you feeling about this? Are you enjoying the connection? Where's it going for you? I said, okay, that's a great start, but can I make a tweak? Can I offer a suggestion? She said, yes. I said, I want you to think less about. First of all, going straight to what he wants and how he's feeling and if he's enjoying it. I said, what do you want? And she said, well, I want a relationship. I said, great. There's your answer. This is what you need to be clear on. And she said, I'm not saying that I need it to be him, or I necessarily want it to be him, but I don't wanna date just to fuck around. Like I know that I want a relationship. And I said, have you had this conversation at all about, you know, what are your intentions with dating right now? And she said, no. And she asked, is it too soon to have that chat? And my response is, I would've had it sooner. Okay, six weeks. It's a decent amount of time to be investing into someone. Getting to know them, developing feelings. I think the sooner you can know what someone's intentions are with dating the better. And I said to her, it doesn't mean that you have to. Ask to be in a relationship with him right away. It's not about saying to him, you wanna lock it down, and if he doesn't wanna be with you, then Sayara. It doesn't mean that at all. It means you get to be clear on what it is that you're working towards, what it is that you want, and all you're doing is letting him know where you're at so that you can see if you're on the same page. Because imagine if you didn't have this conversation and you keep seeing him, and you get another two months down the line where your feelings have developed even further. You're starting to picture what a relationship could really be like with this person. You're fantasizing more and more about the future, and then you have the conversation and he says, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm not ready for something serious. I'm just, I'm just looking to date casually right now. Ooh. You can imagine. I know you can feel that feeling in your chest, like I can feel it too. The disappointment and the downfall from that point in time is so much worse than where you're at now. I want you as a listener, everyone listening here, and as I said to my client, I want you to start taking ownership over the things that you want out of dating and that you want from a relationship. There can be this stigma attached to speaking up and being direct and saying what you want, especially as a woman, because we have been conditioned to not speak up and don't speak out of line. Don't be too much, don't be whatever. And when we speak our needs, or we are direct, there's many cases where you can be labeled as intense or bitchy or too much. Like, yeah, God, she was intense. So mate, run away from that one. That's bullshit. And we need to wipe that from the slate right now. A powerful reframe that I gave to her that I wanna give to you is I said. Think about if a man or the other person came to you and very calmly, in a very grounded way, just came to you and said, Hey. I just wanna have a check in. Been seeing each other for about six weeks and I'm really enjoying getting to know you. I'm really enjoying spending time with you. I wanna have a check in about our intentions for dating right now, and I wanna let you know where I'm at. I am dating with the, end goal or the intention of getting into a relationship. I'm not available for something that's only gonna be casual, and certainly doesn't mean that I'm looking to lock down a relationship right now, but. I know that that's what I am looking for, and so I wanna make sure that we're on the same page. And if we're not, I think it's better that we know now before, either of us gets unnecessarily hurt or something down the line. So I just wanted to let you know that's where I'm at and I'm really curious, where are you at? How are you feeling about things? Imagine if someone came to you and said that in that way, hot. That is fucking hot. And she agreed. She said, yeah, that's, that is hot. And she said, if someone said that to me, I'd be like, damn, I want you even more. Not that we are doing this to manipulate people and to make them want us, but sometimes we need to change our perspective to see how someone else might embody that quality in order for you to feel like, yeah, I can do it that way too, and I want to embody that quality. And so that was a really powerful shift for her. And she said, okay, amazing. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna see him on Friday. I'm gonna have that conversation. And I said, let it be simple because it is. We overcomplicate relationships. We overcomplicate communication, and it's not your fault by any means. It is just a result of your conditioning and because you are likely made to feel like you were too much by simply speaking up and opening up about your emotions and being vulnerable. But it really is simple and straightforward. You are just asking for clarity so that you can have peace of mind about where the relationship is going and if it's aligned or if it's not. It gets complicated when you are dealing with someone who isn't emotionally available, because in that instance, when you confront them with needing to be vulnerable, that's when they're going to deflect shut you down. Make you feel bad for asking those questions, or they're just gonna start to go cold, they're gonna start to be inconsistent. They're gonna start to pull away. That's when it makes it complicated. And if that is the way the person is responding to you, especially early on, that is at all the information that you need to know that this person ain't it. This person represents my past, not my future. Someone who is emotionally available is going to be open to these types of conversations. They are going to value these conversations and probably be very happy and pleased that you are bringing it up because likely that's on their mind too. Or if it's not, they're not gonna respond to it in a way that shuts you down. They're likely gonna respond with an open mind to take, take everything on board, and then share their perspective with truth and integrity about where they're at. If that sounds bizarre to you, that someone could actually do that, this is what a healthy, secure relationship is like. This is what it's like to communicate between two secure, emotionally available adults, and this is how relationships should be. Take that as your permission slip, that it's okay to say where you're at, to let someone else know. It's not about pushing them into a corner. It's just about taking responsibility for yourself and advocating for yourself and really for your future self so that you don't experience unnecessary pain down the line. The two mistakes we want to avoid in our communication is number one, overexplaining and over justifying. When we do that, we are looking for the other person's approval or we don't actually back and believe that what we are saying is valid. When you overexplain and over justify, you lose your authority. You come across like you're trying to win them over. Say what you need to say and then stop talking. Speak like you know 100% that what you want and what you need is valid and worthy of being met, and then stop speaking. The most powerful people often don't say much. They say what they need to say and then they stop talking. So we need to stop overexplaining and over justifying ourselves. The other thing we don't wanna do is not communicate with our language, but instead go into protest behavior, which is where we will shut down and we'll start to pull away. We will go cold. We'll give them the cold shoulder, or we'll say we're fine when we're really not. Okay. These almost like childish, manipulative ways to get attention. This is just a maladaptive coping mechanism that we learnt because we maybe don't have the confidence just yet, or we don't have enough safety in our body to communicate directly. And so we go into this protest behavior, but that is only going to feed into your patterns. Okay. That is not the way a secure person is communicating their feelings in a relationship or dealing with conflict. So we don't wanna shut down and withdraw in a, an attempt to get that person to come closer to us. We need to be using our voice, using our language, and speaking up about what we want and what we need. The key to be able to doing these things is understanding how to regulate before you communicate. It's not that you don't know what you want, it's not that you don't know how to say it. It's that your body doesn't feel safe to have that conversation so it shuts down or it goes into the people pleasing response. So much of healthy communication when you're learning how to do it, actually starts with the regulation that you do beforehand. When you are dysregulated and you try to communicate in a setting that is vulnerable, you are not going to be thinking clearly because when you're dysregulated, the part of your brain that, functions with logic and reasoning literally shuts down. And we go into a heightened emotional state, and when our emotions are high, our intelligence is low. This is when we do things or say things that we later regret. Regulating before we communicate is so, so important, and that's why we go into that in peacefully attached. I talk a lot about how to regulate before communication, the importance of it, what to do, what not to do, and it's just an absolute game changer for speaking up for yourself. Getting your emotional needs met, making sure you're attracting the right partners and really repelling the wrong partners. If that sounds like something that you really wanna learn and equip yourself with, you can check out peacefully attached. I will leave the link in the show notes below our next intake for that is starting in May, 2026 as I'm recording this podcast and I will let you know that spaces are already beginning to fill. So if you've been waiting for your moment to secure your spot and join us in the program, take this as a your sign. Alright, my friends, I'm gonna leave that there because I think I've given you a lot to really reflect on and think about, and I hope that through hearing. My client's journey and experience. You can see yourself in some of that experience too, and you've gained some insight on how you can begin to show up differently in your dating life and in your relationships, and improve your communication so that you can improve the quality of your relationships. As always, thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. If you have an insight, you wanna share a takeaway, a question, or an idea or a topic you would love to hear me speak on on the podcast, I am so open to having those conversations with you. My dms are always open. Jump over to Instagram and send me a message and I would love to talk to you. Alright, my loved. I hope you have a beautiful week and I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. If you enjoyed today's episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Share this episode with your friends and come find me on social so we can hang out between episodes. All the links are below in the show notes.