How to Start Honoring YOUR NEEDS Regardless What Others Say

👉🏼 Do you constantly put everyone else’s needs ahead of your own?
👉🏼 Do you over explain your decisions, fear disappointing people, or feel responsible for keeping everyone happy?
👉🏼 Do you worry people will reject, misunderstand, or leave you if you start choosing yourself more?

If you answered yes to any of these, this episode is for you.

In this powerful conversation, I dive deep into why honoring yourself can feel so uncomfortable, especially for recovering people pleasers, empaths, and those struggling with codependent patterns. When your identity and self worth have been built around being needed, liked, helpful, or emotionally responsible for others, choosing yourself can feel unfamiliar, selfish, or even unsafe.

But healing begins the moment you stop abandoning yourself to maintain connection.

You'll learn:

✨ Why your nervous system reacts with guilt, anxiety, or fear when you start honoring your needs
 ✨ How people pleasing and self abandonment become deeply conditioned patterns
 ✨ Why discomfort does not mean you are doing something wrong, and what it does mean
 ✨ Practical ways to begin setting boundaries and saying no without guilt
 ✨ How honoring yourself strengthens self worth, self trust, healthier relationships, and inner peace

I also share practical tools and mindset shifts to help you interrupt automatic people pleasing behaviors, stop over-explaining yourself, communicate more clearly, and become more intentional with your yeses and noes.

This episode is not about becoming selfish. It is about making your well-being a priority by becoming aware of and tending to YOUR NEEDS.

When you stop asking, “How do I keep everyone else happy?” and start asking, “What do I need right now?” everything begins to change. 🦋

For FREE Resources, 📖 Book Link, 📝 Quizzes, 👚 Self-Love Merch Shop, 🗣️ 1:1 Mentoring and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

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Hi Friend! 👋🏼

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Much Love,

KB

Transcript

Kristen 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome, welcome to the podcast. I'm so honored that you are here. My name is Kristen Brown, and I'm a spiritual and intuitive energy healer who focuses primarily on helping others build a solid relationship with self through resetting their internal foundation. All change happens on the inside first, and when you heal your inner world, you change your life. Today we're going to be talking about doing what you need to do for you without guilt. As recovering people pleasers, it can feel surprisingly uncomfortable. Maybe it's not so surprising, and may even feel unsafe to start honoring your needs. For a long time, your sense of stability may have come from reading the room, anticipating what others wanted, maintaining a liked status, or adjusting yourself just to keep things smooth and to keep things calm. When you begin shifting this pattern, your system just may interpret it as a threat. It may say, you're going to lose something here, unless you say the same. You're unsafe. You better not do this. Something bad's going to happen. So saying no, asking for space, or choosing yourself over someone else is likely to trigger fear, anxiety, guilt, or perhaps even a sense of loss. And this is especially true if you have leaned into codependency, where your identity and worth have been built around being needed, helpful, the one who brings the fun or indispensable. And that dynamic, being liked or relied upon, doesn't just feel good internally. It feels like it's necessary. So when you start honoring your needs and doing what you need to do for you, there's often an internal tug-of-war that happens. One part of you is growing and learning to listen to yourself and wanting to honor what you need for your optimal mental health and well-being, maybe even your physical health. But this other part of you is scared to death. It's afraid you're going to be rejected, you're going to be misunderstood, you're going to not be liked, you're going to be disapproved of, you're going to be yelled at, or you're going to be alone. And this is where the work really begins. When we interrupt the pattern and the program that has driven our behaviors and choose differently for ourselves, something magical begins to happen. Over time, there's going to be a shift. And you begin to experience that your relationships don't have to be maintained through self-abandonment. That being valued for who you are, not just what you provide, what you think you provide to the person or what they they think you provide to them, you're what you're going to notice is that it's not only impossible to do that for someone, to be the everything for everyone, but it's far more healthy and sustainable to choose you. And perhaps more importantly, you will start to build a sense of self that is not dependent on constant external validation, but in grounded self-love. Many of us have gotten ourselves into these types of patterns because of feeling as if we were not enough. We were not liked for who we are, because our worthiness cup has drained, because we feel like we have to get love, approval, acceptance, and attention from the outside world. And so we've abandoned the self. We've put ourselves last. We have told ourselves that we don't matter. And we may have said, literally said that to ourselves, I don't matter. Or maybe it's just our behavior that is telling our brain that, maybe consistently over time. And this gets us into sort of a cycle or a downward spiral. Because the more that we tell ourselves we don't matter, the more that we're going to act as if we don't matter. And this is often one of the reasons why we attract NTPs, narcissistic type people, because where they are all about themselves, we are all about other people. And so it's like a key fitting in a lock. And unless or until we decide that our needs matter, our values matter, our goals matter, things that make us thrive matter, our passions matter. When we start to decide that we matter, then we're going to exude a completely different energy. And as we know, energy is everything, it is everywhere. And we will attract things to us that match our energy. But we start shifting this, even in the smallest way, of just choosing the self and honoring the self and doing what matters for us, massive results come from it. They're not huge in the beginning because there's a lot of fear involved with this. There's a lot of worry that we're not going to be liked. We are now, quote unquote, changing the game on somebody. And so we're not really sure where this is going to go. All righty. So we're going to dive deeper into this conversation because this was actually inspired. A lot of my conversations are inspired by conversations that I'm having with other people. And somebody recently reached out to me and said, How do you say no to plans that you don't want to do? And I said, Well, here's how I do it. And also, this is a great segue into letting you guys know that I have a free resource called Say No With Confidence. 25 Ways to Politely Decline Without Guilt. If you're interested in that free resource, I just opened it again this morning and read through it because you know I make these and then I forget about them. And I went back through it. I was like, this is really good. This is really good. So definitely download that free resource. So one person in my life was talking about saying no to plans that were coming their way, invitations that were coming their way. And then the other person was is just simply learning to honor their own needs and doing what they need to do for them to get themselves into a state of thriving. And it's so interesting. And I say that with so much love in my heart, watching these people navigate this. Now, both are recovering people pleasers, where they are used to saying yes to everybody else. One I would say is on the codependent spectrum where they felt like they had to be everything to everyone. And the other one, I would say, has a desire, a deep desire to be liked. And so both of these people have decided that they're at a stage in their life where they really need to start honoring themselves. And this has come about through many conversations, lots of self-reflection. And I love that both of these people are in this space. And watching them go through this has been very exciting to me. And that's why I talk about the things that I do here because I want you to understand that this is real life. This is not just you over here that can't say no, or you over here who is ignoring your needs. There's a billions of people in the world that are doing this. This is highly common, and we need to normalize these types of things so that people can understand that they're not alone. You're not alone. I myself have been a person who said yes to everybody all the time. I mean, it was like, I think I I don't even know if I ever said no, unless I absolutely could not do the thing like, sorry, my child's graduating high school tonight. But other than that, it was yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I didn't realize how much I was abandoning myself. In fact, if someone would have told me I was abandoning myself, I would have scratched my head and looked at them like, what are you talking about? Because it felt so normal and natural to me. And I think that's the one of the main things that we have to understand here, is that when we learn to honor our needs, this is not going to feel natural or even feel quote unquote right at first. It's going to feel wrong because we are going against the grain. We are interrupting the pattern. We are doing something different. And anytime we do something different, especially that was designed to make us feel connected or to be liked or to get approval or some type of attention, anything like that, that remember that's a mechanism that the brain put into place a long time ago to make you feel like you matter and that you're worthy. Anytime we go against that, the brain is going to send up an alert signal because we are entering an unfamiliar zone. And in this unfamiliar zone, it's like your brain's going, no, back up, back up, red alert, red alert. You're not where you're supposed to be. Go back to where you were. Stay in that box. Because I understand this box, I know this box, and I know that you don't actually die in this box. So stay in this box. So of course, this is not going to feel natural at first. It's going to feel awkward, it's going to feel weird. There's going to be a lot of emotions that are going to be associated with this at first. There's going to be fear, there's going to be guilt, there might be shame, you might want to backpedal. All of these things are part of the system. And so please understand it's normal, it's 100% normal. So the first step is always just to interrupt the autopilot, the knee-jerk response, the automated response, the brain programming, and that is by practicing a pause. I love the pause idea. I practiced the pause all over my life. It was one of the first steps that I did with a lot of working towards my own empowerment and honoring myself, I started pausing everywhere because I knew that I just had this automatic pilot that was just going to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. So creating that space is a big deal because it's right there where we've stopped the pattern. It sounds trite, it sounds inconsequential, it sounds like it really wouldn't matter. Oh, I promise you it matters because the brain's used to going wham, right down that auto that Audubon and just doing that thing that it always does. But when you stop, the brain recognizes that pause as, oh, we're not doing this. I am breaking the habit. I'm stopping doing what I normally do. So the first step is always going to be to practice the pause. And I also like to remind myself that when I say yes to everyone else, I am saying no to me. Such a profound statement. When I say yes to everyone else, I am saying no to me. And that was, again, so automatic to me to say, yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah. I mean, when I say I'm a recovering, almost fully recovered people pleaser, I'm not kidding. I didn't title my book that for no reason. It's so fun for me to look back because I didn't realize how pervasive this was in my life until I looked back in hindsight. I was working on healing myself for other reasons because I kept attracting toxic relationships where I wasn't valued and honored and appreciated and I was taken for granted. That was my, that was my doorway in. But as I started healing my inner world and I started reflecting on things, I was like, wow. It's it's it's so vague to me because it was so far in the past. But it's still when I really take the time to stop and think about it, like when I'm coming up with a topic like this, oh yeah, it was there, it was huge, it was big, it took over my life, and it felt right at the time. So please remember, it's going to feel awkward, it's gonna feel weird, it's not going to feel natural at first, but over time it will. And remember, with this idea of interrupting the autopilot, this is in two ways. One, when you need to do something for yourself and you're used to just doing for everybody else, you're gonna have to stop there. But it's also about giving yourself space to decide through self-consultation, through self-inquiry. So, anymore when someone asks me something, and this was years ago, I started getting into the habit of saying, let me think about it, I'll get back to you, let me check a few things, I need to look at my schedule, what have you. And this is one of the beauties of texting. There is a built-in pause with texting, isn't there? We don't have to fire off an answer immediately. And oftentimes people don't really expect that so much. Sometimes they do, but it's this built-in pause that we can have. Now, in real time, it might be a little different because someone's looking you in the face and they're like, hey, do you want to go on Wednesday night to this thing? You're like, sure. Before you even think about it, oh my gosh, I'm just I'm just giggling at myself because that was me. Yes, okay, sure. Sounds good, amazing. I would just do the thing. And now I practice the pause. So I had to give myself permission and actually prescript to prescript to put it in my brain ahead of time, Kristen. If somebody asks you anything, whether it's your beloved mother, your amazing children, your wonderful husband, your best friend, your coworker, a client, pause. Just pause. I had to give myself that permission first. And remember, what we say to ourselves, the brain remembers. The brain's going to remember this. So when that comes up, all of a sudden it would pop into my head. Boom. Pause. Create a pause here. And so that's what I did. And here's one of the coolest things about it. Nothing, not once, did anything detrimental happen. Now, when it came to my children who were growing and they're young and their brains aren't fully formed and kids are often selfish and want what they want now. That's just part of the gig. Yeah, I got a little pushback from them. But that's children, that's parenting, that's a whole different gig. But I will tell you that my adult people, they said okay. And it made me think, why didn't I start this a long time ago? But I don't look at myself with judgment. I look at myself as an individual who is innocent and who is naive and who was doing the very best she could at that time. So please do that on this process. If you ever go backwards and you start to reflect in the whole 2020 gig and you're looking back there, meaning not the year 2020, but hindsight's 2020, and you're looking back, just say, wow, look at it with awe. Look at it with curiosity and look at it as if look how far I've come. Because those reflections do a lot for the brain, they train the brain. All righty, we have Jennifer coming up. Welcome, Jennifer.

Jennifer 14:43

What you just said about saying every time you say yes to one thing, it's no to another. Um, and that's true. We can't do it all as much as I think I can. Um when I started saying no to people, um I would honor their request. You know, thank you for asking. I would love to, but I can't. And um, or I might say, I can't do it, I can't do it Wednesday, I'm not available. Next week we could we could look at Friday if I could. Um or I would just say, you know, I would love to, but I can't now. Love to, can't now. Love to, can't now. But when I I found that I honored their their request, you know, thank you for asking. You know, I I would really love to, but I just can't right now. I I can't think of the time I got pushback. And then I started doing it with my with my job when I was single parent working um in real estate, building a new business with no child support. I mean, like I had to do to work, but then I also had to be a mother. And so when clients would say, I really want to look at a house, um, how about Friday at three? I would I would jump, yes. Everything was yes. And then that wasn't working for me. I was crazy. And so I would say, Um, I would love to do it at three. I have an appointment, I can do it at, and I would give them two other times. And they always picked one. And and Kristen, the appointment might be picking Ben up from school, it might be I'm taking him to the park. It might be I need a little bit of time for myself, but shockingly, no one ever questioned well, what are you doing? No one. I just said I have an appointment at that time. How about something else? And this was work, it was essential. I never lost a client, no one ever asked. So yeah, that was a big lesson.

Kristen 16:36

It's so interesting when we start doing this, it's so scary at first, but I love all of the options that you gave. I love that. And they would just pick another option.

Jennifer 16:48

They did, they did, and or if they would say, Oh gosh, I would those times don't work, all right. Let's pick two more. And if something were I mean, if like, oh my gosh, it's a hot market, we need to see this house. Well, yeah, I'd reschedule the park. You know, I'm right. I needed to make money, so but no truly when I did that for work, I did it with friends, no one ever gave gave me a hard time about it anywhere. So I just I encourage people take take make yourself an appointment if you need to.

Kristen 17:20

Was it scary for you the first time when you started doing this?

Jennifer 17:23

Yes, yes, because what if they asked? And I would say, It's my son. Well, they're they're going to buy a very expensive house, and how ridiculous is that? But it wasn't ridiculous, and it never failed. And when I would honor people by telling them, like, friends, gosh, I would really love to do that. Or sometimes, sometimes I would just honestly say, you know, um that movie just doesn't sound great to me. Go with the group, I'll catch you next time. Yeah.

Kristen 17:54

Yes.

Jennifer 17:54

I'm really not up for that book. I know the book club picked it. Um, I'll come, I'll bring cookies, but eh, I'm gonna I'm gonna set this discussion out.

Kristen 18:02

And again, there's something that I heard in the beginning too when you were saying, Oh, I'd love to, but I can't, those type of things. There's no reasons or excuses that we need to attach to things. I was an over-explainer.

Jennifer 18:15

Yeah. I even did this in my early sobriety. People would say, you know, oh, can I get you a drink at a party? And I'd be oh, what do I do? They just want to get me a drink. I'd say, Yeah, I'd love a diet, Pepsi. I mean, it works in many ways.

Kristen 18:27

Yeah.

Kristen 18:28

Oh, so good, so good, Jennifer. Starting off strong here. Yeah, I I want to emphasize the idea that we don't have to explain or to give reasons. I was an overexplainer. I don't say it was overexplainer, but like, oh, I can't because. And sometimes they'd get a paragraph. I have to go here and then I have to go there, and I have to. And I would list this entire thing out. But what was I doing? That was a people pleaser in me. I wanted approval for me saying no. I wanted them to approve of me saying no. Oh, I get it. Yeah, that is way too much. So at first, I would explain. And then slowly I weaned off of the reasons and the explaining. Yeah, Terry just said he was an over-explainer too. It's very common when you're recovering from people pleasing or when you're in the throes of people pleasing. And so I just gave myself permission to not explain. And it felt weird. It felt cringy. I hit the send and like, you know, covered my head like a bomb was coming in, right? But it didn't. Nothing happened. People are like, okay, cool. Here's one more thing I wanted to say that I thought of. I started drafting off of other people doing it to me. So if I would ask somebody who said, like, oh, I can't, because, you know, but thank you, that would have been great. Or when booked that day, it was just a simple sentence or whatever. I started to say, well, you know what? People do this to me. And this is not, this is not a tit for tat, you guys. This is okay, because it's okay with me when they do it to me. So this is, I had to tell my brain, this is actually okay to do. And then I started drafting off of them doing it to me. And then I started doing it. And I was like, oh, this feels great. So there's many ways that we can approach this. Welcome, Dio. Thank you for joining us today. Whoops. I got the uh-oh, Dio. Not sure if you had to boogie. I'll give you a second to rejoin. Maybe you didn't mean to be in the queue. Oh, no, she's coming back.

Kristen 20:22

Okay.

Kristen 20:22

All right, we're gonna bring up Miss Dio, our beloved general manager here on Noom Vibe. Hi, Kristen. And hi, you laugh every time I say that, don't you?

Dayo 20:36

I I I I tend to maybe maybe I'm a bit happy. I yes, I do, but in in a good way, I I tend to I tend to laugh. At the beginning of conversations, I know I'm going to enjoy social conversations. Um and yeah, no, I've I've really been enjoying listening uh the last few days while I've had some time off. And um yeah, I think um I've I've written down that I I I really appreciate the the tips about having preset phrases, responses that you can say because you know, I think um you know, where we're speaking about people pleasing, always saying yes, these things can become uh a part of us, like right, autopilot, like it's your personality, and then when one is trying to undo these modes of behavior, you know, if if you're like an automatic yes, I think these tips are very handy because it's not just saying I'm going to behave differently, but having a couple of preset phrases, like you said, let me think about it. Or was it uh Jennifer that said, I would love to, but I can't. You're helping to replace a habit with an another habit and another go to, and in the moment when under pressure, I think that that can be very useful, right? Rather than you know. Having to do the mental gymnastics to maybe, as we said, think of an explanation, and sometimes there might not be an explanation, like you know, where Jennifer was like I've got something to do with my son. You know, my explanation might be that which might not be that appropriate. Like, uh, I don't really want to, I need more time to think about it, I want some me time, I want a couple more hours extra sleep. But this, um, you know, let me think about it, or I would love to, or I can't, or indeed, uh, a suitable phrase that might work for the individual. Yes, I I think it's I think it's very helpful and um potentially uh you know, kind of like a go-to habit for me. Yes, yeah.

Kristen 22:43

Let's talk about canceling plans. Do you ever cancel plans, Dayo?

Dayo 22:50

Very, very rarely. Um and and some of this, which was uh, you know, another thought that I had while I was sitting here, because I feel some of this is, I believe, also about how we see ourselves or how we like to see ourselves. So where I like to see myself as reliable and not flaky, that then bears into um I will I am more likely to be slower to commit. I would rather be slower to commit and to say yes or say no rather than saying yes and then cancelling. That that's a great point.

Kristen 23:31

I'm very similar.

Dayo 23:32

And it's and I think it's this is also a a tricky one where you know, I think, you know, there's an aspect of okay, how do you see yourself? Because I think also with with one who is maybe saying yes a lot of the time, it's worth that the individual thinking about how much of this is about how you see yourself, you know. Do you want to you trying to, you know, do you want to do you see yourself as somebody who is always available, always reliable, always helpful? You know, it may be that it may be, you know, it may be fear-based, you know, that it could be a ton of other reasons. But you know, I think it's uh it's worth with the emotion. I I think around these things, communication is very important and not just for let's say me, myself in this position, um also for the receiver, which is why I really like the I would love to, but I can't, because it it lets the other person know that this isn't about how I regard you or how I feel about you. Yes, it's about something else, which which hopefully will be received. I think it's a I think it's a great phrase. It may not necessarily, but I I also I I can distinctly recall times in my brain, maybe we're making plans with people, and it wasn't a yes, it wasn't a maybe, it wasn't a no, it was just it just kind of landed. And when I think back, I think maybe they didn't have the phrases to say what they wanted to say.

Kristen 24:59

Yes, yes. Thank you so much, Dio, for coming up. I appreciate that. So many great points. We are starting off so strong here in this conversation. As always, you guys are all my co-hosts. Bring in your wisdom, bring in your information, bring in your history, bring in your stories. It's amazing. I want to just circle back a little bit to that cancellation because I too am someone who I'm very integrous. If I say yes, I mean yes. If I'm gonna be there, I'm gonna be there, those type of things. And then there's been times where the need in me, like what I really needed, was to not go. But like Dayo mentioned, when she'd rather be slow to respond than to have to cancel later. And I'm the same. I'd rather think about it very intentionally if this is something that I'm gonna want to do in two weeks, or is there any variables involved? Because I know there's something that might sound great. Like we went to something recently. It was a concert at the zoo. They have this beautiful amphitheater. It's an outside venue, and it was strings only, and they were playing music from the Lord of the Rings, which I have not really watched those shows, but my family members are huge Lord of the Rings fans. So we went to that. I wasn't gonna start till like nine or eight, I think it was. And that's late for me. I'm really tired by that point. So I had to really think about it. I said, I need to think about that because that's late for me to go somewhere. It's far, then the concert, and then the drive home. And how is this gonna work for me? Am I gonna be too tired to enjoy it? Or should I try to get a nap that day? I really wanted to do it with the family. And I had to really contemplate that ahead of time. The other thing is that I told you guys this story, I don't know, three or four talks ago, that my daughter had invited us to go look at the owls one evening. And I said, you know, she has owls in her neighborhood, little baby owls. And I said, Yes, I want to, I want to, I want to. And then at like literally five, 10 minutes later, I said, Kristen, you're tired. You've got so many errands you have yet to run, blah, blah, blah. I texted her back and I said, babe, I answered too quickly. I don't think this is a yes for me today. And she was like, Yeah, no problem, mom, no worries. But so it's just something to think about in in regards to practicing that pause. It's really, really purposeful to practice that pause. This is not about coming out of the gate perfect and nailing it every time. But again, we're caring more about what other people think in this regard when many times they're not really thinking anything. Yes, some people might be disappointed, they might get their feelings hurt, whatever. But for the most part, honoring ourselves is gonna be the best possible solution for everybody involved. I've had people who have said yes to things and they show up and they're in some nasty mood and they're bringing everybody down. And I was just thinking, they're like, Well, I'm really tired and this, and then I'm like, well, you could have stayed home. You didn't need to come. Like, honor yourself. So consider that as well. Okay, I want to dip into really quickly. This came up in my head that there is a difference between overexplaining and communicating. There's only an energetic difference here. That's how we can tell. So if I'm overexplaining, I'm fearful, I don't want them to disapprove of me, I don't want them to dislike me, I want them to invite me again. But if I'm communicating, it's like, let me just explain to you what I've got going on so that you have a greater understanding and don't make up a story about it. Or through this greater understanding, maybe you can work with me towards whatever it is that we want to do together. So remember, these self-check-ins are really important. Why am I explaining or over-explaining? Why? Where is this coming from? Where's the source of this inside of me? All right, Linda, message on the back channel. On the flip side of canceling, it was so bad with me that if I had something planned, I will cancel my plan just to honor the request that the other person had made of me. Oh my gosh. Thank you, thank you, Linda. This is real life right here, you guys. She said it was so bad with her that if she already had something planned, she would cancel that plan because somebody else asked for something. Boy, interesting, isn't it, you guys? The stuff that we do. I know somebody who would do that. I know somebody who would do that. It was oh yes, thank you for sharing that. So that's that's another great point. So the next one is after we're we're practicing the pause, we're interrupting the autopilot. The next step is to ask the right question. And it's really simple. What do I need right now? What do I need? What feels good for me? What would fulfill me? Is it a heck yes or is it a no? What is this? This is where we truly get in touch with ourselves. We go within and we decide what we need. This right here, everyone, is where the rubber hits the road. This is it. This is where self-empowerment happens. This is where healing happens, this is where awareness happens. We have to pause first and then we ask ourselves, what do I need right now? Okay, not just what's going to keep us liked, not what's going to keep us in approval, not what's going to avoid attention, or I'm sorry, avoid tension, not what's easiest. What do I need? How do I factor into all this? Remember, reclaiming our personal power and true worth is all about making ourselves matter. We're teaching ourselves that we are valuable. And by asking that question, so much is going to be revealed. And this is something that I practice daily, all day long, really, daily on the regular. I will practice this. And that is why self-care is one of the self-love tenants, the five self-love tenants that I talk about and I go into at length in my book, The Recovering People Pleaser. You can find the link to that. Actually, there's like three or four links for different sites where you can get the Recovering People Pleaser if you're interested in that book in my link tree, either in my profile here on NoomVibe or in the description on other podcasting platforms. But one of the best questions we can ever ask ourselves is what do I need right now? And then be honest with ourselves. And in the beginning, you may be able to act on it. In the beginning, you may not be able to act on it. You might talk yourself out of it. Well, you know, I can just rest later, or I can sleep tomorrow, or I can blah, blah, blah. And we can like make these little bargains with ourselves. It might look a little messy at first, everyone, and that's okay. That's okay. As long as you have the intention that you're going to honor yourself, because remember, you're undoing brain programming. You are relearning something different, and it takes a minute sometimes. We don't get the vocabulary word just by reading it on a piece of paper or the spelling word. It takes repetition. So give yourself that grace because you know it only takes a few times once we're intentional about this and we end up somewhere that we really don't want to be, or we start to feel irritable because we haven't been able to get to the things that we need to do for ourselves. Once we become intentional about this and we understand that we need that we want to for our own well-being to start implementing this in our life, it only takes a couple times where we did the opposite, where we're like, okay, okay, I need to get back on track here. And next time X, Y, Z comes up, here's what I'm gonna do. And expect discomfort on this. This is not gonna feel great. It's gonna bring up all kinds of feelings guilt, anxiety, someone's not gonna like me, I might die. That's the ego telling you that, by the way. But this doesn't mean you're wrong. It simply means you're doing something different. Remind your body that discomfort and what's not familiar does not equal danger or certain death. Remind your body. Remember the ego, that side of us, that's job is to keep us safe and to keep us in a box and to keep us with what's familiar. It's gonna pull out all stops. The ego knows you because it is you. So, guess who is the best manipulator in the world when it comes to you? Your ego. It knows exactly what to say to talk you out of things. We must be willing to override that voice that pops up. We must know that that is the voice of fear. It's not the voice of faith or of trust or of higher self. It is the voice of fear. And it's the voice that lies. The ego lies. It's gonna do whatever it needs to do, say whatever it needs to say to scare you, to keep you in the box that you're in. And we have to be willing to override that voice. We have to be willing to question that voice and to say, is this true? And this is why self-inquiry inquiry is so incredibly important on the self-healing journey. We have so much power, you guys, to heal ourselves, change ourselves, morph, shift, grow, evolve. So much power. But we're not asking the right questions typically. We're out there learning something. On a podcast this morning with Elizabeth Gilbert, oh, I just love her. She's so articulate, she's amazing. She said in recovery circles, there's a quote that says, discovery is not recovery. And I was like, gaboom! I love that because it's not enough to just know something. We've got to implement new steps, we've got to change our perceptions about things. We have to be bold and brazen and brave and courageous sometimes and do things that we normally would not do. Discovery is not recovery. All right, the next thing is to start small. Don't think that you're gonna fix all this in a week. Don't think that, you know, the biggest thing that comes your way that, you know, let's say it's somebody's 50th birthday, and it's gonna be at a bar, and you hate bars, they stink and they're loud, and it's not what you want to do, and it's gonna be late, and it's gonna be all these things. That's something really super big, right? It's like, oh God, I don't want to do this. Start off with something that's a little bit easier. Start off with something that you're a little bit more comfortable saying no to. Now, in this conversation, I'm talking a lot about saying no to requests, but I want to dovetail this in with the idea that we need to do for ourselves. So I almost titled this, What Do You Need for You? What Do You Need to Do For You? And what that means is there's many times people are like, I need to start going to bed early. I need to not watch a certain genre of movie because it gives me nightmares. I need to start saying no when the friends want to go to happy hour because I don't want to drink on a weeknight, whatever it means. Sometimes it's just about things that we need to do for ourselves. But what comes with that sometimes in our own head is some type of cost. And that's where we may have to say something no to something else to say yes to ourselves. Yes, Terry's back channeling, and Terry said emotional blackmail is a tactic sometimes used to get you to do something, particularly with families. Yes, absolutely true. Yes, people can try to emotionally back blackmail us, but so can the ego. The ego is a cunning, it's a cunning little con artist manipulator that's never going to tell us the truth and is never gonna lead us down the loving path. It's always gonna lead us down a path that is going to keep us the smallest, most restrained and imprisoned version of ourselves. The next thing is to communicate care clearly. And this is we already dipped into the over-explaining, but this is about keeping it simple. Keeping it simple. Like I said earlier, this is it can get difficult here because people want to make sure the other person is okay with our decision. So we're gonna be like, oh, and here's why, and this and that, no, no. And we want to make sure that they're okay with our decision so that we can move on. Here's what I have determined. Oftentimes people don't even need to know what we're doing. It's either a yes or a no to them. And if it is somebody that needs to approve of our no, if it's somebody that's like, well, why? What are you doing? There's manipulation attached to that in some capacity. Because I've had this done to me before. And this was when people wanted to talk me out of my reason. So if like, well, why? Well, what are you doing? Well, why can't you come? Well, I've got this, this, and this. And they're like, well, you can do that tomorrow. You can do it the next day, you can do it this. And I will disclaim that some people are just saying that because they really want you to go. And perhaps you have been like, oh, I really want to go, I really want to go, but I can't because of this. Well, because you've expressed it in that way that you really, really want to go, now they're trying to help you go. See what I'm saying? So this is important that we're very honest. And sometimes, and I'm gonna throw this out here. It is okay, depending on the individual, if you throw a white lie in there, if you're just like, you know what, if there's someone who is extremely toxic or is very controlling or manipulative, and you just need to make this as easy as possible, give yourself permission to do that. Do I say do that all the time with everything? No. Just be honest. But if you need to not get into it with said toxic person, then don't get into it with them. Come up with something. I give myself permission to that, and I don't think that's a bad thing because I do believe it is the most loving thing to do for me in that moment. And somebody was agreeing with that. Who was that? That was Cal. I thought that was your picture coming up, Cal. Iksnay, the over-explaining. You don't need to do it. You don't need to do it. If it's in the way that's trying to get the other person okay with your decision, that's where we have to practice not doing that. If it is because you're trying to explain what's going on, um, like recently when Jennifer came to town, and she had told me months and months in advance, I even put it on my calendar, never even considering that that was around my son's birthday. It just didn't even come into my head. Well, what happened that weekend? We had Friday night plans, Saturday day, Saturday night, and Sunday plans. And there was all these things. And so I messaged her and I said, Girl, I'm so sorry, but here's what's up. I didn't even think about this. She was like, Cool, no problem. That's because I, not because I wanted her approval, because I wanted her to know like this is what's actually happening. So it's okay to communicate what's really happening with people as long as you don't have that little niggling thing in the back of your head saying, I gotta do this to get their approval. Kel, welcome up. So glad to hear from you, midday, my dear.

Kel 40:11

Hey, oh my gosh. I'm so glad to be on here with UK B. It's I get the opportunity to do so because I'm never alone with privacy. So, but I am coming up because, excuse me, I have a situation that is happening that is exactly this. And so, of course, it's so interesting because it's just the way it is aligning and resonating. I have a friend that I've had since first grade, which is crazy. I'll be 42 soon. So, you know, like we've been friends forever. Um yeah, it's and and you know, and that's pretty amazing. Like, not a lot of people have that. So I'm grateful um to a certain extent, of course. However, I think because we've been friends for that long, uh, this person feels like they have like some like mild ownership over me or something, you know what I mean? And and over my time. So I feel like they are constantly like monopolizing my time and my energy. And um, it's it's gotten to a point where I've just had to completely like back out and and not in a way where I'm like, I'm not talking to you anymore, but I just yeah, pulled away. I'm not as engaging as I was before. Good job. And I can tell, thank you. And I can tell that he's really affected by that. And I've given him, it's not like I've been flat out like, you're just too much, I can't talk to you, like that kind of vibe. But I've told him, you know, I've given him hints and he still is just like kind of like whatever. Like I feel like it's almost just people that it's like energy vampires, you know what I mean? Where maybe he doesn't even realize that he's doing that, but for whatever reason, he's he wants to justify the fact that like he needs to be entertained or he needs whatever instead of considering my stance and like where I'm coming from and and what I have going on. It's just like, you know, I'm still recovering from a surgery, like I have all this stuff going on. Yeah, I just feel like it's completely just disregarded. Sorry, my cat is like freaking out like having crazy zoomies. So I'm just distracted. I'm like, oh my gosh, please don't knock anything over. Good lord. She's also she's also like needs attention 24-7. So that's another part of it. I'm like, I already have a person or like a creature in my life that that needs all of my attention.

Kristen 42:39

So I have a question for you. If if you're honest with yourself and you look back, did you train him that it was okay in the beginning? Like by being there consistently and always answering the phone and always saying yes.

Kel 42:52

Oh, yeah, 100%. And I mean that, and you know, especially when you're younger and that's just like what you do, especially because we came from a time where there were no cell phones, and so we were on the phone, like we would fall asleep with each other on the phone. Like that's how ridiculous it was. You know what I mean? And so I think that he just wants to continue that kind of vibe. But I'm just like, dude, like we're we're like middle aged now. Like we can't just ain't nobody got time for that. You know what I mean? And you're and I also just don't want to be around my phone. What was that?

Kristen 43:23

You're growing. You're like, you're changing.

Kel 43:26

Yeah. Exactly. And that's the thing. And so basically, I mean, my my point in saying all that is I'm just trying to figure out a way to to tell him because he is also very combative, and you know, he loves to get into it, if you know what I mean. So that's been a toxic trait in our relationship where he's he waits for opportunities to like go off, you know? And so I'm trying to keep it neutral for now by just like disengaging myself. But I know at a certain point I am gonna have to have this conversation because I'm just like, dude, like you are way too. Too crazy with it, you know what I mean?

Kristen 44:02

What feels good for you? What do you need in this moment? Do you need to just slowly back out, or do you need to have a conversation? You, Kel, not what you think you're supposed to do. Right. What feels good for you right now?

Kel 44:16

Yeah, I mean, I think that just backing out has been great because then I don't have to because I I feel like as soon as I'm about to um time out. Yeah, you okay, thank you.

Kristen 44:28

Yeah, by the way, love the hair color. Awesome. Okay, she can come back up again and finish this. I'm so glad to be able to speak with Kel because typically she doesn't get to come on during the day. So I'm so glad to hear your beautiful voice. Yeah, so we were saying you were you're thinking the backing out feels better.

Kel 44:45

I know. I've been wanting to come up so much, and I'm just like, damn, I wish I could know. Because I had an opportunity. Yeah, I was just like, oh my god, I have to try. But anyway, so yeah, I feel like what I need right now is just to back up, back off because I feel like when I do engage, it gives him the opportunity to kind of like try to hook me in and just be like, you know, because I I I really resonated when Terry was talking about the emotional blackmail thing, because I feel like it it low key is like that. You know what I mean? And again, even if he doesn't realize that he's doing that, it's just like that's what it feels like to me. Because again, it's just like you're not taking your own, it's like very self-centered, where you're just like, you know, it's about what you need, not what I need. You know what I'm saying? Like he's not even asking me what I need. He's just more like, like you were talking about, like, why can't you blah, blah, blah? Like you don't blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? Like that kind of stuff. And I'm just like, that doesn't mean anything. If I can't do it, I can't do it, period. As a person that has known me for so many years, like you have to understand people evolve and change. They don't remain the same person as they did a first grade. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I'm just saying, like, because I I and I have changed radically because you know, I used to also um be caught out there with the drinking and I and I got sober. And once, once I did, you know, my personality changed a lot. I mean, I'm still, you know, it go ahead. Yes, I just said yeah. Oh, yeah.

Kristen 46:19

Sorry.

Kel 46:20

I mean, I'm still in essence me, of course, but I'm not that like because I just used to be off the hook, like running off of adrenaline, like super anxiety driven and just whiling out. And now I'm just I'm way more calm. And you know, I'm fine with just like being at home with with my cat. I'm just like, it's it's yeah, like it's it's all good. But he's the type of person that needs he he is is thrill seeking, like he needs to be around people, he needs to be doing something all the time because you know, like people fuel him or whatever. But I'm just like, dude, I've changed. I'm sorry. Like if that yeah, you know, I'm not sorry.

Kristen 47:00

It's like he's doing a lot of distracting from his own self because of all the behaviors that you have said to me so far, those are very unhealed behaviors, those are things that are coming from something deep inside of him. So this go, go, go, go, go is him distracting and moving away from himself so that he doesn't have to sit with himself. And then you're in the space now where you're really okay with sitting in yourself. So where you were that you matched energy back in the day, but you don't match energy anymore. You have disconnected. And so circling back to what I was saying about, you know, what do you need to do for you right now? Because it does get combatitive and because he does try to talk you out of it and emotionally back blackmail you, if that's not something that you want to entertain right now and you feel the best thing for you to do is just to create distance or however you're looking at it, then do that. That may actually be the time for you to cultivate some strength and some language and some boundaries about what to say when or if the conversation does come up. You'll be able to be in a stronger position because you have created space.

Kel 48:02

Right. Right. No, I I appreciate that so much. And that's I just needed some kind of um just like a perspective shift, I guess, because I I was feeling just because I guess I do kind of sort of feel obligated because we've been friends for so long. Um, like you were saying, like the reasons and all the stuff, but you know, I'm just like I I already know that it's gonna be met with with backlash. So I just need to like ease up and and do what I have to do. Because again, it's like when when you know when you like talk to certain people that as soon as you say something, they're like, okay, I got you now. You know what I mean? And I'm gonna like do whatever it takes. So um I appreciate you though so much. Thank you so much for having me up. And I'm sorry, I know I was like talking about a minute, but it was no, I'm with you.

Kristen 48:49

I'm with you, and I really appreciated, first of all, that you came up, that you had the time to do so. It's so good to hear to get the voices to the little profile pictures and the DMs that I see. So thank you for that. And this was so relevant, Kel. So relevant. Thank you.

Kel 49:03

Thank you. You also have a beautiful voice. I just wanted to put that out there.

Kristen 49:07

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Oh my gosh. I I do voice memos to my daughter. We do them back and forth. I hear myself because I'll play it back to make sure it makes sense. And I'm like, cringe. You guys know how we cringe at our own voices. But I appreciate that when someone says that. Super, super relevant conversation. Everything that everybody said today is so relevant to this. And I hope that if you are someone who is struggling with what do you need, what do you need, that this landed somehow, some way, that you picked up something or 10 things that you're gonna start implementing. And also to listen it back on the replay. When we're listening to things, we tend to go out in our own thoughts. And then we come back to, I don't know how many of you can relate to that. I'll do it all the time. And then I'll be then I'll listen to the thing again. I'm like, how did I miss this the first time? Because I was out in my own thoughts for that little momentary lapse right there. Learning to honor yourself is one of the best things we can do. It is part of self-love. It is a self-love tenant, which is self-care. This is about taking care of you and your needs, being highly intentional with yourself, asking yourself on the daily what it is that you need. And it 1,000% is not selfish. We got a great example that Kill was talking about about someone who is that all they can see is themselves. Selfish people want what they want at the expense of other people's well-being. Please understand this distinction. When you are loving yourself, it is not at the expense of anybody else's well-being. But when you abandon yourself, it is at the expense of your own well-being. Okay, let me say that again differently. When we love and honor ourselves, it's not hurting anybody else. It doesn't hurt anybody that I take a nap. It doesn't hurt anybody that I am not gonna eat at a restaurant that has a lot of preservatives. It doesn't hurt anybody that I get up every morning and I go walking. There's no one's getting hurt in this process. It's built in self-love. And love is the highest energy in the universe. And when we apply it to ourselves, the same holds true. We think that we have to be all this love in the world for everybody else, but what about us? It starts within. For every single one of us, it starts within. This is about becoming honest with yourself, grounded in who you are, understanding your needs, and being self-led. Here's the thing when I switched from Uber people pleaser to not, to really caring for myself, being very intentional about myself, loving myself in all the ways, everybody around me benefited. Everybody around me benefited. And that includes they benefited from my nose. I know that's strange, but boundaries serve both parties. So anytime that we need to set a boundary with somebody, please know it's serving them on some level too, that you or they may not see yet. I appreciate you, I love you, I believe in you, and I want you to always remember how much you matter. I know that we so much want to matter that we're looking out into the outside world for somebody to please love us, please tell us that we're okay. But this is an inside job. It's an inside job, and we will forever search in vain outside of ourselves until we start going within. So please know when you learn to love yourself, honor yourself, respect yourself, protect yourself and care for yourself and speak kindly to yourself and support yourself, your entire world's gonna change. This is what actually heals the wounds inside of us. This cleans up people pleasing and codependency, and believe it or not, narcissistic type behavior, selfishness, all these types of things are cleaned up because all of those things come from the wounded self. So when we start to give the correct antidote to the wounded self, we heal. We stay who we are, the essence and energy of who we are in our DNA. We stay who we are, but we become a cleaner, clearer, more empowered, more confident version of ourselves. I appreciate you guys. Thanks for spending your time with me today. And if you're interested in any of my free resources, especially from this particular talk, say no with confidence. Click on my profile picture here on Noom Vibe, go to where it says Link Tree, or if you're listening on another podcasting platform, click the uh link tree in the description below, and that will give you everything you need. Much love, everybody. I'll see you later.