People-Pleasing, Guilt & Self-Abandonment: Why You Keep Choosing Everyone But Yourself

In this episode of the Inner Space podcast, Nisha is joined by Teena from Ungaslighted for a deeply honest conversation about self-abandonment and the subtle ways so many women lose connection with themselves in everyday life.

We explore what it really looks like when you override your own needs—often not in obvious or dramatic ways, but in the small, repeated patterns of saying yes when you mean no, over-giving in relationships, and prioritising being liked over being honest.

For many women, these patterns don’t come from nowhere. They are often shaped early on through conditioning around being “good,” “easy,” or “low maintenance,” where emotional expression or personal needs weren’t always given space or validation.

This conversation goes beyond awareness - it speaks to the lived experience of women who look like they’re coping on the outside, but internally feel disconnected, exhausted, or out of alignment.

Ways to Work With Me

If this episode resonates and you’re noticing these patterns in your own life, I currently have a couple of spaces available for one-to-one work or in my Wellbeing Workshop.

This is for women who feel stuck in cycles of overthinking, over-giving, or self-doubt, and want to rebuild a stronger sense of self-trust, boundaries, and internal authority.

• Work With Me: Request Your Consultation Call
• Women's Circle + Talking 

Work With Teena 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to another episode of the Inner Space Podcast. You're joined by me, Nietzsche, your host, and today I'm also joined by Tina, who is the founder of Ungaslighted. It's an online platform and digital sanctuary for women, where they walk alongside you offering tools, guidance, and support for women and the things that you need to thrive. In this episode, we're talking about something that so many women experience but don't always recognise in themselves: self-abandonment. It's just the ways in which we override our own needs, second-guess ourselves, and prioritise being liked or accepted over being honest and true to who we are. This is a big part of why so many women struggle with self-trust, their identity, and feeling grounded in their own decisions, being able to trust themselves. So today we're exploring where these patterns begin, how they show up in everyday life, and what it actually looks like to start choosing yourself in a real aligned way. As you're listening to this episode, I'd invite you to take a moment to reflect on this question. Where in your life are you saying yes when really you mean no or you want to be saying no? Hi Tina, it's so nice to see you again and have you back on the show. How have you been?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Hi, Nisha, thank you. Thank you for inviting me again. I've been good. We have just launched something very exciting. It's called Woman to Woman, and it's a safe, judgmental, free inbox where you can write about what's on your mind and you can get a thoughtful personal reply. So, unlike AI chats, only a real person reads your email. And it's basically a safe private space to vent. It can also be used as an accountability partner for ADHD brains. And you can use it in between therapy or after therapy. You want some kind of support system, uh, you can use us. Uh that's it. So I'm really excited to bring forward this new product. So, yeah, let's get into the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, amazing. Congratulations. Because I know that we when we last we had you on the first season and you were sort of putting it all together. So it's so wonderful to see that you've you've created this incredible thing. And I love what you say that it's not AI, it's real women answering this. It's that you say open your service is called woman to woman, and I love that. I think that's so, so important and it's really needed um for by so many women. So this is live now, and um, what I'll do is I'll put the link um for anybody who's interested in the show notes below as well, so they can get in touch with you as well. Sure, sure. Thank you. Of course. And this is um available to women worldwide or in certain parts of the world?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Uh it's available to women all across the world.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Amazing. I love that. I love that. So, like you say, let's get into this episode and why women override themselves, why and how we abandon our own needs. Um, so let's start with what self-abandonment looks like um in everyday life, because I think it's something that a lot of people, a lot of women are sort of conditioned into from a young age, but they don't really see it in themselves. Right. Um, so it can be things like saying yes when you mean no, or overexplaining, over-justifying, overgiving, people pleasing. Um, and I think as well, yeah, yeah, prioritizing other people's needs and wants over what you want for yourself, right? And that kind of internal harmony, um and self-honesty as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, and women are usually considered like the default fixer, helper, caretaker. Like that's your responsibility, like that's sort of understood that a woman will take care of certain things. So even if you don't want to do something, you are like guilted into doing it, or it's told that it's your duty, so you end up doing it anyway. Yeah, that is also I think one of the uh classic ways in which patriarchy uh forces women to abandon themselves. And also uh the unpaid emotional labor. I think that's one of the at home, at work, uh like we take care of all the planning uh of you know gifting or you know, organizing all these uh invisible tasks are usually taken care of by women. So this is also a form of um self-abandon abandonment because uh like nobody actually pays attention to that, like it's some uh it's a free work expected from women. So yeah, that is also, I feel, one of the ways we abandon ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah, and we're we're taught, um, and I know we touched on of this a little bit in the first uh episode we did together, but around um women being the good girl, be the good girl, be the kind one, always say yes, don't say no, don't um inconvenience people by having an opinion or saying no. It's quicker just to get it done, right? So we minimize ourselves, um, even if we're overriding our own feelings and emotions um and what we want. And I think this is something that begins very early on. Um, this pattern begins, it's early conditioning, like I say, around being good, being um easy, being liked. I'd even go so far as to say, like being the cool girl, being the fun girl, the sexy one. Yeah, don't worry about it, just keep going, you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Being a tomboy or something, you know, we grew up to be tomboys, or uh I have heard parents saying, Oh, I raised my daughter like my son, as if it's something amazing. So all this, yeah. I mean, we wanted to be tomboys or cool girls because we have seen the disrespect uh men give to women who are like, you know, like our mothers or people who are feminine, feminist. So we try to put yeah, I think we're trying to protect ourselves by being like, oh, I am not like them, I'm different. So that will protect me from the disrespect or something. But unfortunately, after an age, you will realize no matter what you do, uh, if they have they want to disrespect, they'll disrespect you if you're a woman. So yeah, yeah, nothing will protect you.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

So to do your own thing anyway, right? Say your thing, have your opinions, do what is right by you. Absolutely, because we we know that we can't control what other people think and feel and say about us, right? It's exactly even if we and I I know so many women have done this where trying to control our percept uh people's perception of us, right? If I if I don't say this, they might like me. If I wear this, they'll like me more if I do this, and it becomes very uh performative for their approval. But inside it it creates such a huge um gap and emptiness within that woman that when I'm doing all these things, but it's not feeling right, I'm not being the person I know I want to be. There is a disconnect.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Even today, women have a problem saying the word I'm a feminist. They'll they look at the audience and they'll be like, Oh, I'm not that kind of feminist, or I'm not an angry feminist. I mean there is only one kind of feminist. Uh so uh women are scared to say that they don't see themselves as secondary, so which is a very sad thing. Standing up for yourself, standing up for your rights, and not considering yourself secondary to any human is such an important uh what is it, aspect of uh self-respect. And if you don't have that, that is so sad. And again, I don't think self-abandonment is a personal failure, it's a systematic failure. You were taught you fear the disapprovement, or um you want to be nice or you want to be loved. Uh so yeah, I mean it's not a personal failing, but I hope more and more women can see that, see through that.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah, and and what you say about feminism as well, I think is really important because um there is this kind of these kind of two polarities that I see where women saying, Oh yeah, but I'm not that kind of feminist, like, and it's very much geared up to the patriarchy and like, oh yeah, I'm I'm a feminist, like I'm I'm very feminine in my views and this and that, oh, but I'm not gonna offend anybody, right? And then we have the stereotype of like these very aggressive women who are like bra burning and you know trying to fight the you know, and um there are certain connotations with both of these polarities, but actually being a feminist is wanting equality, it's not wanting more than what men have, it's wanting the same, right? And I've had so many conversations recently with with women, and they're like, Oh, I can't believe you're such a feminist nature. Why you and I have to explain to them, no, no, I just want equal. I say that you work, your husband works, right? You do this, he does that, and they'll say, Yeah. I say, So you're a feminine, you you live in an equal relationship. And I say, if you weren't okay with things being equal and you had less, would that be okay? And they say, No, no, no, definitely not okay with that. Then you're wanting that equality that makes you a feminist. Even your your husband can be a feminist if he wants the same level of equality for you in the relationship, right? And it's a huge like revelation that they're like, Oh, I am, and it doesn't, like I say, it doesn't then become this stereotypical, like, oh no, no, no, this is like this whole woman's agenda and it's really toxic, and we don't know feminism is wanting the same as men, it's a gender equality, not more the same, yeah, exactly, and also uh more than equality.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

I believe in equity, as in like for years we were denied so many things, so there is nothing wrong if someone provides us a push or you know, some edge or some uh what is it, support more than men. That was not wrong because for generations we were not given that. Like, for example, women started inheriting uh from their own parents very recently, like like parents usually give all their uh property to their sons or their business was overtaken by a son. So, I mean, if women are given, say, a certain reservation or uh some you know government schemes are there to uplift them, suddenly men will come and say, Oh, this is not equality, this is I mean, you should also understand them, uh you should also look at it from a broader perspective.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Okay, so going back to this pattern then of the self-abandonment, this uh emotional, I guess the need to be emotionally validated and that lack of space to be able to express that I want this and it's safe. I mean, it's you spoke about um the patriarchy, but it also there is this mirroring in between worlds, right? Of the external world and the internal world, particularly um with family in the family structure. And that then gets mirrored almost like those uh Russian Matrusca dolls, right? It gets mirrored and it gets further in and further in and smaller and smaller, and it becomes a reflection of a woman's internal world as well. Um, and that I suppose learning that that connection comes at the cost of being authentic, that if you want to be liked, if you want this, this, and this, you know, these basic tenants of respect, of being valued, of being appreciated, of having a voice and being heard and understood, that shouldn't come at a cost to anything else. But it's inflected in that way that a woman then believes, well, in order for me to get these things, I have to give something there as a cost. Maybe it's my authenticity, or maybe it's my honesty. That if I want to be liked, maybe I can't be honest. I can't have opinions. So don't say anything, just be quiet, be very palatable. And um, what is the phrase, be seen and not heard? Because people like you, and that need for acceptance and validation feeds into that, um, in that that sort of under underhand, very shadow way.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Sure, and women are, I think, for the most part, not allowed to be uh their own uh, you know, not allowed to develop their own personality, like that's why women are married, pressured to marry young, so that they can adjust better, or you know, they'll okay, they'll just follow their husband's uh career. Or I mean, if he's working somewhere, usually women will resign their job and follow the husband, or I mean, everything is according to a man, or even the whole marriage system, like you go to your in-laws' house. Yeah, so all these are different forms of self-abandonment, and from childhood, somewhere, even if they don't say it loud, you know that a son is valued more in some way. They may not say it out loud, but it could be in small things like uh how their opinions are valued and uh how they are encouraged. Maybe you won't get the same opportunities. So, all these like from very young age, your opinions are not taken into consideration. You're constantly gaslighted, like oh, you're overreacting, it's it's not that bad, or so after a point, you start doubting yourself okay, maybe I'm too much, maybe I'm overreacting, something is wrong with me. So, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

So I suppose it then begs the question why women struggle to choose themselves, right? Because there is a fear of uh rejection, of conflict, of being misunderstood. Um and I think then that going back to that structure that we spoke about, the identity of a woman that gets tied to being needed or accommodated or be uh selfless, so that you are accepted in whether it's a family circle or friends or work or whichever, whichever one it is, right? Because everything is relational, so it stems from the relationship we have with ourselves and that ripple impact into lots of different circles and situations that we we find ourselves in.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Right. Yeah, I mean, even religion, or if you look at pop culture, any movie that you watch, or everywhere the narratives are led by men, and it's according to their convenience, women will act. So we grew up watching all this, or we think okay, that's the ideal life, or maybe that's what I should do, that's what a successful life is. We get an idea of life from people around us or people who influence us. So I mean, it's only natural that our mothers have done it, our grandmothers have done it. So we think okay, this is how life is, we should do it. There is nothing wrong in that, that's the normal. And we keep on, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry, go on. Yeah, that's it. I mean, and we keep on repeating those patterns. We don't see anything wrong in that. Only when you get out of, it's like a cult-like behavior. Only when you get out of a cult can you see, oh my god, so many dysfunctions are there. When you are in the cult, you are like, okay, that's the norm. I think that's one of the reasons why, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

And then we see the um the small signals, right? That oh, it's fine, just do it with this minimization, right? Or just ignore it, just carry on, don't say anything. Right. I think from the outside from the outside, it looks like a um, oh, just carry on, don't let it bother you, just rise above it. It seems like there's an air of like sort of nobility around it, but actually it can also be very easily disguised under the cover of being minimized, don't say anything, don't upset anybody.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah. Right, Emily had to do what good people do, and women are supposed to hold a family together. I mean, we have all these narratives, right? Yeah, uh, yeah. A woman should uh hold a family together, they should make sure that everyone is taken care of. So yeah, we na we abandon ourselves to take care of everyone else.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah, yeah. Although it's nice to see that that changing in these narratives of being anxiety, yeah. Yeah. Um and I think on that note, there is a discomfort, there is a guilt that comes up because guilt is an emotion that it's very good at keeping us um tracked on to living in our sense of identity, our own internal structure, our sense of self. So when we do something that is outside of our our normal conditionings or patterns or beliefs, guilt can come in as an emotion to make us feel bad as and to make us feel guilty that we're doing something for ourselves because it's unfamiliar, not because it's wrong or bad, but it's different. And our nervous system is it reads anything that is unfamiliar as being unsafe.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Actually, what is unfamiliar can be very healthy, it's just unknown to us because we've never done it before.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Exactly. And also there is an aspect of like emotional blackmail, especially in the Basi families. Like if a woman chooses to do something of her liking, like they want to get married to someone they love or choose a career, suddenly all parents will start the drama. Oh, you know, we have raised you this much, you don't, I mean, you don't want us anymore, or you're so ungrateful, this that. So yes, that emotionally women are manipulated so much. Yeah, and we fall for that also.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

I mean, yeah, I mean, again, but if there isn't that, and I did this this brilliant episode with um with a colleague um a few weeks ago where we spoke about when you don't have anybody to mirror back to you the structure and the beliefs and conditionings that you've lived in, you'll never question it because it's not it's not something to be questioned, especially if everybody else is telling you that a you know a red highlighter is blue, you're gonna call it blue as well. It's only when you wake up to the realization that actually this isn't blue and then into use the like I was talking about, the the unsafe and it feels unfamiliar, it's just because you're going against what is different, and there is a level of unsafety within that, but you might be the one that's saying actually this is if the red highlighter um is red and it's not blue, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Right. That is also another thing. Like if a woman decides to step out of line, I mean the line that society has drawn, you will be punished for that, and that too very publicly, so that it serves as a lesson for other women. That is also there. So that punishment also is something women are scared of, like extreme backlash. Like, for example, I think in the UK, Meghan Markle receives more hate than Prince Andrew. All she did was setting boundaries, like she didn't want to get involved with whatever she was dealing with. She keeps on getting hate even today. I mean, so women are under a microscope all the time. Uh, they are judged, evaluated, and people are waiting for a woman to make a mistake so that they can just jump on her. Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

And especially in the public eye where things are very exaggerated, right? But I I suppose what I see with a lot of um in my my field of work is there is a big fear of what if I step over the line, what if I do something different? But what I would also say is that it doesn't always have to be that scary. A lot of when we grow up with certain fears and insecurities around things, those are the defense mechanisms that keep us safe, right? They kind of keep us locked in at any given moment to don't do that because something bad will happen. But also it's not always as bad as we think it is, right? The fear isn't um the fear itself keeps us trapped and stuck, where that's not always the the repercussions of certain things. Um, I've had I've worked with some clients where they thought something really terrible was going to happen when they decided to take a different path. And um we've spoken about it and said, actually, you know what? It wasn't as scary as I thought. Something good came out of it instead. So um yes, absolutely. In some cultures and situations, women are vilified for it, but also some situations it's not that bad either. And it's about gauging, using discernment as to if I am really open about this, where is it gonna take me, what this is gonna look like. Some families it's not, they're not able to have these conversations. And so it's about well, if we know that we're not gonna be met at the level and place that we need to be met, how do we navigate that? We use a different map uh to navigate a different terrain. Right, right. Um so what becomes the cost of overriding ourselves, right? There is, I think, certainly a resentment towards ourselves and other people.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Of course, emotional disasters. If you continuously, yeah, not you know, take care of your needs, of course, you will become resentful at some point. Um so yeah, and also the lack of self-trust that you develop, you no longer can hear your own voice as in what you like, what you want. You stop believing in yourself, you will never achieve I mean, you will never try to achieve your dreams because you don't believe in yourself anymore. And you don't think you can, or you think uh you're being very ambitious, or you know, you're doing something highly uh unattainable. I mean you will never reach your potential or live life in your terms. That's the biggest cost of abandoning yourself and overriding it. Okay, so I I and also I think health-wise, I mean, women, I have always seen this that women don't take care of their health. That's the most common self-abandonment unit you can see around. Like how many of them go for annual checkups? I don't know. In India, we can see that women don't eat protein enough. Like they just eat plain carbs, probably to save money, or they'll save it for their children or their husbands. So be it food, nutrition, their health. My own aunt, I I know the story where she was diagnosed with uh stage three or stage two breast cancer. She had actually noticed this lump a few months ago, and she waited for a few months because her children's exams were going on. So she waited and she had to go through all this radiation and surgery because she waited. So I mean, the women not taking care of themselves, uh, I mean, physically, mentally, emotionally, is I mean, you will have to pay a price in terms of your lower quality of life, um, in terms of poor health. And at that time, there will be nobody to take care of you. You will have to struggle yourself. I mean, you you will be alone.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

So absolutely. And you I think become a martyr to the cause, right? We we can't we can only give from a full cup, right? We give from an empty cup, we think to give. Um, and it's that analogy um that you know when you're in an aeroplane and they say in the safety announcement that the oxygen mask drops, put your own on first. Exactly. A lot of this is disguised as being selfish, that a woman is selfish with prioritizing herself. She can't do things at a full capacity when she isn't regulated enough physically and emotionally herself. She cannot support and and and do things um in a way that is healthy and congruent with who she is, if she's constantly prioritizing other people when she needs to take a break, when she needs to rest.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yeah, and every human being's first priority should be themselves. Like your primary responsibility is to take care of yourself. Yeah, everything else comes later, and and nobody else is going to do that for you. I mean, all these romance novels or whatever, yeah, they you know sell women this idea that okay, some man will come and take care of you. That's so wrong. So you don't take care of yourself or you abandon yourself, somebody else will come and save you.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

I mean, that's that's not how real life works, and nobody is gonna do that for you. Your primary responsibility is to take care of yourself. So I think that's something we should remind ourselves daily.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yeah, absolutely. And and what you say about the romance novels, right? This Prince Charming comes along, he'll take care of you. Yeah, but actually, when a woman is constantly geared up to wanting to appease other people, she's gonna appease him instead. He's you know, she and it's this dynamic of he might ask her, Are you a cage and anything? She says, No, no, no, I'm fine, I don't have any needs. Let me serve you, let me do more for you. Because through that comes the approval and the validation. So again, she's the one that is left behind, her needs are never met. And this is not selfish, putting yourself first. And um, I heard a wonderful saying, um, something along the lines of it's when you prioritize your desires and wants over other people's needs versus prioritizing other people's wants over your needs, right? So there's this balance between what is a need and what is a uh a want. What's a want right and a want is a luxury item, but a need is essential, right? And asking uh yourself when in these situations am I giving up what I need for what somebody else wants versus what somebody else wants and what I need. It's not selfish, it's important that we're gonna be set, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and you said something really important as well about this. I think a lot of women feel stuck in this gap, right? Of needing this kind of validation, this approval, but it's not coming from anywhere and trusting ourselves. And this is a lot of the work that I do is building that self-trust. If you don't, if you never had the ability to trust yourself, where is it going to come from? And I do this in my work where we build what that looks like because day to day we trust ourselves to keep ourselves safe, to keep ourselves alive. But if I was to ask a woman like, you have this dream, go off and do it, she'll say, No, no, no, I can't do it. I don't trust myself enough. We will build that capacity in on an emotional level, physical and nervous system level, because that's what we need to fill these gaps. Um, and like you said earlier, no one's gonna do the work for you, no one's gonna look after you. We have to do it ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Right. And one more point I like to add is uh over apologizing is something I've seen women do a lot, like just saying, Oh, I'm sorry for things there is no need to say sorry for. And I and also it's a classic example of uh people coming out of toxic relationships, they always say a lot of sorries. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So I think that's something you can change and easily change and notice and change. Like every time you catch yourself saying sorry unnecessarily, just stop. I mean, think for a minute. If if the situation does not demand a sorry, do not say a sorry.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Yeah, I can see that annoys you know, I can say it's your pet baby.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

No, I used to do that a lot, and I and that's something I changed in myself. And you're glad that you did? Of course. I remember once I was sitting on a flight and I was not feeling well. I had the middle seat, and there was a lady on the aisle, and I I started apologizing to her, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm sick. I have to use the washroom, so I'll I have to go. She's like, Why are you saying sorry? I think she she played a very important role in that journey. She told me, girl, you don't have to say sorry. You just tell me when you have to go, I'll move. I'm like, okay, thanks.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Yeah. But it's it's a nice experience to have that, especially by another woman to say to you, like, you can't apologize for being ill. It's not in your control, it's not intentional. Right? That's really, really important. Um, yeah. So what you say then about the um the cost of it is that like you said, you're not following your dreams. There's a loss of, I guess, clarity about you what you want in your life, right? The actual feelings of of want and desire that I want this for myself. I don't, and it's buried, it's it's within every woman, but it's buried under these layers of of you what you should be doing, the conditioning, the patterns, the beliefs, the expectations. Right. When we lift all of that off and we pull all of that away, underneath is what a woman truly desires for herself, whether it is um being a staying at home mum, or whether it is having a you know a blossoming career or whatever that looks like, right? Yeah, but not to her detriment.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

And all of us humans have a lot of needs. It's not just okay, we all have needs for certain basic things, air, food, water, clothing, and then we have intellectual needs, cognitive needs. I mean, we all have a need to become the best version of ourselves. Like we have uh, I think it's called self-actualization need or something, I'm not sure. We all have that desire to you know fulfill our potential, and most women are not doing it. I mean, at least from the previous generation, yeah, never had the chance to do it, yeah, which is quite sad, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Right. And and it's true, every woman has the potential for self-actualization. Every person does. I know we're talking a lot about women here, but even men in their own um, in their own minds and identity and sense of self, everyone has the potential for it. It's around how do we find out what that looks like for us as individuals? What do we need in order for that self-actualization to happen, to come to fruition? And trusting yourself is one of the biggest things that we can do in this. It's not looking externally for validation and that, oh well, she did this and now she does also this amazing work, or oh, I saw he did this, so I've got to follow him. It's what do you want for yourself internally? We'll find the way through together, but you it has to start with you. Right. Because otherwise we become you know, like AI robots like everybody else, and we we don't have any sense of well, you know, I'll just do whatever you want me to do. And there isn't that sense of of authenticity and honoring who we truly are.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

At the end of the day, we all want to make our own lives, right? I mean, we are given a beautiful life, we all want to figure out okay, what can I make out of it? And everybody should be given a chance to explore that. That's the ultimate fun in living, and uh women mostly I mean, a lot of women are still denied that right to exist or you know, to explore their own path or their own way or their own lifestyle. Yeah, and they are too scared, also. I mean, because of all the judgments and uh cultural and religious a lot of reasons. Yeah, I mean, by the by the time you are like 60 or 70, you will definitely regret if you don't take a chance with your life when you are much younger.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Yeah, yeah. And I think because nothing nothing bad will happen for voicing your opinion, right? I think a lot of this starts in childhood, that maybe a child is chastised or or um told off for having their own belief about it. But as an adult, there is an expectation that you have your own opinion, that you have your own belief, and especially if you're in a relationship with somebody, um, you know, I I I would say it's it's probably very unlikely that this person will get angry with you for having an opinion about sharing, because in that healthy relationship, they want to know that you, you know, you have your own mind, you have your own views and beliefs about things, even if it's different. Because what makes a relationship strong isn't um the absence of conflict, but it's the ability to repair when there is a conflict, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:55

That I was reading uh repair and mind something about princess treatment versus dream girl treatment or something. So princess treatment is like uh everything is done for you, and they have decided what is the path for you, you just have to follow. And dream girl means they want to build that life with you, with your skills, they want your contribution. They see you as this dream girl that they want to build a life together with. So, yeah, that's what we should aspire in a relationship.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

I was reading, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so what does it mean to start choosing yourself in this grounded way, right? I suppose a bigger uh one is um what we've spoken about is making decisions without over-justifying, without explaining, without apologizing.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yeah, yeah, stop over-apologizing and also setting boundaries. You can without guilt, I think to say no, or I mean, yeah, without apologizing or over-explaining. Oh, this is why I can't do it. You don't have to say that, you just say no, I don't want to do it. That's it. Or um listening to your body, paying attention to your health, yeah, uh paying attention to okay, I'm not feeling good. Why am I not feeling good? Uh, I am not overreacting, I am feeling this way because of something. Sit with that emotion and uh you know, analyze it and trust your body and your mind. It is giving you certain signals for a reason. Yeah, so trusting your body, trusting yourself, trusting how you feel without being judgmental or uh being like, oh, I'm being oversensitive, over dramatic. If it is painful for you, it is painful. If it is you are not feeling good, you are not feeling good. So yeah, absolutely reading that twice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Yeah, and that that trust will come internally, right? Your body always knows um what you need, and so it's sometimes we get caught in our head about it, right? We get caught in this kind of emotional overthinking, we become very logical. Well, I shouldn't feel this way, and I I don't know why it is. That's okay. There might be something there, maybe something worked through, there might be some remnants of grief, there could be anything there, but trust that your body is trying to find the way, right? Like your um it knows exactly how to heal. And I'm a big believer that the mind is the same, it's constantly trying to find a way to resolve things, but it's not getting caught up in um the logic of it all, right? We are um at our basics, we're we're we're um we're creatures that feel we feel very deeply, and we shouldn't override that with we're needing to justify, apologize, or be you know, incredibly logic, especially as women, we have that intuition and we need to honor that.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Right. Yeah, and also yeah, pay attention to where you spend your time, energy, money. Like, is it going to unwanted places? Stop that. I think that's one of the best ways to set boundaries and figure out what is important for you and what is not important and where you're wasting it.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Yes, yeah, absolutely. Because it's leaked energy then. It's it's gonna spill out, right? It's like a um a cup that has a hole in it. The water is just gonna keep spilling out, spilling out, and you can't do anything with it. So keep it focused, right? Keep it tight, keep it focused and aligned with what you want. Right. And if you struggle to do that, reach out to somebody, get some support through a friend or somebody that you trust, even a professional, that my mind keeps going back to this thing. It's not it's not looping because it's broken, it's looping because it's trying to find a resolution to something, it's trying to find what the answer is, and um having somebody to mirror that back or to to talk it through can be incredibly uh helpful in that that resolution.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Right, yeah, yeah. Um and I would I also like to add that decentering men, like especially because we all were raised in a patriarchy. Men were also raised, we were also raised, and we tend to at times think that men are better at something, or you know, somehow unknowingly, we sometimes put men on a pedestal or you know, center or we tend to overgive, especially when we are in love, or you know, our whole world might revolve around this person. So it's always important to keep in your mind that okay, men are this person is just like me, he's not important than me, and my life should not center around this or this man or any other man. I think that is a very conscious choice we have to keep on taking because we we were all raised by imperfect people in imperfect environments and imperfect systems. So we are all have learned something uh patriarchal. It is there within us. So it's important to constantly evaluate am I centering myself or some other man? I think that is also very important.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Yeah. Um, and going back to what we said earlier about the guilt is a way of choosing yourself is tolerating that discomfort when you don't meet other people's expectations. Maybe you have an internal alarm that says, Oh, we said no, what's gonna happen now? And the nervous system starts to brace. Or maybe that person gives a direct or indirect signal. Maybe they look a certain way, they give a look, or they say something that expresses their disappointment. That's okay. That's on them. Because you've there's there are two options at this point. You go back to how things were, or you can change things knowing that they're unhappy, that's on them because they're expecting something unreasonable of me, or that I'm just choosing something different for myself, and that's okay. So that guilt will come in to try and retrack you back into old beliefs, conditions, and patterns. It's important when that guilt comes up, it's to stay with yourself and let yourself know it's something different, it's not bad, it's not worse, it's just different. And actually, this could be the gateway to something incredible for myself because I am being conscious of my um my energy, I'm being discerned and my round, I'm discerning around my boundaries, I'm doing all these important things for myself. Um, but I think it's you know, it's it's one of those where you we just have to have the conversations, right? We have an obligation to to open up the space and talk about these things. Um hopefully that'll inspire, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Yeah, let's see. Let's see how all this works out.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it'll be good. I think it's certainly something that is is needed.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's I wish I had this when I was young. I mean, that's why I stuck it, but yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

Yeah, and it's nice to see this with a lot of women as well, that we are putting in the structures and things that we needed that we didn't get.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

When I was talking about the self-trust, I didn't know what that looked like for me. I was one of those girls that was like constantly seeking external validation because I didn't know what it meant to trust myself. Right. So I built the structure, the frameworks that I use, it was based on things that I needed that I didn't get. And I see in a lot of women that I work with. And then it You always, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

You always go there by the woman.

SPEAKER_02 40:15

Yeah. Well, what do they say? Necessity is the mother of all invention. Yeah, absolutely. So this is it. We we create what we need and then we offer it to everybody who everyone else who needs it.

unknown 40:26

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Well, thank you so much for your input in this conversation. Um, and to everybody listening, if anything resonated in this episode with you, do take a moment to reflect on what came up and what you might be overriding yourself without realizing. Even things like projections, when somebody says something or you see you observe something in somebody else and you don't like it, ask yourself what about that you don't like, because there might be something internally that isn't sitting well. Um, and as always, awareness is always the first step, and learning how to change the patterns is where the real uh work begins, the real graft for us begins. If you'd like support in building your self-trust, understanding yourself more deeply, and learning how to make these decisions from a place of clarity and internal authority, I have a couple of spells available for one-to-one work and also within my well-being workshops as well. You're very welcome to explore all of this further and I'll put the details in the notes below. And if you'd like to connect with Tina and learn more about her work and the uh woman-to-woman service that she offers, I will leave her notes in the I will leave her details in the notes below and definitely follow her at Ungaslighted on Instagram. If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to like, follow, and send it to anybody who might need to hear it. Take care of yourselves and I will see you in the next episode.