The Obedient Daughter

What does it really mean to be an obedient daughter?

In today’s solo episode, we’re getting honest about obedience, people-pleasing, and the quiet burnout that can come from always being “the good one.” If you’ve ever struggled with saying yes when you meant no, overextending yourself, or tying your worth to how well you serve others—this conversation is for you.

We’re breaking down:

✨ The root of people-pleasing

✨ How to discern Godly obedience vs. pressure and obligation

✨ Why obedience should never cost you your peace or identity

✨ Practical ways to set boundaries without guilt

This is for every recovering people-pleaser learning how to obey God without abandoning themselves.

Scripture, real talk, and a reminder that you can be soft, submitted to God, and still stand firm.

💌 Let’s talk in the comments: Have you ever struggled with people-pleasing? What helped you start setting boundaries?

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YouTube: Valerie Dantus Music

Podcast: All Daughters Considered (ADC)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is for the girl gold and girl got shot. This is for the girl Let me let me let me let me hear you And don't forget it neither Hey my loves welcome back to All Daughters Considered I am your host Valerie Dantis and I am so glad you are here all right for those of you who have been rocking with us since episode one thank you and for those of you who are just joining us please make sure you're subscribed, join us on Apple, Spotify, watch it on the go, and if you feel blessed by today's episode, share it with a friend, share it with a neighbor, a sister, a cousin, share it with somebody who needs it. All right. All daughters considered is all about having real raw conversations, all right? And my belief is from the pulpit to the pole, every daughter's story needs to be considered and needs to be heard, all right? We are all God's daughters, no matter where we stand on our little piece of earth, all right? So help me to spread this message as far as it can go. Um, bring in all the daughters that I can uh so that we can get to know each other and get to know our father just a little bit better, all right? Ugh. Let's get into today's episode. Today we're talking about the obedient daughter, not the perfect daughter, not the put-together daughter, not the daughter that gets everything right. The obedient daughter. Now I know that might sound a little contradictory because isn't it a good thing to be obedient? Isn't it a good thing to always follow the rules? Isn't it a good thing to always make sure that we're keeping everybody happy? But the obedient one is not just the one that makes all the right decisions. The obedient one most of the time is the one that learned how to say yes, even though it cost her. The one that learned how to bury her resentment and find validation in the approval of the people around her and in her performance. So today we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna get all the way in there. So you know what I like to say: get yourself comfortable, get yourself a snack, a drink, put your headphones on, and lock in, all right? But before we do that, today we're gonna try a new segment, all right? So get ready for today in the girly verse. Okay, so today in the girly verse is a new segment here on All That Is Considered. And it's basically where we discuss what's happening in the universe, what's happening in our world, and relate it back to how we can apply the lessons that we're learning from these events to our everyday lives. All right. So today in the girly verse is not about spilling tea. Today in the girly verse is about learning how to glean the lessons that we need to glean from what is happening in the world. Okay, so first thing that I like to discuss, okay, is child, it really just the love world is very ghetto right now. All right, let's just call it what it is, okay? Soft launch, hard launch, long, short, whatever you want to call it. The breakups are just tragic, okay? So for those of you who follow the news, y'all done seen that Clay and Meg broke up. We're not gonna get into that. We're not gonna get into that right now, okay? But my takeaway from that and relating back to our lives is the fact that breakups hurt, all right? And it doesn't matter how much, how many times you go through it, it's just a different type of pain. Um, I don't know any of those people, nor do I know their stories personally. So I won't get into that. But as a human, I can understand that this is a painful situation, especially for our girl Meg, okay? Um, but my takeaway from that is sometimes really hard breakups, though they feel painful, are not curses. Sometimes they're protect, they're protection, they're God's way of protecting you from an even worse heartbreak later on. So I know our knee-jerk reaction is to always ask God, why me? And in the moment, we don't often understand, we don't often see what he's protecting us from that would have come had we not been exposed, had whatever was going on not been exposed, or had he not pulled us out of that situation when he did. So sending lots of love and lots of healing, um, lots of peace uh to you, wherever you are, girl, um, and all the parties involved, you know, may God bring care to that situation. All right. Whew. All right. So the next thing that I want to talk about is that Gen Z church engagement, church attendance is actually rising. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of um Gen Zers are finding their faith and you know, exploring their relationship with God in their own way. It's gone from 45% to 51% in recent years. Okay. Even more interestingly enough, there's new polls that say 40% of young men now attend religious services, at least monthly, which is significantly higher than it was a few years ago. So kudos to you guys for exploring your faith, finding your faith. Please do so in a healthy manner and for healthy reasons, okay? Selah. That's where we're gonna leave that, okay? All right, so here's a few other things that we're picking up in the girly verse, all right? Reinvention is trending. Everybody's doing a rebrand. It's springtime, everybody's shifting and changing. Seasonal depression is falling off of us, and that is great. I love that for us, okay? But let us not forget, all right, that a rebrand is great, but transformation is what we're going for. We don't want to rebrand ourselves every season just to do it. But we do want to evolve. We want to transform. We want to not just renew our aesthetic, our um attire, our hair, our health. But we want to reinvent, we want to renew our mind as the Bible calls us to do. So don't just rebrand on the surface. Take some time and dig deeper and see what God wants to transform in you and give him some space to do that. All right. Last but not least, don't get caught up in the busyness of it all, where we don't remember to seek our purpose, right? And follow that. I know that things are picking up. Again, you know, everybody's outside, there's program after program, event after event, you know. But make sure that while you are enjoying yourself, which you should do, that you start to seek and look deeper into yourself and into where purpose is calling you in this stage of your life. It might be something just as small as being there for a friend or a neighbor, or as big as accepting what your calling is and what calling he's placed on your life. Okay. So basically, what we learned is that the world is ghetto, all right? And that we're all just trying to figure these things out, okay? So check your foundation, make sure you stay connected, let them transform you, let them lead you, let them help you navigate, honey. We all going through it, celebrity or not, okay? So that's today in the good rest.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

All right. Hot seat. This is the hot seat. Hot seat, welcome to the hot seat.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

All right, so let's get into our topic today. We are discussing the obedient daughter, and I know what you're thinking. Okay, Valerie, is it not good to be obedient? Aren't we called to be obedient even in our relationship with Christ? We are his servants. Are we not meant to be obedient daughters? Yes, however, we do need to discuss the root. At the base of every issue is a root cause. At the base of everything that has gone left is a root, okay? And for many of us who consider ourselves obedient daughters, at the root of set obedience is something extremely toxic. And um, I don't mean it in a condemning way, but I think it's worth it to look at um what that thing is, to really uproot it. And if we are moving forward in obedience, that we do so in the right way, that not only is pleasing to God, but it's healthy for ourselves. If we are honest with ourselves, many of us feel that obedience comes with a cost, and a cost that we're not always in the right space, headspace, mind space, financial space, whatever it is to pay. But yet we find ourselves in this cycle, um, and we cover it up with the idea that we are, you know, just doing the right thing. We're just doing what we know is good. At what cost? To what end? To what end? All right, are we going um to upkeep this facade of obedience? Okay, so we're gonna dive deep into that today. Now, if most of us are honest, the root of our obedience, um, even to it being to our detriment, the root cause of this hyper obedience is people pleasing. And if we're even more honest, the people pleasing is not just a personality trait that we were born with, but most of the time it's a response to some sort of trauma or some sort of negatively learned pattern. We learn to people please to protect ourselves. You learned at some point that love comes with conditions. You learned that it was better to be quiet than to ruffle feathers. You learned that you would get a more favorable response if you yielded to the way that uh uh you were instructed rather than express what you deeply desire. You avoided conflict so that you could feel safe and otherwise protected because you knew that if you went in another direction, you would potentially be in a dangerous situation. And that doesn't always mean physically. I think people, when people think about trauma or people think about our responses to certain things, we always go extreme. We're always thinking, oh, like people are getting physically abused, verbally abused, emotionally abused. But sometimes it's just little things, little responses, little comments that were made um when you were younger by a trusted adult or somebody in your life that began to shape your worldview. And all the enemy needs is a little bit of space to start to completely turn your mind around, right? But I really like what it says in Galatians. Galatians 1, verse 10 says, For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. So this Paul isn't condemning us when he says this, he's raising awareness to the difference between obeying man and obeying God. You can never serve God fully if you are controlled by the opinions of man. Because the reality is you will never make everybody happy. And I think that is the people pleasers' biggest, biggest fear is that no matter how hard I try, I'm never gonna please everybody. So that's why you push harder, that's why you do more, that's why you sacrifice more, that's why you give more. Because in your mind, even though you know that you are setting yourself up, it brings you a sense of comfort and control to think that, okay, I can just serve a little bit better, I can give a little bit more of myself, of my time, of my resources to ensure that the outcome will be what I want it to be rather than what I know. In order to really put things into perspective, I think we need to understand the difference between discernment and blind obedience. What or who are you really, really saying yes to? Not every yes is from obedience. Some of your yeses are from a sense of obligation. And I don't necessarily think that there is wrong with a sense of obligation. But when your sense of obligation is rooted in seeking validation, there now your who shifts. It's not just about who God made you to be a servant, a giver. It's more about who you're aiming to please. And it's not God. Some of the time your yes is fear, but it's dressed, it's draped in the cloak of submission. I just, you know, I want to make it work. I just want to make, you know, whatever I can do to keep things moving. It's really from a place of fear. What happens if I say no? What will this person think of me if I refuse? If I tell them I'm too I'm too tired, what are they gonna think of me? What are they gonna say? How will they react? Godly obedience comes with a sense of peace, even if the situation is in chaos. God will give you peace. Godly obedience aligns with God's word. You can always come confirm your obedience with what it says in his word. And it does not violate your identity. It doesn't violate your identity as in who he made you to be. It might violate your identity as in in terms of who you have created, the version of you that you have created to survive and make it through this world, but it will not, it will not betray the identity that he gave you. But when you're people pleasing, you feel pressured, you feel rushed, you feel like you must make a choice. There, there's not there's no peace in that. There's it's a sense of turmoil, a sense of chaos. It comes sometimes with guilt or with fear. All right? Guilt because maybe you betrayed a part of yourself or you gave up on something else to obey this thing, or fear of if I don't do this, then I'll be abandoned, I'll be left. They won't speak to me anymore. I'll lose this person in my life, I'll lose this relationship, I'll lose this friendship. And it also leaves you drained and resentful. I was watching a psychologist on TikTok. If you um know Dr. Ike, I love her so much. And she was talking about first daughters and how many first daughters struggle with overgiving. And it comes from a place of not being able to express their desires for love. So they show, they perform love, hoping that love will be reciprocated back. And when it's not reciprocated back in the way that they expect, they become resentful because they didn't get what they thought that they would get out of giving. And there's a difference between giving or even obeying from a place where you're full. You're doing it because it brings you joy and fulfillment, you're doing it because it fills your cup, you're doing it because it makes you happy. You're giving from excess. You have to give, so therefore you give. But when you are people pleasing, even when you don't have it to give, and I'm not just talking about money, I'm not talking about resources, time. You might be exhausted. You might be running on fumes, but that person's happiness, that person's approval of you, that person's validation of you is more important than even your own health. So when you run yourself to the ground and you're left taking care of yourself, we start to resent the people that we gave to. Not understanding that we weren't giving from a genuine place of wanting to give, wanting to obey, wanting to offer that part of ourselves. We were doing it in in hopes of what receiving the love that we really want. Why? Because we're the fear to express our desires and what we want from the people around us. So the Bible says in uh John 10, 27 that my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. Meaning knowing God's voice, understanding his voice, and obeying his voice saves you from all of the consequences that people pleasing will bring you. If you don't know God's voice, you will follow everyone else's. And many times we must we mistaken other people's voice for God's voice. Sometimes what people tell us, and it sounds really good, but really good does not mean really God. Really good does not mean that's the direction that God even wants us to go in. We have to be extremely careful, and I'm guilty of this. We're all at some point in our lives guilty of misconstruing the voice of God for what we really want or what we really want God to say, even if that means at the cost of ourselves, right? The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. That's Proverbs 29, verse 25. People pleasing is a trap, it is a scam, okay? Because you will never, ever, ever be satiated from that desire. The more you people please, the more you will feel the desire to people please. The deeper you're the bigger that wound will become, the bigger that hole will become. You will never be satisfied as long as your validation is rooted in the opinions of man. As long as you are giving for love, for for acceptance, you will never ever ever fill that gap. I want you to sit with that for a second. For some of you listening, that could be like a knife in your chest right now. But it's important to make peace with that idea. Because to be delivered from people pleasing, you have to accept that what you are trying to achieve is impossible, and not only is it impossible, you will always be left feeling dissatisfied. Because at some point, obedience becomes self-abandonment when it's done wrong. Now, obedience to Christ requires us to abandon ourselves and take on the identity that Christ has given us, which is our true identity, right? But when you are people pleasing, the self-abandonment of people pleasing is a totally different beast, okay? Obedience should not require you to disappear. As children of God, when we present ourselves, the Bible tells us to present ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto him. We are giving of ourselves, right? Presenting ourselves, but people pleasing obedience causes you to disappear. Is not and in no way, shape, or form coming from your true self. Okay? It leaves you exhausted. It leaves you drained. You're ignoring your own needs, right? You're staying silent even when something feels wrong. You know this is not the right situation. You know this is not the right conditions. You know that this is not what you want to do. But you do it anyways. You're not in that. The Bible tells us, let your yes be yes, your no be no. Let's let what you say simply be yes or no. Right? That's what it says in Matthew, Matthew 5.37. Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. Saying, oh whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. So saying yes when you really mean no is evil. The Bible clearly states: anything more than this comes from evil. Saying yes when you really mean no is not self-sacrificial. You're not a martyr. That's evil. You're betraying yourself and you're lying. Over-explaining yourself comes from fear. Trying to justify your yes or your no overly comes from a place of fear. A constant yes sometimes indicates a lack of boundaries. Some people will ask you because they know you can't say no. I'm not saying to go around and just say no for no reason. But when you say yes, when you really say no, when you really want to say no, is a lack of boundaries. And anybody who intends to live in a healthy way, to interact in a healthy way with the environment, their environment, must understand the importance of boundaries. You cannot truly guard your heart if everyone has access to it. You can't truly protect yourself if anybody can lower your guard. The Bible calls us to guard our hearts. How do you do that? If when you've put up your guard, not a wall, when you put up your guard, but anybody can tear it down. Many of us, especially women, find ourselves post-breakup, post-situationship, post um, a friendship fallout, reminiscing on the things that we did that we didn't want to do. And to us, it makes us feel like, oh my gosh, like this person's such a terrible person. All the sacrifices I did for them, all the things that I went out of my way to care for and do, and they they didn't ask you to do that. I know that sounds harsh. I'm one of them people. I found myself doing that so many times. We cannot blame other people for what our lack of boundaries caused. Had I been faithful to my boundaries, had I been faithful to the word that I gave myself, that would not be something that I would have to heal from or deal with. Part of understanding people pleasing is taking accountability for the part that you played. Right? But some of us are so busy being a good daughter to everybody else that we've learned to be a neglectful daughter to ourselves. For some people, it's nothing to spend hundreds of dollars on others. But when it's time for you to treat yourself well, you find it to be hard. And to you, that's a noble thing. It's nice to be generous, it's good to be generous. But at the cost of yourself, at the cost of your health, at the cost of your mental health, your well-being. Mm-mm. Even the Bible tells us to treat others how we want to be treated, right? To love others as we love ourselves. Some of us struggle with healthy love and boundaries and healthy expressions of love to others because we don't know how to love ourselves. The love that we want, the love that we should learn to give ourselves, we give to others, hoping that they will give it to give us the love that we should be giving ourselves. And then when it doesn't happen, we hate that person. We resent that person. We never want to talk to that person. That's not how this works. That's not how this works. This is the ugly part of healing. That's not how this works. Okay? So where do we go from here? I think the first thing to do is identify what healthy obedience looks like. All right? The Bible tells us to be quick to listen, slow to speak. What do you mean by that? I mean that God doesn't call us to obedience that destroys you. Don't be so quick to say yes. Listen to the whole thing first. You don't owe anybody an immediate answer. It's okay to check your schedule. It's okay to evaluate your body. Can I do this? Can I go? Can I attend this event? What is my body telling me? Check your capacity, just like I just said. Even Jesus rested. Jesus got in the boat with the disciples and he took a nap. Okay. You need to uh um learn that rest is biblical. Rest is biblical, it's not an option. The Bible calls us to rest. God rested on the seventh day. And you think, you think what, like you're more powerful than God? You think you're stronger than God? Come on, man. I said last week, and I'm gonna say it again. Sometimes all you need is a 10-piece honey hot all flats and a nap. You don't need to go to that event. You need to take, turn the AC down, get your heaviest comforter, and go to sleep. The reason why you can't remember anything is not because the devil's attacking you. You're sleep deprived. The reason why you're forgetting to cut the stove off and you're forgetting to uh put deodorant on when you leave the house is not because you're getting up there in age or you're you're just forgetful. You are tired and overwhelmed. Your body is trying to tell you to slow down. Mark 6, verse 31 says, Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while. All right? That's the word of the Lord. Accept that you will disappoint some people. Okay? And the question to ask yourself when you're learning to accept disappointment, because it's hard. I'm not gonna lie, I ain't gonna hold you. Accepting that you are disappointing people is difficult. Okay? But ask yourself, am I working to gain man's approval or God's approval? Because if you cannot, you cannot. And we just highlighted that saying yes when you really want to say no is not a beautiful, selfless thing. It is evil. The Bible calls it evil. Understand, tell yourself to understand that yes, you can absolutely be obedient to God without being available to everyone. Now, once you've identified what healthy obedience is, it's time to reclaim your yes. And that sounds great. It is difficult, and it is something you work at every day. Don't expect to be great at it at first. I know I'm still learning, still figuring out what that looks like, what that feels like, how to adjust around that. But you need to understand, I want you to understand that your yes is sacred. You don't owe it to anybody but God. And even God, when the Bible talks about salvation, we have to accept, we have to give our yes. Your yes is important. If it's important in the eyes of the Father, it is important, very important. It was never meant to just be handed out to appease people or keep the peace. It was never meant to be handed out just to keep people comfortable. Your yes is sacred. So, how do we learn to rewire our brain to accept that? The Bible says do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but to what? The Bible says to be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Learning to reclaim your yes requires a renewal of your mind. All right. I know my dad, shout out to you, apostle, said that the Greek word for renewal of the mind is meta noia, meaning changing of the mind. That takes time, that takes practice every single day. Don't expect for it to be a one, two, three thing. You are empowered in Christ to do it, but it's not a one, two, three thing. It's gonna take you a little time. It's gonna be hard at first. You're in a cave sometimes. But it remember always to remind yourself: my yes is sacred. My yes is sacred. My yes is sacred. God honors your yes. God honors your no. The words in our mouth, as children of God, have power. And I think we only think that when we're confessing and we're binding and we're losing and whatever we're doing. But even the simplest phrases that we're saying, they have power. Take this time to start to think about what your reset will look like, right? What are some things that you are saying yes to that you really mean no? Where are some places that you find yourself always caving? And that can be in so many aspects, in so many different contexts, relationships, work, school, social lives, friendships. Where are you not fully honoring the sacredness of your guests? The obedient daughter, ideal obedient daughter, knows who she belongs to and walks in that identity. So, you know, I like to leave every episode with a word of the day. So your word of the day is discernment. Discernment is knowing the difference between a divine assignment and an emotional obligation. Am I doing as the Lord instructed me? Is this sacrifice, is this breaking, coming from a place of the Lord shaping me? Or am I breaking myself down by an obligation, an emotional obligation that I made? Think about that. Tell me about your journey with learning the difference between blind obedience and discernment, people pleasing and true obedience in the comments below. And to every recovering people pleaser, whether you just started on this journey or you've been in the game for a minute like me, I want to leave you with just a little thought. You are never called to be agreeable at the cost of your peace. Your yes is sacred. You are not your love for people, your love for those around you is not determined by your availability at the cost of your mind, your peace, or your well-being. You are learning right now in this season how to return to yourself, how to value the power that God gave you in your tongue. Understand that that is sacred work. It might not seem like a lot to choose to stay in when everybody wants to go out. But you are relearning and reunderstanding the power that God gave you. And I want you to find joy in that. Find peace in that. Even if everybody is upset at you or angry at you for not coming through when you know that you couldn't. Find joy in the fact that you are reshaping your mind to not just walk in obedience for validation, but know that God already validated you. He already called you. And you being obedient is not walking in the will of everyone, it's walking in the will of God. So you're allowed to choose yourself and know that you're still chosen by God. You're uh you don't have to explain yourself to the people around you, and you're a ex oh your exhaustion is not a fruit of the spirit. All right? It's a fruit of overextending. So kudos to you for understanding that you don't want to invest in unhealthy habits anymore. All right, you're loved, you're accepted, and you're validated. Allow that renewal of your mind to shape the rest of your journey. All right, well, that is all that is considered, episode seven. Share this with a friend, share this with the neighbor, comment, like, and subscribe if you are haven't already done so. All right. I love you guys. I'll see you next week.