Women Who Shrink Themselves to Keep the Peace

If you’ve ever called yourself “easy-going” while quietly dying inside, this episode is your wake-up call.

I’m talking about the slow, sneaky way so many women learn to shrink themselves to keep the peace — the tiny daily self-abandonments that look harmless until one day you realise you don’t know what you feel, what you want, or who you are without everyone else’s approval.

We get into why people-pleasing isn’t just being nice. A lot of the time, it’s fear wearing good manners — a nervous system trained to avoid rejection, withdrawal, anger, or that stomach-drop moment when someone’s tone changes. I talk about the difference between real peace and silence, how toxic relationship patterns can teach you to emotionally disappear, and why high-functioning can hide anxiety, burnout, resentment, and that soul-tired exhaustion that often hits hard in midlife.

Then we get practical. I share five grounded ways to stop shrinking without trying to become a different person overnight: noticing where you self-abandon daily, setting boundaries without writing an essay, letting people be temporarily disappointed, rebuilding self-worth outside being needed, and practising conflict in small, safe ways so your body gets evidence that honesty isn’t automatically dangerous.

Your peace should not require your disappearance.

Transcript

Welcome And Why We Shrink

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Until National Apologetic, the podcast where we get into the gitty gritty of real life, starting over and figuring out who the hell we are now. No tilter, no shame, a little messy, still not done. On your face page, if you're a woman over 40 who's ready to embrace the chaos, unpack the bullshit, and navigate the next chapter of your life without pretending you've got it all together, you're in the right place. Let's dive in together.

The Quiet Habit Of Self Abandonment

SPEAKER_00 0:40

There are women walking around every single day who have become absolute experts at abandoning themselves quietly. Not dramatically, not loudly, not in ways anyone else would even notice. Just slowly, little bit by little bit, by swallowing what they really think, by saying it's fine when it's absolutely not fine, by avoiding conflict like it's a full blown hostage situation, by becoming smaller, softer, easier, quieter, less emotional, less needy, less too much, less inconvenient, less honest. And the really fucked up part? Most of us got rewarded for it because people called us easy going, strong or mature, low maintenance, understanding, selfless, or they called us good women, good wives, good mothers, good partners, good friends, good employees. Meanwhile, on the inside, we were anxious as hell, exhausted, resentful, disconnected from ourselves, and terrified that if we actually spoke honestly, someone would leave, or they'd get angry, or withdraw, or they'd punish us with silence, or make us feel like we were asking for too much. And maybe the saddest part is that after a while, we didn't even notice we were doing it anymore. It just became who we thought we were the chilled out one, the easy one, the strong one, the one who doesn't need much, the one who just gets on with it. But underneath all that, there was a woman who was quietly disappearing. Hi, beautiful humans, and welcome back to UNU, Unfinished and Unapologetic. Today we're talking about women who shrink themselves to keep the peace. And to be honest, this is another episode that sits underneath so many other things we've already talked about. The people pleasing, the burnout, the overfunctioning, staying in relationships too long, losing yourself, never asking for help, feeling emotionally exhausted all the time, being the strong one, holding it all together, pretending you're okay. All of it. Because so much of that comes back to this one thing. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned that keeping everybody else comfortable was more important than being fully ourselves. And I don't think most women wake up one day and go, you know what? I might just abandon myself for the next 20 years and see how that pans out. That's not how it happens. It's much sneakier than that. It happens in tiny little moments. Moments that don't seem like a big deal at the time, right? You say yes when you mean no. You laugh when something actually hurt. You say I don't care when you totally care. You pretend you're okay with the bare minimum because asking for more feels frickin' humiliating. You tell yourself it's not worth the argument. You type the honest message, stare at it for ten minutes, delete the whole damn thing and send all good X. Then you sit there hoping that they magically somehow understand the message you deleted. And there it is. Self-abandonment with a kiss on the end. And I think that's why this stuff can be so hard to recognize. Because shrinking doesn't always look dramatic. It doesn't always look like some huge life decision. Sometimes it looks like saying whatever you want for dinner when you actually had an opinion. Sometimes it looks like sitting in a room full of people and editing every single thing you say before it even leaves your mouth. Sometimes it looks like changing your tone so nobody thinks you're upset. Sometimes it looks like pretending you're not hurt by the joke, because apparently being the cool girl now comes with emotional internal bleeding. Sometimes it looks like accepting a half assed apology because you don't have the energy to explain again why it hurt. Sometimes it looks like going quiet in a relationship, because you already know how the conversation will go. And sometimes it looks like being the one who keeps the peace at family gatherings, at work, in friendships, in relationships, with your adult kids, with your partner, with your ex, with everybody, and everyone around you thinks you're calm. But you're not calm. You're just trained. Trained to scan the room, trained to read the mood, trained to feel responsible for the vibe. Trained to make sure nobody else feels uncomfortable, even if you're sitting there absolutely dying inside. And mate, that's exhausting. Now I want to be really clear here before we get too far

Peace Versus Silence

SPEAKER_00 6:20

into this. Keeping the peace and keeping quiet are not the same thing. And I think a lot of us have confused the two. Because sometimes what we call peace is actually just us being silent. It's not peace if you have to abandon yourself to maintain it. It's not peace if everybody else gets to have feelings, needs, opinions, and moods, but you have to be the reasonable one. It's not peace if you have to walk on eggshells. It's not peace if you're lying awake at night replaying conversations you were too scared to have. It's not peace if the only reason there's no conflict is because you've swallowed every honest thing you wanted to say. That's not peace. That's self-erasia wearing a jacket, okay? And I really think a lot of women are living in that. They're not in peaceful relationships. They're in quiet ones. They're not in peaceful families. They're in families where everybody knows who's allowed to be upset and who isn't. They're not in peaceful workplaces. They're in workplaces where being agreeable gets mistaken for being professional. And I get it. I really do. Because if you've been the woman who keeps everything together, if you've been the one who smooths things over, if you've been the one who makes yourself easy to love, easy to manage, easy to need, easy to use, then speaking honestly can feel terrifying. And this is where people pleasing gets misunderstood. It gets talked about like it's some cute little personality trait, like, oh, I'm just such a people pleaser. As if that's okay. Accept it even. Like being a people pleaser is the same as just being a nice person. But a lot of the time, people pleasing is fear wearing good manners. It's a trauma response. It's your nervous system trying to avoid rejection, abandonment, punishment, criticism, withdrawal, anger, emotional chaos, or that horrible feeling when someone's mood changes and suddenly your whole body goes on alert. Because somewhere you learned that if everyone else is okay, maybe you'd be okay too. And that conditioning runs deep. You stop asking, what do I want? And start asking, what will keep everyone else comfortable? And eventually that becomes the filter for every single thing in your life. Your relationships, your friendships, workplaces, family dynamics, dating, parenting, sex, money, rest, even your own body. And once that pattern gets wired into you early enough, you don't even realize it's a pattern anymore. It just starts feeling like your personality. You think this is just who I am. I'm easy going. I'm understanding. I don't ask for much. I'm not high in maintenance and I don't like drama. And look, not liking drama is one thing, but silencing yourself because you're terrified of someone else's reaction is not the same thing as being drama-free. It's survival.

People Pleasing As A Trauma Response

SPEAKER_00 10:08

And toxic relationships teach this exceptionally well. They teach women how to emotionally disappear. And it's not always through obvious screaming fights either. Sometimes it's much more subtle than that. It's the eye roll when you're trying to explain how you feel. Or the sigh that makes you immediately regret bringing something up. It's the silent treatment, the mocking, the withdrawal. It's the you're too sensitive, or the here we go again, or the I can't do anything right, can I? The way they somehow turn your hurt into their inconvenience. The way your feelings become the problem, not what actually happened. It's the way affection gets withheld until you go back to being pleasant, and the way honesty starts to feel dangerous, so eventually you stop bringing things up. Not because you're healed, not because you're unbothered by it, and not because you're easy going, but because you're tired. You're tired of the tension, tired of defending your feelings, tired of being made to feel difficult, tired of explaining basic respect like it's an advanced uni degree. Tired of needing a 45-minute opening statement, three witnesses, and a PowerPoint presentation just to say, hey, that hurt me. So you shrink. You say it's okay. You say don't worry about it, it doesn't matter. You say whatever you want, I'm fine. And all the while your resentment is building brick by brick. And the scary thing is, if you do that for long enough, you don't just lose your voice in that relationship. You start losing access to your own fucking voice altogether. And I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but I don't really think it is. Because a lot of women carry those survival habits long after the relationship ends. You can leave the person and still be carrying the pattern. You can be divorced and still be terrified of conflict. You can be single and still be over-explaining yourself. You can be in a healthier relationship and still feel your stomach drop when someone says, can we talk? You can be 47 or 51, whatever age, and living alone for the first time in your life thinking, okay, why the hell do I still feel like I need permission to exist?

When Survival Looks Like Maturity

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Ask me how I know. Right? Because I've been divorced twice. I raised three kids, and at 47 I did find myself single and living alone for the first time in my life. And there have been so many moments where I've looked back and gone, hold up, was I actually okay with that? Or did I just become really, really good at surviving it? Was I being understanding or was I scared? Was I being patient or was I tolerating the things that were slowly breaking me down? Was I keeping the peace or was I just keeping myself quiet? And those are not comfortable questions. They're not fun, and they're definitely not pretty. They don't make you feel like a heeled goddess drinking green juice in linen pants, but they do matter. They make you want to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling like, well, fuck me. That explains a few things. Because once you start seeing it, you can't really unsee it. And this is why conflict can feel terrifying for some women. Not because they're weak, not because they're childish or they can't communicate, but because historically conflict costs them something. It costs them love, safety, connection, approval, stability, affection, peace. So now even a healthy disagreement can feel threatening to the nervous system. Someone's tone changes and your body reacts before your brain can catch up. Your heart races, your stomach drops, you start rehearsing every possible version of the conversation. You over-explain, you immediately apologize, you soften your tone, you second guess your own feelings. You go into damage control before you've even worked out what you actually wanted to say. And then people say things like, You should just speak up. Yeah, right. Thanks, Susan. Groundbreaking. If it were that bloody simple, we would have done it. Because for some of us, speaking up doesn't feel like we're using our voice. It feels like we're stepping right into the firing squad. It feels like risking abandonment or being misunderstood. It feels like we'd be risking being called dramatic, selfish, needy, angry, bitter, difficult, too sensitive, too much. And a lot of women would rather swallow their truth than risk being labeled those things. Because let's be honest, women are allowed to have needs as long as they don't make anyone uncomfortable. We're allowed to be strong but not confrontational. Confident but not intimidating Honest but not harsh. But not too much Independent, but not cold. Emotional but not messy. Healing, but still convenient. And honestly, fuck that. Because all of that swallowed emotion has to go somewhere.

When Your Body Speaks For You

SPEAKER_00 16:44

It doesn't just disappear because we decided it was inconvenient. You can push it down, you can stay busy, you can make jokes, keep functioning, you can keep being useful, you can keep being needed, you can keep telling everyone you're fine. But your body knows. Your body always knows. And like I've said before, eventually your body starts screaming what your mouth won't say. For some women, it comes out as anxiety. For some, it's burnout, resentment, tension, or overthinking. It could be snapping at the wrong people or crying in the car, feeling numb, feeling disconnected from your own life, feeling irritated by everyone needing you, or feeling exhausted before the day even starts. Feeling like if one more person asks you what's for dinner, you might actually launch yourself into the sun. And the confusing thing is that from the outside, you might still look like you're coping. And that's the problem with being high functioning. People don't see what it costs you. They just see the output. They see the woman who gets things done. They don't see the woman who has completely lost touch with how she feels and what she needs. And we don't just shrink emotionally. We shrink physically too. Women are taught from a very young age to take up less space. To be smaller, to be prettier, quieter, desirable but not too confident, attractive but not intimidating. Sexy, but not too available. Age, but God forbid we age visibly. Soft but not weak. Strong but not difficult. I mean fuck me, the terms and conditions of being a woman are exhausting. And we carry that in our bodies, holding our stomachs in, crossing our arms over ourselves, we even apologize when someone bumps into us. And don't get me started on the way we pick ourselves apart in the mirror. Trying to dress in a way that says, please approve of me, but also don't judge me, but also don't look too closely, but also please still find me acceptable. It's a lot. And I think this matters because physically shrinking and emotional shrinking are connected. If you spent years believing your body has to be acceptable to be worthy, it's not a huge leap to believe your personality has to be acceptable too. Your needs, your feelings, your boundaries, your opinions, all of it gets edited. And then we wonder why we don't know who we are anymore. And

Codependency And Emotional Weather Reports

SPEAKER_00 19:48

this is where codependency can quietly sneak in. And I know that word sounds a bit textbook, but let me tell you what I mean. Sometimes codependency looks like love. Sometimes it looks like loyalty. Sometimes it looks like I'm just a caring person. Sometimes it looks like being the one who always checks in, always helps, always fixes, and always smooths things over. But underneath it, your whole nervous system is checking someone else's emotional weather report before deciding whether or not you're allowed to have a good day. Their mood becomes your mood. Their approval becomes your confidence. Their validation becomes your worth. Their distance becomes your panic attack. Their needs become your full-time job. And you become so externally focused on them that you stop building a relationship with yourself. You stop asking, how do I feel? And start asking, are they okay with me? You stop asking, what do I need? And start asking, what do they need from me? You stop asking, is this good for me? And start asking, will this make them stay? And babe, I say this with so much love, but that's not love. That's fear wearing a very convincing outfit.

Boundaries And The Backlash

SPEAKER_00 21:24

And this is why boundaries can feel so terrifying. Because boundaries risk disappointing people. And if your identity has been built around being needed, liked, chosen, helpful, good, reliable, easy, low maintenance, or the strong one, then boundaries can feel like you're destroying who you are. But you're not. You're not destroying yourself. You're meeting yourself for the first time, maybe. And that's gonna feel Weird. It might even feel selfish or wrong. It might feel like you're being mean or it might make you feel like you're letting people down. But sometimes what feels like selfishness is actually just you no longer volunteering for the emotional unpaid labor. And look, some people won't like it. Let's be honest about that too. Because that's the part that a lot of healing content skips over. When you stop shrinking, not everyone will celebrate that. Some people will call you difficult. Some people will say you've changed. Some will miss the old you. But a lot of the time, what they really miss is the version of you who didn't inconvenience them. They miss the version who said yes. The version who made it easy. The version who absorbed the discomfort. The version that didn't have boundaries. The one who carried the emotional load. The version who kept quiet so they didn't have to look at themselves. And that can hurt. Because you might think, hang on, I'm finally becoming healthier and more like me. Why do I feel like I'm losing people? But sometimes you're not losing the real connection you had with them. You're losing the access. And those are not the same thing.

Midlife And Losing Tolerance For Crumbs

SPEAKER_00 23:34

There's something about midlife that makes this harder to ignore. I don't know if it's your hormones, your nervous system, your back pain, your divorce papers, your adult children, your mortgage, or your complete lack of tolerance for bullshit. Maybe it's all of it. But somewhere around your 40s and 50s, your body, your patience, and your people pleasing all start quitting at the same time. And suddenly, you can't keep pretending you're fine. You can't keep being grateful for crumbs. You can't keep calling anxiety butterflies. You can't keep calling disrespect complicated. You can't keep calling self-abandonment being understanding. You can't keep calling exhaustion just life. You start looking around at your life thinking, how much of this is actually mine? How much of this did I choose? How much of this am I still doing because I don't want people to be upset with me? And it's confronting. Because it's not always about one toxic relationship. Sometimes it's a whole lifetime of being trained to be acceptable. A whole lifetime of being the woman who people could rely on. A whole lifetime of being strong enough to cope with things you should have been supported through. And then one day you realize I don't want to be easy anymore if easy means being invisible. I don't want to be low maintenance if low maintenance means being lonely. I don't want to be understanding. If understanding means I keep betraying myself.

Healing Means Speaking Anyway

SPEAKER_00 26:05

We learned it because it kept the connection in place. We learned it because the alternative felt far worse. We learned it because we were young or scared or unsupported or in relationships where honesty came with consequences. So no, this is not about blaming ourselves for what we learned in survival mode. But, and this is a loving but, there comes a point where we have to stop handing other people total responsibility for our voice. Because yes, maybe someone taught you that it wasn't safe to speak up, but healing means learning who you are again, coming back to her, and learning to speak anyway. Tiny at first, maybe a little messy to start with, and a bit shaky too. But being brutally honest with yourself. Because awareness without changed behavior just becomes another thing we talk about while staying exactly the same. And I say that as someone who is very good at being self-aware, but still occasionally doing the thing anyway. Because knowing better and doing better are not always standing right next to each other, are they? Sometimes they're in completely different suburbs. But that's the work, right? It's not about becoming harsh. It's not about becoming selfish or becoming someone who doesn't care about people either. It's just finally learning that your needs matter too. Your opinions matter. Your rest matters, your body matters, your voice matters, your no matters, your yes matters, your peace matters. And you don't need to earn basic fucking respect by being easy to deal with.

Five Ways To Stop Shrinking

SPEAKER_00 28:06

So how do we stop shrinking ourselves? Honestly, not overnight, and not by suddenly becoming some hyper confident woman who wakes up one morning, puts on red lipstick, and sets twelve boundaries and never doubts herself again. Lovely fantasy, but that's probably not gonna happen. It starts smaller than that. Much smaller. So I'm gonna give you the five things that help me because maybe they'll help you too. Not because I've mastered this at all. I totally haven't. I am still very much in the stage where I'm catching myself mid-self-abandonment and going for fuck's sake, Paige. But I think that still counts. Because catching it is part of changing it.

Notice Daily Self Abandonment

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Okay, number one. Notice where you self-abandon daily, and I do mean daily. Not just in the big dramatic ways, in the tiny ones. Notice how often you say yes when you mean no. Notice how often you say I don't mind when you know you absolutely do. Notice how often you stay quiet to avoid tension. Notice how often you minimize your feelings. Notice how often you betray yourself for approval. Notice how often you make yourself uncomfortable, so nobody else has to be. Notice how often you're more loyal to keeping the peace than you are to telling yourself the truth. And write that shit down. You all know by now I'm a big believer in writing everything down. Because when you write it down, you can't hide from it. And sometimes we need that. Not to shame ourselves, but to see the pattern clearly enough to stop pretending it's not happening. So even for a week, just pay attention. Where did I say yes when I meant no? Where did I apologize when I hadn't done anything wrong? Where did I pretend I was okay? Where did I make myself smaller? Where did I choose approval over honesty? And that awareness matters. Because you can't change a pattern if you refuse to notice it.

Set Boundaries Without The Essay

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Number two, stop over explaining your boundaries. A boundary is not a courtroom defense. You don't need a 45-minute presentation to justify needing rest or space, respect, peace or honesty. You don't need to provide a full emotional biography every time you say no. You don't need to make your boundary sound cute enough for somebody else to approve of it. And look, I know how hard this is, because women who shrink themselves often think that the right explanation will make the other person understand. So we explain. Then we explain the explanation, then we add a little apology on top, and then we offer three alternatives, a snack and possibly our firstborn child. All because we don't want someone to be disappointed. But sometimes the work is saying, that doesn't work for me. I'm not available for that. I need to think about it. No, I can't, or I don't want to. And then stopping. Just stopping. Let the sentence sit there without dressing it up in sequins and trauma. And yes, the discomfort will be there. You'll feel it, they might feel it, the room might feel weird, and nobody may know what to do for a second. And that's okay. You'll survive the discomfort of not overexplaining, and so will they.

Let Disappointment Exist

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Number three. Let people be temporarily disappointed. And this one's huge. At least it was for me. Because women who people please often believe that if someone's upset with me, I must have done something wrong. And that's just not true. Sometimes people are upset because you stopped overfunctioning for them. Sometimes they're upset because you changed the agreement they were benefiting from. Sometimes it's because your boundary interrupted their access. And sometimes people are upset just because you stopped making everything easy for them. That doesn't mean you're cruel. That means there's this recalibration thing happening, a reset, so to speak. And yes, it can feel awful because for some of us, disappointment feels like danger. Someone is disappointed and we immediately want to fix it, smooth it over, explain it, apologize for it, take it back, make a joke out of it, send a nice message or offer something we really didn't want to offer, anything to get the emotional temperature back down. But healing means learning to sit in that discomfort without immediately abandoning yourself to make it stop. People are allowed to be disappointed, and you're allowed to survive it. Both things can be true. And the people who genuinely love you, they might need a minute, but they'll adjust. Some of them might even celebrate this healthier version of you. And the ones who only liked you boundriless, that's information. Painful information maybe, but information.

Self Worth Beyond Being Needed

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Number four, rebuild your self-worth outside of being needed. This one's not quick. It can be really hard and it can feel really confronting as well. Because if you've spent years being useful, rescuing people, anticipating the needs of others, smoothing things over, holding relationships together or being the strong one, then you might not actually know who you are when nobody needs anything from you. So you need to ask yourself, who am I when I'm not fixing something? Who am I when I'm not rescuing someone? Who am I when I'm not being chosen? Who am I when I'm not trying so hard to be the good woman? What do I enjoy? What do I want? What do I believe? What do I like? What don't I like? What actually feels peaceful to me? What actually feels like me? And again, write it down. Journal it. Put it in your notes app. Use an old notebook. Buy a new one if you need emotional support stationery, which honestly, totally valid. But spend time with those questions. Because some women have spent so long surviving relationships, raising families, managing homes, working, caring, providing, adapting, and pushing through that they genuinely don't know. And that's not something to be ashamed of. It's something to be curious about. You're allowed to rediscover yourself. Actually, you're allowed to discover yourself properly for the first time. Because maybe the woman you are now has never had enough space to fully exist before. And mate, she deserves a bit of room.

Practise Conflict In Safe Steps

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Number five, practice conflict in safe ways. You don't go from silence to fearless overnight. You just don't. And forcing yourself to suddenly confront every person who has ever wronged you is probably not healing. It's more like chaos with a podcast episode behind it. So start small. Say what you actually want for dinner. Correct the order if they get it wrong. Send the honest text message. Say I don't agree. Say actually I see it differently. Tell someone if they hurt your feelings. Ask for help before you're drowning. Say no without writing an essay. Or admit that you're not fine and actually let your face show how you're really feeling. Little moments like that slowly teach your nervous system that honesty doesn't always automatically equal abandonment. And that matters. Because for a lot of us, our bodies need the evidence, not just affirmations. Evidence. Evidence that we can say no and survive. Evidence that someone can be disappointed and we won't die. Evidence that honesty can lead to closeness, not punishment. Evidence that our needs don't make us unlovable. And we build that evidence one small moment at a time.

Coming Home To Yourself

SPEAKER_00 38:15

I think a lot of women hit midlife and realize I've spent years making myself smaller so everyone else could stay comfortable. Years of swallowing their words, years of shape shifting, years of carrying relationships entirely on their own, years of performing worthiness instead of actually feeling worthy. Years of being the understanding one, the strong one, the easy one, the one who can handle it. And eventually something inside you just gets tired. Not regular tired, not I need a nap tired, soul tired, nervous system tired. The don't ask me to make myself smaller one more fucking time or I may actually combust tired. And honestly, good. Because sometimes that exhaustion is the beginning of finally coming home to yourself. Not being louder for the sake of it, not being harder, not colder, not cruel, just more honest, more whole, more grounded, and more you. Because healing isn't about becoming someone else. It's not about becoming some polished, unbothered, perfectly healed woman who never spirals, never doubts herself, never overthinks the text message, and never has a moment of, oh God, was that too much? Please. We're healing, not joining a cult. And healing is noticing. It's pausing. It's choosing differently one tiny moment at a time. Healing is actually saying no. It's saying that hurt me or I need help. Healing is saying I don't want that anymore. It's realizing that your peace should not require your disappearance. And maybe the goal isn't to become some completely different woman. Maybe the goal is to stop abandoning the one who was there the whole time. So if any of this is hitting a little close to home, firstly, you are absolutely not the only one. There are so many women walking around right now who look like they have it all together, but on the inside, they're exhausted from constantly being acceptable. Exhausted from being agreeable, exhausted from being needed, exhausted from being quiet, exhausted from being everything to everyone while slowly losing themselves. And secondly, this doesn't change overnight. You don't undo decades of shrinking and people pleasing in one week. You don't wake up tomorrow with perfect boundaries and a complete sense of self. But awareness does change things. Tiny decisions change things. Honest moments change things. One no changes things. One uncomfortable conversation changes things. One moment of choosing yourself instead of performing easy changes things.

Permission To Take Up Space

SPEAKER_00 41:51

And I think a lot more women need permission to take up space without apologizing for it. So here it is. You're allowed to take up space. You're allowed to have needs. You're allowed to have opinions. You're allowed to disappoint people. You're allowed to stop explaining yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you anyway. You're allowed to stop calling self-abandonment peace. And you're allowed to become inconvenient to the version of your life that kept you small.

How To Reach Out And Share

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Thanks so much for staying with me through this one. I really hope something in it helped. And if it did hit somewhere deep for you, I'd genuinely love to hear from you. You can find me over on all the socials or email me if socials aren't your thing. And I've also added a little text page about this episode link in the show notes. So you can send me a message there too, or even a voice message if you're feeling brave. No pressure, obviously, but I'd really love to hear what landed for you. And if you know another woman who keeps shrinking herself to keep everybody else comfortable, please send this episode to her because she might need the reminder that she doesn't have to disappear to be loved. She doesn't have to be easy to be worthy. And she doesn't have to keep swallowing herself just so everyone else can stay comfortable. I love you guys. I appreciate you being here, and I'll talk to you in the next episode. Remember, we're doing this side by side. Every chapter we explore together, I bought some version of it least. So if today's episode ends with one thing to think about, feel, question, or try, I'd love to hear how you use it. Until next time, keep your breaking the blessing, unfinished, and unapologetically.