episode
#040
Set Boundaries Without Guilt or Burnout
episode
#040
Set Boundaries Without Guilt or Burnout
In this week's episode:
Practice a small, honest no.
You agree to one more thing, then resent losing time you needed for yourself. A manageable decision gives you a place to practice expressing a limit without a long explanation.
In part two of the Power Back Protocol, Alanna explores why disappointing someone feels difficult and offers a practice for noticing, naming, and expressing your no. Consider where extra commitments and one-sided relationships consume the time and resources you need for your own life.
Watch the teaching, listen below, or read the full transcript. Begin the free, three-part Feminine Reset to reconnect with your own needs, energy, and choices.
Show Notes & Timestamps
Explore the ideas in this teaching:
- Why being capable of doing something doesn’t obligate you to agree.
- How to notice, name, and express a small no in Alanna’s practice.
- Where extra commitments and one-sided relationships consume your time.
- How protecting your rest and resources makes room for your own life.
Go deeper
Find a moment in the episode
- 00:00 — Why saying no feels scary
- 03:37 — From noticing the drain to setting a limit
- 04:07 — The vessel metaphor and receptivity
- 06:53 — An intrusive online exchange
- 09:43 — Creating boundaries through your no
- 10:44 — The fear of disappointing someone
- 11:51 — No and the urge to justify it
- 12:10 — Recognizing your yes and no
- 14:29 — Starting with small decisions
- 15:02 — Where someone benefits at your expense
- 15:31 — Practice: notice, name, and express your no
- 16:53 — Emotional labor and professional coaching
- 18:22 — Overextended commitments
- 18:42 — One-sided relationships
- 19:28 — Doing something just because you can
- 20:32 — Continuing the series
Original recording. References to earlier offers reflect its release date; use this page for current resources.
Full Transcript
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Saying no often feels scary. I get it. I see
women all of the time when they're ready to issue
0:00:08.880,0:00:14.560
their no, they start to collapse in on themselves
because they've been taught that as a good girl,
0:00:14.560,0:00:21.280
you always say yes. Well, I'm going to help you
take your power back around this concept in this
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podcast. This is part two of my little minieries,
the power back protocol. So, let's get you your
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feminine power back and let's begin right now.
Welcome to the Satisfied Woman podcast. I'm your
0:00:36.080,0:00:42.720
host, Alanna Kaivalya. This podcast is dedicated to helping women lean into their femininity and
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rediscover the power of their feminine gifts.
We take a look at what it means to be a modern
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woman and how we can live a satisfied life on our
own terms. Visit the hub atthesatisfiedwoman.com.
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Now, if you haven't gone to check out that
website yet, please make sure you do. I've
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got lots of stuff right there for you. You can
grab the free feminine reset sessions. You can
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join my monthly membership rooted or you can
even book a quick 15-minute clarity call with me
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where we can have a chat and figure out exactly
where you are disempowering yourself or being
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disempowered in your own life. Because ladies,
here's something I know. It's got to stop. It's
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got to stop. We have lived in this idea for far
too long that women are the weaker sex. You know,
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I used to hear that a lot when I was a kid.
Maybe that concept is dwindling out a little
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bit. But I think there's definitely residual ideas
there. Or that in order to be strong and powerful,
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we have to be just like men. We have to be strong
on their terms. We have to be successful on their
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terms. We have to live life on their terms.
Uh-uh. The feminine has its own terms. And
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guess what? Those terms are just as powerful, just
as sacred, and just as important as anything else
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the masculine wants to do. We're just going to
do it in our own way. So, it's time to rewrite
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the story, to change the narrative, or really to
reclaim it in terms that make sense to us and that
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honor who we are as feminine women. This is one
of the big reasons why I wrote the book, guys,
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The Way of the Satisfied Woman. If you haven't
picked up your copy yet, make sure you do. It's
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everywhere books are sold. And um I had a really
lovely experience recently. A client of mine
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living I think in Washington sent me a photo of my
book in the front window of her local bookstore.
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Boy, that was a moment. You know, sometimes you
put this work out into the world and you just
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don't know exactly when and where and how it's
going to land. So, this is why I created the
0:03:03.520,0:03:08.000
movement around it because I don't want this work
to exist in a vacuum. I actually want to hear from
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you. So, this is my little tiny aside right here
on this podcast. A little secret plea that hey,
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if you're listening, if you've been listening,
if you've been watching, reach out. We're here
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to create community. We're here to be
partnered in this massive collaboration,
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this movement of creating greater satisfaction
for women. So, reach out to me through the
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website. I've given you some steps to do it.
And let me know how things are landing for you.
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Look, this little minieries is all about power.
And again, I don't want you powerful on a man's
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terms. It doesn't mean you're going to the gym
three days a week to lift heavy objects. If you
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love that, go do that. I love that for you. But
your power exists on different terms. And one of
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the things that we spoke about in the last podcast
was where we leak energy. Where are we releasing
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it? And we don't have to. So last week we located
the leak and this week we're going to close it.
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We're going to seal it up. So the feminine is
receptive. Okay. There are some core attributes
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to femininity. Our intuition, our emotional depth,
our creativity, the fact that life force energy is
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ours, the fact that we are embodied, that pleasure
runs through our bodies. But this receptivity
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really holds all of that. So imagine that you
are a vessel. You are a container. And you know,
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I have a beautiful vase that I bought many
years ago, and it's a gorgeous container. I
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It's enormous. I don't even know the size of the
bouquet that I have to put in there to fill it up.
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So, it stays empty most times. But when I think
of myself as a vessel, I think of myself in that
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shape and in those terms because it's intricate.
It's interesting. It's not regular. It's got some
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little pock marks and divots. It goes from blue to
kind of purplish to pink. This is you. Your vase
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might not look the same, but I want you to imagine
yourself that way. And on a very practical level,
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as a feminine woman in a female body, you are a
vessel. And whether that means your [ __ ] as the
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portal to your pleasure, whether that means your
actual womb and its ability to carry children,
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you are a vessel. And that biology, that
actual physical human body, that structurally
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is reflected in your psychology. Your DNA knows
this about you. So to try to do the other thing,
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to try to force yourself into being the opposite,
ladies, of being a receiver is to be a penetrator,
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right? And we all know the masculine body, the
male body has a penis that penetrates. And this
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is just I don't mean to be crass, but it's just
brass tax. And this isn't about sexuality or
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orientation. I'm literally just talking about the
human form. Okay? But again, that physical form is
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also reflected in the psychology. The ability
to walk around with something sticking out of
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you is a very different human experience than to
be walking around with this receivership ability.
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Right. Again, this goes beyond gender,
orientation, all of that. It really does. Um, and
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it's 2025. Every version of all of these things
is awesomely okay. I just speak most clearly to
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the feminine woman because that's who I am. That's
my experience. Um, so that being said, your vessel
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needs to be secure because again, while you got
that physical representation of it and of course
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that needs to be safe, too. No penetration without
consent that also reflects in our interactions, in
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our psychology, in our communication. You know, I
had an interesting exchange the other day where I
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um I was selling something on Facebook Marketplace
as as one does these days in the future where
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we're living. And so I connected with someone
who was messaging me and I was selling an item
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and yet this person as an unbounded masculine
person started asking me who I was, inquiring
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about my work, asking for a picture of me. What
do I do? Oh, that sounds interesting. Oh, you
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and started flirting with me. And I thought, wow,
that's intrusive. That's a that's a penetration.
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That's breaching a wall that I have no interest
in tearing down right now. I'm just here to sell
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the thing on the Facebook marketplace. But for
a long time, and maybe this resonates with you,
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women have been taught to be accommodating, to let
that in even when it doesn't feel good, even when
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we don't want to. because that's what would keep
us safe. So there's um I'm sure you've all heard
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the the terms fight orflight response. Our nervous
system goes into a fight orflight response when
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we're scared or under attack or something is you
know you know walls being breached. Um but there
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are more responses than just that. There's also
freeze and there's also fawn. And many women fall
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into fawning when they get into a nervous system
dysregulated state. Fawning comes from the term
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of that little baby fawn having to stay soft and
cute and accommodating in order to be protected
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because that little fawn doesn't have a lot of
protections on its own. Now, I'm not diminishing
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our own strength and power, ladies. We're bad
asses. There's no overlooking that. But again,
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if you think about historically, evolutionarily,
even right now, I don't know a single woman,
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even the most powerful, badass, sovereign woman
who if she was just given a safe place of respit,
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wouldn't absolutely relax and release into that.
Right? So when that's coming from an unsafe place,
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but it's the best we can get, we end up
fawning. We end up people pleasing. We end
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up being penetrated psychologically, emotionally,
relationally, even physically when we don't want
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to be. And that's not the exchange. It's not the
exchange. Vessels are not meant to have cracks
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or holes in them. vessels are meant to be whole
with that one opening that receives the beauty
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that it's meant to hold. Okay? So, I hope that all
makes sense because what we want to do is create
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that vessel. And we do it through our sacred
no. And I talk about this quite a lot because
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it seems to be the thing that is so skipped
over and missing for us. Your no isn't mean,
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it's medicinal. And if you've been overgiving,
saying yes to things that deplete you,
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or if you're afraid of being too much by asking
for what you need, then please listen. Because a
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sacred no is a reclamation. It's not a no
that burns bridges. It's a no that builds
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boundaries. It's a no that creates that vessel of
receptivity. So when we're taught to be agreeable,
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likable, compliant, we turn into that nervous
system disregulated state where we feel almost
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traumatized by an experience. It closes us off.
We build resentment. We go into that fawning
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element where we'll compromise ourselves and stay
small just to maintain the illusion of protection.
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We also really internalize it when we issue
a no. and potentially disappoint someone
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else. We've been told that we're selfish,
that we're cold. But really, what no is,
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we weren't taught no. We were taught to
disappear. Now, if you're watching me on YouTube,
0:11:08.320,0:11:12.640
you're going to see the intensity of my gaze.
And if you're listening to me, I hope you hear
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it. Women have been disappearing too long. It is
time for us to show the [ __ ] up in the world.
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And I know the world wasn't built for that. And
I know the world in many ways still wants to
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keep us down. But every every way in which we can
inch our way toward that. Let's do it because you
0:11:34.240,0:11:38.880
will be happier. You will feel more pleasure.
You will be more sovereign. And you will show
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the women around you that it's possible. So your
sacred no isn't like a tantrum. It's not reactive.
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It honors your body's wisdom and your truth. And
most importantly, it's rooted in your intuition.
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And I know that you all feel it. Okay? You don't
need to justify your no. I talk about this a lot
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with my my um one-on-one coaching clients. No
is a complete sentence. We work on that a lot.
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But your no comes from inside you. It comes from
your intuition. Now, I do I've done this a couple
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of times on different podcasts and different
outlets. Um, podcast number 25 has this really,
0:12:15.120,0:12:22.480
really well done, but I'll run through it quickly
here. Your sacred no is a feeling. It's not
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rational. It's not logical. It doesn't have to
be. It was never meant to be. You're a feminine
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woman. Once you get your no, then you can use
logic and reason to work that out and follow it
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through. Not to talk yourself out of it or second
guess. Your no comes from the most sacred feminine
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part of you. So you'll feel your no if something
comes up. Hey, do you want to go to dinner? Hey,
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shall we go to bed now? Hey, what do you think
about this idea or moving here or doing that? If
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you can maintain that internal awareness of your
femininity, you will feel the answer before you
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know the answer. And your nose is often going to
feel like a tightness or a tension. It's going to
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feel like I have one client actually, she feels it
almost like as a constriction around the throat,
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like she can't breathe. There's no more life force
energy coming her way. That is a clear no. And
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if you don't issue the no, you will suffer. For
every time a woman has overridden her intuition,
0:13:29.840,0:13:38.560
she has suffered. Okay? Now, your intuition
also has a yes. It's just that the feminine,
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interestingly enough, this the the phrase of the
feminine is no. The phrase of the masculine is
0:13:43.920,0:13:53.200
yes. The question of the feminine is when.
The question of the masculine is how. So,
0:13:53.200,0:13:58.640
you can see how those things work in balance and
opposition to one another. So our no really gives
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us this boundaried sovereign place to move from in
order to receive all the nourishment that we need.
0:14:07.600,0:14:12.560
So when you feel that no, you issue it and then
it's done. And the yes is going to be exactly
0:14:12.560,0:14:18.320
opposite. There'll be a lightness. There'll be an
expansion. And there may because we're so trained
0:14:18.320,0:14:24.960
out of issuing our yes, be some fear. You know
that you're going to be rejected through your yes.
0:14:24.960,0:14:29.440
So, if you've had too much practice in the
opposite ways, saying yes when you mean no,
0:14:29.440,0:14:36.160
saying no when you mean yes, you may have to
do some nervous system regulation around it.
0:14:36.160,0:14:41.280
Feel safe in those yeses and nos. Do small
ones that you're not going to be rejected
0:14:41.280,0:14:48.880
by. Little ones that you can honor yourself
in order to practice your intuition really
0:14:48.880,0:14:55.680
being able to come to the party for you.
because that's like putting a fence around
0:14:55.680,0:15:02.640
your sacred garden or pruning a tree so
that it can flourish. So ask yourself,
0:15:02.640,0:15:10.560
where in your life right now is something else
thriving at your expense? That's where your
0:15:10.560,0:15:16.320
no belongs. Is someone else getting more sleep
because you're getting up early? Is someone else
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taking your resources and you're giving them away?
There's no prizes at the end of this life, guys.
0:15:22.800,0:15:31.680
You know, nobody's giving out like gold stars
for more suffering. It doesn't work that way.
0:15:31.680,0:15:41.120
Your no is complete. So, my challenge to you,
my homework to you in this particular podcast
0:15:41.120,0:15:48.320
is to root into your no nervous system around
a no. And again, you can start small. Feel a
0:15:48.320,0:15:58.640
feel a no in your body. Name what it feels like.
and then simply say it. You can simply say no.
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And when they say, "Well, but why?" You know, I'm
not available for that. It doesn't feel aligned.
0:16:06.640,0:16:14.080
Because saying no to them is going to be saying
yes to you. And that's going to show them your
0:16:14.080,0:16:23.680
value. When you self-abandon, when you say yes and
mean no, it's going to devalue you in their eyes.
0:16:23.680,0:16:29.920
You say, "I'm not worth the extra sleep. I'm not
worth holding on to my resources. I can give my
0:16:29.920,0:16:36.480
resources away for free, for cheap." You teach
people how to treat you in many circumstances.
0:16:37.520,0:16:44.400
So to create those boundaries is to call in the
kind of people who see your power and allow you
0:16:44.400,0:16:53.600
to thrive. So here are some fun things that I
would love for you to attempt to say no to over
0:16:53.600,0:17:01.360
the next week or really throughout the rest of
your lifetime. Uh for sure ladies, we have to stop
0:17:01.360,0:17:11.840
saying yes. We got to say our good no to unpaid
emotional labor. [Laughter] I almost feel like any
0:17:11.840,0:17:19.040
of us who go on a bad date where we're, you know,
being asked to be their therapist the entire time,
0:17:19.040,0:17:26.480
we end the date by sending them a bill for
for our time. Anytime we show up at, you know,
0:17:26.480,0:17:31.200
the colleagueu's house or the friend's house who
doesn't know that reciprocity is appropriate in
0:17:31.200,0:17:37.360
these situations and they just ask for all of our
information, we issue a bill. Look, this is why
0:17:37.360,0:17:43.840
I have a coaching certification program because
women often get caught in the trap that they just
0:17:43.840,0:17:47.920
have to offer emotional labor to everyone else.
They have to soo everyone else. They have to solve
0:17:47.920,0:17:54.320
everyone else's problems. We are the ones that
people come to for answers. But that is a lot of
0:17:54.320,0:18:00.080
work. You know, it is it's incredibly draining.
So, if you have a certification like coaching,
0:18:00.080,0:18:04.160
which actually coaching is an amazing career
choice for women because we can do it in our
0:18:04.160,0:18:09.680
own time, with our own boundaries, on our own
schedule. We can scale it up when we need to.
0:18:09.680,0:18:16.160
It exists in our feminine rhythm, but then we get
paid for the emotional labor that we usually do
0:18:16.160,0:18:22.640
for free. So, no more unpaid emotional labor.
Go get your coaching certification. And you can
0:18:22.640,0:18:29.920
find it at the satisfiedwoman.com. No more
overextended commitments. Just because you
0:18:29.920,0:18:35.600
said yes to that thing a while back doesn't mean
you can't say no now. If it stops feeling good,
0:18:35.600,0:18:41.440
if you stop having the ability to freely pour
your energy into it, then you just say no.
0:18:42.240,0:18:49.920
We're also, I hope, can all agree to say no to
half-hearted relationships, to relationships that
0:18:49.920,0:18:57.760
don't show up for you in the caliber that you
show up for them. Now, that's a really common
0:18:57.760,0:19:04.960
one. You know, we we have this ingrained thing to
see the best in people, to give them the benefit
0:19:04.960,0:19:15.200
of the doubt, to paint red flags green. But let's
no longer do that. Let's say no to half-hearted
0:19:15.200,0:19:21.520
relationships. We want someone who matches our
energy. Someone who's giving us as much energy
0:19:21.520,0:19:28.720
as we give them. If you don't feel that energy
match, it's not good alignment. All right. Last
0:19:28.720,0:19:36.320
thing to say no to doing things just because
you can. Sure, you can pick up the socks. You
0:19:36.320,0:19:44.400
can continue to do your adult child's laundry. You
can drive all the friends kids to soccer practice
0:19:44.400,0:19:50.400
four times a week. You can. But if there is that
hitch in your heart around, h but I just want to
0:19:50.400,0:19:57.200
rest or I just like some me time or it's taking
me away from my creative project, then let's start
0:19:57.200,0:20:04.560
practicing a no. A good clear no. Because when
you say no in situations like that, you empower
0:20:04.560,0:20:10.640
them to figure it out. And that's actually more
empowering for them. It's empowering all around.
0:20:10.640,0:20:15.440
It's disempowering when we just do everything for
everybody else. Let them figure it out themselves
0:20:15.440,0:20:22.960
and let them rise to the challenge. Let them rise
to the challenge. The woman who can truly say no
0:20:22.960,0:20:30.320
is the most sovereign woman. She's the woman
who can really be free inside of her own life.
0:20:32.240,0:20:38.560
So in our next episode of this minieries, we'll
talk about this false idea that all your power
0:20:38.560,0:20:43.920
comes from doing it all because it doesn't.
It comes from doing what's right for you and
0:20:43.920,0:20:48.800
you're probably doing way more than just that.
So if you want to continue this conversation,
0:20:48.800,0:20:53.520
come join me in the rooted membership. You know
where to find it. It's at the satisfiedwoman.com.
0:20:53.520,0:20:58.640
That's where we give you we me I give you a
daily rhythm of femininity with some daily
0:20:58.640,0:21:03.200
prompts to keep you in the flow. I give you
content drops you can't find anywhere else.
0:21:03.200,0:21:08.480
I go live do hot seat coaching, offer Q&A, all
of that. And if you want to start getting paid
0:21:08.480,0:21:12.640
for the emotional labor that you're likely
doing anyway, come be a certified coach with
0:21:12.640,0:21:17.120
me. And you'll find that on my website under
the work with me tab in the navigation and you
0:21:17.120,0:21:22.480
can apply for the coaching certification uh when
the next round opens. All right, everybody. Thank
0:21:22.480,0:21:28.960
you so much for listening and until next
time, stay satisfied and stay sovereign.
Listen to Episode 40
Set Boundaries Without Guilt or Burnout
The Satisfied Woman · Episode 40
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