Alanna Kaivalya, Ph.D. 0:00
Have you ever felt guilty, not for something you did, but perhaps something that you didn't do, or something that you opted out of, or something that you drew a boundary around? In this episode, we will unpack feminine guilt because it is different than any other kind of guilt, and I want to talk about why, especially for the women out there who are already burnt out over giving overdoing in their lives and are ready to downshift into a life of greater satisfaction. Welcome to the satisfied woman podcast. I'm your host. Alanna Kaivalya, Ph D is dedicated to helping women lean into their femininity and rediscover the power of their feminine gifts. We take a look at what it means to be a modern woman and how we can live a satisfied life on our own terms. Visit the hub at the satisfied woman.com I have a lot of support there this month for you on my website, so make sure you go and check it out. First of all, I have a free reset session that's a three part series to get you to downshift your nervous system so that you can actually receive some satisfaction in your life. Plus, I'm offering a free month in my rooted membership, which helps you to establish a daily flow and re establish a level of sovereignty and satisfaction in your life. And all of this is building up this month of October to a live, guided experience, and I'll be working with a select group of women in order to take them through my feminine power online, course that is derived right from my book, and the book itself has been out for a year. November is the one year anniversary of my book, The Way of the satisfied woman, which I can't believe it's almost one year old already. That is crazy. This has been a whirlwind of a year, establishing this community and really working hand in hand with women to help them reclaim their sense of femininity and what that means for them in this day and age, because we're lucky that we have the opportunity to actually consider this right now and To make changes that are not just for our benefit, but for the benefit of all of those in our lives. Because we as women tend to be caregivers. We want to make sure that the ones around us all have their needs met, that their feelings are taken care of. But the problem is we often give ourselves away in order to make that happen, we displace our own needs in order to take care of others, and this is where the idea of feminine guilt comes in. I speak to women every day, every week, whether it be in my one on one coaching or my discovery calls who feel a sense of guilt when they don't continue to over, give or overdo. So let me define guilt for you real quick as it should be defined, guilt is actually a very healthy human emotion because it helps us to keep ourself in check. So if we arrive, if we commit a behavior that goes against our own value or our character, then we feel guilty about it, and that gives us the clue that, you know, maybe that particular behavior doesn't go with my moral compass. It wasn't in alignment with who I am. Like, for example, if I were to walk through a library see a book I've always wanted and just quietly put that book in my bag and pretend like I forgot about it, and walk out I've just stolen the book, maybe because I needed it, maybe because I wanted it. But as soon as I get to the car, if I think to myself, you know that that really isn't in alignment with who I am as an author, as a woman, as a human being on the planet, as one who values literary works, then you go and apologize, and it's that guilt that creates accountability, personal accountability, and that's great. Now I know I gave a small, silly example, and of course, I'm not going around stealing books, but what I want to really drive home here is that guilt that arises out of a behavior that isn't in alignment with our highest self is okay. It's a course corrective measure. But that's not usually how women feel guilt. I talk to women who feel guilt all day, every day, because they're not doing enough, because they're not working hard enough, they're not spending enough time with their kids, they're not coming home early enough, they're not making dinner every night of the week. They're not doing the things that somehow they themselves, their family and our society is expecting. Expecting them to do. That's feminine guilt, and it arises because we fear others disappointment. We're worried about not being accepted by them because we're not doing enough for them. We're concerned that we won't meet their expectations of who we are supposed to be, and that is misplaced now in my last podcast, well, we'll call it a half of an episode, I went off the rails a little bit in September, I did a big move, and I was feeling guilty all month for not keeping up with my podcasts and my coaching clients as I normally would now that had nothing to do with my own behavior. I was moving my goodness. It was a major undertaking, and certainly no one around me who loves me and values me was giving me a hard time for not producing a podcast every week. Now, once again, this is a light example of what you might experience every day is feminine guilt. You've worked all day, you come home, you're exhausted, and you don't have the energy to play with your dog or your children, and so you feel guilty. Maybe you spend all day tending to your family, and now you feel guilty because you don't have the time or energy to invest in your partner or your spouse, and all of this is at a personal cost that guilt arises from this idea that we should continuously give of ourselves to our own detriment. Now let's talk a little bit about why this feminine guilt runs so deep. It's not even an appropriate guilt, right? I call it guilt because it feels like the same quality that we have when our behavior is out of alignment, but really what it is is the desire to try and manage emotional expectations or the emotions of others. And what's interesting is we actually can't We can't manage others' emotions. They are responsible for their own emotions, and our behavior may or may not produce a response in them, but ultimately it's actually not our responsibility, and that's in contrast to where this arises from. So cultural conditioning means that women have understood that we're really the emotional managers of our relationships. Now femininity is that to some extent, women become the emotional calibrators or the emotional regulators of their ecosystems, whether that be their families, their communities, their friend groups, women are so emotionally deep and connected that we tend to be the calibrator and the litmus test of how a community or a family organization is doing, and we feel any disruption in an emotional state first, and we want to try to bring that emotional state back into symbiosis, into balance. And that causes us to do a lot of what we call now emotional labor. We have to do a lot of emotional labor to try to get other people back into balance, but it's time to start recognizing where the labor isn't ours, and also holding others accountable for their own emotional self regulation. That means letting them spin spiral, collapse, be disappointed, have anticipation,
Alanna Kaivalya, Ph.D. 8:49
perhaps even you know, be you know, disappointed in us not meeting their expectations. That's okay. It's only when we allow for them to be responsible for their emotional well being? Do they actually have the opportunity to take responsibility for that? Now, mothers of children under about the age of 10, those kids are going to need help with emotional regulation, and that's part of our job as parents, is raising emotionally healthy young people, but once they hit around age 10 or 11, psychologically, that development means we need to actually give them some of the reins back so that they can manage their own emotional range and find their own healthy coping mechanisms of dealing with disappointment or handling their own business, we're actually picking up the slack in a family system. We don't give them that practice well, then they grow up to be adults who continue to rely on the female in the room for that emotional calibration. And we suffer for that. We suffer. Her from this feminine guilt as a result of that, because we're carrying the weight of everyone else's emotional load. Now, the other piece that I really feel like needs to be named here is there's a real evolutionary, even biological imperative that's at play. We have this very complicated modern life where you and I get to talk about things like emotional labor and managing others disappointment and resilience and recalibration, but there wasn't that language in a land far, far away, at a time long, long ago, when we still very much lived in tribal cultures and we were still evolving as humans. Now, in these cultures, there's a lot of reasons why, you know, we feel the things we do today, and it's actually not due to the circumstances of today. Our evolutionary biology has not had a chance to catch up. We are still operating in bodies that were evolutionarily modulated, calibrated to circumstances that existed 100,000 years ago, okay, and those circumstances of 100,000 years ago required us, as women to belong to a group as women in female bodies. Look women are strong. Don't take this the wrong way. Hear it for what it's worth. We needed to belong in order to survive. Our bodies are just weaker than male bodies. Yes, women can be strong, but muscle mass, muscle fibers, if you just look at the science, we are weaker. We do have a greater vulnerability in tribal societies like this, it's more difficult for us to live on our own, to sustain ourselves. We fare better when we're in a group, and so that belonging equated to survival. If a woman has a baby, especially, she's even more vulnerable now again, think of the evolutionary biology our circumstances 100,000 years ago and how that is playing out right now in our modern day. And yes, we've overcome a lot of that. And yes, we can be strong. And yes, we don't have to go out and hunt our own food. We can go down the street to the grocery store, and all women today are capable of doing that for the most part. Okay, so there isn't that survival necessary, necess necessity right now, but it's still encoded. It's still built in. And survival these days is really dependent on our social standing, our mental health, our well being. We can't, quote, unquote, survive social collapse, disconnection, not belonging to a social group that is a kind of emotional death and that is detrimental. And we're recognizing those effects these days more and more, and that's become how our emotional system is calibrated and recognizes danger. Okay, so there still is That danger, there still is that desire to belong, and when we don't belong, when we're not accepted, when we're not included, that exclusion is incredibly detrimental for us, that isolation becomes anxiety, that exclusion becomes depression. And of course, we know statistically that women experience anxiety and depression in greater numbers and to a greater degree than our male counterparts. So what I want to do by giving you this very complex background is clue you into why you feel that sense of guilt when faced with disappointing others. This is why you keep pushing yourself to over, give to overdo this modern translation of this historical context means that we over give and that we abandon ourselves and our own means. We apologize for existing because we simply want to belong, and there's a huge hidden cost to this. We burn out. We're resentful of our family groups or our relationships, and we shrink to fit the mold of what we think others need or expect from us, and ultimately, this creates a vicious cycle. No one actually gets the real us we we. Make ourselves smaller so we don't take up enough space, and that is harmful, not just to our energetic self, not just to our emotional self, but that translates in to chronic stress, overdoing it and burning out, and that has real physical health consequences. No one's getting the true us. No one's seeing us for who we really are. And how can we create authentic relationships if we ourselves are not being authentic and authenticity as a feminine woman, in our femininity, in our fullness, taking up as much space as we possibly can, means creating strong boundaries. Now, if you've listened to the podcast for any length of time, you've heard me talk lots about boundaries. Your sacred no is one of the first places I start when I'm working with women finding that sacred, no establishing that boundary and releasing the idea that over giving is something that is required of you. It is not. It is not the phrase of the feminine is no their disappointment is not yours to care take their expectations of you are not yours to manage, and the more that you continue to overdo over give and give yourself away, the more you're actually giving those around you the impression that that's acceptable. So while I never want to place blame everyone is just living in this cultural conditioning. We've all been improperly trained. What I want you to do is rise into your feminine power and take responsibility for being exactly who you are, for saying no where it counts, and only giving what you're willing to offer freely. So in dealing with this feminine guilt, what I want to challenge you to do. And I did this in last week's podcast where I called myself out. It was like I called it a 43.5 podcast. It's a real podcast. I just wanted to reconnect with all of you. I challenged you to this last week too. And in case you missed it, I'm going to do it again this week, and I want to challenge you to seven straight days of no apologies, no apologies that feminine guilt causes us to apologize for ourselves, apologize for existing, apologize for our needs, apologize for not stretching ourselves thin, apologize for not being everywhere all at once. That's nothing to apologize for. Only apologize when your behavior is out of alignment with your moral compass or your character. Then you can apologize and you can feel guilt, but that guilt will get you back on track. And frankly, no one else needs to know. It's not for them, it's for you. But for the next seven days, I want you to do without it. Don't feel guilty for taking up space. See how much space you can occupy when others feel disappointed that you're not stretching yourself thin for them, let them manage their disappointment. See how that shifts the energy, because when you start to draw these boundaries, when you release the guilt, when you take up space
Alanna Kaivalya, Ph.D. 18:42
others have to behave differently around you. Now you're going to find out whether they rise up and support you, whether they have the resilience to manage their own emotions in response to you, managing yours clearly, or whether they buck and hem and HA and thrash around, in which case I always encourage heavy curation of our lives, including our relationships, in which case you may decide to fire them, to fire them from your life. Now I realize we can't fire everybody. There are some family members or people that we can't fire, but we can limit our interaction. We can create boundaries around what we share with them, what we offer, what we give, and we can create healthful boundaries around those who you know are unavailable for firing, but for the next seven days, reflect where in your life you are making a choice to prevent someone else's disappointment at the cost of your own satisfaction. Remember the name of my book is the way of the satisfied woman, and there are a. A multitude of ways that women feel satisfaction, but at the core of it is our ability to feel pleasure, and pleasure can only be felt in our feminine bodies, when we feel safe, when we feel rested, when we feel secure, when we trust the people around us in our environment and when we are cherished. So others don't cherish us when they're taking advantage of us. We can't trust others when they consistently ask too much of us and never listen to our needs. There is no safety and security in over giving and micromanaging. So let it go and look if, after this seven day practice, you feel really attached to that level of control and over giving and burnout. I mean, I guess you, if you want, you can pick it back up. But I think if you give yourself permission for seven days, to drop it, to witness others in action, in their responses, to let them be responsible for their own emotions and their own behavior. See how it recalibrates your own system as well as your ecosystem. I'm gonna guess that your satisfaction will be so precious as a result that you won't pick up the apologies, the smallness, the over giving, when other people are allowed to take responsibility for their resilience, for their own emotional responses, then they have the opportunity to grow. They have the opportunity to recalibrate themselves. And again, you know, we as women, look I don't I, you know it is what it is in many cases. And that was my grandmother saying. She used to say that all the time, it is what it is. We are the emotional calibrators, but we have to take ownership for what we can calibrate ladies. We can calibrate ourselves. We will respond to unhappiness in our environment, but we can't make others happy at the cost of ourselves, right? Interestingly enough, and I've said this before, studies show that the determinant of the happiness in a household is how happy the woman in the household is. So, you know, if I can sort of make a plea to the universe, I feel like it's everyone else's responsibility in that household to ensure that mom is happy, or that the woman is happy. You know, they need to rise up and realize that really fosters happiness in the whole place, rather than the other way around, that in response to our own unhappiness, we try to manage the happiness of others. You know, I know it's cliche, but I think about, when you get on an airplane, that safety lecture that they give you, and of course, the instruction is that you need to put your own mask on first. And what's interesting is they often show this in the catalog or in the manual, as a woman first placing on her own oxygen mask before tending to the child next to her. And that's a pretty glaring example, isn't it? They don't show a man. They don't show people of equal age, because I think our cultural and even perhaps our biological default is to try and caretake, especially our children or those we perceive as in need first. But we can't care take unless we're taking care of ourselves. Now, we will caretake when we are healthy. We will caretake when we are satisfied. We will caretake when we are boundaried, the whole world, your whole world, is going to benefit from this, I promise you. And if you don't believe me, try this for seven days. Reframe other people's feelings as their responsibility and replace a phrase like, I'm sorry with a simple, clear statement, and don't over explain instead of, I'm sorry I don't have the energy tonight. I've been working all day. It's been such a rough week. Replace it with, I don't have the energy tonight. Or my favorite, no, no, is a complete sentence, no explanation necessary. And I know that for you, a lot of your sense of what we might call regulation, but is really not, has been in over giving and burning yourself. Out now that is a state of dysregulation. I promise you, your nervous system will thank you for the recalibration. But because you've existed in dysregulation so long this next seven days, might initially produce some anxiety in you. What happens when you say no? What happens when you witness their disappointment? What happens if the laundry doesn't get done, if dinner doesn't get made, if the socks don't get picked up off the floor if they have to arrange for their own rides or whatever it is that you're dealing with. Your co workers have to step up. Your boss has to live without you during those overtime hours. You're gonna find out. You're gonna find out. And I promise you, seven days is not a long time you will survive. And I am D, support you. By the way, I'm not throwing out this assignment and leaving you to the wolves. Ie your colleagues, your co workers, your family, your communities. I'm here to support you because I believe in this work so much. I have seen it transform myself, the women I work with, the people I coach the people in my membership, so I'm giving you a free month inside my membership to support you in this practice. So come over to the satisfied woman.com and grab your free month inside rooted and let us know how this practice of no more apologizing is going for you, and when you feel fear and anxiety around it, or you witness someone's response, let us know. Let us know how to support you. Let us hold you accountable to your own effulgence. I don't want you playing small anymore, and you are doing a disservice to the world. When you do, it is time to step into your feminine power, because the entire world will benefit from it, and it will start with your most immediate world first. This isn't about being perfect. This isn't about being everyone for everyone, everything for everyone at all times. This is about being most fully yourself, about reclaiming your sovereignty and your power as a woman to call others in to their fullness as well. We set the example we show others what regulation and resilience is. It starts with us. Feminine guilt is about others' feelings, not ours, but your sovereignty is not up for negotiation. Your satisfaction is essential for you and for those around you, so come join us inside. Rooted this month, let us support you. Share your stories with us, because when you share your story with us, we are all empowered by it. We all get to learn through the experiences of us finding a way to not apologize for ourselves anymore. So that's the challenge. I'm excited to hear how it goes for you. Come check in with us over in the rooted membership, and I will see you on the inside. And until then, keep listening to the podcast. There's a lot of work and material here for you. I also have a free reset session over at my website, the satisfied woman.com it's right on the home page. These things are easy to find. I don't make you go hunting for them. And as always, if you want to chat, you can book a discovery call with me as well, and you and I can dig personally, one on one, into exactly what you're carrying and exactly what we can set you free from so that you can start to walk the way of the satisfied woman.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
