Shownotes
This episode is a call-in, not a call-out. If you’ve ever over-explained yourself into oblivion, smiled through something that made your stomach turn, or stayed quiet when every part of you wanted to speak up, this note is for you. We’re talking about self-abandonment: what it looks like, why we do it, and what it’s actually costing us.
Through the story of a client named Bianca, a driven, brilliant woman who slowly went quiet in her relationship and her career, Yaya breaks down the sneaky ways we leave ourselves behind when things get uncomfortable. And she gives you the most important reframe of this episode: discomfort is not danger.
Inside this episode:
• Why self-abandonment doesn’t look like weakness,it looks like being a good person
• The Bianca story: how one woman slowly silenced herself in her relationship and at work
• The four ways you’re abandoning yourself right now without realizing it
• Why we do it and why it actually made sense at some point
• The truth about discomfort vs. danger and why your nervous system gets them confused
• What it actually looks like to stay present with yourself when things get hard
• A reflective moment: what is staying silent really costing you?
This episode is one to sit with. Journal after you listen. Ask yourself the hard question Yaya asks at the end and be honest with your answer. Share it with a woman in your life who has been going quiet for too long.
Looking for additional resources? Start with the Confidence Kit, your go-to for breaking the spiral, rebuilding self-trust, and moving forward with clarity. 🔗 Link
If you're ready to stop figuring this out alone? Apply to work with me here.
If this episode spoke to you and you want to connect with me directly, you can reach out to me on Instagram @coachingwithyaya.
Follow the podcast account and share it with a friend or tag us on Instagram @notestoher.daily.
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Transcripts
Foreign.
Speaker A:Hey, girl.
Speaker A:Hey.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Notes to Her, the daily Pap Talk.
Speaker A:I'm Yaya, your confidence and mindset coach, here to remind you that the most important relationship you will ever have is the one that you have with yourself.
Speaker A:And this note, this one is a call in, not a call out.
Speaker A:Because there's a pattern that I see in so many ambitious, capable, talented women.
Speaker A:And it doesn't look like weakness.
Speaker A:It doesn't look like failure.
Speaker A:It actually looks like being a good person.
Speaker A:Now, being a good person definitely is not a bad thing, but when it's costing you everything, it's time that we talk about it.
Speaker A:Now, I want to tell you about a former client of mine.
Speaker A:We're going to call her Bianca.
Speaker A:Bianca was the kind of woman who had it together on paper.
Speaker A:Smart, driven, the only woman in her entire department, which, let's be honest, that already comes with its own kind of invisible weight.
Speaker A:She had been in a relationship for three years, one that had started with so much hope, so much potential.
Speaker A:She imagined what it could be, what she thought they were going to be.
Speaker A:And she held onto that image for a long time, while somewhere along the way, the relationship stopped going the way that she had hoped.
Speaker A:And instead of speaking up, Bianca went quiet.
Speaker A:Not overnight, slowly, the way you turn a volume knob down gradually, until one day you realize you can barely hear yourself at all.
Speaker A:She stopped sharing how she really felt.
Speaker A:She stopped asking for what she needed.
Speaker A:She convinced herself that keeping peace was better than disrupting it.
Speaker A:That maybe if she was patient enough, understanding enough, accommodating enough, things would shift.
Speaker A:And at work, same story, different stage.
Speaker A:Bianca was brilliant, but she was the only woman in the room.
Speaker A:And that made her really feel like she was always being evaluated, always being watched, always one wrong move away from being dismissed.
Speaker A:So she over explained everything.
Speaker A:Every idea, every recommendation, every decision.
Speaker A:She would wrap in so many qualifiers and justifications that by the time she finished, she had already undermined the very point that she was trying to make.
Speaker A:She would people please her way through meetings, agree to things that didn't sit right, smile when she wanted to push back and volunteer for tasks when she didn't have the capacity for them because she didn't want to seem difficult.
Speaker A:And when the tension rose, she silenced herself before anyone else could silence her.
Speaker A:Bianca thought she was being professional, thoughtful, easy to work with.
Speaker A:But what she was actually doing in her relationship, in her career, in her daily life, was abandoning herself one uncomfortable moment at a time.
Speaker A:Now, I need you to hear this because I know that Bianca's story might sound familiar.
Speaker A:Maybe not in every detail, but in the feeling.
Speaker A:The feeling of swallowing something you should have said.
Speaker A:The feeling of agreeing when every part of you wants to push back.
Speaker A:The feeling of making yourself smaller.
Speaker A:Said that the room would feel more comfortable for everyone except you.
Speaker A:Self abandonment doesn't always look dramatic.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's over explaining when you don't owe anyone a dissertation.
Speaker A:Sometimes it looks like people pleasing not because you don't generally want to help, but because you're terrified of what happens if you don't.
Speaker A:Sometimes it looks like silencing yourself mid thought because you've talked yourself out of your own opinion before anyone else has a chance to.
Speaker A:And sometimes it looks like delaying a decision.
Speaker A:A hard conversation, a boundary, a truth.
Speaker A:Because the idea of discomfort feels like more than you can handle right now.
Speaker A:Now every single one of these moments is a moment when you choose the relationship, the room, the comfort of others over yourself.
Speaker A:And if you do that enough times, you stop being able to find yourself at all.
Speaker A:Now I don't want you to walk away from this episode feeling ashamed of yourself.
Speaker A:That is not my goal here at all.
Speaker A:But here's the truth.
Speaker A:Self abandonment does not come from weakness.
Speaker A:It it comes from a very reasonable belief that was formed from an unreasonable moment.
Speaker A:At some point in your life, maybe early, maybe recently, someone told you that your feelings were too much, or that speaking out made things worse, or that making others comfortable kept you safe.
Speaker A:You learned to disappear a little, to survive a little.
Speaker A:And that made sense then.
Speaker A:But you're not in that moment anymore.
Speaker A:And the patterns that kept you safe once are now the patterns that are keeping you stuck.
Speaker A:Bianca didn't go quiet in her relationship because she was spineless.
Speaker A:She went quiet because three years of unmet hope had taught her that speaking up led to conflict.
Speaker A:And conflict felt like the end of something that she was not ready to let go.
Speaker A:She didn't know where to explain at work because she lacked confidence in her ideas.
Speaker A:She over explained because being the only woman in the room had conditioned her to feel like she always had to justify her seat at the table.
Speaker A:That pattern makes sense, but the pattern has to change.
Speaker A:Now here's the thing that I need to plant in you today because this might be the most important shift of this entire conversation.
Speaker A:Discomfort is not danger.
Speaker A:I'm going to say it again.
Speaker A:Discomfort is not danger.
Speaker A:Your body doesn't always know the difference.
Speaker A:When you're about to have a hard conversation, your heart races, your palms sweat.
Speaker A:You feel that pull in your chest to back down to soften, to find a way out.
Speaker A:And your nervous system files that under threat.
Speaker A:But speaking your truth is not a threat.
Speaker A:Setting standards is not a threat.
Speaker A:Holding your ground and meanings is not a threat.
Speaker A:Staying silent is the actual danger.
Speaker A:Because every time you abandon yourself in a moment of discomfort, you send yourself a message.
Speaker A:You tell yourself my feelings don't matter enough to protect.
Speaker A:You tell yourself keeping the peace is worth more than my peace.
Speaker A:You tell yourself I am negotiable and you are not negotiable.
Speaker A:You never were.
Speaker A:So what does it look like to stop abandoning yourself?
Speaker A:It doesn't mean starting fights.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean blowing up in relationships or becoming someone who is impossible to be around.
Speaker A:It means staying.
Speaker A:Staying in the discomfort long enough to say the thing that you have been swallowing.
Speaker A:Staying in the meeting long enough to offer the idea without burying it in an apology.
Speaker A:Staying in a hard conversation long enough to stop performing calm when you actually need to be honest.
Speaker A:Bianca eventually got there.
Speaker A:Not all at once, because she started small.
Speaker A:She made one decision she had been delaying for months.
Speaker A:She said the thing in the meeting that she had been editing out every previous time she had the honest conversation in her relationship, the one that she had been circling over for a year.
Speaker A:Some of those moments ended things.
Speaker A:Some of them changed things.
Speaker A:But all of them, every single one, gave her something that she hadn't felt in a long time.
Speaker A:She gave herself back to herself.
Speaker A:And that's what staying does.
Speaker A:It's not about being fearless.
Speaker A:It's about deciding that you are worth the discomfort of being fully known.
Speaker A:Now I want to ask you something and give you something to think about for the rest of the day.
Speaker A:Where have you been going quiet, not because you don't have anything to say, but because you've decided the room wasn't safe enough, or the relationship wasn't ready, or the timing wasn't right?
Speaker A:Where have you been over explaining when a simple, confident answer could have just done fine?
Speaker A:Where have you been?
Speaker A:People pleasing your way through situations that were quietly eroding your self respect.
Speaker A:And here's a deeper question.
Speaker A:What is it costing you?
Speaker A:Not them, not the relationship, not the team.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:What is staying silent costing each other?
Speaker A:You?
Speaker A:Because every time you abandon yourself, the distance between you and your confidence grows a little wider.
Speaker A:Growth requires staying.
Speaker A:Not staying in situations that harm you, but staying present with yourself.
Speaker A:Staying true to yourself.
Speaker A:Staying in the discomfort long enough to come through it as the woman that you are becoming today.
Speaker A:I want to remember that you are not a supporting character in your own life.
Speaker A:You do not exist to make every rule more comfortable while you quietly disappear from it.
Speaker A:The tension you feel when you are about to speak your truth, that's not a stop sign.
Speaker A:That's just the feeling of growth and you are capable of moving through it.
Speaker A:Stop explaining, stop delaying, stop silencing the version of you who has something real to say.
Speaker A:She deserves to be heard, expressed, especially by you, if you are ready to stop abandoning yourself and start doing the real work of becoming her.
Speaker A:Becoming unapologetically is where we do that privately.
Speaker A:Four weeks Real shift.
Speaker A:A container built for the woman who was done playing it small and ready to actually change.
Speaker A:Details are in the show Notes with Love Yaya.
Speaker A:Sa.
