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“You cannot be bending backward trying to be chosen.”
In this episode, I’m talking about the honey badger phase and how we can honor our needs with grace and kindness because it’s essential to start putting ourselves first when we’ve been people-pleasing all our lives. When we’re learning to reclaim our worth and care for our wants and needs, we can feel like terrible people because we’re so used to bending over backward and contorting ourselves for others. Worse yet, those around us who’ve been benefiting from this self-compromise will push back against us, making us feel wrong for learning to draw healthy boundaries and take back our time and energy. Sometimes though, like I experienced after loss, trauma, and abuse nearly killed me, we have no choice but to learn to put ourselves first so that our body stops rebelling because we’ve abandoned ourselves for too long. In today’s conversation, I’m sharing how we can channel the honey badger’s “don’t give a sh*t” attitude while still caring and considering others.
Watch the NSFW Honey Badger video (original narration by Randall).
Grab a copy of my memoir, Unravel:Rising up and Coming Back From a Season of Living That Damn Near Killed Me.
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What to listen for:
- What’s the honey badger phase?
- How PTSD led me into this “don’t give a sh*t” phase
- Learning to put myself first while still caring about others
- My body could no longer tolerate swallowing my truth
- Constantly contorting myself into what others wanted or needed
“It was such a drastic change for me. It was this flip to the other end of the spectrum of, ‘I come first.’ And again, it wasn’t as simple as I’m just gonna do whatever I want. I’m gonna try out this end of the spectrum; screw everybody else. It was that I would physically have a response to it that put my life and my health at risk. And I had to learn to navigate that.”
- Learning to let other people down
- Feeling like a jerk for not meeting others’ needs
- Sometimes this work is thrust on us
- Your body will demand you listen at some point
- What I tell my clients about the honey badger phase
“This is especially important when it comes to making the impossible happen. You cannot be contorting yourself to what everyone else wants and needs of you. You cannot be bending backward trying to be chosen, special, irreplaceable, and significant to others. If you’re doing that, you’re in your subconscious winning strategy, and at some point, you will burn out from it.”
- Identifying your subconscious winning strategy
- You can’t make the impossible happen if you’re contorting yourself
- This isn’t permission to be inconsiderate or harmful
- Learning to expand your window of tolerance
- Losing people we love when we put ourselves first
“You might find that people around you who you’ve been contorting and conforming to are actually happy to give you the space to be who you are. And you will find some people that are resistant to you changing. They don’t want you to change. They want you to be who you’ve been because that serves them in some way. You have to trust yourself enough to navigate through that, that you matter, and your wants and needs matter. You are here, and you matter too.”
- New people who really resonate will come into your life
- Your winning strategy isn’t sustainable long-term
- Learning to honor yourself more fully
- Support for breaking free and putting yourself first