I’ve been beating around some version of this for the past year, if I’m being completely honest with myself. I write about people-pleasing all the time and your life making you sick, blah, blah, blah, but the truth is, I’ve honestly been afraid to say the full belief I have around what is making women all around the world sick.
I wrote these articles in the past, so if you’re new here, then read these after this to get a deeper understanding of what resources I use.
But I want to be more transparent about where I am on my journey in the hopes that it helps to guide you towards a life that genuinely feels fulfilling and like you are living a dream. I get questions often on my Live calls around how I made the shifts to leaving my job and relationship, and building this life that resembles my dream, and that is likely why this wanted to come through. The reality is, oftentimes, we are too afraid to say what we really mean and the work that truly goes into building the lives that we actually want.
I get this more than anyone. For context, as a doctor, I was a people pleaser. As a partner, I was a doormat. And as a family member/friend, I was someone who dropped everything to be there for the people I cared about, no matter how much it inconvenienced me. I found and was reflected back my worth via the actions and performance I created for those around me.
My worth was tied up in other people - what they thought of me, if they liked me, if they would do the same for me as I would for them, and on, and on, and on. I couldn’t distinguish where I began and where other people ended. Now, if you asked me why this was the case, I would probably point you to my childhood, as one does.
A childhood moving around from place to place, attending 5 schools by the age of 12, and feeling like a black sheep in life, but also in my family. I never felt like I naturally fit in. I ALWAYS felt different, no matter what I did. Because of this inner feeling like I did not belong anywhere, it made it substantially more difficult for me to accept myself.
Beyond that, I had a sticky relationship with my mom - which maybe I will write about the mother wound soon - but this relationship defined some of the difficulty I had with accepting myself for who I truly was. It felt like there was no space for me to be me within my family as I was balancing the emotions of everyone around me and trying my best to survive them.
Enter two years ago, when I developed my second autoimmune disorder in 1 year. Things needed to change. I read books like When the Body Says No by Gabor Mate and The Body Keeps the Score, and it finally clicked.
I was toooo nice.
Now, it’s entirely possible for my friends or family to read this and them to think that maybe there are elements to that that are untrue. Like they see a side of me that maybe embraces more of the “bitchy” nature that needs to come out, but the truth is - I have been tampering down my “inner bitch” since I was a child because I was afraid that people wouldn’t like me, or would judge me, or I would basically just be ostricized and exiled from life as I knew it.
I’ve always been an outspoken person and rarely back down against things that I deeply believe in, but somewhere along the lines this got blurred in my belief that if I was TOO mean or TOO polarizing, then I would end up alone. But here is a truth that I didn’t realize until I was picking up the pieces of yet another autoimmune disease: you are not rewarded for how nice you are. Life does not reward those with no backbone and no anger. It just doesn’t. Why would it?
In each moment that you choose to be nice, or not say the thing you mean, or brush yet another thing or emotion under the rug, you are communicating to the Universe, God, whatever you believe in, that YOU are not important - that your emotions and needs do not matter. This is where it gets a bit weird…
People, particularly women, who are communicating energetically that they do not matter are the ones who get sick!!!
This is literally at the root of most autoimmune conditions and conditions that are circumstantial and based on the environment. When you are too nice, too compliant, and too small, people and life take you for granted, and your body just reflects it.
So, personally, my life actually did not start to change for the better until I realized I WAS A PRIORITY. Until I realized that my emotions AND my needs matter. And until I understood that the only person who could and would meet those and hold them properly is MYSELF.
Enter the “bitch mentality”. I’ve honestly been called a bitch more times than I can remember. When I was younger, I had family members call me that, and in relationships with men who were actually little boys, I was called it again. I am pretty polarizing, so I also had friends and people who did not know me call me a bitch throughout my life, and each and every time, it impacted me.
It made me question myself and my worth, but in recent years, being a “bitch” is actually what has saved my life, healed me of my autoimmunity, and helped me build a life that I actually enjoy living. The truth is being a “bitch” gets a bad rap. It gets this immediate negative connotation: why would you want that for yourself? But, bitches rarely get taken advantage of; they rarely ignore their own feelings and emotions, and they rarely make themselves smaller to make other people more comfortable.
It is absolutely possible that being a bitch has been societally demonized as a way to keep women small and performative. To keep women accepting treatment and lives that are not meant for them, and to keep women quiet while we accept behavior and circumstances that are less than our worth. That’s right, the way I see it now is that society demonizes bitches because they actually get what they want. Bitches get their needs and desires met and are not afraid to ask for it, and in doing so, they do not develop autoimmune disorders as a result of repressed emotions.
So, being a bitch WILL save your life. Below I am going to give you all of the ways that I embrace this.
Now I am not saying that doing the things I listed below is easy… it absolutely is not, and if I didn’t have EMDR therapy and the other inner work I do, I honestly don’t think I would be where I am in my life. BUT, over the last couple of years, dealing with autoimmunity and chronic illness has taught me that in order to be healthy, I have to prioritize these things - whether it feels comfortable or not. The reality is that over time, I have learned not to question it and to allow the dislike that people respond with to be ok. I am not for everyone. But the people I am for, I am really for, and that is enough.
ASK FOR WHAT I WANT
I know, I know. It sounds simple, but it’s not. In a society that rewards people who just “go with the flow” and “don’t rock the boat”. Be the one to rock the boat. Interestingly enough, people will actually be grateful that you know what you want and you don’t just sit there being like “I don’t care, whatever you want”. You have to teach people how to love you and who you are, because we hold onto the emotions that make us feel like people don’t care about who we are, and internally, they actually cause more harm than good. So on the outside things seem simpler, but on the inside - your body is literally yelling for someone to acknowledge her.
SAY NO TO THINGS THAT DON’T ALIGN
Sometimes we get afraid to say no. I am with you; it is scary. What are people gonna think, or will this person understand? But the key is to say no WITHOUT explaining yourself. Tune into yourself and your truth and feel into whether or not this is something you REALLY want. If it isn’t, then practice saying no and give other people the opportunity to hold the discomfort that comes from someone exercising their innate right to not be complicit.
WALK AWAY FROM PEOPLE AND SITUATION
This one is hard for me as a Cancer Stellium. I love to nurture relationships for LONG amounts of time. I love to bring people with me through life, and it is really difficult for me to just cut people off. I literally have tried to be friends with each and every ex-boyfriend I have had. Obviously, that doesn’t always work out, and having to cut ex-boyfriends off was the first taste of needing to remove myself from situations. At a younger age, I actually cut my mother off once for a couple of months - which was seriously one of the hardest and most difficult things I ever had to do, but it also was so important for our relationship. Since then, I have decided that I am not the type of person who needs to formally cut things off. Instead, I just pull back. I pull back my time, my resources, and my energy from people and things that do not align.
At times, it can be difficult to determine what people don’t align with, but I like to do an energy audit and move from there. There have been times where I have stopped talking to people, only to get closer years later. Sometimes that happens, and instead of clinging and attaching to the outcome I want, I just let those ebbs and flows happen. I imagine people calling me a bitch for doing that, but genuinely if you are making my life more difficult in ways that do not feel reciprocal and energetically aligned, then yeah, not for me.
SET MALIABLE BOUNDARIES
This can be difficult, because when you first set boundaries, you think they need to be intense and dramatic. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: I have learned that the most powerful boundaries you can set are the ones that someone feels. Ie. You aren’t feeling the way someone behaved one day, you remove yourself or step back. You don’t appreciate how someone is treating you; again, you energetically stop engaging. IT IS POWERFUL. Because I have learned that when that is the case, it holds up a mirror to people’s behaviors that is really uncomfortable, and when you do that, people can’t help but respect you.
When I set energetic boundaries, I don’t get as much harsh pushback from people, and it tends to garner more acceptance. It’s the key. Also, knowing that boundaries are not meant to keep you separate from people, but are meant to keep you in your space and them in theirs.
I DON’T SHRINK
Have you ever known someone who has been called a bitch who is willing to make themselves small? Well yes, but the key is not to. To feel the feelings that come with it, then to embrace who you are EVEN more. I remember one past boyfriend said something like, “I am the only person that will ever deal with you”. I remember at the time that felt hurtful, but now I think about it and laugh because of how much that man wanted to keep me in his life.
The truth is, shrinking and being small is often a response to the people around you, and being with someone who believes that just makes you act smaller. You attract the people that are meant for you by being big!! I attracted my dream job by being more of myself, and I know I will attract my dream partner that way as well. The jobs and the people that are meant for you will want you to be more of yourself…. that is a fact!!!
I STOPPED APOLOGIZING
Obviously, if you do something that you actually feel is wrong, having the self-respect to own it and apologize is important, but apologizing for the sake of apologizing is you just feeling uncomfortable taking up space. For example, bumping into someone and apologizing basically communicates that you are sorry for taking up space. Absolutely not. I say excuse me or whatever, but I rarely apologize for anything I don’t feel sorry for - ie., taking extra time to reply to a message, or saying the wrong thing, or whatever. STOP APOLOGIZING. Be you. The right people will be attracted to that confidence, and you will stop communicating to yourself and your body that you don’t deserve to take up space.
At the end of the day, ALL of these things are meant to help you communicate to yourself and your body that you are important and you matter. That is what keeps you healthy and keeps your body from responding to a threat. The threat is often you when it comes to chronic diseases, and by taking up space, honoring your wants and desires, and being more of a bitch, you communicate that you are worthy of being healthy.
PS. If you try any of these or have implemented them, tell me what you’ve noticed in your life in the comments below!
As a first born daughter THIS is such good advice. I’ve been in therapy, doing EMDR, allll the things to learn to drop “caring” for everyone else but myself. It kinda ticks me off that my programming is for me to serve everyone else. I find it hard bc of trust - and not bc I trust them, but bc they trust ME. And I would do anything to trust someone else the way ppl can trust me. Cheers to becoming a b!tch!
This is so powerful and needed. I wrote about what I did to get me to the point where I could be a "bitch" in my first post. Doing these things have kept me healthy physically and I inspired a deeper belief that I can really get what I want out of life.
Glad to be reading work that resonates with where I am! Thank you 💜