Why Does Respecting Myself Feel Wrong?
My mother-in-law is a lot of woman 😂 She's like the energetizer bunny. She loves our family fiercely, is overwhelmingly helpful, and when she comes to visit, she is HERE.
A while back, I started noticing something about myself whenever she visited. Somehow, taking care of myself made me feel like a jerk.
If everyone was hanging out, shouldn’t I be hanging out too? If she was visiting, shouldn’t I be available? If I went into my bedroom for some solitude or headed out for a bike ride, was I being rude? Chilly? Unwelcoming?
Even when I knew I needed the space, honoring that need left me with this weird little cloud of guilt following me around.
And I started wondering… why did respecting myself feel so wrong?
I wasn’t being cruel. I wasn’t ignoring anyone. I wasn’t trying to punish anyone or send some passive-aggressive message. I was simply saying, I can’t right now. I was giving my mother-in-law time with her grandkids while I stepped away and took care of myself.
So where was all this guilt coming from?
Cue the Good-Girl Story 🙄
I realized there was an old story underneath that guilt.
Was it baked into anyone else that being a “good woman” meant being accommodating?
You pull up your bootstraps. You sweep your feelings under the rug. You don’t make things difficult. You show up. You smile. You do the right thing. Obviously 🙄
You be a good girl.
For a long time, I confused that with respect.
But there’s a problem with a version of respect that requires me to continually abandon myself. Eventually, it costs me. It affects how I show up as a wife, as a mom, as a woman. And ironically, it makes it a whole lot harder to be the warm, authentic person I actually want to be.
If I continually override myself in the name of being “nice,” eventually, I’m not so nice 😂
I get depleted. Irritated. Under-resourced. And OH SNAP!!! My porcupine quills are at full attention 🦔
Which is exactly what I was trying so hard not to be.
Turns out, honoring myself might actually be one of the kindest things I can do for me AND the people around me.
What if the guilt is just old programming?
And then it hit me. Honoring myself doesn’t always immediately feel good. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable as all get out.
The guilt can still pop up and start chirping, You’re being rude. You should go back out there. You should be more available. But now I don’t automatically believe it. And I sure as heck don't have to obey it!
Sometimes guilt isn’t telling you that you’re doing something wrong. It’s telling you that you’re doing something differently 🗝️
If I’d spent years equating “being a good woman” with being accommodating, available, and easy, of course honoring myself was going to feel uncomfortable. I was breaking a very familiar pattern.
So instead of giving guilt the steering wheel, I can get curious. Am I actually being unkind? Or am I simply honoring myself in a way I’m not used to?
Those are two VERY different things.
A little discomfort. A lot more freedom.
And this is where things look different for me now. When my mother-in-law comes to visit, I don’t have to choose between being a good daughter-in-law and taking care of myself.
We can have coffee together in the morning. I can ask her to bring everyone’s favorite pasta dish. She can take the kids to do something while I get my bike ride in. And YES, I can absolutely grab a root beer and hole up in my bedroom and do my fantasy football draft 😂
Then I circle back when I can show up how I actually want to. No pushing. No forcing. No faking. And because I haven’t spent the entire visit overriding myself, I actually have more of myself to bring to the relationship.
That’s the part I couldn’t see before.
Honoring myself isn’t taking something away from the people I love. Sometimes it’s exactly what allows me to show up for them the way I actually want to. Warm, authentic, present, FUN. Not because I forced myself to be there, but because I actually want to be. Can you feel that energy shift?
I can be loving and have a limit. I can care about someone and need space. I can respect another person without disrespecting myself.
So these days, when that old good-girl story starts whispering that I’m selfish or rude, I have something new to tell myself: This might feel uncomfortable because it’s new, not because it’s wrong. And every time I hear what I need and honor it, I build a little more self-trust.
Maybe respecting myself and respecting the people I love were never opposites in the first place.
I wonder what story is coming up for you? If you’re ready to unpack it, I’m here ✨
