Ep 133: Stop Rejecting Yourself for Acceptance

Today, we’re talking about something I see happening all the time with the amazing women I know and work with–and something I've done myself. 

Do you have moments where you have a brilliant idea, but you don't speak up because you're worried about how it might be received? Or when you downplay your accomplishments so that you don't make other people feel uncomfortable? Or maybe it's changing your appearance, your opinions, or even your goals to fit what someone else wants for you. Or it could be ignoring your needs and wants to prioritize those of your partner or your friends. 

Believe it or not, these are all forms of self-rejection. We abandon parts of ourselves–our truth, our desires, our authenticity–in exchange for external validation and acceptance. Over time, this pattern can leave us feeling empty, resentful, and disconnected from who we really are.

In this episode, we’ll explore why we fall into this cycle, how to recognize it, and most importantly, how to break free so that we can live more authentic and fulfilling lives where we accept all the little bits that make us our favorite versions of ourselves.

Click HERE to get the full show notes.

Transcript

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hey there, everyone. Welcome back to today's episode of Your Favorite You. 

I'm so glad you're here with me today because we are talking about something that I see happening all the time with the amazing women that I know and the amazing women that I work with and something I've definitely done myself. 

I want to talk about how often we reject ourselves in order to be accepted by other people. You know that moment when you're in a meeting and you have this brilliant idea, but you don't speak up because you're worried about how it might be received. Or that moment when you downplay your accomplishments so that you don't make other people feel uncomfortable. Or maybe it's changing your appearance, your opinions, or even your goals to fit what someone else wants for you. 

It could be subtly ignoring your needs and wants and prioritizing the needs and wants of your partner or your friends. Believe it or not, these are all forms of self-rejection. We abandon parts of ourselves, our truth, our desires, our authenticity, in exchange for external validation and acceptance. 

And while it might seem like a small price to pay in the moment, over time, this pattern can leave us feeling empty, resentful, and disconnected from who we really are. And it keeps us from becoming a favorite version of ourselves. 

Today we're going to explore why we do this, how to recognize it when we're doing it, and importantly, how to break free from this pattern so that we can live more authentic and fulfilling lives where we accept all the little bits of ourselves. 

And here's the beautiful paradox. When we stop rejecting ourselves in order to gain other people's approval, we actually create space for deeper and more meaningful connections. First, by connecting to ourselves, and then by connecting to those we love and care about. And that's what we all truly want. So let's get started. 

Before we change any pattern, we need to be able to see it clearly. My coach Maggie always says you need to see it to heal it. So let's talk about what self-rejection looks like in everyday life. 

Sometimes it's obvious, like when we literally silence ourselves in a conversation or change our appearance dramatically to please a partner, but often more subtle. Here are some common ways we might be rejecting ourselves without even realizing it. 

First, there's what I call opinion shifting. This is when you find yourself agreeing with someone else's point of view, even though deep down you feel differently. Maybe you nod along with a friend's political opinion that you don't even share, or you go along with a group decision at work that you have reservations about. Each time you do this, you're sending yourself the message that your perspective isn't valuable enough to express or it isn't as valuable as the other person's perspective. 

Next is achievement downplaying. I'm going to talk about this in the next episode. Actually, I'm doing a whole episode about this, but have you ever responded to a compliment about your work with, oh, it's nothing, or I just got lucky, or maybe you've deliberately hidden your success in order to avoid making others feel bad or to seem more relatable. Now, while humility can be beautiful, chronically minimizing your accomplishments is a form of rejecting your own excellence. Please don't do that, my friends. We need more of your excellence in this world, not less, and especially now. 

Another common pattern is desire diminishing, convincing yourself that you don't really want what you want because it seems too big, too bold, or because other people have discouraged you along the way. Maybe you've told yourself that you don't really want that promotion, that relationship, or that adventure, when in truth, your heart longs for it. You find yourself yearning for it.

And then finally, we can't forget boundary blurring. So saying yes when you mean no, taking on responsibilities that aren't yours, allowing people to treat you in ways that don't feel good, all to maintain peace or approval. 

So how do you know if you're caught in these patterns? Here's some things to watch out for. The first thing is that you might feel resentful a lot of the time. Resentment is often a sign that we're not honoring our own needs. We're not honoring our boundaries. 

This usually starts as a low level buzzing of resentment, which if you do nothing about, eventually bubbles up and boils over. And believe me when I tell you that it never ends up good. And you can ask me how I know. 

Another sign is that you feel exhausted around certain people. When we're constantly managing our self-expression to maintain someone else's comfort, it can drain our energy. When you're constantly having to coach yourself, when you're with another person in order to, you know, maintain your relationship, that for sure will drain your energy. 

Another thing you might notice is that you don't know what you want anymore. If you've spent years prioritizing other people's preferences, you probably have lost touch with your own desires. And then you may also feel like no one really knows the real you. This is a painful but common result of habitual self-rejection. We end up feeling unseen because we're hiding our true selves. 

Have you ever been in a room of people you know and love and felt lonely? This might be one of the reasons. You might also experience physical symptoms when you need to express yourself authentically. Maybe your heart starts to race or your stomach starts to not or you feel that tightness in your throat. 

Your face flushes and you get all blotchy. It could be any number of physical symptoms, really. Now I want to pause here and say something important. If you recognize these patterns in yourself, please be gentle with yourself. 

This isn't ever about judgment or criticism. These are adaptive behaviors that have helped us survive and belong at some point in our lives and they served a purpose. But now that we're becoming aware of them, so we can choose different responses that help us to become a favorite version of ourselves. 

So you might be wondering, why do we do this? Why do so many brilliant, capable women reject themselves in order to gain others' acceptance? To understand this, I think it's helpful to look at several layers, from our evolutionary wiring to our cultural conditioning, and then down to our personal histories. 

From an evolutionary perspective, belonging to a group wasn't just a nice thing to have, it was necessary for survival. Our ancestors needed their tribe to survive, and being rejected could mean death. 

So our brains naturally developed this heightened sensitivity to social approval and rejection. Even today, studies show that social rejection activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain. So we are literally wired to avoid this. 

And then there's the cultural context. Women in particular have been socialized to be accommodating, nurturing, and to prioritize relationships above everything else. From a young age, many of us received both subtle and explicit messages that our worth was tied to how well we could make other people comfortable, how well we could make other people happy, how we could make other people feel taken care of. And as girls, we were often rewarded for being good, for being good girls who didn't make waves or take up too much space. And this isn't just what's called a likability penalty when they assert themselves in ways that men are actually praised for. 

Women who negotiate strongly for raises, who speak confidently about their achievements, or who set firm boundaries are often perceived as aggressive, difficult, or unlikable. And of course, men who act this way are seen as powerful leaders. 

Women who do the same are called bitches or worse. So our tendency to self-reject isn't irrational. It's responding to very real social dynamics. And we have the power to change the narrative here. And then of course, there are personal histories. 

Many of us learn specific patterns of self-rejection in our families of origin. Maybe you had a parent who withdrew affection when you expressed certain emotion or any emotion. Or perhaps you grew up in a home where one person's needs always took priority. 

And you learned that your role was to adapt and to accommodate the other person. These early experiences can form powerful templates for our adult relationships. And we can't ignore the fact that self-rejection often works, at least in the short term. 

When we diminish ourselves to make other people comfortable, we often do get approval. We often avoid conflict. And we often can maintain relationships. These immediate rewards can make it hard to change the pattern, even when we recognize that in the long term, it's harmful. 

Now, I want to emphasize that understanding these roots isn't about placing blame ever, not on society, not on our families, and certainly not on ourselves. It's about developing compassion and understanding for why we've developed these patterns and then gaining the clarity we need to change them. 

The message I want you to take away today is that while self-rejection might have helped us survive in the past, it actually prevents us from thriving in the present. It keeps us small when we're meant to expand. It keeps us silent when our voices could bring healing. It keeps us disconnected from ourselves when self-connection is the foundation of everything good in our lives. So now you're thinking, okay, Melissa, I'm picking up what you're putting down. 

So how do we move past this? So let's talk about it, or I'll talk and you'll listen in this format. How do we break free from these patterns of self-rejection and step closer to self-acceptance? The first step is usually always the first step and that is developing awareness. 

Again, you can't change or heal what you can't see. So I invite you to become a compassionate observer of your own patterns. This is a skill that I use all the time and that I help my clients develop. 

I describe it as an out-of-body experience and as humans we're the only species who can do this, which is think about our thinking and watch the way that we're thinking and we're acting as we're doing it. 

So I would love for you to notice when and with whom you're most likely to abandon yourself. Is it around certain people? Is it in specific situations? Is it when particular topics arise? It often helps to check in with your body. 

Our bodies often signal self-betrayal before our minds recognize it and catch up. So that tightness that you feel in your throat when you're holding back your truth. The knot that you feel in your stomach, that boulder that sometimes is there when you're agreeing to something that just doesn't feel right. 

These physical sensations can be really powerful allies in your journey toward a favorite version of yourself that is more authentic with others and accepting of yourself. So the next time you're in a situation where you're feeling that familiar discomfort, pause and simply notice the sensation in your body. Where is it located? What quality does it have? Just this act of witnessing the feeling in your body can create space between the trigger and your habituated response and it gives you a chance to choose differently. 

So pause, breathe, notice the feeling in your body, ask, okay, how do I want to behave right now? My clients often say that they avoid saying or doing what they really want to because they don't want to feel that momentary discomfort. And at that point, I typically remind them that they're going to feel discomfort either way. So why not choose the discomfort that leads you to stop abandoning and rejecting yourself? Give it a try next time. 

The second step is reconnecting with yourself. If you've been disconnecting from your own needs and desires for a long time, it might take some practice to recognize what you truly want. Regular reflection can help. Ask yourself questions like, what would I do if I wasn't worried about other people's approval? What actually lights me up? What feels like a hell yes for me? Journaling can be incredibly powerful here. Please try to write without censoring or editing yourself. You could use prompts like, what I really want to say is dot, dot, dot, or If I could be completely honest here, I would dot, dot, dot. The third step is to practice small acts of authenticity. 

You don't need to transform overnight. It's not possible. So you can give that idea up. Gradual change is often more sustainable and it actually works. So starting with lower stakes situations where you can practice honoring yourself is the way to go. Maybe it's expressing a preference about where you want to have lunch, sharing an honest opinion about a movie or a book that you've read, or taking a small step toward a dream that you've been downplaying. 

These might seem inconsequential, but they really help you to build your authenticity muscle and help you develop confidence in your own voice. The fourth step is developing scripts for challenging situations. 

Many of us reject ourselves because we simply don't know how to express our truth in a way that feels good. And having prepared language can help tremendously. For example, instead of agreeing with something you don't support, you might say, I see it differently and I'm happy to share my perspective if you're interested. 

Instead of accepting a commitment that doesn't work for you, try no. Remembering that it is a complete sentence. No is a complete sentence. If you want to baby step into an authentic no, you could also say something like, that doesn't fit into my schedule, but here's what I can offer. The key is finding language that honors both yourself and the relationship because authentic self-expression isn't about being harsh or inconsiderate. It's not actually about being a bitch. It's about being truthful in a way that reflects your values. 

And then the fifth step is building a supportive community. Changing deep patterns is challenging for sure. And having people- who support your journey toward authenticity can make all the difference. 

Seeking out relationships where you feel safe to be fully yourself and gradually spending more time in these nourishing connections is imperative. This is where group coaching with yours truly can really help. 

And finally, be patient and compassionate with yourself. There will of course be times when you fall back into old patterns of self-rejection. When this happens, resist the urge to criticize yourself. Instead, please get curious about what happened. See it as valuable information and an opportunity to understand yourself more deeply. What triggered the self-rejection? What fear was underneath it? Instead of asking yourself, why in the hell did I do that again? Simply change your tone. Why did I do that again? I'm wondering, I'm curious, why did I do that again? Each time you respond to a setback with curiosity rather than judgment, you're actually practicing the self-acceptance that you're working toward. 

Remember, the goal is never perfection. It's greater freedom to be who you truly are and to bring your gifts into the world without diminishing them on your path to becoming your favorite version of you. 

So what happens when you stop rejecting yourself for others' acceptance? What becomes possible when you fully embrace who you are? I've seen some pretty remarkable transformations in the women I've worked with who've committed to this journey and research supports what I've witnessed. 

First, your relationships actually improve. Not all of them, perhaps, but the ones that matter to you most. Your relationship with yourself, the only one you have for your entire lifetime, certainly improves. 

When you show up authentically, you create space for a genuine connection rather than connection based on a carefully curated version of yourself. You discover who truly celebrates the real you and these relationships deepen in meaningful ways. 

Yes, some relationships may be challenged when you stop rejecting yourself to maintain them and some of those relationships may even end. But what I consistently hear from women is that the connections that remain and those that develop afterward are so much more fulfilling that they don't actually regret the loss nearly as much as they thought they would. 

Another thing that happens is that your physical health improves. The stress of constantly self monitoring and self suppressing takes a physical toll. Research has linked authenticity to lower stress levels, improved immune function, and better sleep. 

Many women report that chronic symptoms they've struggled with for years begin to resolve as they practice greater self acceptance. Your creativity and your productivity can flourish when you're not using emotional energy to manage other people's perceptions of you, that energy becomes available for creation, innovation, and purposeful work. 

I've seen women make remarkable strides in their careers, in creative projects, and in their personal goals once they stop holding themselves back. Your sense of purpose often becomes clearer when you do this. 

When you're connected to your favorite you, you naturally move toward what matters most to you, and decisions become easier because you have a strong internal compass guiding you rather than looking outside yourself for direction. 

And perhaps most profoundly, you experience greater peace. There is a deep rest and peace that comes from you being who you truly are. No more exhausting performance, no more fear of being found out, just simple, powerful experience of being authentic and allowing yourself to be seen. 

Like I said, these transformations don't happen overnight, they unfold gradually as you practice showing up as your favorite you. Each authentic choice, each rejection of rejecting you builds momentum toward a life of greater alignment, more connection, and more joy. 

As we wrap up today, I want to leave you with a simple but powerful invitation. Over the next week or so, I encourage you to just notice one instance each day where you might be rejecting yourself for others' approval. Don't judge it. Don't try to change it immediately. Just notice it with compassion. And then ask yourself, what would look different if I chose to honor myself in this moment? You don't have to act on the answer right away. 

Just allowing yourself to imagine a different response begins to create so many new possibilities. Remember, this journey toward self-acceptance isn't about becoming selfish or inconsiderate of others. 

It's about bringing your whole authentic self to your relationships and to the world. Because the truth is we don't serve anyone, not ourselves, not our loved ones, and certainly not our communities by making ourselves smaller than we are. 

Your voice, your gifts, your unique perspective, they're needed now more than ever, and they can only fully emerge when you stop rejecting yourself for others' acceptance and instead embrace all of who you are. 

Thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks for listening to The End. I'd love to hear your reflections on this topic, so please reach out through my email, Melissa at MelissaParsonsCoaching.com, or reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook to share your thoughts or questions. I'd love to hear from you. See you next week.

Hold up, don't go anywhere. Before we wrap up today, I want to invite you to take the next step in becoming your favorite you. If what we discussed today resonated with you and you're thinking, damn, I want more of this in my life, I have amazing news. 

I'm currently enrolling for my next Your Favorite You group coaching program starting April 23rd. This is a powerful six-month journey where you'll join a carefully curated group of incredible women who, just like you, are ready to stop settling for good enough and create lives that they truly love. 

Here's the thing, the window to join is closing soon. The last day to schedule your complimentary consult with me is April 18th. During this one-hour call, we'll explore if this group is the right fit for you and you'll walk away with clarity regardless. 

I only open enrollment a few times each year and several awesome women have already said yes to themselves and yes to joining us. So if something inside you is saying, maybe I should do this, I encourage you to listen to that voice and book a consult. 

You've got nothing to lose and potentially so much to gain. Visit melissaparsonscoaching.com forward slash group to grab a time on my calendar. I can't wait to connect with you and show you what's possible when you decide to become a favorite version of yourself. 

Until next time, remember you don't have to do this alone.