036 - Self-Advocation: How to Speak Up for Yourself

The Love With Liana® Podcast

Before I began my healing journey, I rarely spoke up for myself.

An example comes to mind: when I was a teenager and I went to the nail salon, I got my nails done and then got my eyebrows done. When the manicurist prepared for my eyebrow treatment, she sat me in the middle of the salon on a chair to do my eyebrows instead of taking me to the back room where I could lie down instead of sitting up. I was super uncomfortable and would have greatly appreciated being treated differently during the treatment, but I completely froze before we began and didn’t say anything.

This was one of those moments where my then people-pleasing tendencies got the best of me, and I instead suffered with discomfort in fear that the manicurist would get upset with me for wanting something different in my treatment than what I thought to be typical, or if she thought I was trying to correct her work. None of those would have been true, because I wasn’t being directly rude, I would have just made a simple request to be more comfortable during my treatment.

I didn’t know it then, but I know it now: I felt unworthy of getting my needs met and I felt my worth was contingent upon others liking me. So as long as I could ensure others would like me, I would resist speaking up if this meant that I could preserve any instance of conflict or dismay when someone would interact with me.

Doing that is wildly unhealthy, but many of us do it. We find our worth through the eyes of other, but it never truly works to make us feel worthy of love, respect, peace, fulfillent, and abundance that we deserve.

I talk on today’s podcast episode all about how I learned to speak up for myself and thus learned to self-advocate. This has been a quintessential part of my healing as I’ve built my self-worth.

This may be difficult at first but I can assure you that once you learn to speak up for yourself, your life will get so much better!

🌟✨💫

If you would like support on your own journey to greater self-worth, connect with me @LoveWithLiana and visit my website LoveWithLiana.com.