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May 29, 2025 29 mins

What if the most selfless act you could take… is the one that disappoints everyone else?

If you’ve been conditioned to believe that love is earned through over-giving, self-sacrifice, and constantly pleasing others—this episode of The Femme Cast  might shake something deep within you. I know, because for most of my life, I was the woman who believed that being “good” meant abandoning myself. I gave until I was empty. I performed for approval. I said yes when my soul was screaming no.

And then… I did the unthinkable.

In 2016, I bought a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia. No plan. No approval. Just a whisper from my heart that said: go. That trip cracked open everything I thought I knew about love, worthiness, and what it truly means to live in integrity with yourself.

In this raw and transformational episode, I’m sharing:

  • The toxic beliefs women are taught about love, sacrifice, and self-worth
  • Why people-pleasing is not love—it’s a survival pattern rooted in fear of rejection
  • The truth about being a "good woman" vs. being a sovereign woman
  • How to break free from codependent conditioning and reclaim your desires
  • The power of doing the "unpleasing thing" and why it’s the most courageous, selfless thing you can do
  • How one bold decision changed the entire trajectory of my life
  • A daily challenge to help you reclaim your voice, your truth, and your freedom

This episode is your permission slip to disappoint everyone else—so you can finally stop abandoning yourself.

You don’t need a logical reason to follow your heart. You just need to trust that your inner knowing is reason enough.

Let this be the sign you’ve been waiting for.

🎧 Press play. And if this moved something in you, please leave a review or share it with someone who needs to hear this today.

PS: Stop begging to be chosen. Choose yourself instead.

You’re not here to beg, chase, or perform for the bare minimum.

You’re here to reclaim your power and become magnetic to real, soul-aligned love, success, and abundance.

Reclaim the version of you that never had to beg to be chosen.

Book your 90-minute Sacred Reclamation Intensive.

But fair warning—authentic connections, aligned opportunities, and breakthroughs in love, money, and purpose are inevitable.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST (00:00):
Hey guys, what is up and welcome back to
the show.
I'm so excited and grateful tohave you guys here.
I wanted to start today with aquestion and the question is and
we touched on this in the lastepisode, so I really wanted to
just take some time just sort ofdriving this point home.
The question is you know, whatif our ability to do, or our

(00:29):
decision to do, the unpleasingthing could be the most selfless
decision we ever make, or themost selfless thing that we
could ever do?
Because I'll tell you right now, for many of us and I speak for
myself included right, if youconsider yourself being a people

(00:51):
pleaser, somebody who'sconstantly giving more than she
receives, someone who isconstantly self-abandoning what
she needs to take care ofeverybody else's needs to earn
love, to work hard for love, tobelieve that if you just love
them hard enough, that they willlove you back.
Right, believe me, I hear youokay, I totally get it.

(01:16):
I've been there For many of us.
We've been taught, whetherverbally or because you know it
was shown to us by example, orsomething we absorbed in a story
that we heard when we werelittle.
You know, it doesn't matterdirectly or indirectly, we've
all been taught Pleasing othersis loving and it earns us love.

(01:42):
Pleasing others means we aresafe.
Pleasing others means we arevalued.
We associate pleasing peoplebeing pleased with being valued,
with being valuable, the givingthat we do as has value.

(02:11):
Um, you know, it's all a a gamethat we play with ourselves and
the world around us and ourrelationships to make us feel
more worthy and therefore morelikely to be chosen, to be loved
, and less likely to beabandoned or rejection.
So it is actually self soothingbehavior.
Whether or not the world taughtyou that was right or wrong,

(02:34):
you know, and maybe for many ofyou it did teach.
You know, like, as a woman, um,and sometimes men too, but as,
as I speak to women's issues,okay, like, this is the part I
know, this is the journey.
I know, okay, for many of us,we were taught, like, and maybe,
like I said indirectly, likeyou know, that women put their

(02:54):
family's needs first.
You know, women take care oftheir families before they take
care of themselves.
Women take care of theirhusbands before they take care
of themselves.
Women constantly put theirhusband's needs and feelings
before their own.
You know, women always put goodwomen, good wives, put their
needs on the back burner to takecare of their husband.
You know, women don't do thingsthat their husbands don't like.

(03:19):
This behavior was behavior I sawaround me again and again and
again.
No one ever told me I needed tobehave this way, but it was
modeled to me and so that's whatI took as truth, right?
Um, and so you know it was.
It was a unspoken rule thatwomen who are givers over givers

(03:41):
, people pleasers and whoconstantly self-abandoned, are
good women.
Right, these, these women,these are.
This is what it means to be agood, a good woman.
And that women who, you know,didn't do the, that were willing

(04:01):
to do the unpleasing thing,that weren't willing to give,
and to the point of depletionand self-abandonment and burn
themselves out and ignore theirown needs or their own desires,
their own wants, their ownpassions and interests in this
world.
We're selfish women, right, andfor many of us, again, spoken
or unspoken, these are the ruleswe've absorbed, because this in
itself was kind of the rulesthat the patriarchy wanted us to

(04:24):
absorb.
And again, I hate to use thatword, but it's true, because
what better way to keep us in adisempowered state than to
believe these things?
However, what if?
What if?
Doing the unpleasing thing andmaking the courageous choice to
do the unpleasing thing and tolisten to the guidance of our

(04:45):
heart and do what it is tellingus to do, even though we know
people around us are going to bereally fucking uncomfortable
with that decision?
What if?
That is the most selfless thing, because now you might be
facing ridicule, disappointment,rejection, abandonment, but
you're doing it anyway and for,maybe, reasons that you can't

(05:06):
explain, because other than yourheart is guiding you to, that
takes some serious fuckingcourage.
And I know because I've beenthere and I've done that.
When I took my trip to Asia backin 2016, and I knew that I was
going to be there for six monthsI was terrified to tell my

(05:29):
friends, my family, what I wasdoing, because I knew nobody was
going to approve of this.
I had very little support inmaking that decision.
People tried to be supportive.
Yes, making that decision,people try to be supportive.
Yes, um, but for the most part,all my friends and family were
like are you sure Like this,like this is really?
Are you like you?
You're not going to be safe.

(05:49):
This is, this is scary.
Um, how can you leave at a timelike this.
You know, what about the otherpeople who need you, um, you
know, people seeing it as whyare you leaving?
Does that mean you don't loveus?
Like?
Is that why you're leaving?
Like, interpreting this in somany different ways other than

(06:10):
my heart is calling me to takethis trip, and so I'm taking it
and I can't explain why, and Itried to come up with all sorts
of reasons why I needed to takeit, to justify it, and that was
probably my lesson in all.
This is, you know, wasting myenergy, trying to come up with a
logical reason, even for my ownbrain, to comprehend why I was

(06:32):
taking this trip.
You know, because I felt like Ineeded a concrete, valid reason
for, you know, uprooting mylife for six months and moving
to Southeast Asia, where I knewno one, um, and I had no idea
what I was going to do or how Iwas going to live.
The only thing I had was twotickets, you know, one, one one
flight there and a return flightsix months later out of Bangkok

(06:53):
, and that's all I knew.
And I had, I think, one umhomestay booked for like the
first two or three nights that Iwas there, and the rest of it.
I was kind of on God's goodhumor.
I had no idea how to explainthis to anybody.
I had no idea how to explainthis to myself, let alone other
people, and believe me, Ifucking tried.

(07:14):
But all I knew is that therewas a yearning in my heart to
take this trip that was sostrong that stronger than any
other voice of doubt or fear orjudgment that was going on in my
head.
For the first time, the voiceof my heart was louder than all

(07:36):
those voices.
But that's not to say that theyweren't there because they were.
No one's going to love you.
Everyone's going to be mad atyou.
Everyone's going to hate you.
Everyone's going to abandon you.
You're going to lose yourfriends.
You're going to lose yourfamily.
I didn't think I was going tolose my family, but I figured
they would be really upset withme, and you know some of them
were and some of them weren't.
You know some of them were hurtinitially and you know it was

(07:58):
very difficult for them tounderstand why I was making the
decision that I was making.
And I totally get that, becauseit wasn't me, it wasn't who
I've always been, and to them itprobably did seem like I didn't
love them anymore, that I couldjust kind of turn my back on
them like that.
But it wasn't that at all.
It was totally different.
And I think that in thatdecision to do what I knew was

(08:19):
going to be the unpleasing thingand I mean the very unpleasing
thing, um, for so many people inmy life, um, I think it was
that decision that number onereally empowered me to, to be
here in front of you and and andand talking all the shit that I
do today.
But number two and I think afar deeper meaning behind all of

(08:45):
that was that for the firsttime, I was able to put my
people-pleasing on a shelf for aseason and just actually hear
what it is that I wanted and whoI wanted to be and what I
wanted to create in the world.
And that was such an importanttime of my life.
I think that, had life notunfolded the way that it did,

(09:07):
and had I not gone through allthe heartbreak that I had gone
through leading up to thatmoment, you know, starting with
the breakdown of my 15-yearrelationship, to all the toxic
relationships that came after,and then, you know, being in a
toxic work environment like Ijust basically blew up my life
and left.
You know, I was just done withall of it, and I think that if I

(09:27):
had not gotten to that point, Iwould never have taken that
trip and had I not taken thattrip, I would never have really
listened to or heard what it wasthat my soul was trying to tell
me all along, about who Iwanted to be and what I wanted
to create in this life, you know, and the evolution that I

(09:49):
wanted to experience during mylifetime here, you know, and
that became, you know, such amonumental shift for me.
I always talk about life beforeAsia and life after Asia, and
they were two very differentthings, and it's not to say that
I came back from Asia fullyhealed and transformed.

(10:10):
I didn't.
I still had my own demons todeal with and I I still had my
own lessons to work through, andI still work through them to
this day.
You know, it's not I don'tthink we're ever really done, I
just think we just keep evolving, you know.
But I do think that there wasMaria before the trip and
there's Maria after the trip,and the two are very different.
And I think that, you know,some of the key takeaways for me

(10:33):
are that, are the differencesthat I can think of?
Is that you know, I'm I'mreally not afraid to be on my
own anymore.
I'm sure it gets lonelysometimes and sure, yeah, you
know, like there's there's,there's there's, there's a
divine purpose to kind ofspending a lot of time alone

(10:55):
when you're on this journey andthat is, you know, time for self
reflection.
And you know, listening toyourself, that's not to say that
it doesn't get uncomfortablesometimes.
It doesn't say that it doesn'tget like boring sometimes, or
you know you don't want to have,you know, people around you
more, but at the same time too,you're okay moving through those
times alone because you knowthat it's serving a higher

(11:17):
purpose and you know that you'respending time getting to know
yourself and that doesn't feelquite so lonely as it used to,
you know, and there's always,there's always, a big revelation
or something or wisdom to kindof take away from those moments,
you know, no matter howuncomfortable it might be.
But at this point, you know,I'm not afraid of pissing people

(11:38):
off.
I'm really not afraid of, youknow, being alone anymore.
Um, for the most part, um,there's still some relationships
that you know I, I struggle to,I struggle to always be true to
myself and you know, and andthat's the God honest truth
there's relationships that areeasier to be yourself in than
others.
Um, you know, there's a degreeof separation, right, there's

(12:02):
some relationships where youfeel I can feel fully myself and
I'm not afraid.
If they don't love who I am,then so be it.
And then there's otherrelationships where you're still
kind of not walking oneggshells but you're still
having to check in.
Am I being really authenticright now, or is this just some
old pattern and conditioningcoming forward where I'm, you
know, self-abandoning to do whatI think other people will be

(12:24):
pleased with, right?
So there's still checkpointsthat happen and there's still
self-reflections that need totake place, but, for the most
part, not afraid to piss peopleoff, not afraid to be somebody
that people aren't going toapprove of or they're going to
have to leave or vacate, I'm notafraid to walk away from
relationships that aren'tworking and I'm certainly not
afraid for spending time on myown and being my own best self,

(12:48):
because I know that that'swhat's going to attract the
right relationships into my life, and it has.
It totally has.
It has attracted the type ofrelationships that fully support
me, that fully see me, thatvalue my gifts, that value my
perspective, where I don't feellike I need to constantly be
like a circus performance monkeyfor that.
I can literally just show up asmyself and be myself and trust

(13:11):
that I will be loved andaccepted just as I am.
As I say this, one of them ismessaging me right now.
But you know, and it just it'ssuch a liberating and freeing
feeling.
But it all starts with numberone not being afraid to lose the
people that require you toplease them all the time, and

(13:32):
then finding the courage to dothe unpleasing thing and do the
thing that maybe some peoplemight not really appreciate or
value or see the beauty in orsee the opportunity in or be
able to justify logically whyyou're doing it.
You know we have to let that goand this is why doing the

(13:54):
unpleasing thing can be the mostselfless thing to do and that
is, you know, when we're doingthe pleasing thing, it's not as
selfless as we think, because wethink we're giving and loving
and nurturing andself-sacrificing.
And, oh God, do so many of ustake some sort of what's it

(14:16):
called Like?
We make that, we makeself-sacrifice.
Be this noble quality and,believe me, it's not for me what
I've learned, because this issomething that I used to do all
the time.
It's actually the one of themost toxic traits, because what
you're actually doing is tryingall these different ways to
cultivate self-worth other thanjust trusting that you're enough

(14:37):
, doing in your heart and givingand doing from your heart was
feels right, what feels aligned,and saying no to what doesn't,
and trusting that that gets tobe enough, instead of constantly
overgiving and people pleasingand self-abandoning and taking
care of everyone else's needs inthe hope that people will love
and approve of you, and thengetting bitter and resentful

(14:57):
when they don't, or when theydon't see your or they don't see
all that you do, or they don'tappreciate everything that
you've sacrificed.
You know Huge, huge, hugelearning for me and, honestly, a
lot of it I've learned from youknow being caregiver to my
parents.
So thank them for that lesson,because that's been a huge
lesson, and it's not to say thatI would ever do anything

(15:19):
different.
I still, to this day, willalways say like I'm so blessed
and grateful that I get to dothis for them, but it has been a
very healing experience and eyeopening as to what I felt I had
to do versus what was in myheart to do, and this was a
conversation I had with a friendtoday.
But what if the selfless thingwas doing?
The unpleasing thing was facingthe rejection, the judgment,

(15:49):
the abandonment, in many cases,the retaliation for doing things
that people maybe didn't agreewith or was inconvenient to them
or felt hurtful to them oruncomfortable to them in some
way, and they couldn't.
They couldn't understand whyyou're making the decision to do
the thing or say the thing that, for them, is so unpleasing.
What if that is the selflessthing?
Because that is guided by ahigher purpose.

(16:10):
That is actually what you werecreated to do and you know your
challenge is in doing the thing,even though it's scary as fuck
to do it, and it hits you to thevery core of your biggest fear,
which is the fear of beingabandoned or rejected.
Which is more selfless?
Is it doing the pleasing thingor the unpleasing thing?

(16:31):
Because I challenge you tobelieve that what we've been
taught to believe is selfless isactually selfish, and the
selfless thing, the selflessthing, would actually be just
doing what your heart is guidingyou to do, trusting what's a
yes and trusting what's a no,and trusting what feels aligned,
and trusting what feels whatdoesn't feel aligned, and

(16:54):
following that guidance,regardless of you know how
abandoned or rejection we mightfeel on the other side of that,
and trusting that that gets tobe okay Because we're honoring,
we're in integrity with what itis that we truly want and what
our soul wants for us, and we'remaking that the North Star

(17:18):
versus what everyone else thinks, because we need to make sure
that we aren't abandoned orrejected.
See, the key to all of it comesback to being okay if we get
abandoned or rejected, andtrusting that we are enough and
that we're not going to be leftalone, that we are going to be

(17:41):
taken care of.
And again, for me, that cameback to healing my relationship
with source.
And, you know, trusting thatwhen I follow these urges and
yearnings of my heart, these,these, these inspirations, these
hits of intuition that guide meto do things that don't always
make sense in my reality,trusting that you know, maybe if

(18:05):
I, even if I can't see it,there's a deeper meaning or a
deeper reason why I'm beingcalled to these things and just
to go with it, even though somepeople might question it, even
though some people might beuncomfortable with it, you know,
and has my family everdisagreed with choices that I've
made?
Abso-fucking-lutely they have.

(18:26):
But they're still here, theystill love me, they still
support me.
You know, we still have arelationship.
Did some friends fall by thewayside?
Yeah, yeah, they did, andthat's okay, I'm okay with that.
I'm okay with that because Iwas in integrity with who I was
and what I wanted, and I was not.
You know, maybe there was atime in my life when I was okay

(18:47):
being a performance monkey, butnot now, not at this point in my
life, and I'm okay with thatand so.
But one of the beauties of allof that is it's opened the door
to so many like loving andsupportive relationships to come
into my life that weren't therebefore, and in some cases they
came in like this, you know, andit's all because I believe it's

(19:07):
all because I walked away fromthe ones that weren't working.
I got really clear on who I wasand what I wanted for myself
and for my relationships, andthen I opened myself up to the
possibility of receiving thoseand they showed up.
You know, and you know it's oneof the things that you know,
it's one of those big lessonsagain when you're willing to do

(19:30):
the unpleasing thing.
Yes, it may hurt a little atfirst, right, you may get
abandoned and rejected in theprocess, and that's okay.
But you can trust that whenyou're following your heart,
when you're following yourintuition, when you're letting
them guide you and you're inalignment with your yeses, your

(19:54):
no's, your wants, your don'twants.
The people that fall away werenever meant to be there, or at
least maybe they were meant tobe there for a season, but they
weren't meant to stay.
The ones that are meant to stayare the ones that align with
who.
It was that you were created tobe, not the circus monkey.
So, yeah, it hurts a little bitat first, but it's so much

(20:16):
better on the other side.
Um, but it is a selfless thingbecause it is uncomfortable and
we do have to face our worstfear, which is abandonment and
rejection.
Often right, maybe it doesn'thappen, but we have to face the
fear of it happening, and thatin itself is uncomfortable, even
if it doesn't happen.
But once you move through thatfear and you realize which

(20:41):
relationships stick around andwhich ones don't, you learn a
thing or two about who you cancount on in the world.
You also learn how strong youare.
You also start to rewire yourbrain that it is safe to do the
unpleasing thing, that I will beokay in the end because I will
be surrounded by relationshipsthat truly, truly love me and
see me for who I am, and not theones that expect me to be the

(21:02):
circus monkey.
So, um.
So I challenge you to do theselfless thing today.
Do the unpleasing thing, do thatthing on your heart that maybe
makes no sense, that maybeyou've been putting off, that
maybe you're afraid to dobecause you think everyone else
around you is going to abandonyou and reject you.
If you do honor that a littlebit today, put five minutes on

(21:26):
your to-do list every day tospend some time with that, to
reflect on that, to see whatmight want to come forward from
that, you might be surprised.
This is how you create a lifeof purpose.
You know.
So many people ask me is how,how do I find my life purpose?
Your life purpose is neversomething that you find.
It's something that is revealedto you over time and it only

(21:48):
comes through when you drown outall the should have, should
want, should be's and listen towhat actually wants to come
forward, come through you andspend time with that and explore
that and take action stepstowards tiny little action,
steps towards tiny little action, steps towards that each day,
even if it is the unpleasingthing, even if it's the thing

(22:09):
that you can't explain, but forsome reason it's on your heart
to do.
I challenge you to do that andsometimes even just doing the
unpleasing thing, even if it'snot and I know people are going
to challenge me on this, butsometimes just doing the
unpleasing thing, even if itdoesn't have a higher purpose
other than to be unpleasing, ishealing in itself, because every

(22:33):
time you find the courage to dothe unpleasing thing, you break
the tie or the chains ofcodependency and people-pleasing
that have kept you stuck in ahamster wheel, burnt out,
uninspired, feeling unloved,undervalued and unappreciated
for so long.
It started to come back intoyour own sense of self and

(22:55):
sovereignty.
So that I challenge everybodyto do every single day you know
how they say do the one thingthat scares you most every day,
do one unpleasing thing everyday and see how powerful and
strong and confident that youget in yourself, even if
sometimes you fuck it up.
It's fine, all right.
That is it for today.
You guys, if you love thisepisode, please leave a like, a
positive rating or a reviewwherever you're seeing this, and

(23:17):
until next time, you guys,massive love.
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