The Pep Talk You Need To Remember You're That B

0:00Speaker 1:And when someone says you are too much, what they're really saying is you're too much for me. I don't have the capacity, the willingness, or the tools to meet you where you are. Welcome to a Really Good Cry podcast. A Really Good Cry is here to help you understand your body, feel confident in your skin, manage your emotions, and take back control of your health. Because growth doesn't always start with answers. Sometimes it starts with a really good cry. Hey everyone, welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry. I was talking to my friend this weekend. Our conversation definitely sparked the topic of this week's episode. She was speaking to me about her dating life and about her work, and she was talking about how the more she worked on herself, and she's worked on herself a lot, she's doing amazing. The more that she's worked on herself, the more that she has understood herself, the more she sees her value, the higher standards have become. And it's actually the first time in her life where she would actually rather be alone then talking to guys who she knows are just not right

1:03Speaker 1:for her. But also pushing back in areas like her work and areas that she wouldn't normally because she understands that she actually deserves a lot more, but she was talking about the downside where it's actually made the poor lot smaller and often men again a little bit scared of her standards, or she'll end up being called too picky or feeling like she's coming across stuck up because she knows exactly what she was and sometimes that can be a little bit difficult for people to receive. And it got me thinking, and it got us into conversation about this idea of high standards for women, whether it's in dating or work or friendship. And I wanted this episode to be the little pep talk that I was able to give her, but I wanted to give it to you in case you need to hear it, because it's really easy to minimize yourself to think that you're asking for too much, and I'm going to remind you of why that is. And if you've been doubting them lately, then this episode is going to be your own constant reminder to keep your standards exactly where they are. For a long long time in my life, I thought that

2:03Speaker 1:being agreeable was such a great personality trait. I thought being easy to be around their maintenance, flexible and not asking for too much. I thought that was the goal. And I used to think that being easy was a compliment, like if someone says she is so chill, you never make this complicated. You are just so easy to be around, You're such a low maintenance person. I really took that as proof as I was doing relationships or friendships right I was the low maintenance friend, the person who just doesn't asked for too much, And honestly, I was low key really proud of it. I thought that's what made me really lovable, and that my ability to not need things, to not be a lot, to not make waves, that was actually my value. But I've come to realize just how untrue that actually is, and that having standards and high expectations actually means that you have worked on yourself enough to know exactly what makes you happy and exactly what will make you thrive and exactly what you deserve.

2:57Speaker 1:And the thing is, the more that you know about yourself, and the more that you understand yourself better, and the more that you work in yourself, the higher standards may seem to other people, and the more that I valued my own values, the stronger my standards became in every single part of my life. And I don't think having standards means that you think you're better than anyone. It means that you have spent enough time with yourself to know what actually allows you to thrive in your life.

3:21Speaker 1:And for me, you know, I remember when I was at university and I had specific values that I did not want to compromise on. One of those was I really didn't want to drink alcohol. Another one was I didn't really want to participate in any kind of recreational use of drugs. And it was something that I struggled with a lot because everyone around me was doing it. Everyone was trying to convince me to do it. But it was a value that was really deep for me, and I had to keep reminding myself of it, and I had to keep understanding why I had those values, what they were for, the reason behind them, the deeper intention not doing those things, And to be honest, I've got to this age and I still haven't caved on them.

4:04Speaker 1:And every single year that's gone by, the more I refined that intention and understand why, the happier I am that I stood by them, and to be honest, it actually limited a lot in my life if I think about it. When I was growing up, people felt like they could have less fun with me when we were going out. If I dated someone it would be a difficult if that was something that they really enjoyed, like going out and having a drink with their meals. It definitely created limitations, but there were limitations that I was honestly happy with. There were limitations that allowed me to stick within my values and realized that this person was or wasn't for me. And so the more I understood my values, the clearer my standards become. And that doesn't mean they became higher, they just became clearer. And slowly that understanding started to outweigh this fear that I had, the fear that having standards made me difficult, the fear that having standards made me less likable. Another standard or another value that I realized was very very meaningful to me, or that I wanted to focus on more Over the last couple of years has been my veganism. I feel

5:07Speaker 1:so strongly about animals and I feel so strongly about not eating them that I made a decision a good few years ago that I wasn't going to eat at restaurants that serve meat, And honestly, it's really difficult. It's difficult because of socializing with friends. It's difficult because when I travel, it means sometimes I can only e a one restaurant, and again, it creates a smaller pool of things I can do or people that I can maybe go out and connect with. I'll still go to the restaurants, I just won't eat. I will invite people over to eat instead of going out and about. I don't expect other people to do the same thing as me, but I do need people around me who allow for me to maintain those values, who understand them and accept them.

5:49Speaker 1:And so my fear of people thinking I was weird or not being able to participate when we're sitting at a big table, then I'm not eating and I'm just drinking at tea. I had to overcome all those fears. But by doing that, it allowed me to feel so much happier leaving those places. Never once did I feel coming away from it that oh, I wish I'd just eaten the meal. I was like, no, I'm so happy that I stuck to my values, and I think my desire to stick to those values overtook the fear or the worry that I had about how people were going to perceive me, And navigating life through those values has made it so much easier. It's made it so much easier to make decisions, to make choices in my life, and it's made it a lot clearer for me. And so having these standards didn't mean that I thought I was better than anyone or that they should do it.

6:33Speaker 1:It just meant that I'd spend enough time with myself to know exactly what makes a difference in my life and what I feel happy about myself with, and I think that's really important. And so wanting more for yourself does not make you high maintenance. Holding a boundary does not mean that you're not soft, or not feminine or not lovable. And honestly, in my experience, clarity can feel threatening to people who often benefit from your confusion. And let's be honest, when a word knows what she wants and needs, it really does disrupt dynamics in friendships. It means you don't keep accepting one sided effort. In work, it might mean that you don't normalize being underpaid, or spoken to disrespectfully, even when you're the one that might be in charge. I've been there, done that too. In family, it might mean that you stop swallowing the truth just to keep peace. You tolerate dismissive comments from a parent or a sibling because that's just how they are, or you swallow your needs that every single family gathering because keeping the peace feels safe for them being honest. And then there's the relationship that underpins all of these other ones,

7:36Speaker 1:and that's the one that you have with yourself. If you lower your standards for your own habits, what you eat, how you rest, what you tolerate in your own inner dialogue, you say it is fine when your body is telling you it's not. You push through exhaustion and you skip a meal, You ignore the ache that your body is feeling because somewhere along the way you decided that your needs don't really count. And if it's present in one area, it trickles into the rest of your life too. And this is something that was a big game changer for me when I realize that if I'm not willing to hold a standard for myself, it becomes almost impossible for you to hold it with anyone else and for anyone else to also hold it with you. And I think the confusion comes when most people connect having high standards with ego, and I do think that there's something to that, but I don't think that's always the case. And I'm not saying that all standards are healthy. I'm not saying that every expectation you have is valid. Some standards do come from ego and some do come from values, and the difference really matters. Ego standards are about image. They're

8:33Speaker 1:about what looks good, what impresses people, what protects your identity. And ego standards can sound like I only date people who have a certain job title, or I need my partner to post about me so people know that I'm the chosen one, or I can't be with someone who doesn't fit my aesthetic, or a common one is I need a guy who's six foot tall. These are not about connection. They end up being about performance. They're about proving something to yourself or to other people. And often these ego standards are come covering up some sort of wound or insecurity, a feeling of not being enough for need for external validation to feel worthy. But value standards are different. Value standards come from your actual needs, your nervous system, your integrity, what genuinely allows you to feel safe, respected, and seen. Value standards sound like I need consistent communication to feel secure. I need someone who is honest even when it's uncomfortable. I need my time and energy to be respected. I need a partner who is also motivated and what they want in life. I need someone who also wants financial stability. I need a partner tis responsibility

9:34Speaker 1:for their own healing. These are not about ego. They are about alignment in your life. So there are three filters I think that you need for your standards to know whether they're coming from value or from ego. The first one is your nervous system test. Does this standard make me feel calmer, feel safer long term? Or does it just make me look impressive? The second one is the privacy test. If no one will ever know about this standard, would it still matter to me? And the third one is the integrity test. Am I living up to this standard myself? Your standards are not just about being picky. Your standards are a reflection of how you value yourself, and so if you're expecting it from someone else, you need to be living it too. And so those are the three things that you can kind of work through in your mind. Whenever you're setting a standard, work through these three questions and see what your answers are, and it going to be a really good indication of whether you are choosing a standard based on value or whether you're choosing a standard based on ego. I want to talk about this phrase though, this phrase of being

10:35Speaker 1:too much. You're too emotional, you're too sensitive, you're too intense, you're asking for too much, You're making things a bigger deal than it needs to be. Too much is not an objective measurement. It's a sign of incompatibility. And when someone says you are too much, what they're really saying is you're too much for me. I don't have the capacity, the willingness, or the tools to meet you where you are. And that's absolutely fine, because the goal is not to shrink until you fit into their space. The goal is to actually find people, relationships, and environments where your fullness, your wholeness, is welcomed. And knowing what you need to thrive is one of the most useful things that you can have in your life. Because it saves you time, it saves you energy, it saves you from years of being in the wrong room with the wrong people and wondering why nothing feels right. And the fact is, for a lot of people, just the simplicity of knowing yourself or having confidence can be difficult for people to experience if they lack it in themselves. Confidence can look like arrogance to people who haven't built it. Boundaries can sometimes

11:33Speaker 1:look like coldness to people who have had a lot of access to you. Having clarity can often look like intimidation to people who are unclear about themselves. So, yes, standards will shrink your poor they will narrate the rooms that you can be in, they might disqualify people in your life, but they will also protect your peace. And so the option ends up being you can have wide access and low standards, or you can have selective access and aligned standards, and both come with cost, and you have to decide which one is the cost that you want to be spending. And so a lot of the times when our standards have become higher for the right reasons, it's because you're just healing. Maybe you stop negotiating with your own worth and you just have to remember that the right people will not be intimidated by your standards.

12:15Speaker 1:They will be attracted by this incredible clarity that you have about what you want in life. And whenever I'm doubting things in life, whenever I'm doubting my standards, whenever I'm thinking I'm asking for too much, I love hearing stories about people, people's success, stories about hope, and these beautiful reminders of what is possible. So I'm going to share some of them with you in case you need to hear it right now. The first person I obviously have to talk about is Oprah. Oprah grew up in a lot of poverty in Mississippi. She was raised by her grandmother on a farm, and she was a black woman entering into an industry dominated by white men. She took over a really failing morning show in Chicago in nineteen eighty four, and honestly, I don't think many people are expected much at all, but within a month she'd taken it from last place to first in ratings. Within two years, it was the highest ranking talk show in America.

13:04Speaker 1:And this is the path that I love. In the late eighties and early nineties, when every talk show was trying to be trashy and create like sensational content. Oprah absolutely refused to do that. She made a deliberate decision to shift her show towards self improvement and education and having honest conversation, which people thought was going to be so boring, but it says. She built a media empire. She became the first black woman to own her production company, She launched a magazine, a book club, a cable network, and she did all of it by not being agreeable, but by being uncompromising about the standards that she had about what she wanted to put out into the world.

13:39Speaker 1:Another phenomenal story is Serena Williams. She was trained on public courts by her dad in Compton, and she was one of the few black women in sport that was almost entirely dominated by white women. As she was told her whole career that she was too powerful, to emotional, too loud, too much, too much of everything she had been policed about. She was wearing on court. She'd been penalized for showing the same emotion that a lot of male players show and every single match, but she didn't compromise.

14:07Speaker 1:She did not build her legacy by being palatable. She built it by being undeniable in what she wanted and by refusing to edit herself for anybody else's comfort. And that's what standards look like at the highest level. Someone else that I actually really admire is Indra Nuyi. She is the former CEO of Pepsi COO. And she was born in a little village in Chennai, and she wore a sarry to her job interview at Boston Consulting Group and she got the job. She didn't compromise on her culture, on her values, on her traditions in an environment that the odds were against her walking into that room wearing that, but she chose to anyway. And so I really hope that this episode serves as a really great reminder to you that if you have certain standards, and you have them based on true values that you deeply, deeply care about, don't compromise on that. It will make you so much sadder in your life, and it will create so much much duality in yourself if you go against the values that you feel are so strong for you, and to compromise on those bit by bit over and over again, it really chips away at your own love for yourself

15:11Speaker 1:and your own worth for yourself. Do not compromise on any of that, because your high standards are just a beautiful reminder that you have worked so hard to understand who you are and what it is that you want, and you don't have to compromise that for anyone. Sending you all so much love and I hope you will have such a beautiful, wonderful week filled with finding people that appreciate and value your values and your standards.