Episode 112 - The Hidden Cost of Chronic Accommodation with Celeste Davis
One of the biggest challenges for people pleasers is the fear of disappointing, inconveniencing, or hurting others. As women, we have often been programmed to avoid these situations in order to maintain happy and peaceful relationships since childhood. But how can we truly find happiness and peace when we constantly betray our own wants and needs to avoid conflict and keep others satisfied? In today’s episode, I speak with Celeste Davis, who writes about deconstructing patriarchy and learning how to take up more space in the world as a woman on her Substack, Matriarchal Blessing. We explore the themes of her essay, "The Cost of Chronic Accommodation," which addresses the sacrifices women make to ensure the happiness of others—and how to break that cycle. Here's what we cover:
The invisible cost of never prioritizing your own desires
How a woman's self-sacrifice is expected and even romanticized by our society
Why doormat or b*tch are not your only options for how you show up–there is a middle ground where you can assert yourself
How social structures that depend on doing invisible work for free keep women from valuing our time and energy
Two unique definitions of boundaries to help you protect what is sacred to you
How to deal with the avalanche of emotions–fear, anxiety, shame, guilt–that you have been programmed to feel when you disappoint someone
I can’t wait for you to listen.
Terri Cole on the We Can Do Hard Things Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-you-a-high-functioning-codependent-find-out/id1564530722?i=1000703548035
Find Celeste here:
https://celestemdavis.substack.com/
http://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/hidden-costs-of-accommodation
https://celestemdavis.substack.com/about
Find Sara here:
https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations
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Transcript
Sara 01:00
I have Celeste Davis on the podcast today, and it's a conversation that I have been wanting to have for some time since reading, well, discovering, and then starting to read your Substack. So, thank you so much for being here.
Celeste 01:11
My pleasure. Happy to be.
Sara 01:14
The particular essay that you wrote that I just could not stop talking about was called The Cost of Chronic Accommodation. And so before getting into that, what do you want people hearing this conversation to know about you?
Celeste 01:27
I'm a mom of four. I live in Spokane, Washington. I write a Substack called Matriarchal Blessing, where I talk a lot about patriarchy and deconstructing patriarchy and taking up more space in the world.
Sara 01:45
When you wrote The Cost of Chronic Accommodation, can you tell me a little bit about what was going on in your mind that kind of helped you to frame the argument that you make in that essay? Sure.
Celeste 01:59
Well, this is something I've encountered many times, I don't know you have as well, Sara, that I would see my friends and I would see myself and just so many of the women around me, try to kind of navigate life trying to get what they want. But trying to do that, they just kept running into the exact same roadblock. And that was called disappointing other people. And so they would want what they would want, but they would try so hard to get it in a way that they didn't hurt anybody's feelings or make anybody mad at them, or inconvenience anybody or take up anyone's time or space. And you just can't really do that. I really think that it is the spiritual work of women to learn how to build their self, build their ego, like it's the opposite for men who they need to lose the self, they need to lose the ego. But for women, when we have these messages pushed on us relentlessly to be selfless when we're already starting from a different point, we already have this lifetime of conditioning to be selfless, then we just disappear more and more and more. It's not really the work we need to be doing, we need to be doing the work of building the self and taking up more space and being more kind of confident and assertive. But we can't ever do that work if we never allow ourselves to disappoint people or inconvenience people. So I guess to see if you want to go into specifics of what made me write the essay, my mother is like obsessed with Jodi Moore, she's like a life coaching podcaster. And she always has her on the background whenever I visit her, she listens to it constantly in these calls. And I just noticed this trend of these women, they all had the exact same issue, which was that they wanted something. But in order to get that something, they had to inconvenience someone or disappoint someone, and they were unwilling to do it. So like, how do I ask my husband to help me around the house without making him mad? How do I deal with my sister's hurt feelings without hurting her feelings? How do I decline going on a family vacation without disappointing my parents? How do I say no to my team without them being mad at me? How do I get the support I really need without inconveniencing anyone? And it was just like, the roadblock was exactly the same. And the route was exactly the same for all of them that you have to just, you have to inconvenience people, you have to disappoint them and you have to sometimes make them mad. And that is the thing that as women, we've conditioned ourselves not to do, that's like the number one rule, right? Don't be selfish. And you have to be a little bit selfish to learn and to grow and to be a human. But anyway, that's what made me write it.
Sara 04:36
Oh, I mean, if you've got your bingo card out and you're listening, you should be close to bingo because all of those different scenarios just tick off a little box. I think we've all run into either those exact scenarios or ones very similar where we find our wants kind of butting right up against either expectations or what someone else wants and we have to disappoint in convenience, make possibly, you know, hurt other people's feelings or make them mad or continue to betray ourselves, what we want, what we need. And that's such, oh, I mean, I have been in that place. It feels like I lived in that place, you know, for a lot of years of my life. And I guess the way it kind of felt to me was that I wanted happy, peaceful relationships. You know, I wanted a happy, peaceful relationship with my husband and with my kids and with my parents. And when what I wanted threatened that kind of happy, peaceful, gosh, it just felt so hard.
Celeste 05:45
Oh, so hard. Yeah, I've definitely noticed the exact same thing. I had kind of this epiphany several years ago when I was at a women's retreat and we were journaling and I was dealing with wanting to leave the religion that I had grown up in my entire life, Mormonism. And I was very clear that I wanted to leave, but I really just felt like I couldn't, like I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't. And I just kept going in circles, I want to, I can't, I kind of want to, I can't, I can't, I can't. And then like when I kind of peeled back the onion of like, why can't I? At the very center, I can't disappoint this many people. So many people would be so disappointed in me. My parents, my siblings, my in-laws, my sister-in-laws, brother-in-laws, my ward, my friends, my kids, friends, parents, my kids, friends, all of them. So disappointed in me. And I, that was at the core of it. And then I have run into that same core so many times. Like last year or two years ago, I had, I'm also like, I meet with people who are transitioning out of religion. And I had a client who I knew I needed to drop. It just wasn't a good thing, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it because I would, you know, make her feel bad. And I just like was like, I want to do this. I can't, I want to do this. I can't, why can't, I can't make someone mad at me. I can't, you know, and I run into that. It's honestly sad and depressing how often I run into this exact same roadblock. So when I talk about these other women, like on the Jodi Moore podcast, I'm talking about myself. Like I am in this boat very much.
Sara 07:17
I think all of us are because if we zoom out for just a second, you talk about the patriarchal underpinnings a lot in a lot of our behavior in your Substack essays, and that's what it is. There is a romanticizing and an expectation of women's self-sacrifice. I attended a funeral recently of a woman in my old religious congregation, you and I have an endless list of all of her sacrificing, how she never pursued anything for herself because it would have come at the expense of something for her children or something for her husband. I know that that's not going to be the case for everyone listening, that there is this real religious romanticizing of self-sacrifice, but I want you to just think for a second. If your eulogy was being read, how prominently would your own self-sacrifice play in that? Because I think it's just good to check, not that self-sacrifice is bad or wrong. I think you have four kids, I have five kids, other people have kids and jobs and partners and dogs, and there isn't a certain amount of giving and loving that is required by connected loving, healthy relationships. But as I listened to this endless list of what this mother had sacrificed, I just wondered where was she? Where was what she liked? Where was what she dreamed of doing with her life? Where was what excited her or really made her unique? The one unique thing that she could do or be in the world other than the self-sacrificial person for everyone else.
Celeste 09:12
Right. And the sad thing is like, that's not a that's definitely not a one-off. I mean, that is what the people in our lives who we love the most usually, like expect from us. This is the expectation, especially of mothers, this endless well of giving and that is what is held up. And that is what was rewarded and that is what is expected. So we're not crazy. It's not just us being like, Oh, silly little me. I have a hard time and convincing people. It's like, no, this is like the script we have been handed in Western society as mothers right now in the 21st century, like this is what it is. And it's hard to go against that script, because predictably, people will call you selfish, and then you will start to doubt yourself. And people will be disappointed in you if you stop serving them in the way you always have. But what I wanted to really point out in my essay was that it's not just that there's a cost, if you buck the script and you start taking up space and you start following your own dreams and making more space for yourself. It's not that that part has a cost. It's equally that chronic accommodation has a cost that one is just a little more invisible. But it's still a cost. I mean, there's more women have, you know, more chronic illness than men and tons of built up resentment just doesn't go away on its own. You have to constantly be managing that and it comes out of physical illness, it comes out in depression and stress and overwhelm, like there is definitely a cost to never prioritizing your own desires. It's just a little more invisible than the cost of making people upset with you.
Sara 10:47
that's so true. And I love that you said that, you know, we're not making this up. We're not making the difficulty of this kind of conundrum up. It's baked into our experience growing up in Western patriarchal, you know, even I would say capitalist societies where what you do is more important than who you are, what you produce is what is, you know, valued, whether that's money or labor or, or, you know, something it, it really is a conundrum because you are right, there is a cost. There is being called selfish, there is being called difficult. There is, you know, I interviewed a Crystal Hall a few weeks ago, and she was going to be ordained in her religious tradition, but she wanted to change the rights to match her own, you know, view of feminism. And she was called disrespectful and difficult for just wanting things to reflect her lived and hoped-for experience. And so the price is real, but the cost is also very real, chronic illness, the resentment, okay, if you've got the bingo card out, that's another one, you know, the resentment that the fear that the disappointment that we feel when we're in that kind of chronically accommodating stance.
Celeste 12:06
Yeah. Yeah. And you, the other cost is you're kind of having to very often gaslight yourself into like, Oh, this isn't a big deal. Oh, it's fine. I'm fine. It's fine. It's fine. It has to be fine. Because if it's not fine, I'm going to have to make everybody around me mad. I'm going to have to be a bitch or whatever. Sorry. Excuse my language. No, no, it's like, it's welcome here. And so the work is like, you're constantly mentally having to kind of rearrange your reality to convince yourself that things are fine to convince yourself that things are fair to convince yourself that you don't actually need that much time or space to yourself or money or whatever it is. And you kind of have to gaslight yourself out of your own reality, which really erodes your trust. And it's just kind of a sad way to live. And I've lived it. I know. Okay.
Sara 12:54
I have, too. I have the terse like, no, it's fine. It's fine. No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. It's okay. It's okay. Like, I think so many women have mastered the, and you're shoving the resentment down, or you're shoving the sadness down. That's what I love about the story of Nancy from the second shift. Can you tell that story briefly? Because I think it's such a great illustration of this particular cost.
Celeste 13:19
Mm, yes. So in the book, The Second Shift, the author Allie Hauschild, it was written back in the 80s. And she was a sociology professor at Berkeley. And she wanted to research like, who was doing the work after when women entered the workforce, she wanted to interview couples who both had full time jobs who were working the same amount of hours. And she wanted to know who was doing all the work of the second shift of the meals and the house cleaning and the dog and the children and all of that. And well, she kind of knew who was doing it. But she wanted to know how everybody felt about it and how they made sense of it. So she like for a decade would go into couples homes, specifically like 12 couples for over like eight or 10 years, and see who was doing what and interview them and how they felt about it. And so the first couple in her book, she talks about I mean, they're made up names, but this couple Nancy and Evan, and they were they lived in Berkeley, right in the in the 80s, but it was still like one of the most liberal parts of the country. So they were both like gave lip service that they were feminists, right? Evan said he was a feminist, but he just wasn't doing any of the Second Shift. Nancy was doing all of the childcare, all of the meal prep bat,hing the children, putting them to bed, and all of the housework, and all of everything. And Evan would, you know, do his little hobbies in the basement. And anyway, so Nancy had kind of a breaking point when she had like two months after she had her first child. And she was just like, Okay, something has got to change. I cannot keep doing everything and have a full time job. And all of this. And so she made a plan. And she's like, Okay, we're going to do we're going to divide it all up. And you're going to cook every other night. And I'm going to cook every other night. And you're going to take turns doing the laundry, and I'll take turns doing the laundry. And so on Nancy's night to cook, she would cook, and on Evan's night to cook, you know, he'd be like, Oh, I forgot. Sorry, I forgot to go to the store. I don't sorry. Or, you know, he just wouldn't do it every night. He's like, I'm just tired tonight. Sorry, I can't I can't do it tonight. And so it just wasn't working. And then the same thing would happen with the laundry, it would just pile up and up and up and up until she would finally break. And then she would do all didn't want to get divorced more than he didn't want to get divorced. And so he kind of had the power card in their relationship. And so what she ended up doing was she created what the author calls a family myth, which is, okay, I will do the upstairs. And Evan will do the downstairs, which ended up just being the garage. And she's like, that's fair. Everything is fair. And she had to like really convince herself that it was fair because she didn't want to leave and she didn't want her life to change. And so that's kind of the compromise she made.
Celeste 16:08
But her resentment required daily work to keep it in check. And you know, she's trying to convince herself that there's not a cost. There was a cost. There was a cost. She just decided to shoulder that cost dea,l with her resentment, and do all of the work. And you know, I don't mean to judge women in that same situation. It's a really, really hard decision. Divorce is not easy. And it's not always the best route. I guess the point is like, there is a cost. There's a cost to this, right? And I'm not saying that there's a right way, wrong way, but just to acknowledge that like, it's not like, Oh, this is the perfect way to be completely self sacrificing. And there's no cost at all. There is that
Sara 16:47
That is so true, and especially women who have been in the position of supporting husbands, and they have not furthered their own education or their own professional goals and their own work experience, oftentimes after a couple decades of that, you find yourself in a financially down position that makes divorce really terrifying. So, I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for Nancy, and it's just so common that we find a way to maintain—one of my favorite quotes is by Friedrich Nietzsche. He says, most people prefer dishonest peace over honest conflict. That's such a good quote. And the way that I change it just a little bit is because, kind of from where I'm sitting, it's like we don't have the skills for honest conflict. It's not that we prefer it. I don't know that Nancy, if we could have her here today, would say, yeah, I just prefer the family myth, you know, truthfully, maybe. But I think that from where I'm sitting, what women lack are skills to disappoint people, skills to inconvenience people. It's a lack of two things. Number one, like, how do I actually do that? What are the steps that I take to disappoint someone? And two, how do I fortify myself internally to really deal with the fear, the anxiety, the worry, the shame, the guilt, this avalanche of emotions that I have been programmed to feel when I disappoint someone?
Celeste 18:23
Oh, so much to say about that. First off, I think it's such a mental game to do that work of really truly valuing yourself. Because you are definitely taught not to, and you're definitely taught to see your value if other people see you as valuable. And this work, they're not going to see the value of you prioritizing yourself and your time and your hobbies and your desires, as much as they will see the value of you valuing their time and hobbies and what you can do for them. And so what's going to happen is you're going to have to develop so much self-validation that you're not crazy, that you're not selfish, that you're not being mean, that you're not being unreasonable, because those things will all count on it count on them being thrown at you, right? When you shift, if you have been accommodating chronically everybody in your life, and you want to stop, count on those things being thrown at you. And if you have not developed that self validation, where you are sure of yourself, and you are sure you are doing good and doing what needs to the work that needs to be done, you'll crumble, you'll crumble to their pressure, you'll crumble to the labels, you'll, you'll come, you'll just go back to accommodation, because, you know, that's familiar. That's what you've always known. But if you really want to do this work, I think you have to spend, frankly, years doing the work of knowing your own worth and knowing your own value and really being willing to prioritize your own equality. I mean, that's kind of what it is, is that women the way marriage in this country and in the in the West, I mean, honestly, for this isn't just like a recent thing, this is for 1000s of years, the history of patriarchy, where, you know, society is run on the invisible label of women. That's how it's worked. That's how it has always worked. There's so many structural strings in place to keep you from valuing your time and energy, because our social structures depend on women not doing that and just accommodating and doing all of the invisible work for free and not even seeing it as work, right? We only see paid work as work, even though it is work to clean and to cook and to raise children, that is absolutely just as valid, but we don't value it. So you have to do the work of valuing your own work valuing your own time valuing your own desires equal to the people around you. And because that's not how our system is set up, equality is going to feel unequal, right? Because we're not used to women's equality, we're used to women's inequality. And so even just if you value your own time, the same as your husband's, if you value your own time, the same as your children's, your children and your husband are probably gonna call you selfish.
Celeste 21:04
And they're probably gonna think that's very unequal, because we're so accustomed to inequality. And so if you don't do that work, when the pressure comes, you will probably crumble. And it just takes so much self validation when in a system where we are so accustomed to needing validation from other people, flipping that it takes it takes work, I think it takes reading, it takes talking to other women who have done it, and a lot of validating. Yeah.
Sara 21:29
That's such a good point. I remember the first time. So I started working about seven, yeah, seven years ago. And so then I started doing a day job and then all the mom stuff as well. And that's when it quickly I was like, we can't keep doing this. And so my husband and I have kind of been in the work of rearranging that. And he has been willing. But I think there have been times when we have fallen into this equality feels weird, you know, I know I have felt that I'm sitting in my office and I'm still either finishing up on some work or I'm taking care of something while he's making dinner and it feels weird. It feels like there is like I should it's this impulse in my body to like get up and go help or stop what I'm doing. And like I should be, I should be in there. He's taking kids to doctors appointments that I used to take them to and there was a you know, some tussling over that, because he had learned to value his time working and making money over, you know, my time, when I wasn't doing anything. And even in the beginning, when I wasn't making the amount of money that he was making, there was we had to really have some of these, you know, honest conflict talks that were so hard, because I'm like, honey, it's not about the amount of money. It's about the access to free time, the access to time to work. It's about equal access to use the time that you have. And it was an ongoing conversation. And I think, in large part, we have worked that out. But my heart really goes out to a lot of women who ask me the question, how do I explain this to my husband without making him mad? How do I explain to him that I want to go on a trip with my mom and sisters without making him think like, I'm just being selfish and wanting to get away from him. It's happens a lot.
Celeste 23:36
So common. Yeah, okay. That brings up two points, but I kind of want to hit on first boundaries. The exact same as how we started this podcast off. So many women go into boundary setting, already shooting themselves in the foot. Because the question isn't like, how do I create this sacred space around me? The question is, how do I do this without making anybody mad at me? And you can't, you can't, you can't set boundaries without it. That is your goal. You're doomed from the start. You're doomed before you start. If you are trying to set boundaries before you, even without making anybody mad at you. And I think we try to do it like an example I use often is like, you know, the laundry, let's say you have always been doing your husband's laundry. And you want to stop exactly like you said with the Nietzsche quote, instead of this like honest conflict, we go for dishonest piece, or you go you reach for these things without ever really saying outright, this is what I want. Instead, you go to experts and you're like, well, look, look at these studies that like, when men help at home, they're more happy. Or then you'll reach for like, trying to get a consensus like, well, this husband, this husband, this husband, this husband, actually, so many husbands do their own laundry. Right? Or you can, you know, you just go all through all of these like wiggle waggle things without actually directly just like so you could try to convince him until you're blue in the face, or you could just freaking stop doing the laundry. Right? But instead, we try to can we try to make it seem like this is gonna be great for you. This is gonna make you better. This is gonna make you happy. And we're losing like that we're still prioritizing the other person above our own desires. And we're still like, putting their feelings above our feelings, right? Because we could have resentful feelings about doing the laundry for years and just shoulder that and just absorb that. But then be unwilling to put our husbands through even five minutes of discomfort. It's so crazy when you really break it down. Like we would rather be resentful for years than cause our husbands five minutes of anger. It's crazy, actually. Anyways, and that's not to say not everybody is in a safe position and in a safe manner. So make room for that. But when you break it down, and that way, it is just kind of crazy. And I did hear I want to say to I heard I heard my favorite definition I've ever heard of boundaries recently. I was listening to a TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, about the spiritual work of men's visual work of women might have an essay on that, but it's actually from her ideas on this. And she has a TED Talk. It's not a TED Talk, but it's a talk she gave in Canada. Anyways, for some company. But the way she describes boundaries is like a sacred circle. And this is an idea from Joseph Campbell of like, he was asked, he talks a lot about religion. So he was asked, like, how do you define the sacred? And he's like, you just draw a circle around something and you say, this is sacred. That's it. That's what religious have been doing for centuries.
Celeste 26:36
They're like this book, this temple, this thing, it's a circle, and I call it sacred. And so Elizabeth Gilbert describes boundaries as you draw a circle around something and you say this is sacred. And I'm trying to do that. This is the mentality I'm going in with the summer. I really struggle with summers because all my it's like we've worked so hard to equalize our marriage and the school year, it's like pretty tit for tat. Like we divide the meals in half, we divide the grocery shopping in half, we divide the errands in half, we do we like meet together to share the mental load with doctors appointments and birthday presents and birthday parties, all of that. But the summer, when the kids are off school, it falls to me. Anyways, so I'm trying this summer to draw a little circle around a certain amount of hours for my free time for my work and my hobbies, and my solitude and my spiritual practices, and say this is sacred. And I won't let anybody trample on to what is sacred for me. And that's my boundary. I need this many hours every day. And I'll be creative and how to get it or whatever, but I need to hold that to be sane. This is my threshold of time of solitude that I need for myself. And I'll draw a little circle around it and I'll say this is sacred to me and I will keep this boundary.
Sara 27:53
that is so good. I'll add, because I think having several definitions of boundaries to kind of really play with and see what feels right for you, I think is helpful. Princess Hemphill is a writer, somatic practitioner, and they define boundaries as the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously. Oh, that's good. Yeah. And I love it because it really centers what we want for our relationships, which is love, and which is connection. And it does make the center of the boundary a relationship. When you were talking about women not wanting to inconvenience their husbands, even for five minutes, that emotional caretaking is also taught, right? I'm in charge of making sure that nobody gets upset. I'm in charge of making sure that everybody's having a good that everybody has everything they need and that everybody feels good. And I really see it as a conundrum. And I like to find a middle space because there are going to be some relationships when you stop the chronic accommodation, that it becomes very clear that what they love and value about you is your accommodation. Totally. And there are going to be some relationships where you are able to just say, you know what, fuck off. I don't care about you or this relationship continuing, but those are going to be, I would guess, fewer than some relationships where we either need to keep them for financial reasons or other reasons that matter for us, or because we actually like our partners and want our relationship to continue with them. Or we have children or friends or bosses or parents, you know, fill in the blank. And we want the relationship to continue, but we also want to address the chronic accommodation. And so I wrote down a list of phrases that I would use with my parents, especially about, you know, their disappointment in me when I also left Mormonism. And I would just say to them, like, I get that this is really hard for you. I really understand that because it felt like a way to acknowledge, like, this is a change. I'm changing this dynamic. And of course it's going to be hard for you. This is what we've always done. I said to my husband a lot, like, I really appreciate your willingness to look at this with me and address it. And I know that it's uncomfortable. You know, thank you for your willingness, because this is going to take both of us or it makes sense that this is changing our dynamic and that is uncomfortable. And I remember saying to a friend, like, I get that we're going to have less things to talk about, but staying connected to you is important to me. And I'm just grateful that we can work on some other things, because all we used to talk about was church, right? So I think there is a way when we do the work that you talked about to self-validate. Like, I feel so convicted and convinced that this work to find a place for me in my life where I am equal to everyone else is so important that I can have some compassion for the way that, in some ways, it actually might even feel like a betrayal to other people when I change things up or when I want something that I've never wanted before.
Sara 31:12
Like, I can hold space for that and also not let go of what I want. And I think that is the difficult place is how do I hold on to me and try to hold on to you in in a new way.
Celeste 31:26
Yeah, that's really beautiful. That's really, really good. I like that definition of boundaries a lot.
Sara 31:31
I have been reading a book called When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams and she actually introduced this idea of betrayal. And I read this sentence and I, maybe I gasped audibly, I certainly did internally because she wrote, to find our sovereign voice often requires a betrayal. And I know that word is so powerful. But I think for a lot of the relationships or the scenarios that we're talking about, disappointing people, inconveniencing them, angering them, changing the dynamic, it can feel like we are doing something wrong, right? Because betrayal is wrong. You're supposed to be loyal. You're supposed to be true. You're supposed to, you know, be the person who is reliable. And so I just wonder, when you hear that sentence, what does it bring up for you? I'll say this sentence one more time. To find our sovereign voice often requires a betrayal.
Celeste 32:34
Yeah, betrayal is a really strong word. And I think that it's almost the question of like, do you betray yourself? Or you do you betray someone else's comfort? Do you just betray someone else's maybe vision they had of you in their mind? Do you betray their desires? Or, you know, it's almost like one or the other is going to happen. And it's really, really hard work to then say, Okay, I'm not going to betray myself anymore. I'm not going to betray the things that I want my little circle that I have decided a sacred of my time, my desires, and myself. I'm not going to betray that anymore. And if that means betraying the vision you have of me in your head, I'm willing to do that. And again, easier said than done. It's so baked in, but I think it kind of comes down to like, acknowledging that it is a betrayal of self to not speak up to not be honest. Yeah, I'm just I'm reading a book right now called, I'm mostly here to enjoy myself. And in that book, though, there's a girl's trip of like five women. And she's commenting on the dance that all of them are dancing to avoid disagreeing with each other. And so it's like those women would rather just stew in like daily resentment of doing the thing they didn't want to do, whether that's being with them people too much or not doing the thing they really go into the beach they wanted to go to going to the restaurant they wanted to go to, they would do, they would go so far just to avoid disagreement. But again, that's kind of a betraying themselves and therefore they're soft, they're betraying their sovereign voice, when they're just keep the peace, keep the peace, keep the peace, keep the peace. And chronically, I mean, I know so many women who have made keep the peace their entire identity, that they don't even ask themselves what they want anymore. They have no idea because their personality is just keep the peace, avoid disagreement. And so their sovereign, they have betrayed their sovereign voice so many times that it's not there anymore. They can't access it.
Sara 34:43
I'm smiling so big just cause I have been in that dance where you're like, I really don't want to go eat Thai food, but that's what Susie chose. And Celeste said she wanted it too. So, okay, I guess I'll just go, right? And it's such kind of a simply daily scenario that I think so many people can relate to. So where then if women want to begin to practice finding a sovereign voice, disappointing people, finding their place, drawing the boundary, whatever kind of, whatever words, you know, if you're listening to this, whatever words call to you, write them down because words are an act of creation. And when we write it down, I think that's the first step. Just telling yourself the truth, I want that. Like you don't even have to have all 10 steps mapped out, but just if you feel a little hugging, pulling something, what would you say to a woman who is feeling that and is also maybe frightened or worried about speaking up, not accommodating, shaking up the dance or the dynamic and the worry that it will cost something.
Celeste 35:55
a great question. I mean, I think it has to be doing the work of really, really, really knowing deep down in your toes that you are worthy of equality. And that takes a long time. And for, I don't know, I can just speak to my personal journey. I had to rely on other women's words for many, many years before I really believed it for myself. I could see like I could read a book by Sue Monk Kidd and be like, Oh, wow, she's really valuing herself. She's really inconveniencing lots of people and betraying a lot of people's trust in her to really speak up and say what she wants to say. I see how she does it. I don't feel ready yet, but I can, I can take that and I can hold it as a beacon for the future. And then you just read it. And for me anyway, it was really reading a lot of other women's words who were doing this work and who were valuing themselves and were valuing their time and their energy. And it was just became so empowering to me that eventually I was able to be like, Oh, I see what's happening here. I'm in this position where I either have to betray myself or someone else, or I see what's happening here. Everybody else is prioritizing, you know, their, their time above my time. And I'm accommodating that. And I need to stop doing that. Like this is on me now. I can't just, because, you know, it's something that's also really common is it's really easier to kind of stew in resentment than to really hold yourself responsible for your own equality. It's an uncomfortable truth. It's a lot easier to complain. It's a lot easier to play the victim. I know a lot of older women in that position where they outright hate their husbands or outright are extreme here, but they've never really taken accountability for their part in their dynamic or, you know, really done that work. And so holding yourself accountable then. And I think that we don't do that because we have, I guess maybe I'll just speak for myself. I had in my head this kind of stereotype of this angry, feminist bitch who I did not want to be. And so I didn't know how to prioritize myself without becoming this stereotype in my head of this just like really like cussing complaint angry, like, how dare you? That wasn't me. That didn't jive with my personality. I didn't know how to make more room for myself without becoming that. And a phrase of Brene Brown's has kind of become my mantra in these difficult conversations. And it's don't puff up, don't shrink, stand your sacred ground. And that kind of goes back to what we were talking about before about your boundaries being your sacred space or whatever you draw a circle around, like know that your ground is sacred. Your time is sacred. Your desires are sacred. Know that you're not just being an angry bitch to ask your husband to help you or to ask your parents or to whatever accommodate you need or to speak up at the girl's trip for what you really want to do that day or where you really want to eat, whatever it is.
Celeste 38:55
Know that you're standing on sacred ground of your desires and you might not get, you know, the response you want. But and then to again, that don't puff up like there's this thing called like the drama triangle, right? And it's like the persecutor, the victim and the savior. And it's like, for me, that's really important to avoid. Because I don't, it's easy to like, it's kind of a cheap trick a little bit to like resort to be like, well, I have the victim here, like, you're always this. But just to like, be like, no, I don't need to resort to that. Because the ground I'm standing on is sacred. And I can just stand here grounded. And I can stand here knowing with my head held high, and my shoulders held back, that what I'm trying to fight for here is worthy. It's my own self-worth. Really, it's my own equality. And that is sacred ground. And so you don't have to come up, your only options aren't doormat or bitch. There's a middle ground where you can just be your own full person and be like, yes, I'm willing to make you mad right now. Because I know this ground is sacred. And I can stand here grounded. I can tolerate that you will be upset about this. And I'm willing to do this work anyway and still love you and still love me. So
Sara 40:05
beautifully said. And I love the idea of honoring our anger as something that is trying to tell us something, right? Bringing us information, resentment and anger, for me always show up where I need to take better care of myself, right? It points me in the direction of either something that really matters to me in the world, or where I need to have better boundaries. My anger tells me like, we don't like this, this doesn't feel good. And resentment tells me we feel like being the victim here, right? And so I love that you, what I heard you say is, you know, doing the work of knowing that you're worthy of equality, holding yourself responsible for your own equality, really being honest about what part of this dynamic have I actually created? I think it's just happening to me. And so I'm resentful about it feels like a hostage situation. But how am I actually creating it by either what I'm not saying, or what I'm not doing, relying on other women's voices that I mean, your Substack has meant a lot to me in the work of other women. And so I'll make sure we link to that. But that is so important because I do think there is a part of this or a phase where you see it and you want it in other women. And I think envy actually plays an interesting role there. And what are the two emotions that women are most cautioned against anger and envy, right? Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, don't be a jealous bitch. Don't you know, don't be an angry bitch. And so but those two emotions, I remember feeling such envy, when I saw other women taking up the space or doing the I felt envy, watching my husband take a nap on a Saturday afternoon, right? Like, must be nice, must be nice. So to let the presence of those emotions be informative, like what about this is making me angry? Is it where I need to take better care of myself? Or is this something that I want for myself, that I just don't know how to get yet? Because when I peel back that envy, it was a really tender part of me that was just like, I want that too. I just don't know how to get it. So I said, the last thing that I would just add in terms of like, how do you begin to walk yourself out of self-betrayal is to start small, start with like less risky, less dangerous feeling situations or dynamics first, and then let that give you some confidence, some practice tolerating that discomfort, some building of skills. I was working on this with a client. And you know, she was sharing a win. And she shared the story of being on the phone with a representative from her insurance company. And they finished up the reason for the call. And he said, Would you stay on to take a survey? And she said, No. And he said, Oh, oh, okay. And that little just, you know, little disappointment, she caught him off guard. But that meant so much to her. And I we celebrated the hell out of that, because that is a real step in the right direction. And it felt doable to her. So if you're thinking about how to do this, you can kind of imagine in your mind right now, what are the relationships that feel maybe the riskiest?
Sara 43:31
And maybe there are some situations where the laundry feels totally doable to you. But some other part doesn't start with the laundry, right? Give yourself some softer places to start first or call your insurance representative and then refuse to take the survey at the end of the call. And just notice how it gives you a little bit of confidence. So, is there anything that you really wanted to make sure was part of this conversation that you haven't gotten to say yet?
Celeste 44:01
I don't think so. I'm just a fan of what you just said, like the exposure therapy, little by little. I mean, I would also recommend the book Codependent No More by Melody Beatty. I believe it, Goodie, but it's written for women just in this exact situation. And yeah, that book was really helpful to me.
Sara 44:17
I love that book when I read it. And I also want to recommend another book by Terry Cole. And she talks about high-functioning codependents, which look a little different than the codependency in Melody Beatty's books. But she has a bunch of great books as well boundary boss, I think is one of hers as well.
Celeste 44:42
She was on Glennon Doyle's podcast.
Sara 44:45
Yes. Amazing. Amazing. I'll link to that podcast as well, because it was so good in helping me see that a lot of my codependency doesn't look like what a traditional codependent might, but it's really this kind of high-performing, high achieving, doing everything, saving everybody, feeling like I know best what everybody needs. And that's just another way of accommodating.
Celeste 45:15
Yeah, that was a part of that podcast. I just like, Oh, like, hit me right in my gut when she was talking about how she felt like she had to save her sister who was like going through some drug addiction and really, really toxic relationship, homeless, like really rough and she felt like she had to save her sister and then her therapist like asked her the question like what makes you think that you know, the best route to your sister's healing. I was just like, Oh, that's so good. Like that, you would rob her of learning her own lessons in her own way. Because you think you know best about her life path. It's good. It's a good podcast.
Sara 45:55
It is so good. And that actually, really, as I have stopped accommodating, I have seen an amazing ability of the people around me to step up to new levels of doing and contributing, but also conflict and having the discussions about it seemed so scary, but it was actually the secret doorway to more vulnerability and intimacy. And in the relationships that matter the most, where we have kind of been able to meet each other, I have felt so much more able to really ask for what I want in more and more vulnerable and intimate ways. And that had to start with me deciding, like, I don't know best, you know, maybe I shouldn't be the one doing all the time, everywhere, for everyone. So there's a lot of really beautiful changes. There's a lot of discomfort. I don't want to downplay that part. But I think that the point that you made so brilliantly in your article was that there's just not a way to stop accommodating without disappointing people, but that that will, for a lot of your relationships, be the thing that gets you the equality that you actually want.
Celeste 47:14
Absolutely. And I mean, I love the quote that you brought up of like, you're really making the choice between dishonest peace or honest conflict and honesty is a crucial ingredient to intimacy. You can't really be deeply connected to someone if you're not being honest with them, if you're not being authentic, if you're not able to be authentic because you must keep the peace, right? So it's hard work. You're going to question yourself, but it's good work.
Sara 47:41
It is. And I'm really grateful for you and for your words. That book by Terry Cole, I just looked it up, it's called Too Much, it just came out last year. So again, other women's words, if you need some of those, find Celeste on her sub-sex list. Is there anything else that you want people to know about what you do or where to find you? No.
Celeste 48:00
Pretty much the Substack.
Sara 48:01
Okay, thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciate it.
Celeste 48:05
Yeah, it's a pleasure.
