Women of Worth
Welcome to the Women of Worth Podcast with Claire Fealy! I am so excited to have you join me today to kick off this amazing journey and dive into how I got to this place in life. This show covers inspiring stories to help you uncover your worth. You are worthy because you were born. PERIOD.But this isn’t just my podcast. I would never be where I am today without you! So, settle in, grab a nice cup of tea and welcome to the first episode of OUR podcast.
Women of Worth
Breaking Free From Guilt And The Power Of Prioritising Yourself
Have you ever felt completely drained from trying to be everything to everyone? That exhaustion isn't just fatigue—it's a symptom of something deeper.
After taking a much-needed break to focus on my own healing journey, I've returned with powerful insights about the guilt we feel when putting ourselves first. The martyr mindset—believing we're more lovable when we're constantly doing for others—is actually a losing game that leaves us running on empty.
What's truly fascinating is discovering that this people-pleasing, overachieving behavior isn't actually the problem—it's a solution we've created to address a deeper wound. At the core lies a belief that love must be earned, that our worth is tied to our achievements rather than our existence.
The path forward isn't about becoming more disciplined with self-care; it's about healing the belief that you must prove your worthiness. Love isn't a feeling—it's trust and respect built through time and attention. When you prioritize yourself, you begin building that relationship with yourself first, giving from a place of overflow rather than overwhelm.
If this message resonates deeply and you're ready to accelerate your healing journey, I'm currently accepting new clients and offering a summer special on breakthrough sessions. Connect with me on Instagram @clairefealymindsetcoach to transform your relationship with yourself and reclaim the energy you've been giving away. Or drop me an email at claire.fealy@gmail.com.
Welcome to the Women of Worth podcast. I am your host, clare Feely, teacher turned mindset and confidence coach. Each week, I will be bringing you inspiring people messages and science-backed strategies to help you reconnect with your worth. You are worthy because you were born. This podcast is all about empowering you to stop proving your worth and start being it, because the only person that gets to decide your worth is you. Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of the Women of Worth podcast.
Speaker 1:I have been on a whopper long break, in case you hadn't noticed, and it has been to go in, do my own healing, and I decided at the start of the summer, um, that I was going to go light. Over the summer I had a few different things on and I just gave myself permission to slow down, take the foot off the foot off the accelerator and just coast for a bit. Just yeah, and it feels so good to be back and it feels so good to, um, to feel a lot more aligned in myself, obviously, from doing a lot of inner work, I feel a lot more grounded, I feel a lot more content, um, and obviously that's why I'm back on the podcast. I want to share my breakthroughs, I want to share what's coming up in coaching and I want to help you go from proving yourself to prioritizing yourself. So in today's episode I want to talk to you about the guilt of putting yourself first and how heavily conditioned we are to prioritize other people, to put everyone else first. And one of the hardest, hardest parts of my healing and this journey that I'm still on was unlearning the martyr mindset, the of, but I do so much for everyone else, the mindset of like that it made me a better person, that it made me more lovable, because I was constantly exhausted from trying to be everything to everyone.
Speaker 1:And it is that when you try to be everything to everyone and it is that when you try to be everything to everyone, you're nothing to nobody because you're so exhausted and burnt out. And it is that I think so many women today, especially women, are pouring from like not even an empty cup, but like cracks and like even when you try to pour into your cup, it's like the water never fills up. Like you take a break, you go on holiday, but it's like you forget what it feels like to feel fully rested, to feel like. Even over the summer I had a lot of 12 hour sleeps and it's like, yeah, that's exactly what my body needed. Of course, I slept for 12 hours and it's just listening to my body and letting it lead and giving myself what I need.
Speaker 1:And before this, that would have sent me into a spiral that would have like I just always had this drive to constantly be doing and constantly like, be achieving, and what's the next thing, what's the next goal? And it is that I want to talk today about the exhaustion of trying to prove yourself and show you that there is a much, much, much healthier way of doing things. And I want you to see by the end of this episode, that putting yourself first is not selfish, like we are so wired to believe. It is smart, it is the smartest decision you will ever make, it is the best decision that you will ever make, and that doing less isn't lazy. It's actually a leadership strategy. It's when you go from that hamster wheel, constantly exhausted, snapping at everyone around you. It's when you go from that to like even I'm even thinking one of the biggest shifts I see with clients and it actually came up in a session this week again where clients start to realize that they're responding instead of reacting Like when we're exhausted, when we're in survival mode, like our defenses are completely up, so even somebody asking you a question, question, it can just trigger such a like. Well, I know, I didn't say it that way, I didn't like you're just on the constant defense and then, after the moment has passed, you feel so guilty. You feel like why did I even react like that, why? But you're exhausted. You are exhausted from trying to be everything to everyone, and so I want to get into what the real problem is, because not prioritizing yourself and constantly doing for others and constantly working and constantly going until there is literally nothing left, like you're going through life on 1% battery, that's not the real problem. It's a symptom of the problem, and I'll even go one better. It's a solution to the real problem Because it makes complete sense, like logically, it makes sense to put yourself first, like the analogy that keeps coming into my mind when I was even prepping this episode and when I was thinking about it.
Speaker 1:You know the way they tell you at the start of a flight to put your oxygen mask on first. Why do they like it's not even our instinct, even when we're in danger, to put ourselves first, it's to make sure everyone else is okay before we put on our own mask. But the reason to tell us that? Because when you're putting on everyone else's oxygen mask, your own oxygen is running out. So, okay, you'll have put oxygen masks on other people, but you're passed out from lack of oxygen people. But you're passed out from lack of oxygen and, and it is that it's it's lack of oxygen, it's running on empty and but the constant doing is a solution, so it's not really the problem. And this can be a massive mindset shift for you, so you can see this a different way.
Speaker 1:At the core of putting everyone else first is the belief that love is earned and that belonging is earned, and that the cost of relationships is self-abandonment, that the cost of success, the cost of a job well done, so for you to excel in your career, you have to give everything and then some. And it's the black and white thinking, because oftentimes, when I'm processing this with clients, they're like yeah, claire, but I love what I do, I'm really good at what I do. I, you know, like I can't see myself being any other way. I can't't, you know, like I want to do this. And it's the. It's not what you're doing. It's why you're doing it. So it's coming from this place that I am not enough exactly as I am. But if I can constantly achieve, if I can constantly please people, if I can perfect myself, if I can perfect my appearance, if I can perfect my confidence, if I can perfect everything about me, that that's just the price that you pay to be loved by others.
Speaker 1:And going even deeper, it comes from if you received conditional love as a child and I'm 1988, giving away my age here, I'm 37. But in the 1980s, 1990s and probably even the early 2000s, that is how we were parented, because that's how our parents were parented, where they withdrew love if we weren't complying. Um, so you know, stop that crying or I'll give you something to cry about, or you did something bad at school, sent to your room, or you hit your sister, you hit your brother. They withdraw love because that's what a child needs the most. That is the harshest punishment psychologically that you can give a child.
Speaker 1:And when we learn that love can be taken away that quickly and that easily, we attach love to what we do and not who we are, and I want that to really land for you. We attach love to what we do and not who we are as a human. So that's not to say in any relationship you have rupture and repair. Parents are going to make mistakes, people are going to make mistakes. We are going to rupture, like what I talked about earlier, where we react, you know, and it's something later on, when our nervous system has calmed down, we realize that didn't require such an overreaction. Right, the rupture is not the issue, it's the repair, it's being able to come back and say look, you know, you are not your behavior. You know accepting an apology, giving an apology.
Speaker 1:But when we learn as children that we are loved for what we do, and specifically with high achievers you were likely raised on praise for your performance in school, in sports, in drama, whatever it is. So you learned that love is being extraordinary. You learned that love is being the best at everything. You learned that love, you know, and you were just a child trying to get your most basic needs met the need to feel seen, heard, validated and valued, the need to feel like I matter, the need to feel like I'm important, I belong, I'm wanted, right. But if love was conditional growing up and it was given and taken away depending on what you do. You now, as an adult, attach your own love Like. This was one of the, you know beliefs that I had to work really hard on. That doing doesn't make me deserve love anymore. I deserve love, no matter how much I get done today or not. I deserve, you know, compassion. I deserve good things, no matter how much I do or don't do.
Speaker 1:It's that unconditional love and that's the antidote to shame. So shame is there is something inherently wrong with me. When you don't get unconditional love as a child, you cannot see that that is your parents lack of ability to love you unconditionally because they didn't get it from their own parents. It's not bad parents, it's emotionally immature parents. It's parents that were never taught these skills and how important unconditional love is. When you don't get that, the only reasoning that your brain can make is that you didn't get it because you didn't deserve it, because there is something inherently wrong. This is where shame comes from. This is the.
Speaker 1:And then what happens is we go through life and we try even harder to get love and those who need approval the most get it the least, because people feel that neediness off you and it's that like you're just going through life, constantly needing to achieve, constantly needing like something I hear a lot with my clients is obsessed with self-improvement, and a lot of the work we do is self-acceptance, accepting yourself exactly as you are. And no, that does not mean because you accept yourself, then you never go after any goals. You never, you know, push yourself, you never do a good job. It doesn't that's all or nothing, thinking there is a healthy middle, like even I had a client this week and she was saying, clara, I am still setting goals, but I don't have this sense of urgency, I don't have this sense of I need to have something to. You know, keep me going, I need to. She's like just doing things from a place of I want to do it because it'd be fun, and that's when her sense of self-worth and her love and you know all of that is not attached to what she does, it's attached to who she is, as a person, as a human being.
Speaker 1:You are inherently lovable, not for what you do but for who you are. You are lovable because you exist, you are worthy, because you woke up today and I know that that feels so unfamiliar, like when I started unlearning and relearning this, like even I've been doing this really deep inner work for the last few years and I'm still having to bring myself back to Claire. Love is not earned. You know, doing doesn't make you more deserving all of these things, and it's that I want you to really start noticing where you look for love outside of yourself and not it's healthy. Like, as humans we are, psychologically, you know, physiologically, biologically, everything. We are hardwired for interdependence. We are hardwired for connection. We are a social species.
Speaker 1:But what I have learned through this process and through healing and putting myself first is that everyone else's love is a bonus on top of my own love, on top of, like, my own compassion, my own self-acceptance. And it is so, so, so true. I cannot tell you how true it is. Those who need approval the most get at the least. Because before I did this deep inner healing work, I had like failed friendships, I had failed relationships. I just, oh my God, I struggled so much and even just my relationship with myself and it's so funny. I really do believe that your outer world is a mirror for your inner world. Outer world is a mirror for your inner world. Now, like my friendships are just gold, like they're just I can't even describe how fulfilling they are. It's just like. It's so true. When you get the inside right, everything on the outside falls into place. It is the best feeling ever.
Speaker 1:And what I've learned as well through prioritizing myself is love is not uh, love is not a fuzzy, you know. Feeling love is an action. So the way I explain it, even in coaching, is if you think of love as trust and respect, that's's what it is. I want you to think of a person that you love. I don't even care if it's a pet, anything. You trust that person. Just think about how much you trust that person. You probably trust them with your life and you flippin' respect them, flaws and all you are like do you know what? I just flippin' respect that person. That's what love is.
Speaker 1:And where does that trust and trust and respect come from? Because think of when that person first came into your life. Did you trust and respect them on day one? No, you didn't. Their actions spoke louder than their words. They built your trust and respect over time. That's exactly what prioritizing yourself is. It's building your trust and respect. How do you do that? Trust and respect comes from time and attention. So the person you fell in love with, aka the person that you trust with your life and respect like nobody. They gave you time and attention and you built that over time.
Speaker 1:This is what prioritizing is. You give yourself time and attention. You can meditate for days. You can read a hundred books on self-love. You can watch youtube, watch YouTube videos until you have, like bloody, burnt your computer out. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Love is action. It is not a mindset shift. It is not like you can have mindset shifts, but you have to put it into action. That's why, like in between my coaching sessions, my clients always have action steps, because it's not enough to just change your beliefs. You have to put it into practice and I'm going to show you exactly how to do that. But you have to first decide that you are done from today onwards. You are done proving yourself Because you're playing a losing game. If you're trying to prove yourself, you've lost before you've even begun, like when I was trying to prove that I was lovable and I was good enough and I was worthy. Like I can laugh now looking back on it, because I was playing such a losing game. Like, oh my God, the only person's approval I needed was my own, the only person's affection I needed, and compassion and love and empathy was my own. So decide from today that you will stop proving yourself and start prioritizing yourself, because when you do this, the relationship with yourself, oh my God, it just like. Like it's the best feeling ever. When you have such a good relationship with yourself and you start to set much better boundaries you're not the people pleasing, overachieving, perfectionist, like, exhausted, running on 1% there's so much more joy, there's so much more happiness.
Speaker 1:And I was even working with a client recently and she showed me her journal, like her daily diary from a few months back, and it was just chock-a-block, like there was no white space. There was like. It was just like she was stuck in proving herself. Like she was stuck in proving herself. She was stuck in overcompensating, like loves her job, very, very good at it, but like just didn't know how to not give 110 percent. And it was unlearning. All of these. You know bad habits and beliefs and behaviors that like to excel at what you do, that you have to exhaust yourself. And she showed me then this week's daily diary and she literally had three bullet points in it and she was like Claire, like this is my day, now this is. And she was like and I feel like I'm okay about that. I feel okay and that's what it is.
Speaker 1:When you start giving to yourself what you're looking for so badly on the outside, you get into your adult self, like when you're trying to get your unmet needs met. As an adult, you're in a child ego state and I actually need to do an episode on that because it's so bloody powerful. But anyways, when you pour into yourself first, when you pay yourself first and you give from overflow rather than overwhelm, you become a million times more energized. You become so much more empowered. You actually feel excited, like that client who's now setting goals, but she's excited, she's not exhausted by them anymore and there's just so much more joy in the journey because you're not trying to get from outside what only you can give to yourself. So you don't need to prove yourself. You need to start prioritizing yourself. Okay, clare, that all sounds great. Tell me how to do it.
Speaker 1:And this is what I want with the podcast that you've simple, actionable steps. The first thing you need to do is simplify the shit out of your schedule. You need to get really, really good at prioritizing. Prioritizing is meant to come from our prefrontal cortex, which is the smartest part of the brain. I do my priorities the night before and actually when I finish up work I do my priorities for tomorrow. But then, when I'm wrapping up my day, my nighttime gratitudes, all of that. I have on a post-it, my priorities, and I'll tell you exactly how I do them.
Speaker 1:So my three non-negotiables mind, body, soul I always put like number one is movement, move my body every day, no matter what. Number two is meditation drop into the present moment, anchor myself, ground myself. And number three is mindset, and that's journaling, it's gratitudes, it's all of that. They're my three non-negotiables. No matter what happens in a day, they will happen, and that's before I go into helping anybody else. I have, like, poured into myself first and I call that the power hour. Now, this has obviously taken me a while to build and I've been doing it for years now. But 20 minutes movement, 20 minutes mindset and 20 minutes meditation. But what I would say is start with one. And if I was to pick one, I would say start with movement, it's the easiest, or even mindset, I suppose, is the easiest, like journaling, whatever feels the easiest for you. Start there. But three non-negotiables is mind, body, soul, movement, meditation, mindset.
Speaker 1:Then I have my top two needed movers, like, what are like? And the way I decide this is if I could only get one thing done today, what would that be? And like, what is the one thing that really moves the needle, rather than, like I used to do endless to-do lists and you're just on the hamster wheel, right, but the top two needed movers if I could only get one thing done like this podcast today is one of them. Um, and then everything else is busy work, and I always do busy work after lunch, when my energy is a bit lower. Like busy work is replying to emails. It's, you know, like the day-to-day of the business, right, but I know my priorities, I know my neededvers, and it's so much easier when you wake up and I just have two things. I'm like oh yeah, I just have to do the podcast today and I have to do an email. Easy, do you know what I mean? It's like taking the pressure off yourself, letting it be easy.
Speaker 1:And then I always do one for fun. So what is one thing I am doing that is just for fun? That is just for fun, that is just for joy, right, and I like, I'm always saying your only goal in life is to enjoy it. Imagine that you measured the success of your day not by how much you got done, but by how much fun you had. Because I pour into myself first and then I go to my business to give from a place of overflow and not overwhelm, and then I enjoy myself.
Speaker 1:I do one thing for fun in the evening, like that could be going to see, calling over to see a friend, it could be going to the cinema, it could be, um, like it doesn't even have to be doing. It could be watching my favorite movie and like my one for fun. This evening I'm calling over to my sister and like just simple things. It could even be like love is blind. I love bloody dating shows. There's a new episode out and I'm like, oh my God, I really want to watch that.
Speaker 1:Um, but just one thing that is just for fun, and oftentimes clients really struggle with this one as well, because they're like what? Like I like I like what do you mean fun? Like scrolling on my phone watching Netflix? Like no, what brings you joy? Like what feels like fun? So it is that your three non-negotiables, three like. They're not even up for debate, they're not up for discussion. Start with one non-negotiable your walk. 20 minutes walk or 20 minutes mindset meditation is a lot harder. Your two needle movers, what is like your top two priorities. Everything else is busy work. And what is one thing that you can do for fun? When you put that on a post-it and you see it every day, like you even sleep better because you know that tomorrow is not completeit. And you see it every day, like you even sleep better because you know that tomorrow is not complete chaos.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to have to do this in another episode. I thought I'd get it in in this episode, but I don't want to go on too long. Changing your behaviors is one thing, but if you don't heal the wound that's underneath the behaviors the shame, the high, high achiever wound, as I like to call it, the conditional love wound when you don't heal that like, one of the first steps is prioritizing yourself and pouring into yourself, because then you'll actually start to believe that you deserve love, you deserve health, you deserve happiness, right, but it's also alchemizing the shame, it's clearing the fears, it's clearing the beliefs. I'm going to do another episode on this. I obviously need to split this into two parts, but, yes, one part of it is the action, and that's really important because, like information is not transformation, implementation is.
Speaker 1:But when you get your brain on board with these beliefs, when you start to believe that my worth is in who I am, not what I do, I am not what I do, who I am is so much easier, right, and if you felt every word of this episode and your heart is calling you into going into this work deeper. And instead of doing it alone, you want support and you want to do it faster than you would ever do on your own. Dm, I am taking on clients. Now that the summer has come to an end, drop me a message on Instagram. I'm also doing a summer special of 50% off breakthrough sessions, so that's where we just do one hour together.
Speaker 1:Go really deep, clear the bullshit, clear the fears, and you will feel a million times lighter and brighter. I'm going to wrap it up there and just remind you measure your success not by how much you get done in a day, but how much fun you had. Like I read over every morning, I just have like a graphic of the top five regrets of the dying and the one that always sticks out to me. I wish I'd let myself be happier. Life is an adventure to be enjoyed. It is not a race to be won. You're not in competition and you were never, ever, ever meant to prove your worth like you were born a hundred percent worthy. Nothing you do or achieve will ever change that. You just need to get yourself on board.
Speaker 1:I hope you found today's episode helpful. I would love to hear your takeaways. Drop me a message over on Instagram or drop me an email, clairefeely at gmailcom. Also, I would be so grateful if you could share this episode, help me to help more women, and I will see you, hopefully sooner than the last episode. Thanks so much for tuning in and remember that you are so lovable, so worthy, so deserving of all the great things because you exist, not because you achieve or don't achieve. Lots of love, and I will chat to you again next week.
