Alexandra NielDivorce Recovery Coach, ANiel International, LLC. · I help women who held it all together through divorce finally build a life that’s actually theirs | Thrive After Divorce

Stop Sacrificing Your Joy | How to Own What You Really Want Without Guilt

22 Apr 2025 · 1 min

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In this brief monologue, the speaker urges listeners to repeatedly ask themselves what they truly want, using that question to detect self‑deception. She argues that recognizing genuine desires eliminates the need for guilt, especially when making difficult choices like ending a relationship. The speaker emphasizes that we should stop taking responsibility for other people's emotions—"gatekeeping" them—and stop sacrificing our own feelings for others. Finally, she highlights the importance of the emotional messages we model for our children, suggesting that healthy boundaries teach them better emotional habits.

Chapters

I just feel like if we, if we ask the question like, what do we really, really want? And we ask it enough times, like, we know when we're BSing ourselves with the answer. And I think if we knew that we weren't going to feel guilty, if we knew that if we said, okay, I'm going to leave this relationship, whatever, this other person is not going to feel any pain, we need to stop taking responsibility. I say stop gatekeeping other people's emotions, right? Yeah, because you don't have to sacrifice yours for theirs. Life has hurt involved. Life has really hard times. I'd say think about the messages you want to be giving to your children.