Holding On To YOU in Relationships - How to Have Your Own Back

**What do you do when the life you've worked so hard to build is successful, but doesn't actually feel like yours?** Welcome to a new season of Awakening Women and a deeper evolution of the work. For years, we've talked about relationships, narcissistic abuse, emotional addiction, boundaries, breaking patterns, leaving, staying and learning to recognize what is really happening beneath the surface of our relationships. But I've come to see that the relationship with a man is often the **mirror**, not the whole story. Because you can be successful, educated, capable and completely independent in the world and still be outsourcing your authority in your most intimate relationships and in the decisions that shape your life. You can run a business and still question whether you're allowed to want more. You can make your own money and still give someone else a say over what you feel entitled to do with it. You can be the woman everyone relies on and still struggle to ask yourself the most important question: **"What do I actually want?"** And sometimes the hardest part isn't knowing the answer. It's being willing to live according to it. ## In this episode, I introduce the Modern Autonomous Woman. Not a woman who doesn't need anyone. Not a woman who has to do everything herself. Not a woman who has become so independent that she no longer allows herself to receive, love or be supported. The autonomous woman is a woman who can remain connected to herself while being connected to others. She doesn't hand over her authority in exchange for love, approval, belonging or security. And she understands that autonomy isn't something you either have or don't have. **It's a practice.** In this episode, we explore: - Why being highly capable doesn't necessarily mean you're autonomous - The difference between external success and internal autonomy - How women learn to adapt, perform and anticipate everyone else's needs - Why the question *"What do I actually want?"* can be so confronting - How your relationship with a man can mirror your relationship with yourself - Why the man cannot remain the centre of the story - What it means to become self-sourced rather than approval-sourced - Why midlife can become a powerful reckoning with the life you've built - Why financial autonomy is about much more than having your own bank account - Why this work goes far beyond relationships - What it means to stop waiting for permission to become the fullest expression of yourself ### A question to sit with As you move through your day, your relationship, your work and your life, ask yourself: **Where am I still waiting for permission?** Permission to want more. Permission to change. Permission to disappoint someone. Permission to take up space. Permission to make money. Permission to leave. Permission to stay. Permission to become someone your old life may no longer recognize. And then ask yourself: **What would I choose if I trusted myself enough to stop asking for permission?** That is where autonomy begins. ### This season is about coming back to yourself. We're going into the shadow and the light. We're talking about relationships, but also money, business, sexuality, the body, motherhood, divorce, energy, ambition, identity, midlife and the future you're building for yourself. Because I don't want you to simply leave a toxic relationship. I want you to understand the deeper pattern of self-abandonment so you don't recreate it somewhere else. I don't want you to simply become more independent. I want you to become **self-sourced.** And ultimately, I want you to become a woman who knows: **I belong to me.** ### Work with me If this episode is speaking to something you're currently navigating, explore the ways you can work with me through the links in the show notes. And if this new direction of Awakening Women resonates with you, **follow the podcast** so you don't miss what comes next. If this episode touched something you've been silencing, take a moment to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your review helps more women find this conversation. **The next chapter isn't about becoming a better woman.** **It's about becoming your own woman.**