The Feminine urge...to stop abandoning yourself

There is a particular kind of self-abandonment that can be really difficult to see, because it can look so much like being a good person. 

You’re understanding, flexible, the one who makes things easy, who can’t make a decision or micromanages your delivery so it doesn’t make anyone else uncomfortable- then you wonder why You keep feeling uncomfortable.

You learnt to notice everyone else before you noticed yourself. 

You can feel when someone is uncomfortable, sense when something might cause tension, anticipate what someone might need before they even ask. 

So you swallow the words that might make things uncomfortable, you say yes when something inside you is saying no, you change what you want because you don’t want to disappoint someone. 

You don’t even think of these things as choices anymore, they are the way you move through relationship.

Then one day you realise you’re tired, actually you’re piss off, you’re frustrated, maybe even resentful- 

you have had enough. 

Not because there is anything terribly wrong with your life but because amongst being there for everyone else, you became harder to find. You might know exactly what your partner needs, what your children need, what your family needs, what everyone around you needs from you. 

But when someone asks, “What do you want?” there can be a pause, you have to search for the answer.

I think so many women have learnt that belonging comes with conditions, that being loved means being agreeable, that being a good person means being accommodating. 

We think that having a boundary makes you difficult, wanting more makes you selfish and saying no might cost you connection.

But what if belonging doesn’t require you to disappear?

What if your voice gets to exist inside your relationships? 

What if you can disagree and still be loved? What if you can have a boundary and still belong? 

What if you can want something simply because you want it, without needing to make it acceptable to everyone else first?

This is the territory we’re entering with CLAIMED.

For five days, we’re going to look at the places where you have learnt to override your own voice, your wants, your yes and your no. Not from a place of blame but with the kind of honesty that lets you finally see what has been happening.

Sometimes the most powerful thing a woman can do is stop asking whether she is allowed to want what she wants, say what she means or choose what feels true for her.

And Claim it, again and again.

We begin CLAIMED on 14th September 2026