Breaking Free from Over-Giving: How Prioritizing Your Needs Can Transform Your Relationships

I can still remember the day I hit rock bottom with over-giving. I was with one of my exes, and I had run myself so ragged that my body felt like it was falling apart. Inflammation coursed through me—eczema, rashes, joint aches, gluten intolerances. My emotional well-being? Stuffed so far down it was almost unrecognizable.

I told myself that if I just loved him more, if I was more positive, more optimistic, if I gave and gave and gave... surely, he’d see me. Surely, he’d pay more attention to my needs. Surely, he’d give me the love I was so desperately craving.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t work.

In this episode of ​The Femme Cast,​ I’m sharing the moment I realized over-giving wasn’t the answer—and how learning to prioritize my needs not only healed my body but also transformed my approach to love. If you’ve ever found yourself in a similar cycle of self-sacrifice, this episode is for you.

🎧 Tune in to hear the lessons I learned, the boundaries I built, and how putting myself first finally allowed me to attract the kind of love I always dreamed of. 

Let’s do this. 

Ready to step into your Magnetic Love Era? If so, The Magnetic Love Story Manifestation Method is now open for enrollment.
https://www.thefemmecast.com/products/courses/view/1180320

Chapters

• 0:00 Over-Giving in Relationships
• 5:18 Prioritizing Your Needs in Relationships
• 16:11 Reclaiming Self-Care and Prioritizing Needs
• 32:58 Ending Toxic Relationship Patterns

Transcript

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 0:31

Hey you guys, what is up? Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited and grateful to have you. Today. We're talking about the biggest lie and myth that you've been told that is keeping you stuck in a perpetual cycle of toxic relationships, and it is not what you think it is. Now I paraphrase all of this to say there is many patterns that we can fall into that will turn our relationships toxic so fast. It will make our head spin. However, this one trait, this one myth that we've all been taught to believe most of us anyway, as women about being in relationship, that is making our relationships wildly toxic, like wildly, and we actually think it's the very thing that heals our relationships and makes them healthy, and that's what we've been taught to believe. And I don't know when all this information got fucked up, but it did at some point, generations ago. However, we need to unlearn that behavior now, because it's the very thing that is making us impossible to manifest and keep a healthy, functional relationship, and it's going to be the thing that you least expect. And again, I preface this with saying there's many other behaviors that we can embody that will turn our relationships toxic in a heartbeat, but this is by far the most effective, and it's everything you've been taught to do, and that is to constantly give to others and put their needs first. This is the single most powerful way to make any relationship toxic. So, if you're somebody who resonates with being an over giver, if you constantly feel like you're giving more than you're receiving in your relationship, if you constantly feel like you're modeling the behavior that you wish, like you love your partner the way you wish they would love you, and the more you love them, the wish they would love you, the more they're doing the exact opposite I want you to pay attention, because this episode is for you. This is something that took me a really long time to learn and took me even longer to be able to embody longer to be able to embody and it's funny because I thought I had fully mastered it until recently, as I mentioned in the previous episode, with the situation going on right now with my family and caregiving for my mom. Yeah, I may have mastered it in my romantic relationships romantic relationships but it's still there in other relationships. I'm seeing it, so let's have a conversation about it. So, if this resonates with you, if you resonate with being somebody who's constantly giving and never receiving and constantly putting everyone else's needs first and feeling like you're know you're, you're not getting what you put into, your getting out of what you put into your relationships, then this is for you. So message me at Maria at the femme coachcom you can send me an email or DM me at the femme cast on Instagram and let's have a conversation, because I'm really curious which side of the spectrum you find yourself on and what it looks like for you, because I know what this looked like for me, I know what it looked like in my romantic relationships and I know what it's looking like now in my other interpersonal relationships.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 4:29

And there is a profound, a profound what's it called? Ingraining of this belief that, in order to be loving, to be a good partner, to be a good daughter, to be a good wife, to be a good sister, to be a good friend, that you constantly need to give and put everyone else's, put your relationship's needs before your own. Self-sacrifice is something that no man has ever taught. I don't think I don't know Men. You can, let me know you can actually. You know what? If there's a man listening to this, I would love to hear from you. Let me know you can actually, you know what. If there's a man listening to this, I would love to hear from you. Let me know.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 5:18

Is this something that you're brought up believing that you need to put everyone else's needs before your own? I'm really curious, cause I know that, as women, you know growing up and it's not to say that you know no one ever said to you, hey, you know. No one ever said to you, hey, you're a girl, so your feelings aren't going to matter when you get older. They don't really. You know you have to. It's not, it's the unspoken truth, and I don't know if this is something that was ever told to me or if it was just modeled to me. I'm not sure exactly, but I do know that.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 6:03

I look at the women in my life and these are amazing women, loving women, devoted women, who constantly take care of everyone else's needs but their own, who put their needs last, who constantly give, give and give and never receive. And I have found myself in the same situation numerous times, as a matter of fact, with one of my exes. I can remember having run myself so ragged that my body was like I was experiencing inflammation throughout my entire body. That looked like eczema, rashes, joint aches and pains, gluten intolerances, constantly stuffing my needs, my emotional well-being and my needs to the back burner and trying to give and prioritize my partner's needs so that I could extract more love from the relationship. And coming at it from the perspective of well, if I just love him more, if I just love him more, if I'm just more positive, if I'm just more optimistic, if I give more, if I, you know, pay more attention to his needs, if I, you know, do all these things, maybe he'll pay more attention. If I pay more attention to his needs, maybe he'll pay more attention to my needs. If I'm more understanding and unconditionally loving towards him, maybe he'll be more understanding and unconditionally loving towards me.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 7:38

And so we get into the cycle of giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving and never receiving. And then what inevitably happens is we become a hot fucking mass of resentment and toxicity, and what we've actually ended up doing is we've made a lot of our relationships toxic because now we've learned, we've taught them the behavior, and we have to, we have got to take accountability for our side of the fence, you guys, because you know what? It's not a toxic man thing, it's a human nature thing. If you walk into a relationship with somebody who's going to take care of your every need, what are you going to do? Okay, I'll just sit back. I'll just sit back and trust that you are going to take care of my every need. And this is how you love to love, because this is what you're showing me. So this is how you love to love, by putting my needs first and taking care of everything that I need, and putting your own needs on the back burner. Well, hey, okay, let's do this, let's do this thing Now. If that's the partner that you want, by all means go out there.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 8:41

But I don't. If you're listening to this podcast, I don't think that's the partner you want to bring out in your significant other. I think what you want to do is bring out the version of them that is supportive, that is loving, that you can count on and lean on, that can be that masculine presence that you want them to be. And so that doesn't come from constantly giving to them. That does not come from constantly prioritizing their needs to them. That does not come from constantly prioritizing their needs. That does not come from you doing to them what you wish they would do for you. That comes from taking care of your own feelings, your needs, and being the embodiment of what you want them to be for you. So how do I put this? Being the embodiment of who you would want them to be for you, for yourself. So, in other words, instead of putting all your energy on taking care of their needs, prioritizing their needs, making sure that you're setting the example for how you want to be loved, you just show them how you want to be loved by how you love yourself. You make your needs a priority. You make taking care of yourself a priority. That's not to say that you and hear me out that's not to say that you don't give to your partner. Of course, love is a give and and take. You cannot be in relationship with somebody and not give to the relationship, not give to the person, not take care of that person's needs, but you also have to take care of your own.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 10:26

The toxic trap that we fall into and, ladies, I am speaking to a version of myself right now the toxic trait that we fall into as women is ignoring and neglecting our own needs. Taking care of others' needs, our partner's needs, making their needs the priority, making their needs the priority, treating them the way that we want them to treat us and assume that we are going to get that back in return. Okay, that right, there is the signature of toxicity when, in fact, what we should be doing is saying okay, what do I need right now? How can I give that to myself? How do I want to be loved from someone? How do I want him to love me? How do I want him to show up in this relationship and how can I show up for myself that way?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 11:25

And, ladies, if you're out there and you're single, a really good exercise for you, and this is what I did throughout, you know, being and I still do it to this day Like I, this is, this is something that's become a daily practice for me. What I didn't realize is how I still need to do it with my other relationships. I've managed to master it in my romantic relationships, but I have not managed to master it in my other personal relationships. So what you want to ask yourself is how do I want them to love me, how do I want them to show up for me, how do I want those relationships to make me feel, and how can I do that for myself today? Because now what happens? We're creating an energetic shift.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 12:11

Okay, our relationships, all of our relationships, be it personal, romantic, sexual, family, friendship, doesn't matter. They're always a reflection of the relationship that we have with ourselves. So if we're seeing a pattern in our environment, it's because it's pointing to a pattern that we have in the relationship that we have with ourselves. So if we're constantly giving, giving, giving, giving and never receiving, constantly prioritizing everyone else's needs over our own and no one ever prioritizing our needs, if we are constantly loving people the way that we want them to love us, but they don't love us the same way in return, it's because we've made them the focus. We've put all our love, energy and affection and attention and effort on them instead of putting it onto ourselves.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 12:59

And so what ends up happening is the reverse happens they love us less, they give us less, they tend to our needs less, they show up less and less as the person that we want them to be and more and more the person that we're trying to chase and extract the version that we want out of them. And this is scary. It is a scary thing to do, especially when we're doing it with romantic partnerships, because we innately believe that when we take our energy and our focus away from said person. Let's say we're talking about a romantic partner right now, right, when you take our energy and our focus away from said person. Let's say we're talking about a romantic partner right now, right, when you take your energy and focus away from that said person, that romantic partner that you're trying to extract this beautiful, romantic, loving relationship with.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 13:45

We're afraid that if we're not constantly giving that, if we're not constantly prioritizing their needs, we're not doing all these things, that they will leave, that they will abandon and reject us. Okay, and that is the deeper, deeper truth here, because deep down, there is a part of us that feels like they are not worthy to receive that person, to receive the love from that person, and so we are constantly working for it, constantly working for it, constantly giving. We are constantly working for it, constantly working for it, constantly giving, constantly setting the example, thinking that we're showing them how we want to be loved. But really, what we're showing them is what we're really showing them is the sun and the moon begin and end with you and you are the center of my universe. Is really what we're trying, was really what we're telling them. That's really the message we're getting across.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 14:38

And all this to say I would never again I can't stress this enough it's not to say that you should never give to your partner or make them feel like you know, the center of your world. It's fine, you know, it's all beautiful and it's all romantic, and I wouldn't say make them the center. You should always be the center of your universe, right? It's first God, or source, or universe, or whatever you resonate with, then it's you, then it's them. And this is something that I learned from my spiritual teacher First God, then you, then them. And the them can be anybody. It can be a romantic partner, it can be a significant other, whatever same thing Family, it could be friendship, it could be a one-night stand, I don't care, it doesn't matter, it's all the same. The other is the other, as always the others.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 15:30

So, with that being said, your relationship with your relationship with source, with, with, with source energy, with God, with the creator, with the universe, that has to be your first and foremost priority, which for many of us it really isn't. We'll talk about that in another episode, but this is this. This is really the key to healthy relationships. You guys, like I hear me out Like there, hear me out Like there is a big correlation between the relationship that we have with our masculine partners, like the men in our lives, right, the romantic partners, or our partners that I carry more of a masculine energy, right, because we're talking about energetics, right, masculine and feminine energetics.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 17:32

So it's really our relationship with masculine energy is what we're talking about, be it a partner, be it a father figure, be it source energy, all falls under the category of masculine energy, and what we have learned as feminine energies if you're listening to this podcast hence why it's called them Guests what we've learned in our relationship to masculine energy is that we need to be giving and prioritizing the masculine energy's needs, or our relationship energy, the people that we're in relationship with. We have been taught that we receive love through giving and prioritizing their needs and loving them the way we, in turn, want to be loved, and that is creating all oops sorry, that was my elbow all of the toxicity in all of our relationships and in order to correct this behavior, right? So? So, in order to reverse engineer this sorry, I'm clicking my mouse If you're hearing clicking in the background if we want to reverse engineer this, we have to, like I said, when we feel the urge to give more, to love more, to push our needs to the back burner and prioritize someone else's.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 18:59

And again, this comes from a fear of being abandoned and rejected. If we don't, because that's what life has taught us, that will happen if we do this and in many cases we will be abandoned and rejected because maybe that was a toxic presence who was only there to consume and take and not give in exchange. And so we need to be able to stand in a place where we are empowered to say hey, I'm okay if you walk away from me and you reject me and you abandon me, because I know I'll be fine and you reject me and you abandon me because I know I'll be fine and I know I need to give from a healthy place, and giving from a healthy place, and giving and loving from a healthy place means that I am loving myself, I'm making sure that my needs are met and making them a priority in my world, in my life. Making them a priority in my world, in my life, because I do believe that our needs and our priorities and our desires do come to us from source energy, and so when we're attending to what it is that we're being drawn to or we're being called to or we feel a desire or a pull towards. I do believe it's how we give to source, because we wouldn't have those needs, pulls and desires assuming, of course, they're healthy needs, pulls and desires we wouldn't have them if they weren't put in us for a reason and I realize I'm getting very like esoteric here, but hear me out. So when we start to make that the priority and start to make sure that we are caring for and giving to ourselves, prioritizing our needs and making sure that we have what we need, we can. I mean there is no limit to how much love and support we can give to other people. There's literally we. I do believe we carry source energy within us and there is no limit to our giving capacity, our caretaking capacity, our loving capacity. If we make sure that we are part of that equation, if we are constantly putting our energy externally and expecting them to do the same for us in return, and then being surprised when they don't and then becoming resentful and agitated as a result, boom, you have a mecca of toxicity. And that, my friends, is the thing that we're here to unlearn and it's the scariest thing to unlearn because, like I said, the scariest thing to unlearn because, like I said, we need to.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 21:58

Every time we feel the urge to love, to give, to sacrifice, we need to pull our energy back and start asking ourselves some real questions around. Do I feel like I'm receiving the love and support and prioritization? Where do I need to pull back now and stop and start giving to myself? And it feels scary when you first do this, because you literally feel like if you don't show up and give that love, that they will not love you. If you don't drop everything that you're doing to help them, they will be angry with you. If you don't put all your needs on the back burner and prioritize their needs first, you will be thought of as selfish and be made to feel bad for even thinking of doing such a horrible thing.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 22:59

And that is what we've been programmed with. And that is some seriously hard fucking programming to break, especially if you've grown up resonating with being a people pleaser. Right, this is what people pleasers do. We just constantly take care of everyone else's needs. We constantly prioritize everyone else and put our needs, our desires, our wellbeing on the back burner for them until we are a hot fucking mess of toxicity and then wondering why we're attracting nothing but toxic relationships into our reality.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 23:39

So the key to the breaking this pattern and I can't stress this enough is going back and asking yourself where am I not giving myself what I need? Where am I not prioritizing my needs? Where am I self-sacrificing to show up and be loving in relationship to somebody else? And how can I start to? Not not by saying no to them, but saying yes to me more, saying yes to yourself more? Where are you saying no to yourself that you need to start saying yes? What needs are you denying? What things that you've been wanting to prioritize, that you know are vital to your well-being, that you've been putting on the back burner because you've been taking care of everybody else, how can you start to make those the priority?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 24:27

And when the fear comes up that they will judge you, shame you, abandon you, reject you, maybe even feel like they'll get angry with you for it, right, how can you just accept that energy and, you know, move through it with a sense of you know, yeah, this could happen, but this might not happen and even if it does, if this person does walk away from me because I'm taking this is here's a mindset shift for you right here. If this person walks away from you because you've prioritized your needs or your wellbeing, your health, your career, your joy, your purpose, like whatever it is, whatever it is that you've now put on a pedestal and decided, you know what this is going to be a priority for me going forward. I have put this on the back burner for far too long and this is very important to me and I feel like my life will be fuller if I could invest some time in whatever this is. Maybe it's a number of different things. If this person is angry with you because you're not making them the center of your universe and is now willing to walk away from you, honey, open the door, like seriously open the fucking door. Let them walk the hell out and find somebody else to, like you know, drain their energy of. You have better things to do.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 25:58

And yeah, it's hard at first and yeah, it's going to trigger the crap out of you because it's going to trigger all of your abandonment and rejection wounds. I get it. I've been there, trust me. I have so been there and it is so painful because, you know, a lot of these wounds are really core, deep, foundational woundings that we carry right, this fear of abandonment and rejection. So when those come up, when they get triggered, it is uncomfortable as fuck. But it's only by moving through those triggers that we actually start to take our power back form.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 26:31

Because once you've moved through them, you've gone through and you know we've talked about the dark night of the soul in previous you go through that, right, you go through this period of like the old version of you who was, you know, being controlled by this fear of abandonment and rejection. You have to kind of let that version of you move through those emotions, let that version of you kind of die off and then be reborn as somebody who you know what you want to leave Bye, you know. And let's not say that it never hurts. Of course it hurts if somebody does that, but it's not the same experience, it's not that same.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 27:05

You know, I remember the first time moving through that fear of abandonment and rejection and it felt like death. It was like, oh my God, I'm actually going to die, I think, right now, because it was so deep, the wound was so deep that I remember just feeling like panic, just sitting in the ball of my throat that just would never go away. And every time I thought of this person you know, who had, you know, you know, recently left my life because I'd, I'd, I'd started to put myself first. And you know, they they that's not what they were in the in in the relationship, for they they that's not what they were in the in in the relationship, for they were in the relationship to be the priority, um, and to just take and and and, to to always receive and never give anything in return.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 27:52

Losing that particular relationship was probably the most painful experience I had ever gone through, even though it was a very unhealthy relationship and it's because it triggered my abandonment and rejection wounds and it literally felt like the pain was so intense I honestly thought I might physically die from the pain, and that was one of the first took. It took a few times going through this, but that was probably the most intense, and after that it got a lot easier. And then now it's gotten to the point where, yeah, you know what, losing someone is obviously a painful experience, no matter which way you slice it. But I know I'm okay. I know I'm okay and I know that the person who is the right person for me is not going to be put off by me making myself a priority in my life and having a healthy relationship with myself.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 29:03

Give to my relationship and I don't give to the person that I'm in relationship with and I don't make compromises and sacrifices from time to time. Of course, that's what being in a relationship is all about, right, but again, it has to be a balance. Yes, I may prioritize his needs from time to time. Yes, I may sacrifice from time to time or make a compromise here or there, but fundamentally I need to also be doing that for myself, because otherwise we get into that energy where we're completely depleted our own energy, putting all our energy and focus into somebody else and then expecting him or that person to replenish our own equilibrium, and they can't do that. That's not if.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 29:43

If we're in relationship with people where we are constantly prioritizing their needs and they are constantly prioritizing our needs, I mean, can that even work? Because then how do we know what we need? How does anybody know what they need anymore? Right, like it, to me it feels that. To me it feels wildly toxic, but I feel like that's what many of us who give into relationships almost unconsciously expect is that, well, I've given, I've made them, I've made you the priority in my life and I've sacrificed everything for you and I've given up all this for you and I've given you all this love and I've given you all this affection and attention, and I was there for you when you went through this and I was where and where are you? Well, true, we want our people. We want our people to be there for us, we want our partners to be there for us. But if you find yourself having those kinds of conversations, my question to you is where were were you for you? Why haven't you shown up for you? That partner is just showing you the relationship that you have with yourself. So start making yourself the priority, start prioritizing your needs, start giving yourself what you need and you will attract a partner or the version of your partner, because sometimes you know, personalities can, and energetics can, shift people's how they show up in a relationship.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 31:11

So, by shifting your energy, you might actually attract a different version of your partner. Or, if they're not the partner for you, they will quickly leave your life and you need to be okay with that, and that's actually where a lot of the work is, is that you need to be okay with some people going out the door and not coming back, whether they're, you know, partners or friends or acquaintances or whatever. You need to just be okay with that. And you know that was probably the hardest part of this journey is knowing that. You know a lot of people did walk out the door and never came back and yeah, it was hard at first, but now, I'll be honest, it feels like a breath of fresh air, because when that energy, that taking energy, leaves your life oh, let me tell you it is you suddenly have so much of your energy and your mojo and your life force back, because you're not dwindling it on people who only want to take and aren't actually giving anything in return.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 32:10

Relationships are a give and take. That means that sometimes you need to give to yourself as well, and when you start to give to yourself, your relationships will start to give to you too. And then that's when we create this healthy balance exchange within relationships. But it's got to start with you. Waiting for somebody else to fill that void for you never works. It always creates toxicity. So do the hard thing put yourself first, put your needs first, take care of yourself first love yourself the way you need to be loved and trust that whoever comes into your world or leaves will be aligned. And that is the hard work.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 32:59

So let me know how this resonated for you, let me know what you take away from this and if this is something that you're struggling with, if you're saying, maria, but please, I'm so scared that I'm going to lose this person, if I just stop making them the center of my universe, where my sun and my moon set Book an intensive, okay, because that is exactly the work that we do together and we will break the toxic patterns in your relationships once and for all.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 33:29

So you can find the link for that down below. Again, if you have questions or if you wanna share your experience or let me know where you're at with this or what you're gonna be taking away from this episode, you can email me at mariaatthefemcoachcom or you can message me on Instagram at thefemcast. Just send me a DM. That's actually the best way to get a hold of me. I love to hear from you guys and I love to hear how you experience some of the stuff that we talk about on the episodes and what that looks like for you and how the advice works for you, I'm curious, or if you have any other tips and tricks that I didn't mention here. That is all for