You Trained Them Too Well — Now It’s Time to Untrain Them.
You taught everyone how to count on you. Now it’s your turn to learn how to count on yourself.
“I fired my Empire nurse yesterday.”
That was the first line of a note I read yesterday on Substack by Carolyn — one of the women in our little Monirose Soul Circle
She said she’d finally ended the monthly “check-in” calls from her insurance nurse. You know, the one who was supposed to care — but was really there to make sure Carolyn didn’t cost them any money.
“I told her I wouldn’t be needing her services anymore,” she said. “I’m learning to be the Queen of my own life.”
And I just sat there and thought — well, damn. That’s it. That’s the work. ( I felt so proud of her!)
Most of us were trained not maliciously, just generationally to behave.
We were to not cause trouble big or small and to go along with everything and question nothing.
We were raised to measure our worth in compliance, convenience and caretaking.
We learned early that being easy made us lovable.
So we made everything easier for everyone else and harder for ourselves.
We made everything easier for everyone else, and harder for ourselves.
Even that well-intentioned nurse needed Carolyn to need her. That dependency made for a tidy little report about how well she was “managing” her patient.
That’s not care. That’s manipulation dressed up in compassion.
I am thrilled that for Carolyn to saw it — to realize she’d been feeding the nurse’s need instead of her own.
You don’t have to be anyone’s project manager anymore.
You can still help, still love, still show up — but from choice, not obligation.
Because somewhere along the way, you taught people that your needs could wait. You said yes when you wanted to say no. You stayed late, picked up the slack, remembered every birthday, made every casserole.
And because you did it with grace — or at least without complaint — they assumed it was effortless.
They got used to the version of you who made everything easier for them.
And now, you’re realizing it’s made everything harder for you.
Here’s what no one tells you:
When you start reclaiming your time, your peace, your mornings — it won’t just feel uncomfortable for them. It’ll feel uncomfortable for you.
Because your nervous system got trained to equate worth with usefulness.
You learned to feel guilty for resting. You learned to feel responsible for everyone’s happiness.
So when you begin untraining the world, you’re also untraining yourself.
Untraining doesn’t look dramatic. It looks intentional.
You don’t answer right away.
You say, “I can’t do that this week.”
You take your walk before you check your phone.
You stop explaining.
You don’t automatically reply to the text — unless it’s a true emergency.
That’s the first part.
The second part — the one that makes this stick — is learning to notice yourself.
Your own thoughts.
Your own energy.
Your own quiet yes and no.
That’s exactly what I teach inside REFOUNDATION — my guide to rebuilding your inner architecture with you in charge, not the old habits or expectations that once ran your life.
If even a small part of you is curious about what your life could feel like when you stop managing everyone else’s, this is where to start
.
Carolyn’s nurse story isn’t about a phone call.
It’s about a reclamation.
She didn’t fire a nurse.
She hired herself — as the CEO of her own energy.
That’s the moment we’re all moving toward.
The one where we stop asking, “Who needs me?”
And start asking, “What do I need to stay alive inside my own life?”
That’s when relevance stops being something we chase —
and becomes something we embody.
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