Welcome to the Self Mastery Podcast. I am your host, Maria Fuentez, and on the show we will talk about all things the self. I believe that it all starts and ends with you, and every one of us has the ability to create the life we've always wanted. I'm here to help you expand your mind, conquer your limiting beliefs, and guide you to ultimate self-love and magnetizing confidence you've come to the right place.
If you're ready to take full ownership of your life and find your true, authentic, Welcome to your weekly dose of transformation. Hey guys, welcome to this week's episode. I'm currently in my little fake studio boosts that I built and I ordered off Amazon. I ordered a room divider thing. And then I put some foam, like some noise canceling foam things on it. And I don't really love it. I don't think I'm going to keep it because it was more of a headache than anything else. And it's huge.
And I have nowhere to put it. But that's where I'm currently at. And I'm also finally recording myself. Talking on these, episodes so that I can use them on my social media. So a lot of different changes. I'm probably going to make this episode a few times for me to actually understand that I'm talking to the camera and also recording and have all these different things going on. But yeah, that's not why we're here. We're here because like the title says, I want to talk about what we truly want.
And how to set some healthy boundaries around it and how to stay true to what we want. And it's something that I've struggled with, to be honest, my whole life. And I've only realized it more recently that setting boundaries feels really painful. For me, it feels like I'm letting people down. It feels like people won't like me. It feels like I'm doing something wrong. And I realize that that's not healthy.
Not only that I realized that, but I was also a part of a masterclass class recently that talked about how women were such givers and. Well, we end up doing is that we end up over-giving because we don't want to disappoint or not be liked, or we want to be loved a certain way. So we over-give. But when we do that, we're losing ourselves. We're not, we're not staying true to who we are and what we want, and we're over-giving to other people.
And it also just causes us to have like really yucky feelings around it. And. We don't realize it until it's too late. And I've noticed that this has been my emo for my whole life. And if I sit down with it and I really figure out like, okay, where does this come from for me? Where, where did I learn this behavior was, I love this way. Who taught me this? And if I look back my own mother, I had to like perform for her. I had to, and not like in a like, dancing way.
Anything like that I had to like perform. In the sense of, I was still responsible for her happiness for so long. I w I felt that that's how I receive love from her. If I was able to put on a show that was able to do all the things, be a good girl, do all the things that I was told to do. She would love me if I was able to rescue her, help her in any way. She would love me. So I learned from a young age that I had to over-give in order to be loved, I had to push myself in ways.
It didn't feel healthy. To feel love to feel that connection I had to from. Just as a child, I felt in order to feel love, I had to over-give in order to feel love and affection. And so that transpired into my adult relationships. And just as a recently, I'm putting all these pieces together, especially after my divorce and my breakup. And I've been so honest about these things with you, because. Staying true to what you want.
No matter who you end up hurting, who you end up pissing off, Who ends up not liking you. One's up. Thinking you're a bitch, you know, all these things. Is so powerful and it's so hard, especially I've noticed for women. It's so hard for us to stay true to what we really want. And I think I came to the conclusion it's one or two reasons or both. For me, I wasn't ever really clear on what I wanted.
So it was so easy to get into these romantic relationships and let them like navigate me into what I wanted and, and lead me into where I wanted. And I just followed anyone's lead. 'cause I wasn't, I didn't know what I wanted myself. I wasn't clear. And anytime that I was clear and I felt any pushback, I was like, oh my God, no, I need to, I need to go back. I need to. Oh, I can't say that to them anymore. I can't be honest. I can be open.
Let me, let me be okay with it so that we, I can feel loved and connected to them. So let me minimize myself and let me not stay true to what I want. And the one thing I found to be true over and over and over again. Is that these things don't go away. The parts of me that are who I am and what they want, they don't go away. I can't just minimize them and hide them forever. Not to make somebody comfortable and not to make somebody love me more. Not to make somebody not leave me.
I have really owned this, especially as of recently. I've realized how much I've over given an order to feel love in order to feel connected in order to feel. Taking care of. And I refuse to do it anymore. I'm going to give you guys. My first reasoning of why I think we do that. So we don't know what we want. Like I said, we, we truly don't ever know what we want usually is because we're connected to other people emotionally romantically.
And if, especially if you've been in long relationships, you know, that eventually like your goals aren't even your goals anymore is our goals and our life and our things. And you kind of lose yourself. And now you hear the term a lot when people are in relationships with, so I lost myself. And did you lose yourself or did you really not know who you were to begin with? Because that was true to me.
Like I, I could say over and over again, I lost myself in my marriage, but I had no idea who I was. I got married at 23. I don't know who I was, especially not what I wanted. I could say I got lost in my past relationship, especially being a step-mom and, and, you know, being in that role, I can say a lot of things, but did I truly know what I wanted? And did I stay true to myself? And the answer is no, no to all of those. So I can't blame other people.
I can't blame the relationships I was in for losing myself. I can only look within and be like, okay. Now that I'm alone. And now that I'm in my own essence, now that I can take full mastery and power over my life. What is it that I truly want? And how am I willing to set some boundaries around that and not only romantic relationships, but with my friends, and with my family. How do I want to show up and how do I want people to treat me?
And what am I willing to put up with and what am I willing to give? And where are all my standards? In the masterclass that I was in, she made it very clear that. We do this to ourselves. Like I said, we ha we have full control of how much we give and I'll give you some examples. If you don't know what you want, you're not setting the expectations when you meet somebody.
You end up just kind of molding yourself and moving around and trying to become this person that you, you think that person wants, whether it's some friendships, friendships, especially I did this a lot for sure. I was like, oh my God. Especially if I thought somebody was cooler than me, I wanted to be friends with them. I would mold myself and try to shape myself into what I thought that they wanted me to be like, or needed me to be.
And I was so angry and resentful when they wouldn't show up for me or they wouldn't give me the same back, but I never said the standard of how I wanted to be treated. I never told them, Hey, these are my expectations for you as a friend. And obviously it doesn't have to be like that crazy hostile, but I think there's certain expectations and certain. Boundaries.
They can set from the beginning before we start compromising ourselves and we get angry and resentful because once we become angry and resentful, that adds up and it builds up and it builds up and it builds up and especially romantic relationships. I think we can all relate to this, that. Resentment is the worst thing that could happen in a relationship because sometimes there's just no turning back. There's been so much built up that that relationship doesn't even feel the same anymore.
That love isn't in the same anymore. The affection that you had for that person is in the same anymore. Every time you say yes. When you want to say, no, you are betraying yourself, your initial gut feeling. That's what you have to go with. So the last few months, or last few weeks, even I've gotten really clear on this. And when I broke up with my ex, I said to myself, I'm going to be alone for the first time ever. I'm going to reclaim my power. I'm never claimed my energy.
I am all I've got, and I need to learn how to be alone. I've talked about it here before I've jumped from relationship to relationship. Usually I stay in these relationships for very long. And whether it's healthy or not. That's not the point. The point is that it's been almost a decade and I've never been alone. So really taking this time to feel in my soul, my gut like lean into my essence, who I am, what I want, what I'm willing to. Become has been very important to me.
And I really set out to the universe and I released that out and I said that to myself, I journaled it. It's something that I spoke about. And recently, you know, in the last few weeks I started seeing someone, I started dating someone and because they weren't in the same city. I felt like it was really comfortable. To pretend that I wasn't dating them in a way that I was still like staying single and not doing this.
I wasn't, I pretended I wasn't getting into the same cycles that I've been in before. And it's funny because. I have this like toxic cycle in a way. This is just this like a side story, but it does connect to what I'm saying. So just bear with me and, and my little story here. I get into these toxic cycles. That every time I leave one relationship, there's always a person that I made or that has been in my life or whatever. And they have everything that the last person lacked.
So, thankfully I do upgrade in a way, right? If I'm getting a little better, I'm not staying in the same toxic cycle of the same type of person, but this is my own cycle that I'm in. And I meet this person and we've been dating for a few weeks and I realized, oh my God, I'm doing it again. I am.
Literally in the same position that I've been in, in the past, even though I put up these walls and I've set all these expectations that I'm working on myself and then I'm healing and I'm not ready for a relationship. And I've said all the things. But the truth is that I was getting emotionally involved in this person, had everything I wanted. Not only Physically, he was tall. He was handsome. But also he like emotionally give me everything I wanted. And. On a deeper level.
We were connecting and I realized, okay, this isn't even about that person. I need to remember what I promised myself, what I wanted. What is it the Maria wanted when she got out of that relationship, she wanted time to heal. She wanted time to be alone. And I'm doing the opposite, even though it looks different because I'm not just jumping into this relationship, but in a way I'm still doing the same exact thing. And I realized that and. That was hard for me.
Because telling that person, Hey. I, I like this a lot. I love how everything's going. You check all these boxes that I have. Like, you're amazing. You're in your masculine energy, you're older. You're all these things that I've literally been talking about saying that I wanted that I manifested but I am not ready for you. And it's not about you. It's about me and my wants, and this is what I need to do. And I hope you can take this the right way.
And when that person, and this is where I'm, this is where it all relates to this. This was me setting my boundary in a way, not a boundary, like, you know, this is what I needed. No, it was like staying true to myself. Plus my boundary. Hey, I feel some sort of way recently. I, I I've came to this realization one night. I was just up all night and I was like, I am doing it again. I let that person in and I was vulnerable and we've always had such amazing conversations since we started dating.
And we, we got really deep with each other really quickly. And. It was nice to talk to a man that understood me. That appreciated where I was coming from. Even though he made it very clear that he didn't love what I was saying. But he was a true man in the essence that he was like, I understand what you're doing and you deserve that. And if me and you are meant to be, I want the best version of you and want the healthiest version of you. So I understand it.
I don't like it, but I understand it and has lifted me up ever since. And the reason I'm telling you this story. And not only that I want to, I always want to be vulnerable and open with you guys and just let you know where I'm at. Like I'm human. I love, love. Like I am a sucker for love and I just fall into all these relationships and. I ended up finding like these amazing people and sure things don't work out and whatever at the end, but.
I wanted to show you an and be vulnerable enough to let you guys know. Like, I am no different than anybody. And it's so much, I even told him this. I said so much easier right now for me to just stay dating you. And travel and do all these things that are fun and Dolgin life and go out and like everything that I've been starving for for so long, for so many years, it's this is easy. This is easy thing for me.
The hard thing is walking away from him, walking away from this, walking away from something that comes easy to me. It not only easy, but the person's amazing on top of that. So that's, that was hard. And I mean, pray for me. I'm not doing well. No kidding. I, I was, it was very like emotional about it because I had this moment where I was like, shit, I have to stay true to myself. This is what I have to do for me. And there's no budging on this anymore.
I can't, I can't keep putting other people's needs first or wants first. Or thinking that my might be alone. If I let this amazing person go. And I know, I know this is like the beginning stages dating is, you know, the beginning stages is the honeymoon stage, but that's even harder. Have you ever let anyone go during the honeymoon stages of a relationship where everything's fun and dandy and amazing and. That's even harder, especially when you're doing it.
Not because you don't like the person or because you don't see something happening with them in the future, but because you have to stay true to yourself because you promised yourself something. And where this relates again, like I said, where this relates to what we're talking about is setting those boundaries. And I've noticed that every time that I set a boundary, especially lately. It's the people that lack boundaries within themselves, they don't respect themselves.
Or have been shown to not have boundaries are always the ones that have issues with my boundaries. And the ones that do the ones that respect me, the ones that care about me are okay with my boundaries. And it's really made a big, clear difference. Like there's a line in the sand and there's a clear difference of who is emotionally mature in my life and who loves me for me and is willing to be okay with me needing X, Y, and Z, and who is not.
There has been people in the last few weeks that it's very clear that they benefited from my lack of boundaries. And if people benefit from your lack of boundaries, they, they don't want the best for you. They love the version of you. That's an over giver, the version of you that doesn't have any boundaries that lacks self-love. That lacks self-awareness. And that's not the person that's meant to be in your life. And that's where, um, this whole podcast is where this all came from.
I sat down with myself and I was like, wow. If I stay true to what I want. That means. Being open and vulnerable enough to get rejected by people that I love and that I care about. That means. People telling me like, okay, well, I don't like your boundaries. I'm out of your life. Or that also meant that I can create amazing, genuine open connections with people.
That also meant that I would be able to have people that actually love me truly and care for me and are happy that I'm setting these boundaries for myself because they can see that this is what I've always needed, because they could see that this is something that's going to help me in my journey of growth. This is going to help me in my journey of becoming who I want to become. You see, when you tell the universe.
God angels any God that you, whoever it is that you follow, that you have true to your heart. When you tell them, Hey, This is who I want to become. This is the version of myself that I can not stop thinking about. This is the future. Maria. I'll use myself as an example. This is a future Maria that I will not stop. Until I become. You're putting that out there and every time you betray yourself every time that you don't stay true to that word, The universe God or whatever.
Puts everything on hold and says, she's not ready. She wants that. I see it. But she's not ready for it. She still needs some more lessons to learn. And these lessons will continue to just cycle through and we'll continue to cycle through until you learn the lesson. And. Honestly, I had an, a hog like come to Jesus moment and whatever you want to call it. That night that I didn't sleep. And I was like, oh my God, I had said what I wanted to the universe to God.
And then this pretty packaging and came with everything. I wanted, the fun, the adventure, the travel, the good lugs, the amazing personality, the emotionally available person, all these things, emotionally intelligent in his masculinity, all these things, his perfect little pat package came to my door and I was like, yay. Like, oh yes, this is exactly what I needed. That was a test Maria. That was a test from the universe to see if you would just keep falling into these cycles.
If you continue on the same thing. And the truth is that on a side note here again, is that, that relationship? We're have. If I would've continued dating that person. Wouldn't have lasted very long because I. Wanted to be with him or talk to him at the time or date him because I was lacking things in my past relationship and he was. Almost feeding me these things that I've, I've been lacking for so long, and it's not because I actually stay true to myself.
Genuinely did the healing stayed by myself, stayed alone. And then wanted to choose him out of a different layout of a different energy versus, oh my God, I, oh, I have been needing this. Like, I need you like, um, like this person that's starving or like, um, you know, Waiting for water to come. And I haven't had water in days. There's two different energies there. Right?
I would have repeated the same cycle and the whole thing would have ended the same way that all my past relationships would have ended because I was just fulfilling a whole, I was fulfilling something that wasn't healed in me yet. And being alone is so much harder. It's harder to realize that, you know, sometimes you need that. The validation that you want, those text messages that you want people to check in on you, they want to feel loved. They want to feel cared for.
But staying true to what you want and distinct true to what you'd need. You owe yourself that you are the only person that's got you. And the only reason I even started this whole podcast is because I set it into my first episode. We have the power to transform our lives into anything and everything we've ever desired and ever wanted. And it's up to us. To decide how far we want to take that.
And the moments that we choose not to go after what we want, not to do what we want, not to feel the way we want it. And we start minimizing ourselves and shutting ourselves down. And. Just to be like, just to be loved, just to be respected, just to be cared for. Where should we start stripping away, parts of ourselves and parts of ourselves. And one day we just don't even recognize ourselves anymore. We don't even know what we want, then we're like, we have that.
What do you think people have midlife crisis? Like I had a quarter-life crisis at 30 because I figured that I would be at a certain level in my life and I wasn't and I had all these things. And that's when I started going to therapy at 29. Cause. I really had a crisis where I was like, who the fuck am I. And I'm still trying to figure that out. No, I'm kidding. I know who I am and every day that I make choices that are better for me.
I get closer and closer to that Maria that I envisioned in my life and that I envisioned me becoming. And what's beautiful about that is that you don't have to know what you truly want forever. Right? We don't, we don't need to know. We don't have, we don't need to know what we need want forever. We just need to know who we want to become. Who do we want to be? How do I want to talk? Who do I want around me? How do I want to be valued? How do I want to be respected? How do I want to be treated?
What standards do I want to set for people? What expectations am I going to set for people? In my life from here on, not what, when I meet somebody new. How am I going to present myself? Am I going to be like, hi, my name is Maria, and I'm an over giver and I'm willing to do and say anything you ever need. You can call me whenever, text me whenever I'm just here. I have no boundaries. I have no self-respect. Please just come. I'm pretty much a doormat come and step all over me one day.
I'm going to get mad though, and I'm going to blow up. Or I'm going to set some harsh boundaries and be. This little bad-ass has says, you know, you can cross my boundaries and blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're going to, you're going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute, this, where did this come from? You've been letting me do this all along and all of a sudden you have a problem with me doing this. I don't understand like what. Where did this come from? Right.
There there's two parts in this is if we don't set those boundaries and those expectations early on, because we don't know what we want. We end up overextending and over-giving. And then when we decide one day, when we get sick of people, shit, when we're like, now there's a reckoning. Now I'm going to become this crazy person is bad-ass. It's just going to be like, you know, forget everyone I'm over everyone. I hate everyone. No one deserves me. Everyone stays confused. Everyone's left.
Like what, where did this come from? Like, no, you've, you've always done this. Like you never told me you had a problem with this. We did that to ourselves people. We do that to ourselves. I realize now, too, that they are, they are very kind ways to start setting boundaries. And unfortunately, and fortunately, and I say, unfortunately, because we don't want to do this, but being vulnerable is one of those kind ways. People can not get mad at you. And if they do that is on them.
If you are vulnerable and say from a true place in your heart, Hey, I've been doing some thinking. I've been doing some healing. I've been doing some. Some like self-love and self care techniques. And I realized that every time I do X, Y, and Z for you. Or I say yes to something I don't want to say yes to. I am compromising myself and it doesn't feel good. And from now on, I don't want to do this thing for you anymore, and I hope you understand that. It's not that I don't love you.
And it's not that I don't care about you. But I can't keep doing this anymore. Cause it doesn't feel good for me. And honestly, I feel like I'm resenting you and I feel. That I'm getting mad at him getting angry. And I don't want this to ruin my relationship with you. And I don't want this to ruin our relationships. Um, I'm just letting you know, cause this is where I'm at. That conversation is way healthier.
That. You're a piece of shit and you take advantage of me and you I've done this and this and this for you, and you don't even notice I bend over backwards for you. I am just a giver. I'd give her a, you're a taker. People never forced you to give. And that was something that was harsh for me to realize no one forced me to over-give even in my past relationship. No one forced me to give and give and compromise myself. I remember another story here.
Cause I feel like stories really resonate with people. Here's another story when me and my ex first met, I was very hesitant. I had just left my husband. I was very hesitant to jump into a relationship, you know, does this sound familiar? And I gave him the whole, um, you know, I'm not ready for a relationship. I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready for that. One night. I'll never forget we were drinking some wine. And I said to him, I love to travel. Like I absolutely love it.
There's something about embracing other people's cultures and just. Feeling so tiny in this huge world, I always want to travel as something that's true to my heart. I remember telling him I love travel. Like this is something I always want to do. And he, that was like my expectation, like, Hey, this is if you're entering my life. I want to travel and his expectation and his boundary in a sense was, well, I don't travel. I don't do that. I will.
And I also don't ever want to leave the country without my child. And. If I travel, I want it to be with him. And we went back and forth and I was like, well, I want to travel just the two of us to, I don't want it to just beat him. You and I like, sometimes I do want it to be at the three of us. Sometimes I would like for it to just be me and you. And we sat there and we're like, well, Well, we've hit a roadblock here. What do we do with this?
And. I remember him asking him, maybe it wasn't the same conversation, but I remember him asking me at some point, you know, are you ready for all this? Are you. Are you okay with not traveling? Are you okay with not this and being a step-mom and all these things? And I told them, I don't know at that moment, I did not know. And that was just my true answer. I don't know, like, let me sleep on this. I need to think about it. Let's date a few more weeks, a few more months. I don't know.
Looking back in hindsight, that was a moment. That him and I should have walked away from that. It could have been, you know, it could have been great, but Hey, Right now, right here, these, these moments, these conversations. Uh, our values aren't matching up. Your expectations of what you want and what I want in my expectations. Are completely off and I'm not okay with sacrificing myself in sacrificing travel and adventure and fun because that's part of me losing myself. All right.
That's part of me not doing, being honest with myself and being real with myself that that's something I don't want to lose. But I didn't do that. Why did I not do that? Because I didn't want to be alone. So a few weeks passed. I remember he left on vacation. And I felt so lonely when he left. And I was like, when he came back, I was like, I'm ready. I'm ready for all of it. I want it all. And I knew at that moment, what I was sacrificing, I was sacrificing a lot. I was sacrificing time.
I was sacrificing in a sense of a lot of my goals, my ambition, and a big one for me, which was the travel. I should have right there. And then like before I should've been like, no, I'm not compromising that. And what happened was that. The whole relationship. I talked about travel. I wanted to travel. I wanted to travel. Started making him travel a little more. He got more comfortable with it. We did take some trips alone. We took some trips with my step son.
But again, We both weren't honoring ourselves. And that costs a lot of resentment in my relationship. It caused me to resent him in so many ways that caused him to resent me. I'm sure because I was pushy and I was like, I want to do this. I want to do that. But the truth is you cannot change people. And if you honor yourself and you're true enough to yourself, I would have respect to where he was and he would have respected me where I was, but we weren't there.
We weren't emotionally intelligent enough to realize those things or realize that there's some things that just. That won't ever work. And compromising yourself, like I said, what leave you hating and resenting that person. But I had no one else to blame, but myself, because I remember that conversation clearly and it all came to me the other day and I was like, wow. These are the moments when we meet people that we set the standard. And how we want to be treated.
And what our boundaries look like and what we're willing to expect and not expect. And I'll be honest from here on out, like anyone that comes into my life. I have certain expectations of how I want to be treated and I won't take anything less. And I only won't take anything less now because I think I'm better than anyone, but because I love myself enough to now I didn't love myself in the past before too. Feel like that was okay.
I F I felt like I had to over-give and like I said, that comes from childhood. That comes from trauma. That comes from the only ways that I knew how to be loved was by over-giving was by not having boundaries by not respecting my needs by not respecting my wants, because they weren't respected by my own parents that weren't respected or acknowledged by my own caregivers.
So before i end this podcast i want to leave you some final thoughts i love doing this especially at the end of the podcast because Now that i've given and shared my story and where my mind is on this and my evolution of where i want to keep practicing this this isn't me telling you like as an expert this is me telling you oh should i just realize a lot of these things recently and i've been a work in progress for a few years and i can say, i hope to continue to Craft myself in a way that I can
not feel guilty or bad anymore when i tell people what it is that i need and what i want and where my expectations are So ask yourself what are your wants what are your needs And are you staying true to them And if you are staying true to them great and if you're not make a list of things that need to change set some boundaries do them in a loving way i promise you there's going to be a big difference And be okay with opening up and being vulnerable enough to get rejected ask those hard
questions to the person that you're with if it's romantic relationship You know, If you're expecting Um i don't know that person to be married in two three years or to have kids but you kind of know that they don't want kids be open and vulnerable enough these are things that you cannot hide from they will come out eventually and sometimes they'll come out and it'll be too late So ask yourself what where do i need to open up where am i compromising that i don't want to compromise anymore where
do i have to set some healthy boundaries what are my expectations and what are my standards in life Now and what am i not ever willing to give up And i promise you they will, there will be some a feeling of liberation when you do this.
Because right now i feel more powerful and more in my essence and more in my own body in my own mind than i ever had before because i'm actually staying true to my word and i'm staying true to what i want in life and i don't know what i want in six months i don't know what i want in a year it can all change very quickly for me but i have to the only thing i have control over is staying true to myself And for those that i care about I want to be able to stay vulnerable and open with them and
communicate with them And that's that's all you can do i hope you guys enjoyed this episode And go think about where you're compromising yourself until next time guys Bye.