Hi, this is the Love Your Life Show with Susie Pettit, certified life and wellness coach. Join Susie as she helps you with your wellness and mindset so you can live a life you love. Let’s go Warriors.

Oh hello Warriors, and welcome to another week with me, Susie Pettit, your certified life and relationship coach. I am so excited to be in your ear today because this is one of those more intimate episodes—like friend to friend. I just want to have a little chat with you. Me to you.

Um, if you are new to the show, this is going to be a little different because I just want like a little like tête-à-tête, heart to heart. And this episode is for you too. Hi. Welcome. I’m psyched that you’re here. You will want to grab the podcast roadmap, which is a free resource I have to help you get started with the foundational episodes, um, for the tools you need to learn to love your life, the name of this podcast show. And you can get that at [smbwell.com/roadmap]—all one word, or I’ll drop the link below for this episode.

Let’s get into it. Let’s have our little heart to heart, our little Susie to you talk, because I think there are a lot of us walking around pretending. Pretending we’re okay. Pretending we don’t care. Pretending we’re fine with how things are, okay. Pretending they don’t want more. Pretending they don’t even know. They’re like, “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t care. I don’t mind being the one who always adjusts.” Maybe pretending someone’s behavior doesn’t bother them, pretending they don’t have needs—that’s a big one, okay.

And here’s the thing: I’m done. I am so done pretending. I stopped pretending maybe years ago, but it keeps sneaking its way back in. And so I just wanted to come on here today, in the middle of August, and say, let’s be done.

Mid-August is a perfect time to talk about this, okay? July is—well, first of all, the year twenty twenty-six, we are at a change point in civilization, really. I won’t even get too big or woo-woo, but things are changing. You are not—you know, even if you’re under a rock, you notice things are changing. And July really was this—well, the half year point, but also a like draw a line in the sand and—and see the change and all. Anyhow, if you missed that, that’s okay. We did the life list and the Love Your Life School. You can still get in there and get access to that, that’s all wonderful.

August—it’s known as, well, it is the eighth month. Eight is a magical number. Eight is—there’s so much ooey-gooeyness in eight. And it is really a great time for you as a restart, draw a line in the sand. August is a perfect time for us to talk about where we’re pretending before we launch in to the busyness of September and getting back into our old patterns, maybe of overfunctioning and over living other people’s lives. I invite you here today to stop with me. Let’s look around, look at our lives, look at and ask ourselves: where are we pretending? Where are we pretending?

As I said, I just led a whole bunch of women through the life list experience inside the Love Your Life School. And one of the biggest reasons I stop every year and lead women through this experience is because I—I know, I have studied and worked with thousands of people, and I know that the top regret of people at the end of their lives—men and women alike—the top regret is that they didn’t do more of what they wanted in their life, of what *they* wanted. Instead, they lived the life they thought they were supposed to live. They worried too much about disappointing people. They kept waiting for permission, staying quiet. They kept pretending, going along to get along.

And warriors, I don’t want that for you, and I don’t want that for me. And yet so many of us were raised to be the good girl. Don’t rock the boat. Be nice. Go along to get along. Keep everyone happy. God forbid we make anyone uncomfortable by sharing the truth. What is one of the worst things a woman can be called? Selfish. One of the highest compliments? Selfless. But oh my God, think about that word: “selfless”—without a self, without your wants, without opinions, without dreams, without a voice. Are you kidding? I’m sorry, I don’t believe that’s why we’re here.

We were all given unique fingerprints. Do you know why? There is no biological reason. Everything else in us, like all these other little things, make sense. All of us have unique fingerprints—why is that? So you could be a little mini-me of your neighbor? Or you could be the TaskRabbit for other people’s dreams and lives? No, no, no, okay.

I preached on this in the life list again. Stopping to see what we want, what we desire, what lights us up is not selfish. It’s sacred. It is why we are here, why we are unique. You are here for a reason, and your reason can be found in paying attention to your inner voice and your inner desires, not someone else’s thoughts and desires and what they want. No, you were not brought here to hide, to disappear, to play small, to become whoever everyone else needs you to be.

Which is why I’m here today on this episode, you and me just saying, let’s be done with this. Pretending—the world is not served by us pretending, okay. And I’m just being nice here calling it pretending—it’s lying. We’re lying. I lied for years, decades. And I promise the world is served by us being the fullest version of ourselves, about us being more honest, less pretending.

And yet I want to be very clear that us pretending is not a character flaw, something we’re intentionally doing, like—like lying. We’re not intentionally doing this to screw everyone else over. No way, my dear one. It is protection. At some point in your life, pretending protected you. Pretending worked. Pretending kept the peace. Pretending earned you love and praise. Maybe pretending helped you fit into your family. Or you got—you got praised for being the easy one, because you pretended things didn’t bother you. Pretending made people proud of you.

It sure did for me. I pretended with so many things—so many things, all over, like I—the list is too long to even go into. I pretended it didn’t hurt when my dad changed plans that we had made, I’d say, “Oh, that’s okay,” just so I wouldn’t get in trouble. Instead of telling the truth, I lied. I pretended to like watching sports on TV for years so my husband would think highly of me—I lied to him. I pretended to like baking, I just was like, “Oh, this is so fun,” so my mother-in-law would think I was a good woman—I lied. I could go on and on. I pretended that I was fulfilled being a stay at home mom and making beds and—no. I was pretending, and I’m pretty sure you could make your own list of where you’re pretending if you looked back with honesty and love of yourself and to be like, “Oh wow, yeah, I was.”

And that’s what I want you to hear, is that this pretending is people pleasing, the self-abandoning, this going along to get along is not a character flaw of yours. It’s not something you’re deliberately doing. It’s rather—it’s how you learned to survive. So of course, you still do it until we draw a line in the sand and we’re like, “Oh, wait a minute, what’s this? What am I doing?” We have to have awareness to change. Your nervous system isn’t trying to ruin your life—it’s trying to protect you.

But the problem is, the things that protected us at eight years old will suffocate us at thirty-eight and forty-eight and fifty-eight. Because now we’re adults. We’re trying to build connected relationships, raise kids, lead teams, have meaningful friendships, and pretending does not create connection. Beep, beep, beep! Did you hear me? We think this going along to get along is like what people want, but it doesn’t create connection—it creates distance. When we’re people pleasing, people don’t know the real us. They like a version of us, this version that we’ve been performing, but they don’t know the real us. That’s disconnecting, and that’s exhausting.

This performance we put on—when I stopped people pleasing, when I stopped lying, it was such a freaking lightness came over me. It felt so good. I hear from so many women of how tired they are all the time. Of course you are—you’re carrying everyone else’s emotions and managing a performance. That is a lot. That is more than you’re meant to carry.

Another thing so many women complain about, myself included, is we say we feel disconnected, that we don’t feel emotionally close to the people around us. Well, you know what I figured out? Of course I feel emotionally disconnected, because I’m not letting them connect to the real me. I’m pretending to feel one way, I’m presenting as one way, and so of course I’m not going to feel emotionally close to someone, because that’s not the real me.

And so I just invite you and me to be done. To be done pretending we’re something we’re not, right? Laughing is hard. I’m a life coach, I have been teaching and practicing emotional regulation intelligence for over two decades, and life is hard for me. It is hard for us humans to manage our own emotions. It is hard for us to stay regulated, emotionally regulated in ourselves. It is hard to act like an adult in our life. It is hard to go after our own dreams and goals. And yet, warrior, we like throw all that aside when we’re pretending and dig in in this other way that is really unhelpful.

So while it’s hard to manage our emotions, hard to stay regulated, hard to act like an adult, you know what? You know what’s harder in the long run? It’s harder to be fake. That fakeness leads to exhaustion and people not knowing the real you. It also leads to you getting to the end of your life with those regrets: “Why didn’t I do more of what I wanted to do? Like Susie said, those wants are my roadmap to life satisfaction. Why did I do so much people pleasing, pretending, saying yes when I mean no? Trying to make everyone else comfortable before checking in to see if I’m comfortable, trying to make sure no one else is upset with me, instead of checking to see if I’m upset. Why did I keep so many of my opinions to myself?”

My wonderful brain and warrior, I invite you to draw a line today, to step into your adult, wise warrior woman self. I picture you stepping into these like pair of cool pants, this higher version of yourself that feels like an outfit of confidence and clarity. Like such a love note to you, you and everyone around you. Like think of yourself like right now. Taking a deep breath in, like from your feet up through the earth. Like breathe in some of that Mother Earth energy, that deliciousness, up, up, up in your body, up to the top of your head and then exhale out. And as you exhale, picture your body filling with this like golden ooze of confidence and light and in love. And you—you being more you is what we need. Being a full adult, expressing yourself, getting to know yourself, getting to know what you want, checking in first with yourself before you think of everyone else, making decisions that are best for you and your immediate family. This is warrior work, okay.

Doing the things we had to do as a little girl will feel easier in the moment, for sure, for sure. It’ll feel easier to people-please, acquiesce, pretend, let someone else decide, until years go by and you don’t recognize your own life. Time has passed. I know this, I did this, I did so much pretending. As I said, I pretended, I agreed, I pretended I didn’t care either way, I laughed when something wasn’t funny, I apologized when it wasn’t mine to apologize for, I tried to be easy, low maintenance. And somewhere in all that pretending, I lost pieces of myself. I didn’t get to know myself. I knew better what other people wanted than what I wanted.

If this is resonating for you, I have a free workshop on August twentieth that I’m doing on overfunctioning, okay, so that we have a different September. I’ll put information for that in the show notes at [smbwell.com/event]. My brain just went off like on an ad squirrel right there that I’m like, oh my gosh, if you feel like you’re overfunctioning and all that, I’m doing this thing next week, get on the list, save yourself a seat, because I want to be clear—let’s get back to the episode here—that in this pretending, we lose pieces of ourselves. I can help you with the stopping of the overfunctioning in that—in that workshop.

And today, let’s get back into the energy of seeing like, oh wow, when I’m pretending I’m being fake, I’m not being real, this isn’t fair. And when we stop pretending, it doesn’t mean suddenly we’re this biatch and we’re this like, selfish little jerk. It’s not permission to bulldoze people around you—I teach how to do this skillfully in the Love Your Life School. Rather, it’s permission to be honest. You just stop laughing at jokes that aren’t funny for you. You stop automatically saying yes. You start setting limits. You stop agreeing that maybe you’re the problem in every conflict, or that you’re always—stop being the first one to apologize, for gosh sakes.

Maybe you call out behavior that you’ve been silently accepting for years from a sibling or a spouse or a parent. You say, “Oh, I’m not okay with you talking to me like that,” or, “Hey, when you’re more than twenty minutes late, I’m going to leave,” or, “Oh wow, I’m going to hang up the phone. I don’t like it when you yell at me. I don’t allow people to yell at me, sorry,” or you say, “You know what? I’m not going to be reminding you of your appointments anymore, just so you know,” or, “Hey, I’m not picking up your dishes anymore.” You stop apologizing for things that aren’t yours to apologize for.

You start learning how to say things with direct and honest communication of an adult. This is what adult communication sounds like. Adults say things like, “Actually, that doesn’t work for me anymore.” Adults say things like, “I see it differently than that. I disagree. I’m not available for that.” “Oh, I’ve changed my mind”—that’s a good one, I freaking love saying that. Or one of the ones that I love, it’s one of my favorite ones for clients to use: “Hey, I’m done pretending this isn’t going on.” Can you picture saying any of those things? Not dramatically or angrily or like, because you have some motive and you’re trying to manipulate them, but more lovingly and honestly, stepping into this more pure adult relationship with them and with you, it’s possible.

And while this is hard at first because we’re going against that old programming, yeah, while it’s hard, when we stop pretending, relationships strengthen—well, relationships with healthy people that we want to strengthen, that is, okay. It is beautiful. When we step into our adult pants that we’re trying on, we let other adults be themselves, okay. You get to be you, and you feel so much better. You feel so much less resentment.

I’m thinking of this client I have—let me call her Lisa. That is not her name, but I’ll call her Lisa. And she no longer pretends with her mom. She no longer stays on the phone when it’s convenient for her mom, but it’s inconvenient for her and her three kids. She no longer drops everything when her mom is having a bad day, when it doesn’t work for her. She’s in relationship with her mom in the way she wants to be, and thus the way her relationship feels in her body with her mom is so much better. She feels so much more loving towards her mom. She trusts herself. So when she sees her mom calling, she knows—Lisa knows that if she can get off when she wants to get off, she has trust. She doesn’t have to wait for her mom to decide when she’s going to get off. No, Lisa’s a freaking adult. She lets her mom have her experiences and feelings because her mom’s an adult, and Lisa doesn’t take responsibility for another adult’s experiences. It’s freaking beautiful. This version of Lisa doesn’t feel resentment towards her mom. She doesn’t feel responsible to stay on the phone and abandon her and her family’s needs. She lets the other adults in her life be adults.

And I tell you, warrior, this is freeing. Every time you stop pretending, you build trust with yourself and you build trust in those relationships. You become someone you can count on, and you become someone that they can count on. When you say yes, you mean yes. You’re not saying yes, and then later it’s going to come back and smack them in the face. You create relationships with others and yourself built on truth and integrity. It is beautiful. We don’t have to do that like, “Are you sure?” fourteen times. You know, you say like, “Hey, will you do this for the field hockey tournament?” and you say yes, and they don’t have to be like, “Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?” No, they trust you. They know if you say yes, you mean yes, because you will say no when you mean no.

You are an adult. You’ve got your back. Learn to know yourself. Listen to yourself. Start speaking up for yourself. Start getting to know yourself. This is a great time of year. Start having your back and start letting others get to know your wonderful, unique, amazing self that is not the one that just caves in and does everything everyone else wants to do.

The world does not need another carbon copy of some other person, and the world does not need another exhausted woman pretending she’s okay. If you’re not okay, say you’re not okay. The world needs you—the real you. The woman underneath the conditioning, underneath the people pleasing, underneath the performance. Show up as the real you, and call people into your life that have the strength and the adult skills to support and love the real you.

If you stopped pretending, what would change? Think about it this week, because I have a feeling your future self is rooting for you.

All right, I will see you next week, and I will drop links below on how to sign up for that Overfunctioning webinar, because that is an integral part of us stopping pretending, is us stopping taking responsibility for what other people’s—are other people’s responsibilities: [smbwell.com/event]. And I can’t wait to have you in there and to—to help you with that.

Also in September, I—just a little prep here: you can’t sign up right now, but when the Love Your Life School opens for September, we are going to be working on regulating our emotions, how to feel the feelings when we are no longer pretending, when we are living this full-ass adult life. We’re not half-assing it anymore, we’re full-assing it. We’re bringing our full, wonderful, magnificent selves to the table and I am here for it. I’m here to support you. I am loving on you, and thanks for being on this human journey with me.

Thank you for listening to the Love Your Life Show. If you want to hear more from Susie and support the show, be sure to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Also, leave a review and share this podcast with friends and family. You’ll get a Warriors.