I'm Effie, a life coach who profoundly gives a fuck about
you feeling better for good. I teach people how to cut the
crap and live according to their own rules.
It's a crime we don't learn this stuff in school, but it's
simpler than you think to break the pattern and start living the
life you want. Listen on to find out how.
Hello, hello, and welcome to Feeling Better for Good.
Welcome to 2026. I know we're a couple weeks in,
but it just feels like so much is moving and shaking.
And I'm really excited to come to you with this 92nd episode
and share with you the difference between availability
and alignment. And I wanted to start by just
telling you a story about my gift giving experience over
these holidays. And you might have one yourself,
too. Like specifically, like, what
was your biggest fail in either giving or receiving a gift?
I heard a podcast episode about this recently about how we
always think that our gifts are going to be the best gifts that
the people we love are going to get on that holiday.
And we want to believe it. We want to believe it so badly
that we may not even take in the person's disappointment or, you
know, there's this social convention that kind of asks
them to hide it. It's like any gift is a good
gift. Even if you don't like it, you
still have to act polite and thank the person for it and act
like you really love it, right? So my daughter refused to do
that in this story. She actually flat out refused a
gift that I gave her and good on her for doing so because it was
not a good gift. So let's talk about it.
So my daughter who's 9 asked for Uggs.
Well she asked for several things.
She had a a list of Santa's list and Santa was very generous this
year and got most of the things on the list.
But the Uggs are just one thing that I can't compromise on.
I just, I just cannot stand the things and didn't really want
them in the house. I used to feel this principled
about Barbie. And then and then one made it in
and then the movie came out and I was like, well, I guess you
know, Barbie. And now we have like 17 Barbies.
So I knew that I wasn't necessarily going to be able to
hold out forever. But she's been asking for Uggs
for months and I've been very clear about having no intention
of getting her Uggs right. So one day I'm at the dog park.
My kids happen to be at their dad's so they weren't with me.
Usually they are. And this woman that I know who
has a kid her her kids now in middle school.
But her daughter used to go to the school that my kids go to
and she's always trying to like dispatch her hand me downs from
her daughter on to my kids, which is met with resistance.
Like one time she texted me a picture of a backpack that she
wanted to give to my 5 year old and I showed my my girl the
picture and she was like, absolutely not.
So we have said no or I've allowed the kids to say no on
occasion. But then sometimes she'll just
bring these bags and it's like, OK, thank you for thinking of
us, you know, and we'll take them home and weed through them
and maybe find one or two things.
But most of them we just pass on.
So anyway, I'm at the dog park, this is pre Christmas and she
comes up to me and she's like, you'll never guess what I have
in my trunk. And I'm like what?
And she's like, I have these Uggs, they're size 2.
So Frey's like a size 1 1/2. So going into a two I'm like OK
great, I'll take them 'cause I know that she wants them and I'm
never gonna buy them for her. So she presents the Uggs.
They are not cute. My kid, my kid very clearly
wanted the camel ones, those camel, you know, slipper boots
that everyone in LA wears because of course, her friends
have them. And so that's what she wanted.
But these ones are like rough. Like they have been rough loved.
And they're burgundy, but they're super faded and all
these different places and then dilapidated.
And I was like, Uggs, They're Uggs.
So I took them in. They sat in the closet for quite
a while and I kept thinking about them as like my secret
weapon, you know, for Christmas I was even like, she's going to
be so excited. And every time I looked at them,
I was like, even me that has a bias against Uggs.
I'm like, I don't think these are like the greatest idea, but
because they were Uggs, I highly done.
So I gave her these. I kind of like, I don't love to
do a big gift dump on the actual day of Christmas and the kids
were going to be at their dad's anyway this year.
So I kind of titrated the gifts out leading up to Christmas.
And then after Christmas, we had our second Christmas celebration
on New Year's Day, which was super fun.
But on this particular day, and because her little sister has to
have everything that big sis has, I had gotten little sister
some of these like fuzzy black boots from Target or whatever.
And I presented the Uggs. I didn't even bother wrapping
them. I feel like these are like
unconscious signs all along. Like every time I saw them in
the closet and then oh, like, I refuse to wrap them because it
just felt like polishing a turd, you know?
So I get rid of these legs. I'm like, guess what?
And the second I saw her face, I knew I was like, oh, yeah, this
was not the gift. It was not dramatic at all.
She just flat out was like, no, I'm not getting those near my
feet. They are not entering my
wardrobe. I basically get them away from
me. And immediately I was like, yes,
that is the correct response. I apologized because it was just
so funny. We had a good laugh.
I said I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking
and I don't actually know what to do with them because they're
really in quite poor shape. But I immediately saw the folly
of my ways and that I actually had two motivations for
accepting this pawn off at the dog park.
The first was and I didn't see it in the moment, which is so
funny. But the first was social guilt,
but I just didn't want to risk feeling rude or being perceived
as rude by saying no. I was like, oh, these Uggs,
they're, they're expensive. They even if they're used, like,
I, I mean, we don't have that in our household.
We buy from thrift stores all the time.
So used is not an issue. It was just how far they were
used. So I was like, I felt guilty by
saying no. It felt like a generous gift.
And then the second motivation was just plain old apathy and
thoughtlessness. I was like, you know, whatever,
right? An Ugg is an Ugg.
I did not question whether they were what my girl really wanted.
I did not imagine how she would feel putting them on for the
first time. Like these Uggs, these boots had
one thing going for them, and that was that they were there.
They were dressed there, and that's not enough.
So availability does not mean value does not mean that there's
intrinsic value. And that's what we're talking
about today. When I apologized to her and we
laughed about it, and I destroyed the evidence of the
Uggs, I put them back in the closet.
It really got me thinking about how often I accept my first
thought as law just because my brain is offering it to me in
the moment. So I was like, oh, this is so
nice. You know, she's giving us
something of value or something that at least at one time held
value and that in my mind, like my daughter was gonna value.
But I didn't actually question whether this was a value to us.
It got me thinking too, like, where else can I afford to say
no instead of just taking what's given because it's readily
available? And that's what inspired the
subject of this podcast. So today we're talking about one
of the biggest sources of the kind of stress that catapults us
as women into toxic cycles and keeps us there, often without us
even realizing it. And that is when we say yes or
no reflexively. We do this all the time, but we
do it out of politeness. We do it out of resistance, we
do it out of guilt, history, or habit, and we do it without
checking for alignment. So on its head, this is a
boundaries conversation. Today it's about decision
making, but underneath it's really an identity thing that is
the driving force. And coming off of my podcast
series on reinvention, this just felt so timely.
Oh, and I have something special for you at the end, so make sure
you hang around till the end. Here we go.
Let's just dig right in. I've got two more stories for
you and I want you to look for any pieces of yourself you can
spot along the way. So as a single mom who shares
custody, you know I have a Co parent and I consider him my
business partner in the business of raising our kids.
We have developed a very good working relationship over the
years and yet I still have the children most of the time.
However, during our three-week winter break, they have a
three-week winter break from school, which is like insane
when I'm thinking about it. It just ended.
I just sent them back to school on Monday, but we had this
three-week break and I asked their dad.
I said what are you willing to cover?
Because we both agreed that they weren't going to go into any
sort of winter Academy or camp or anything like that.
We were staying in town this year and we decided, you know
what, we're just going to figure it out together.
So I asked him what are the dates that you can do or dates
sometimes that you can do? And he came back with very
specific, you know, I can do this day from this time to this
time and I can do from this day to this day.
And it included, I think a three or four day swath in there.
Over Christmas. We alternate holidays.
So one year I'll take Thanksgiving Day and he'll take
Christmas Day and then the next year it will be the opposite.
We've historically like rolled Christmas Eve in with Christmas
because to be honest, when it's my year I take the kids to
Hawaii, usually where my family lives and that's typically a
multiple week trip. So being able to have the kids
for that long is definitely awesome and generous of their
dad. So anyway, he had asked for like
4 days or something over Christmas and my first instinct
was to push back. So I had this reflexive
resistance around his proposed holiday schedule.
And I thought that was really interesting because when I went
through, I was going to like just push back on like, well,
what if I could get Christmas Eve and maybe I could get the
kids for half of the day on Christmas?
And it's so funny because even though we have a really
functional relationship now, a relationship that's actually
based in just a ton of goodwill, I have this old habit of pushing
back on basically whatever he offers just because it's him
that's offering it right, 'cause we went through a custody battle
at one point years ago. So this was really interesting
to me, this impulse that I noticed in myself of wanting to
reject an offer simply because of who offered.
And luckily, I took a pause and I actually asked myself, is this
even important to me? And it wasn't.
I ended up just accepting all of his dates.
It was great actually to have that support over the holidays.
Because of that, I had the flexibility and the time freedom
to start dating for the first time in over 18 months.
So that's pretty exciting. I'll tell you more about that
later. So availability is not
alignment. In both of these cases, I needed
to pause to be able to ask myself, well, does this fit?
Does this actually work for me? In the first case it was like
compulsive, yes. And the second case it was a
compulsive push back. This showed up for one of my
students in my Feel Better for Good group this week too.
She came with a situation with her daughter.
They had been planning an event for a mutual family member and
her daughter sent a text that was very strong about hey, I
want you to show up this way, this is the way that I want it
to go. And instantly my client said yes
without questioning, even though it felt awful and she actually
wanted to be heard if not collaborated with.
And this was important to her. She realized it was important by
how bad it felt when she instantly caved to her
daughter's will. So we talked about and we worked
through this, who she would need to be in order to allow herself
to bring this back up. Now, it could be that her
daughter wasn't up for it, but that's not why we do it.
That's not why we speak up for ourselves to get someone else to
change their mind or behavior. We do it for us in integrity.
If it's something that really matters to us, we pipe up and we
ask, regardless of the outcome. This is where baking in a pause
before answering is really, really going to serve you.
What we want to do is work on finding out in advance, instead
of retroactively, how we authentically think and feel and
what really matters to us. So this week, I invite you to
practice a different kind of fit check.
This is not an outfit check. This is to check and see if
something fits. And you're going to do this when
you're offered something. Anything can apply, whether it's
free shit, a request, or a demand from someone else.
Whether it's someone else's opinion and whether it's your
own thoughts, you can also do a fit check with your own
thoughts. This is really powerful.
So when this offer comes in, in any form, first what I want you
to do is pause. Ask yourself, does this fit?
Do I want this? Why or why not?
Is it aligned with where I'm going?
And if that doesn't give you a clear answer, is this aligned
with who I'm becoming? If the answer is no, it's time
to pipe up. It's going to be really
uncomfortable at first because you're pushing up against your
old identity of conflict avoidant or people pleaser.
Because most of us as women have been socialized and been
brainwashed to think that being true to ourselves is some sort
of liability and that what we authentically feel, what we
authentically want, is a problem and that people won't be happy
with us or they'll go away. If they know what that is.
And I want to be really honest with you here, they might.
It is a risk, not a liability, but a risk to authentically
share yourself in your relationships.
But I want to offer that that is a loss you can afford.
If you share your genuine thoughts and feelings and ideas
and you share yourself, you share your heart, and it is a
problem for the other person. I'm not even talking about
disagreement. I'm talking about the fact that
you have these feelings is a problem for the other person,
then that is a loss that you can afford.
And maybe it's a problem they just need to work out on their
own. And we need to stop making it a
problem for ourselves to actually be humans, to be humane
toward ourselves. Because I believe that betraying
yourself to keep someone like that around, someone who doesn't
know, respect or value your autonomy is not something you
can afford if you're committed to authentic relationship, to
truly knowing and being known, which is the best feeling in the
world. That's why I'm dating.
It's why I'm putting myself out there, even through massive
discomfort. So when you stop people
pleasing, it is true, people aren't gonna be pleased.
That does happen. But it's happening anyway.
You can kill yourself trying to please everybody all the time,
and it's still not gonna work. Because pleasing them was never
your job. It's not your job.
It never was. It's theirs.
Their life. They get to do what they please,
what pleases them. And your life, in your life, you
please you. Now the cost, especially at 1st,
may be feeling a little guilty because again, we are socialized
to respond reflexively to other people's requests.
The cost is feeling a little guilty, which is totally normal
and doesn't actually mean you've done anything wrong.
It just feels wrong because you're breaking a pattern.
And my love, it is so worth it. You will start seeing and
feeling the payoff right away. So even if there's a Little Mix
of guilt in there, which again, is completely normal, you're
going to feel relief. You're going to feel in
integrity. You're going to feel aligned
when you're asking yourself what's really best for me.
And my favorite question, if fear weren't a factor, what
would I choose? Good things follow.
I had the opportunity to ask these questions of myself
yesterday because as I mentioned, I started dating at
the end of last year and it's, you know, the decision making
process in this is definitely changing some patterns in me.
So I had this lovely person who I've been on two dates with, but
really didn't feel a spark of attraction, ask for more of my
time. And I was like, do I just go
and, you know, explore it even though I really know that I'm
not interested in that way? Or am I just upfront about where
I'm at? So when I asked myself, if fear
weren't a factor, what would I choose?
It was just very obvious. I would be 100% transparent
about where I'm at and I would say, hey, I see this as a
potential friendship if that's something you want to explore.
Let me know your thoughts. And he came back and was like,
yeah, I'm looking to date. And so best of luck.
And it was so simple and so clean.
I did feel a little guilty 'cause I'm like, oh, I care
about this person. I don't want to hurt their
feelings. But the kindest thing that we
can do when we know what is best for us is to give our decision
without apology. Simple plus clear equals kind.
Simple and clear equals kind. You don't have to give any
reasons. In fact, I suggest that you
don't. Again, simple and clear.
So we don't want to justify. We don't want to argue, defend,
or explain. And this will be uncomfortable
too, because we've been led to believe that we have to have a
really good reason if we're not meeting somebody else's request
or if we're not blindly accepting that first thought
that our brain offered us. But what we're doing here is
putting integrity over comfort. Never worry about passing on
anything. Your no is sacred.
It is a net gain every single time because being without what
doesn't fit makes more room in your life for what does.
And I promise you, the people that are in your life that don't
fit, it doesn't feel good for them either.
Even if they don't know consciously, they know on some
level that it's just it's not a match, it's not a fit.
And we don't want to wait for them to figure that out.
We want to go first. We want to lead.
So integrity doesn't actually live in your yes or your no.
It's not the content of the decision that you make.
Integrity lives in the pause and in you congruently making a
decision for yourself and then sharing that simply.
And Speaking of simple, I promised you a little something,
a little special something. So this is gonna help take the
pressure off of you needing to give an immediate answer.
You do not for most things need to give an immediate answer.
And even for the things that feel like incredibly urgent, you
can take 30 seconds or 90 seconds or 5 minutes or 10
minutes, right? This is the neutral response.
I have a list of neutral responses that are so fucking
genius that I give to my clients and I would love to give it to
you. So to get that list of neutral
responses, which is going to be your secret weapon here for
finding your integrity over your comfort and being committed more
to that than to playing out the old patterns.
You can message me on Instagram. You can message me on Facebook
at Effie Levor, or just e-mail me effie@effielevor.com and I'll
send it right over. You can put neutral responses in
the subject line or just say, hey, what's up, Knock me.
Those neutral responses. I need them by Ed and I'll get
them on over to you. All right, thank you for being
here. I loved it every second.
I just cherish this time. I love doing the podcast, it has
been quite an adventure for me and it's not going to stop.
So I will be releasing episodes every Thursday from now on.
You can count on it. I will see you here next week
Thursday or maybe totally a different day if you're on the
other side of the world. Anyway, you can figure it out.
I will see you then and in the meantime, hope you have a
beautiful week. Bye.
If you're ready to do the work to move forward on what you want
and actually get it, I can help you.
I'm offering my podcast listeners a free consultation
with me to talk about what coaching can do for you this
year. Just visit effielevore.com to
get started.