Clients start welcoming transformation & wellbeing from just a single coaching session!
How You Put Yourself Last (And How to Stop Glorifying It Or Abandoning Yourself)
Constantly prioritizing everyone else's needs? Unpack the hidden cost of glorifying self-sacrifice, six subconscious patterns of self-abandonment, and how to reclaim your worth.
10/19/20268 min read
Earlier today, I was cleaning my space.
I swept the floor, cleared out the garbage and dust, and rearranged the furniture. I made sure every single surface where someone else could sit was spotless, and then I sat down in my own chair.
For most of my life, I found little delight in sweeping or deliberate physical labor. But I do it intentionally these days. It clears mental clutter, grounds my body, and brings me back to the present moment. (My advice: try it sometime.)
Within two minutes, an undeniable discomfort caught me.
There was still a layer of dust under my chair. I hadn’t moved it or swept beneath it. In fact, I hadn’t shifted my own seat an inch while preparing the room for everyone else.
As I got back up, moved the chair, and swept the floor beneath it three times until it was completely clean, a realization hit me:
How often do we put ourselves last?
I don’t just mean in the over-glorified way of people-pleasing or wearing self-sacrifice like a badge of honor. I also mean it in the raw context of avoiding or resisting radical personal responsibility.
Putting yourself last isn’t a noble or altruistic approach: most often, it is subconscious self-abandonment.
Here are six patterns I lived in for years, the reality beneath each one, and the conscious affirmations to break the cycle (if they resonate).
1. Waiting for Everyone Else to Change:
"My parents never loved me properly."
"She doesn’t speak to me with respect."
"They never apologize for their mistakes."
"He doesn’t put in enough effort."
"My boss doesn’t treat me fairly."
How often do you wait for other people’s behavior to shift before giving yourself permission to feel peaceful, secure, fulfilled, or happy?
Sitting, waiting for other people to change feels safe because it demands nothing of us. It allows us to stay small, hide inside our comfort zones, and avoid the responsibility of transforming our own lives. Doing the inner work and taking ownership for one's own happiness & life requires immense courage.
Depending on other people to give you the love, validation or the appreciation and respect you seek may feel safe, but keeps you unhappy. And then you attract more of it in your relationships.
Genuine transformation begins the moment you decide to look inward and rewire the subconscious thought patterns running the show. Because as Louise Hay says: every relationship reflects the love you have for yourself.
A foundational affirmation can help ground this shift:
“I am willing to change. I release the need to wait for others, and I take loving charge of my life.”
2. Staying Overly Busy to Avoid Emotional Stillness:
For years, I kept myself completely occupied. I over-worked, resolved everyone else’s emergencies, and made myself indispensable.
I was always the available one, the one who was kind, compassionate & extremely giving.
To the outside world, this looked like generosity and drive. What was far less healthy was the subconscious motive driving it: I was terrified of being still, & with myself.
As a child, managing everyone else's emotions was easier than feeling my own. There was hardly any space for me to have any emotions. Or anyone who could mirror or validate them for my younger safe.
And so I grew up disconnected from how I felt. And sometimes, too anxious to understand how I felt. I have spent a large part of my life alternating between episodes of depression (where I felt nothing), & panic attacks (where I felt too much to make any sense of anything).
As an adult, I became the person with zero emotional needs, yet the one who carried quiet resentment when those unspoken needs were never met.
How can your emotions or emotional needs be honored when your core belief is that other people's emotions matter more than yours? When you treat your emotions like an inconvenience, the world mirrors that belief right back to you. That's what happened, for years.
Until I broke the cycle. And it began with acknowledging that my emotions & needs mattered as much as everyone else's. And I felt guilty in the process. If you do too, Congratulations!!
You are up for a wonderful, fulfilling road to love yourself more. Bear with the guilt. It gets better.
Something that really helped me was asking myself: How do I feel about this situation/person?
(This was a drastic shift from: How would this action of mine affect the other person or make them feel?)
If you struggle with acknowledging your emotions or needs, place a hand over your heart to affirm:
“I matter. My needs and emotions are valid. It is safe for me to be still and listen to myself.”
3. Staying Silent and Calling It "Being the Bigger Person":
They took credit for your hard work.
They called you names & hurt your spirit.
They crossed a boundary in front of others.
They assumed your time was free and demanded it.
They spoke disrespectfully, and you smiled through it.
They abused you mentally, emotionally, physically & you called it nothing.
Have you ever "tolerated" or "allowed" disrespect and label yourself patient, polite, and mature?
Or maybe taken credit for being the more sorted one, the sensible one or the bigger person?
There is nothing wrong or shameful about it. But I have felt the shame myself about staying in this pattern of abuse & feeling unable to break through it.
I remember telling two fellow coaches about it two years ago & pleading: but how am I attracting it?
And today, I know exactly how I did it.
By keeping myself victim. By not believing enough in myself. By not trusting I could leave & stay without these people. Or take care of myself. And by not valuing myself enough.
And most of all: Staying in the victim & powerless frequency because of my limiting beliefs & early experiences of abuse that made all of it familiar to me.
For the longest time, I hadn't experienced or known any better & assumed it to be "normal" or "something to put up with it" because the other person has his/her reasons.
(Ah, again, the side of me that put others' discomfort, suffering, emotions & pain above my own.)
If this feels familiar, you know what comes next:
Yes. The silent resentment. The victimhood.
Look at what they did to me. Look at how unfair they are. Look at how poorly I am treated despite giving so much.
As long as we play the victim, we never have to admit our part in the dynamic: we allowed it.
We allowed the boundary to be violated. We buried our voice to preserve our identity as the agreeable person who never makes waves. But silence is not peace when it costs your self-respect; it is self-betrayal dressed up as virtue.
There is no virtue in self-abandonment. Only powerlessness. And unhappiness.
We all deserve so much better.
We deserve to break the pattern.
Taking responsibility means asking the hard questions:
If they did it once, it was their behavior. If I allow it repeatedly, when do I take ownership of my boundary?
What makes me stay in a place where I am treated poorly?
4. Tolerating/Accepting the Bare Minimum While Secretly Desiring Abundance:
He gives just enough attention to keep you waiting. (Because you have told yourself nobody will ever treat you better, because nobody has & it is now your pattern.)
A client pays consistently late, but you tolerate it because they pay something. (Because you believe nobody will ever pay you more or on time & feel that something is always better than nothing.)
A friend reaches out only when they need free emotional labor. (And that feels like love & you are afraid of losing the only friend you have.)
How often do you settle for emotional breadcrumbs and tell yourself you should just be grateful?
I used to spend hours psychoanalyzing why people brought so little to the table. It felt easier than checking what I settled for or believed I deserved in life:
They are under stress.
They are broke. How will they afford it?
They had a difficult childhood. They have unhealed wounds.
I was an expert at making excuses for emotional neglect & poor behaviour.
Telling myself a false story that they know better & are doing their best to show up better.
And it somehow felt like my unspoken responsibility to be patient, to endure & be there for them.
What I avoided confronting was my own vibration: Why did I believe breadcrumbs were all I was worth?
It look me a long time to learn & an even longer time to finally embody & imbibe this in my life:
In an attraction-based universe, you do not receive what you secretly wish for: You receive what you believe you deserve and what you tolerate. When you clean every chair in the room and sit in the dust yourself, you declare to life: "The bare minimum is plenty for me."
Louise Hay's teachings on Deservability are pivotal here & have helped in my healing journey immensely. Healing our Deservability beliefs follows a conscious sequence:
{Deserve} \{Allow} \{Accept} \{Receive}
When you catch yourself rationalizing low effort, affirm:
I release the belief that I must settle for crumbs. I am worthy of receiving full, reciprocal, and abundant love, respect, and prosperity.
5. Postponing Your Joy for a "Some Day" That Never Comes:
Saving the best perfume for special occasions.
Storing fine dinnerware away exclusively for guests.
Refusing to rest until every chore and email is cleared.
Waiting until everyone else is comfortable before pursuing what lights your soul on fire.
We spend decades organizing the room so other people can live fully, while keeping ourselves parked permanently in the waiting room.
We tell ourselves this is practical, responsible, and humble. In reality, we are signaling to ourselves and the universe that our rest, joy, comfort and vitality are entirely optional.
Life reflects your inner standards back to you. When you treat your joy like a low-priority luxury, the world will keep providing you with reasons to delay it.
Today is the day to reclaim your right to experience goodness (because you deserve it):
My joy is essential, not optional. I give myself full permission to rest, play, and delight in my life right now.
6. Betraying Your Intuition to Avoid Conflict:
Your stomach knotted the moment someone made a proposal. A quiet inner voice whispered: Don’t agree to this. Don’t walk down that path.
And what did you do? You rationalized it away: I’m overthinking. I don’t want to cause friction or seem difficult.
I know this because I have done this so often myself.
Overstepped & ignored every nudge & whisper that I could not back up with logic.
Only to wonder what would happen if only I listened to my intuition.
When things predictably unraveled, the immediate reaction was: I knew it!
The truth is: nobody ever harmed me first. It was only me who abandoned myself first.
And then had the consequences & the seeming cost of that abandonment & broken self-trust.
Putting yourself last means ignoring the very compass designed to protect you. Building authentic self-trust means listening to your gut the first time it speaks, and having the courage to honor it.
Even when there is no logic to back it up. Especially when there is no logic to back it up.
Because that is a message from your higher self. Pure, heartful & true. :)
I trust the quiet wisdom of my body. True peace never requires me to abandon my inner truth.
How to Stop Putting Yourself Last: Take Your Seat:
The next time you find yourself preparing the room for everyone else: emotionally, mentally, or physically, pause.
Notice where you are sitting. Notice how you feel there. Look beneath your own chair first.
Recognizing self-sabotage is just step one; anchoring real self-trust, nervous system safety, and healthy boundaries into your daily life is where true transformation takes root. :)
Now is the time to stop shrinking, exit the victimhood loop, and claim your full worth, because you deserve it. Take that first step today. :)
And if you need support, you can book a 1:1 session with me.