Stop Absorbing Everyone Else's Comfort

Here's something I say to almost every client I work with: you are so much more comfortable with your own discomfort than you are with someone else's.You'll stay late at work instead of protecting your evening. You'll hold space for a friend when you've got nothing left to give. You'll bite your tongue with your partner instead of rocking the boat. All so someone else never has to feel even a flicker of inconvenience.In this episode, I'm naming that pattern and asking the question that flips it on its head: can you get comfortable with someone else's discomfort for once, instead of always absorbing it yourself?What I cover in this episode:The pattern itself, and the three places I see it show up most: at work (staying late instead of holding your boundary), in friendship (holding space when you've got no capacity left), and in relationships (biting your tongue to avoid an argument, instead of saying the true thing).Why this isn't noble. It's self-abandonment. You're not being kind, you're managing everyone else's comfort at the expense of your own needs, your yes, your no, your truth.Why boundaries feel so hard to hold. At the root of it, a boundary asks someone else to inconvenience themselves in some way, and most women would rather sit in their own exhaustion than let someone else sit in that discomfort, even briefly.The reframe I want you to sit with: inconvenience is the price of community. Reciprocal relationships need both people to be inconvenienced sometimes. If you're always the one absorbing it, that's not community, that's imbalance, and it will eventually break.The question I leave you with: why do you let others receive that ease and reliability from you constantly, but won't let yourself receive it back from them when you genuinely need it?My challenge for you this week: find the one relationship in your life where you're always the one absorbing the discomfort, and get curious about what it would feel like to let someone else carry a bit of it instead.If this episode stirred something up in you, or felt like a bit of a call-out, DM me on Instagram and let me know - https://www.instagram.com/kat_horrocks/And if you're ready to look at this pattern inside your own relationship specifically, doors to Cherished are open now. Twelve weeks to feel more supported, more seen, and more like yourself again. - https://www.khorrocks.com/cherished