Podcast Episode #45 - Why Are Women Apologising For Existing?
===
[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to yet another inspirational podcast episode brought to you by yours truly, Carina. I'm your truth speaker, truth seeker, truth keeper, and I am so glad that you're here with me today
A lot of women think they're apologizing because they're polite. I don't think that's true. I think many women are apologizing because somewhere along the way they learned that taking up space was dangerous. So now they apologize before they speak, before they ask a [00:01:00] question, before they express an opinion, before they ask for help, before they set a boundary, before they tell someone they've hurt them, before they've even done anything wrong.
And the scary part, most women don't even notice they're doing it anymore because when survival becomes familiar, we stop questioning, questioning it. We simply assume this is just who I am. But what if it isn't? What if apologizing before you speak isn't your personality? What if it's survival? Hey, it's Carina.
Welcome back to Soul Medicine. I'm Carina Bull, trauma-aware facilitator, intuitive mentor, and apparently a professional pattern interrupter these days. I help women [00:02:00] recognize and interrupt the patterns behind hypervigilance, over-functioning, emotional overwhelm, and self-abandonment so you can reconnect with who you were before survival taught you who you had to be and around here, we do emotional truth, nervous system awareness, and the occasional lovingly delivered truth bomb.
So let's talk about apologizing because I want you to pay attention this week, not to other women, to yourself. How many times do you say, "Sorry, can I just ask a question? Sorry, this might sound silly. Sorry, maybe I'm overthinking. Sorry, can I squeeze past? Sorry, do you mind if... Sorry, I just need... [00:03:00] Sorry, but..."
The apology arrives before the sentence, like a little permission slip, like you're asking for approval to exist before you've even spoken. And women do this everywhere, at work, in relationships, in friendships, in parenting, in supermarkets, on phone calls, in meetings, online, even when they're right, especially when they're right.
I remember seeing a meme once that said, "A man walks into a room and says, 'I have an idea.' A woman walks into the same room and says, 'This might be a silly idea, and I haven't really thought it through, and someone may have already suggested it, but...'" [00:04:00] And honestly, it's funny because it's true. Many women have become experts at shrinking themselves before anyone else gets the chance.
We soften our opinions, minimize our needs, downplay our achievements, laugh things off, add disclaimers, add apologies,
add cushions around our words, as though our thoughts are fragile packages that need 17 layers of bubble wrap before anyone can safely receive them. Now, before anyone messages me and says, "Carina, it's just good manners." No. Good manners is saying thank you. Good manners is treating people respectfully.
Good [00:05:00] manners is holding a door open. Apologizing for having a need before you've even expressed it isn't good manners. It's self-protection, because underneath all of this sits a hidden belief. It is safer if I stay quiet. It is safer if I don't upset anyone. It is safer if I don't inconvenience anyone.
It's safer if I don't look stupid. It is safer if I make myself smaller. And for many women, that belief didn't come from nowhere. Maybe you grew up in a home where conflict felt unsafe. Maybe expressing emotion got you criticized. Maybe having needs made you feel like a burden. Maybe you learned that being agreeable got you connection.[00:06:00]
Maybe you learned that being useful got you love. Maybe you learned that keeping the peace kept you safe. So your nervous system adapted, not because you were weak, because you were smart The problem is that survival patterns don't always leave when the danger does. Sometimes they follow us into adulthood, into workplaces, into marriages, into friendships, into motherhood, into every room we walk into and eventually we stop recognizing them as adaptations and we start calling them personality traits.
I'm just shy. I'm just polite. I'm just considerate. I'm just easygoing. Maybe, [00:07:00] but maybe not. Maybe you've spent years organizing your behavior around staying emotionally safe And here's where this becomes important, because apologizing for existing has a cost, a huge one. Every time you apologize before speaking, you're subtly telling yourself, "My voice is less important
Every time you apologize before expressing a need, you're reinforcing everyone else's comfort matters more than mine Every time you apologize for taking up space, you're teaching your nervous system, "I am the problem And that accumulates [00:08:00] year after year, conversation after conversation, relationship after relationship, until one day you wake up exhausted, resentful, disconnected, and wondering why nobody seems to know the real you.
Because nobody can know the real you if you're constantly editing yourself before they meet her
This is how self-abandonment happens. Quietly. Not through dramatic moments, through tiny moments. Thousands of tiny moments. The swallowed opinion, the unspoken boundary, the apology that wasn't needed, the need you never expressed, the truth you softened, the discomfort you carried [00:09:00] alone. And eventually, you became so focused on making everyone else comfortable that you lose connection with yourself.
Not because you're broken, because survival became identity. But here's the good news. Awareness changes everything because once you see the pattern, you can't unsee it. Once you notice yourself saying, "Sorry, can I ask a question?" You suddenly have a choice. You can pause and ask, "Why am I apologizing? What exactly am I apologizing for?"
Having a question, having a need, taking up thirty seconds of space in a conversation, being human [00:10:00] Because here's what I want women to understand. You do not need to earn the right to exist. You do not need to earn the right to have needs. You do not need to earn the right to ask questions. You do not need to earn the right to take up space.
You do not need to earn the right to be heard. And you certainly do not need to apologize for being a person Healing isn't becoming louder. Healing isn't becoming more confident overnight. Sometimes healing starts with simply noticing where you've been shrinking and deciding little by little to stop.
So this week, I want you to become curious. Notice every apology, [00:11:00] notice every disclaimer, notice every time you soften yourself before you've even spoken. Not with judgment, with curiosity, because awareness is where change begins. And if this episode resonated with you, I'd love to invite you into this month's Soul Medicine Women's Circle.
We're gathering on Sunday the 14th of June from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time. It's a space for women who are tired of carrying everything alone, a space for emotional truth, reflection, connection, and recognizing the patterns we've spent years calling normal because sometimes the most healing thing isn't another strategy, it's realizing you're not the only woman carrying this.
The link is in the show notes. And as [00:12:00] always, just because it was doesn't mean it will be. This isn't your personality. This is survival. And when you're ready to sit in the discomfort, I'll be here ready and waiting. With love, Carina.