BEING HER with Margarita Nazarenko - 174: You Need To Risk Being Disliked

Episode Date: July 19, 2026

THE SELFISH RESET — Live Call with Margarita Aug 13 Join The Unbothered Woman.UNBOTHERED 3 Day MasterclassThey taught you that being mean would get you ostracised. They taught you that having boundaries made you difficult. They taught you that disappointing people made you a bad person.They were wrong.In this episode, Margarita breaks down why the fear of being called mean is keeping you stuck, small, and silently resentful and why direct, honest, boundaried women aren't mean at all.They're just no longer convenient.In this episode:1. Causing discomfort is not the same as causing harm2. Mean usually just means you're no longer convenient3. Niceness without limits becomes unpaid labour4. Nice girls use niceness to control how people see them5. Over explaining is fear dressed as communication6. Women who avoid being mean often become it anyway, through resentment7. Anger is not a flaw it's a service announcement8. Kindness without limits becomes slavery9. The difference between power and cruelty10. Freedom means you will eventually disappoint someone, choose whoseIf you've ever said yes when you meant no and then resented it, over explained yourself just to be liked, or become passive aggressive without meaning to.. this episode is for you.Being Her is your no-filter space for woman empowerment, relationship advice, confidence, feminine energy, and living life completely on your own terms.Love you lots like jelly tots xxSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You need to risk being disliked. Yeah? Okay? It's just the way it is. It's the way it is if you want to live a life that is happy, free, unburdened, beautiful. You need to take a little risks, baby girl. You need to risk being a bit mean because we are taught that being mean equals being ostracized and being not part of the community, not part of the people that are well liked.

Because what you need to be as a woman in the world is convenient, conveniently lie down and let the world do as it will. It's a very different idea than what is taught to men, right? They don't have that burden of, oh my God, I'm going to be mean. People are not going to like me. What's going to happen? What am I going to do? Oh, no.

They just do what they want to do. Oh, no. Oh no, I sounded really Australian then. Why don't we reframe the word mean or a bitch to direct and honest and having boundaries? What is wrong with having a little boundary these days? What is wrong with being a little honest? Women get prosecuted, left, right and centre for being honest, having a little boundary and having a little laugh with it. It is tiring, it is draining, and it's going to stop.

So we're going to talk about ten little factoids, as I like to do, as I like to do on this little potty-wutty, about how to reframe that in your mind because jokes aside, I feel that the fear of being called mean or a mean girl or a bitch or not nice by a guy in dating at work with your friends is stopping you from unlocking the best version of yourself. The most amazing version of yourself, the most enticing, juicy, tantalizing version of yourself, okay? And those facts are this. Fact one, women are taught that causing someone discomfort, discomfort with your decision, discomfort with your choice, discomfort with your autonomy, discomfort with your fatigue, discomfort with your tiredness, discomfort with your need for sleep, or discomfort with your need

of boundaries is causing them harm. Women mistake the fact that if they have any kind of want, need or desire, if they are in any way asking for the world, from their husband, for somebody else, for something, it is the equivalent of causing them harm. I made a post on my social media about the fact that the feminine should only operate from a place of plenty. And when a woman gives from a minus or from a deficit, it creates a very depleted version of that woman. And when she's giving from that, it causes resentment, it causes arguments, it causes pain.

And everyone in the feed, except for the ones that get it, was saying, oh, but I need to do this and that for my husband. I need to cook, wipe his ass. I need to bend over backwards. I need to run up and down like a marathon runner. I need to do all of these things. Or he'll be upset. is you going to live life without those things that I just said, right? And you are acting like by causing

someone discomfort, because of your own back is breaking, like the camel that you are carrying everything on you, that you causing them a mildest discomfort by, I don't know, not making their dinner every night or by, I don't know, saying no once or twice to something, that you're causing them harm. We are educated to think that our no is a harmful thing in today's society. The woman's saying no and disappointing someone is not going to immediately cause them a doctor's appointment and a trip to the ER, okay? Disappointment is not harm. You are also creating a person in your children, husband and wider world and society that cannot grow up. You're infantilizing people at your work, in your friendship groups and everywhere by not allowing them to have their own backbone,

their own ability to have a feeling in some certain way and look after themselves. If you always have to baby everyone like they're a tiny little wee bebe, and they can never be a little bit disappointed and go through that disappointment, like a soldier that they are, you are not raising, even in your husbands and partners, someone that has any pride in themselves and men need to have pride in themselves and their ability to what, ladies and germs in the back, provide and be someone of service because women, we create life and men as a service, sustain it. That is their whole purpose. But you're here trying to take that role away from

people and even from friends. You try to not be mean. You try and be nice. You're getting resentful because of the role you've given to your own self, right? They are not being harmed by you having a want or a boundary. Stop measuring the morality of your decisions by someone else's immediate emotional reaction. If someone throws their toys out with the bathwater, cries, why did you do that? You're so mean. Ra, rah, rah. That does not make it a moral good or bad. Let's look through history, even to the Bible, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, just because people were upset with Jesus, was Jesus a bad person? I think we all know the answer to that. Yes, I'm not trying to get biblical with you. I'm not trying to get historical with you, even though I love a bit of history, me. Just because

People get upset with you and prosecute you and tell you you are wrong does not mean that you are wrong. The universe knows whether you are wrong. You don't need Brad, Jessica and Harry to tell you who is right wrong and not. You know and the universe will know. At the end of the day, that is all, or God, whatever you choose to believe. When did they didn't like it become evidence that you did something wrong? They didn't like it might only be evidence for the fact that it is now no longer convinced. convenient for them, right? But it might be a moral justice in the end. They didn't like it.

Do you know, they also didn't like it when people were freed, when people were emancipated, when I'm sure the serial killer doesn't like it when the victim runs away either, okay? Does not mean that they're wrong. Stop being so held by people's whims and opinions. because if people can operate and control you through the words of, oh, but you are mean, oh, you are a bitch, then they've got the power of you. Number two, very powerful truth. We need to really land the plane here. Mean often means that you are no longer convenient.

That is, there are a last thing that people will throw in your face. You're so mean. She's so mean. She's so bitchy. Ra, rah, rah, ra. People rarely call you mean when your boundaries don't cost them, right? They don't call you mean. They don't call you words.

If your boundaries make them have to change or make them have to step up, if you've been the placemat, the rug, the metaphoric dishcloth that everyone wipes their hands on, yes, you will be called mean when you stop lending money to people, when you stop taking care of the children every weekend, when you ask people for help with their own children, like let's say it's a husband, when you stop accepting last minute plans. Or why are you so mean? Like, why do you take things so seriously? He cancels on you. And you're like, oh, that's a bit last minute. Oh, why are you being like that? Why are you being like that?

Why are you so difficult? So mean, yeah? You ask your partner to do more, okay? You ask a husband to not do 50, 50. Where do we get 50 what? What are you talking about? How about you have the second child, sir? You stop answering every message immediately.

That pause, when you stop being everyone's back and call, oh, that will reveal people who are there for you because you are convenient. And the moment that you, my lovely wench decline unpaid work, mm-mm, mm-mm, oh, but why would you charge for that? Oh, but it's like a social media post. Oh, but you should just want to, I don't know, do this. No, friend, it costs money, okay? They were not attached to your kindness.

They were not attached to your personhood. They were not attached to you as a person. They were attached to your availability. They were attached to your availability and use of use. is a principle in marketing where either something is very available and easy and cheap and therefore people like it or because it's very expensive and very quality. You want to be the value, high value, expensive quality thing. You don't want to be the cheap available thing that is disposable.

Our landfill is filled enough and we do not need it. You need to ask yourself whether you are being cruel or merely less useful. Okay. Are you being cruel? because someone needs you to do something. I don't know, go buy juice at 11 p.m. at night. I don't know. Or are you being less useful and now they're mad?

Now they're big mad, okay? On the episode we talked about being selfish, right? A few episodes ago, we understood and we talked about the fact that good women, women who are moral, women who are good friends, women who are amazing people in general, try to abandon themselves before anyone else can. That is what they try to do. They reject their own needs before someone else gets the chance to do it because somewhere deep back down in your childhood, you learned that you are not worth someone's time, attention, effort, energy, all of that good stuff and you don't want to feel that pain again.

So what you thought is, because my dad or mom or whoever it was did not see the value in me just by the intrinsic purpose of me being their child, I will become useful to them. They often become funny to their parents. They often entertain them. Children of alcoholics are often the most funniest people, often become comedians, right? So they learn that the only way that they can be around humans and accepted in society is if they're convenient and useful, they tell themselves, it doesn't matter, I can manage, I can carry the load, I don't want to make a fuss, I can just make do, I'll make it easier, people can't handle it anyway, I can handle it, I'm strong. this is not kindness, it's preemptive self-rejection. You're preempting the rejection that they will potentially cause to you, and you're rejecting yourself already. You're putting yourself last. You're having no boundaries.

You're being mean to yourself as opposed to being perceivedly mean to them, right? All that means is having boundaries and saying no. Before automatically accommodating someone else when they've asked you for something, why don't you ask, what would I choose if I believed my presence counted to? What would I choose if my value held the same value as theirs? What would I choose if I was somebody who I was looking after as opposed to myself? Because I know you see yourself as useless. But what if you saw use in yourself?

What if you saw the beauty of life in you? What if you saw divinity in you? That God made you for a reason, that you're here and the light in you is for more than just to be useful to others? What if you understood that the universe wanted you to protect you? And yes, maybe in your childhood, you could not do that for yourself because you needed your parents, but guess what baby girl, not anymore. You do not need to placate that man, that friendship group, that boss in order to thrive. Your job is to look after you.

Your job is to be good to you, to your children, to those who depend on you. Okay? Not to those who are using you. This episode of Peeing Her is brought to you by Allo Health. Let's be honest, aging can come with some unwelcome changes. Sleep disruptions, hot flushes, brain fog, weight gain, decrease libido. It hits hard and almost half of the women go three or more years before seeking relief from menopausal and perimenopausal symptoms. Most don't even know where to start. And a lot of that comes down to the fact that so many doctors simply don't bring.

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Head to MyAloid.com and use the code Being Her and tell them all about your symptoms and you'll get a fully customized treatment plan and unlimited messaging with your doctor. Plus you'll get $20 off your first order today. Head to M-Y-A-L-L-O-Y dot com and use code Being Her to get $20 of your first order. Number four is, yes, I know you're lovely. Yes, I know you're nice, but women use niceness to control how other people see them. Yes. A lot of us are codependent. A lot of us are manipulative in that because we got scarred as children in ways that we did not feel useful or we did not feel good about ourselves. But we have to understand that in every dichotomy there is a black and white, there's a yin and yang, there's a masculine and feminine. In that nice girl personality, the taxicest, you know, you are paying on being a nice girl is self-abandonment and the pain that you have is perceived control when there is actually no control. People pleasing looks selfless but underneath it can be control ways to make yourself feel useful to people to the point where you feel you're irreplaceable. I need you to approve of me. I need you to not misunderstand me. I've always got to be understood.

and valued for my goodness in my ethics and morals. I need you to think that I'm a good person. Because if you misunderstand what I said, then I'm not a good person perhaps. And that really shakes up my identity. I need to control the story you tell about me to others. All these things are not what I'm saying is what you think, right? God forbid they all think something bad about me. What would happen? You're not always being nice. Sometimes you're managing your reputation because you are afraid. You are not being nice for niceness sake. You are afraid of being unaccepted again, once again, by others. Let someone misunderstand you without correcting it. Because again, the universe knows. Let them talk about you without correcting it. Let them say

you didn't come to a party or something because you don't care when in reality you really did. Don't apologize constantly. Know who you are. Apologize once. Say the thing and keep it stepping. Let them tell stories. It does not matter. You are who you are and you should know that.

Let them call you mean. Who cares? Number five, over explaining is often fear dressed as communication. I used to feel like I have to say the thing a hundred times, explain exactly what I meant, make sure that the eyes are crossed and the T's are dotted to make sure that the person knows my intention, who I am, how I am, the 11 paragraph boundary that you wrote, the voice note, the caveats, I'm sorry I completely understand, but I hope that you don't mind that when I said this,

it means this, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, the nagging, the constant explaining. Like, I know you want to go play golf and I know how important it is to you, but we kind of had children together and I'm so sorry that we had children together, but don't you want to be a la la la dad, right? Women think more explaining will make their balance. release, painless, like they would explain themselves away, like they would make themselves more invisible with these explanations, right? It usually just makes it worse, right? Give the amount of explanation the situation requires, not the amount of anxiety it demands. If the situation

requires an explanation, of course, give it. I'm not telling you to just walk around and be like, that's who I am, piss off, and be mean to people. No. The amount of anxiety you feel is what's demanding you to give that level of explanation. Oh, please don't go play golf all day because we kind of had children. He knows you had children together. He knows that you need help. No, I need help today. That's it.

I can't make it. It doesn't work for me. I'm not available for that. All of this is in my book unbothered, okay? It's not going to make you more lovable to be more invisible. Okay? Number six is really the thing that you need to. understand in order to make this pivot for you. Women often become mean the thing that they're

exactly scared of becoming and being called and being disliked for in a less honest way, right? Through exactly the trap that you are setting. A woman says yes when she means no. Or a woman says, I'm sorry when she doesn't mean it. Or a woman takes on the domestic load when she doesn't need it. Or she takes on the mental load when she can't carry it. Or she takes on the mental load when she can't carry it. or she takes on the burden and the financial when she can't do it, both working 50-50 and she does all the child care, right? And she becomes resentful. Complains behind people's back.

Complains about her husband to his family. Withdraws affection. Intimacy gone. Keeps the score. Becomes passive aggressive in tone. Her joy is gone. Explodes every six months or so. over like a dirty teaspoon in the sink.

She avoids clean meanness, clean discomfort, clean conversations, clear communication, and creates a much messier form of long-winded cruelty, exactly the thing that she is afraid of. You've seen those women who

just annihilate their husbands in front of other people for no reason. And everyone's sitting there and they're like, whoa, taken aback, but that's because of the sacrifices she's taken on and made throughout their whole marriage. Every spoon, every mental load, everything that she's carried because he potentially could not remember, or couldn't do it, or was not adequate. And now she's actually mean in reality. Direct disappointment is often kinder than resentment. compliance, being a resentful compliant hostage is what you should be scared of, not direct

disappointment of a no. And it took me a long, long time to learn that, a long time. Number seven, anger is not proof that you're a bad person or you're faulty or something's wrong with you. Every emotion we have, people talk about mum guilt a lot or they talk about guilt in general. If you have mum guilt or guilt in general is your conscience, saying, hey, let's reassess the situation. If you did not have mum guilt or feelings of having to look after your child and not be away, you would have just dropped them in the savannah and walked away. Every emotion, every chemical reaction we have is a service, right?

And anger is telling us something is unfair. If we sit in a relationship that produces anger for too long and we contain it as opposed to express it, I mean healthily express it with a conversation, with naming it, with calling it out, with taking ourselves away from that thing that's causing the anger, we're going to create illness in ourselves, yeah? It's telling us something is unfair. Hello, something's unfair. If you did not feel that anger, how would you know?

A boundary has been crossed. Hello, Jennifer, your boundary's been crossed. You're carrying too much. You've agreed to something you're going to resent. It's going to get ugly. Hello. You've been spoken too badly. We cannot do that.

You're disappearing inside your own life. Hello everybody. Can we please address this? The issue is not having anger. The issue is what you do with it. An emotion is a service. Her saying, hello, there is this thing that we need to look at. Translate anger into information.

Translate guilt into information. Translate discomfort into information. Then make a clean decision. What is my anger trying to tell me it is not an enemy? It is a service announcement. Okay. number eight being kind and a good person does not mean being endlessly available to everything kindness without limits becomes labor slavery yeah women become the family organizer emotional support animal unpaid therapist birthday reminder relationship repair

department emergency contact let alone child uh birther and a pair of housing mortgages and also the defender of everybody then they feel guilty when they cannot continue this huge list. Notice how men are very good at not putting too much on their plate, not being asked. They're like, I can't. I can't. Can't do it. I need to, you know, go play golf or whatever is they do.

Generosity should be chosen, not extracted through guilt. You can say, I care about you, but I can't do this. I care about you, but I can't do this. It's too much. love but too much okay and you owe it to your children and greater wider community to have boundaries and make sure that they are strong your children are watching okay number nine is women are not taught the difference between power and cruelty right cruelty humiliates people on purpose punishes people, controls, attacks character, in that way we talked about when, you know,

the woman's so resentful that she just annihilates her husband's character in front of all his work colleagues, for example, and it enjoys another person's pain, right? Cruelty, right? Power, in the feminine sense, is honest, it tells the truth, it names a standard and holds it. This is what I do. This is what I don't do. follows through because you know he's apologized for the same thing a hundred times. And if that is broken, it removes access to itself. You removing access from yourself to the guy who's let you down a hundred times is not cruel, sweet summer child.

It is consequences. Power leaves when is necessary, but it does not destroy the other person. A boundary is what you do with. yourself. You leave when that person does that thing. You do not destroy that person by staying and poisoning the water with your resentment. The goal is not to become mean. It is to become clear enough that you can survive being called mean because you will be. Mean is boundreed. Mean is powerful. Mean is strong. Ten is the truth that we're going to leave this podcast on. Freedom means you will eventually disappoint someone. You are not born to be someone's sacrifice.

You cannot choose your career, your partner, where you live, your parenting style, how available you are, what you believe, what you want to do, how you want to dress, how you talk, what your humor is and please everybody. Can you imagine? And then she pleased everybody. Because everyone's going to have oppositional forces, right? If you wear a long skirt and you're very modest, all the people who love naked ladies are going to be like,

oh, she's not naked enough. If you go naked, all the modest people are going to be like, she's too naked. That's a stupid example, but it's there, right? What do you mean you want to keep everyone comfortable? Oh, you're so good, keeping everyone comfortable. A life designed to prevent disappointment will eventually disappoint you. You are going to get nothing done.

History was not made by good girls who try and win in the good Olympics. Decide whose disappointment you are willing to live with and do that. And never choose to disappoint yourself. Because at the end of the day, you're going to be sleeping in bed with you, talking to you and being with you. Someone's going to be disappointed either way. Someone's going to call you me either way. Practical things to take away. Say one clean thing without over-explaining, or even explaining.

Just say it, and that's it. Let one person be disappointed without fixing it. And state one preference before asking what everybody else wants. Just say it. Throw it out there. Throw it out into the water. I'll see you on the next one. Love you lots like jelly tots.

Bye.