BEING HER with Margarita Nazarenko - 177: Stop Being Low Maintenance. It’s Making You Easy to Ignore.

Episode Date: August 9, 2026

Watch Unbothered 3 Day Intensive Here You have been trying so hard to be easy. Easy going. Easy to love. No requirements. No fuss.And yet here you are.In this episode Margarita makes the full case for being high maintenance and why the women who know what they want, ask for it unapologetically, and refuse to shrink themselves are the ones who get everything.In this episode:1. High maintenance is just a person who knows themselves2. We are taught as little girls that being easy is rewarded3. Low maintenance often becomes emotional dishonesty4. How can a man meet the needs he does not know exist5. Stop confusing standards with entitlement6. The psychology of self silencing and why it kills relationships7. Your needs are not problems, they are preferences8. The fear of being high maintenance comes from a scarcity mindset9. The healthiest women are actually quite specific10. Stop trying to be easy to love because it does not existIf you have been making yourself small so people will like you more, pretending to be fine when you are not, or following him around and forgetting to have preferences of your own, this one is for you.Welcome to the high maintenance club.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.

If you are so easy to be with solo maintenance, you're not a high maintenance girl. You're easy, you're chill. Then why are you still sad that you're single? Why is that effort to be so easygoing and never have requirements and never ask for anything and just be easy, breezy, cover girl cosmetics. Why is that still keeping you where you are? Our relationship is not the only goal, it's not even the end goal, and it's not what life is about.

But your effort to mask your true personality and to mask your true desires and to not manifest the life you want is hiding behind the pretense of being low maintenance. But the truth is, If you want to unlock the best potential that you have, if you want to truly be free in this world, if you want to follow your authentic design and master your truth, then it's time to get high maintenance, baby. It's time to look high maintenance. It's time to be high maintenance.

It's time to ask for what you want. And it's time if you want a relationship, and that's just one part of being high maintenance, is to be hard to maintain. because through that, and this is a preface to what we're going to talk about, he's going to get addicted to you. We get addicted to things that we have to put effort into. And those things that come easy, it's a tale as old as time that if there is no chase, then he is not going to be interested in the long term. But anyway, this episode is not just about men and relationships. It's about why, if you become high maintenance and you unlock the power of being high maintenance, you can literally manifest the life you want. You are a creature and a human and an entity that is worth everything and you are

living this experience. You're the universe expressed as an experience of being you right now. And you can only express yourself if you find out what it is to maintain you. A cactus is not high maintenance because it doesn't need much water and a flower is not high maintenance because it needs a lot of water. They just know what they want. And if they're not high maintenance, because it needs a lot of water. They just know what they want. and if you think that's high maintenance and if you think the way to people's hearts and people's minds and people's lives is to be easy to be convenient to be like solo maintenance isn't that what we were sold girls weren't we sold this whole notion of like if you're easy to be around and you just like don't mind and you'll just go along with the tribe and with the herd buff then everyone

is going to just like you so much and then it just doesn't happen and you do everything nice for that guy you really like, right? But he doesn't like you either and it's just so confusing. And you're like, you're told not to be bitchy and high maintenance and like know your worth because then that would put people off. But there she is over there, that girl who is literally that and she's got everything going for her. What the giddy-gitty-gitty god is going on. So here's the truth about being high maintenance and why it will unlock the life you want. Number one, truth that you need to understand. maintenance is just a person who knows themselves. It is a person who knows if they like this or if they like that and they're not afraid to express it. Think about it. I like to sleep in the quiet. I wake up

at any noise after having children. So if I say I don't sleep well unless it's quiet, one can read that as high maintenance and another person could read that as a manual if you want to be around me and get on the good side of me. It's not like I'm like a crackhead. I'm going to go off if I don't get my sleep like I might but hey you know I like people who are on time that's me personally I like people who are kind and affectionate in the way they speak to me I enjoy nice restaurants and a little you know vodka cocktail I don't like situationships or long distance relationships when you ask me margarita what would you do in a situation ship nothing I would not be in a situation And you might call me high maintenance, but I, that, that is my maintenance of me.

I maintain myself that way that I am not going to be in a situation ship, because when Patrick over there offers me a situation ship, I'll be like, en contraire monsieur, je ne'est, I don't want this, you know what I mean? High maintenance is a badge of honor, okay? It is something you should be so proud of in those terms, okay? If people call you that. A man who says his needs and how he wants to be treated and what he's doing for work and who he is, is seen as decisive and a leader. And if a woman does, she's seen as high maintenance.

It's women who have been conditioned to not follow their truth and authenticity because they're afraid of being called high maintenance. Well, I say effort. Let's be high maintenance, ladies. Number two, we are taught as we children, as little bitty girls, that being easy is rewarded. It is rewarded by our parents when we are quiet. It is rewarded in school. It is rewarded everywhere. That is what we get merits and points for sitting quietly. I see it in my son's reports and it's the natural school system.

He sat quietly on the carpet. He did this quietly. He was easy, good. He was quiet. He was grateful. He was, you know, undemanding. Yeah? Especially as little girls.

We like that, don't we? As an adult, we carry this into relationships. because if Miss Smith McGee gave me good grades for sitting on the carpet and listening well and I was really convenient for her and I didn't cause her any inconvenience, then surely Dave will like me for that too. We think if I don't ask for too much, people will love me more because I'll just be so invisible, so small in the corner, no one will notice me, I'm just a little, little mouse over here. But psychologically, right?

But psychologically, constantly suppressing who you are in your needs. is going to result in either an autoimmune or resentment. And a lot of these illnesses that can't be attributed to anything exactly, as Dr. Gabel-Mate says, are attributed to people who often put themselves last. People who like you for your inauthentic, easygoing personality that is slowly killing you are not the people who love you, yeah? They're loving a version of you that is easiest to a common. accommodate and those people are truly usually narcissists because if you think about yourself as a

human being do you want a watered down weird version of someone or do you want a true authentic person that you can be friends with? I think you want the latter because if you just want some kind of minion sidekick as cute as the minions are, it doesn't give you satisfaction in life. Number three, low maintenance often becomes emotional dishonesty. So if you don't like liars and if you like authenticity and if you like really good relationships and like solid friendships and like real jokes and laughs, I will tell you that you're easygoing, low maintenance personality where you don't know what you want to do, you don't mind where you want to go, you don't mind anything really and you'll pay 50-50 on the date and you know like you'll ask him out because like, you know, maybe he's

shy and all this malarkey. That's actually dishonest because at the end you're going to be resentful that he's not treated you in the way that you want to be treated. pretending you're okay with something isn't kind yeah it isn't nice and genuine and lovely it's delaying conflict and being like a snake under a rock being like i'm just going to watch this person and see what they do and see what they do and secretly resenting them and hating them you understand that's palpable energy that they can feel that is palpable energy going into the universe your mild seething loathing hate of them is real if you're all like i'm happy with that i don't mind it and six months later you're like why does he never think about me why is he like he like

this, you are the problem. You are the problem that you didn't stand up for yourself. It is not Patrick's problem to always think about what you want. You're not a baby. Yeah? The problem is that you never communicated your preference and therefore you are dishonest. You are a liar and you've pretended to be a certain way when in reality you're very much not that. Number four and especially in dating, how can a man meet the needs that he doesn't know exist? A part of the whole juiciness and joy of dating, right, is a man gets to fulfill your needs. I know that sounds really benign and stupid, but the whole dance in animal kingdom, in chivalry and all of it is like, she's got a desire for cherries and he goes and buys them for her. And she's like,

oh, my God, you got me cherries. And he's like, so happy that she's eating the cherries because it's sweeter for him to watch her eat cherries than to eat it himself. And it's just like, oh, my God, so romantic. You are taking the whole chase away. You are taking away. You are the whole juiciness and excitement of him watching you eat cherries if you never ask for anything. If you don't explain to a man what it is you want, and it's one of the requisites of having, like, this magnetic personality as a woman, is that you can tell him what you want and watch him run to get it, and then watch how happy you are and you're so grateful and he sees you enjoy the thing that he got. That is the whole provider male energy.

You know, we often hear in, you know, social media these days that all men, They're not providers. They're not protectors. They're not providers. Give them out a chance to provide you something. Give them a list of stuff you want. And I don't mean like links on WhatsApp from things you want them to buy. But just like build it up, small tasks.

Like get me this, do this. And then react with genuine joy. React with genuine joy, not criticism. Okay. Number five. Stuff confusing standards with entitlement. We're all told these horrible personality traits like arrogance, entitlement. She's this and that and the other.

The world is so critical of women. They love to hate on women. Leave us alone. Okay? There is a distinction between being high maintenance, which us Gerties are going to be and get everything we want in life, and being entitled. Standards are about your own behavior.

Like, I like to get enough sleep. I like to eat food that's good for me. I like to spend time with my children, whatever it is, right? That's about my own behavior. Entitlement is believing that other people owe you something regardless of any circumstance. is I don't care how much money he's got. He's got to take me to the Waldorf. I don't even know what the Waldorf is, but that sounded like sounded good, didn't it? The Waldorf, right? That's entitlement. It's like, um, honey, he's 15 years old and he works at McDonald's in a

spare time. What Waldorf are you talking about, right? High maintenance is deciding what it is you want for your life, not expecting people who cannot meet you to meet you there. That's fine. If you don't want to date the 15 year old boy when you're, when you're a young girl who works at McDonald's, that's fine. Don't date anybody. Nobody owes you anything, honey, boo-boo, but you can choose who you date and what you do, okay? For example, I only date people who are kind, genuinely have a kindness to them, right? That's a standard. That's a standard. If I see some unkindness of spirit in a person, you're gone. But entitlement is you owe me constant attention. Women love to ask for constant attention. They love to ask for constant attention. They love to

ask for constant attention, despite anything. Like she wants to sit, lie there like a slug in a blanket and just demand constant attention from a guy just because, you know, she's feeling needy. That is entitlement. High standards create healthy boundaries. And entitlement, just constant demanding like a baby, actually killed. I'm a mom of two. I know shocker. And looking back at both of my pregnancies, there is one thing I genuinely wish I had understood sooner that all prenatals are not created equal and I do not just mean in terms of quality I mean in terms of what your body actually needs at each stage your body in week six is doing something completely different to what it is doing in week 32 that is just biology but most prenatals treat the entire 40

weeks just like it's one static thing one formula the whole way and throughout it and it is not how pregnancy works sorry guys that is exactly what got me about parallel it is built to actually change as your pregnancy changes. They have staged specific packs for trying to conceive, egg freezing, first trimester, second trimester and third trimester, and postpartum. You literally switch packs as your body moves into each phase. Clever. Everything comes in one daily packet. ObGWAN founded, a third party tested, winner of the Clean Label Project Purity Award. Research-backed ingredients, no synthetics, no tolerance, no allergens. If you are pregnant, trying or post-partum. I cannot recommend it enough. I had them give me an exclusive code just for you.

New customers can use code Being Her and get 20% off your first order at parallelhealth.com slash being her. That's P-E-R-E-L-E-L-E-L-E-L-Halth.com slash Being Her, which is B-E-I-N-G-H-E-R. Okay, babe, can we talk about Rugs for a second because I genuinely did not know I had this many feelings about rugs until I had a child and then suddenly rugs became a whole conversation before kids I had beautiful rugs great loved it never looked back amazing and then children happened and I thought I had to choose you either get a rug that looks like it belongs in a nice home or you get struggle rug because you know what that is right you pick the beautiful one and you're in your hands and me scrubbing it constantly and being like no no no no no plato I feel like that was constantly

me down on the rug on all fours. And even when you get the stains out, does the rug even look the same again? It does not. And I don't have time to police people, okay? Or you go the other way and you get a washable one that looks cheap and it feels even cheaper and you just feel like you're living in a daycare. Also, not that my, not necessarily I want in my home. You know what I mean? Tumble is the answer I did not know existed. Design a quality, beautiful hand illustrator designs that look like something you would find in a high-end homeware store and fully machine washable baby girl the whole rug even the larger sizes you can just remove it from the pad and toss it in the washer basically the the spills they bead right up on the surface

and you can literally just wipe them off in seconds ok text certified safe for kids and pets over 30 000 five-star reviews that's crazy machine washable rugs made better okay for our limited time only our listeners get 10% off plus free shipping on tumble living.com slash being her that's t U-M-B-L-E-L-E-L-L-C-com forward-slash being her. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent here. We've got to move on to the psychology of self-silencing.

I think Adam Lane Smith talked about this recently, my friend, and we have a lot of the same views. There's a concept in psychology called self-silencing where people suppress their own thoughts and preferences and emotions and feelings about a thing in order to, preserve a relationship, okay? So they value the relationship over their own opinions, so they shut down whatever it is they feel or think or want in order to preserve the relationship. It obviously comes from a childhood with a relationship was very, very important to you because it literally

meant your survival, like your primary attachment figure would be your father or your mother, and it literally meant surviving. If they did not like you, you would not survive. So it meant a lot to you, right? And now you carry that on into your adulthood where you make sure that despite anything, this person is in your life. And research has linked to chronic self-silencing to lower relationship success. So it's not like the more you are low maintenance and the more you put yourself last is like the recipe to success. The reason this low-maintenance conversation and high-maintenance conversation is so incredibly important is because the people who are trying to appear low-maintenance and not ask for much

and trying to run away from this whole idea of being high maintenance, they actually desperately want relationships. They're often anxiously attached like I used to be until I became secure. And if you want to know about that, go and take my course Unbothered or watch my earlier videos as well, about detachment and attachment style. But a lot of those people are desperate to have relationships. And the sad part is that they basically self-silenced their emotions

in order to win these relationships while actually having the opposite result. the relationship success goes down, the more you self-silence. Often women think they're protecting love by staying quiet, and they're actually removing the authenticity and actual connection. And also, it has proven time and time again in research that men find women most attractive when they're in flow doing the thing that they are good at. If you're always suppressing yourself and putting yourself last, and you are not appearing in this world as the full elevated version of yourself,

you are eventually going to become somebody that is hard to love. Why? Because you're going to stand for nothing. You're not going to have a style, an essence, interests, things to say. You're just going to be a shadow of the person and think about who enjoys dating their own shadow. Probably narcissists, right? Okay. Can I tell you about my wind-down ritual? Yeah? Because it has a blanket and I'm completely unembarrassed about that fact. I am a blanket person. I have always been a blanket person and I have had a lot of blankets in my life, a lot of them that look incredible in the shop or online, and then you get them home and within a few washes, they are piling, they are shedding, they have lost everything, they're looking disheveled, they're looking not nice.

You know the ones? You have had them. Lola is genuinely different, and I say that as someone who has been through a lot of blankets. I love the coziness. It is just the best thing. It is the softest, most luxurious, four-way stretch and has months of washability in them, okay no piling no shedding still perfect mine lives on the sofa because my son loves it my kids go to it in the morning it's just elevated the space immediately it's one of those things that you put somewhere and the whole room just looks super cozy and curated and a little bit Nordic which i like i also love that it was founded with such a beautiful story behind it a family mission to bring that comfortable to the homes of many as possible over 20 000 five-star reviews again crazy and once you

feel it you will be completely understanding of one They are so popular. For a limited time, our listeners can get 40% off Lola Blankets products with Code Being Her at checkout. Just head to LolaBlankeets.com and use Code Being Her to get 40% off your order. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them, and please support our show and let them know that we sent you wrap yourself within a luxury Lola Blanket today. Can I tell you about something that genuinely changed how my home feels? I used to think that having a space that actually looked like me was just a budget problem, right?

I just need to make more money and just be a bit more bougie. And honestly, it kind of was until I found Wayfair. I wooded a rug recently. And the moment it arrived and I put it down. The whole room just clicked into place. That's what happens when you find a good piece, right? That's the thing about Wayfar too. The prices genuinely surprise you.

The style options are endless and you're not bouncing between 12 different stores trying to piece a room together. Everything is in one place. Who's got time for that, right? And if you're worried about quality, they have a Wayfair verified product specialist who hand vets everything using a 10-point inspection, testing quality of material, functionality, and even how long it takes to build. Over 20 million five-star reviews, that's 20 million. I did not say it wrong. 20 million five-star reviews from real people and real homes so you can see exactly what it looks like before it even arrives at your door. If you've been putting off refreshing your space, whether it's a new sofa, lighting, storage, day-corn, Wayfair is where to start, I think. I ordered from Wayfair and honesty, maybe you should too.

Join Wayfair awards today. Get 5% back on every purchase and start saving your next home upgrade. Head to Wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Number seven is you probably see your needs as problems. And this is a big one that I've got to work on myself personally. I'll be honest with you. I often, not even in relationships, in work things, in friendships, I see my needs as problems that can arise for other people. I think it's got to do with how I was raised, but I had a single immigrant mother who had to struggle at several jobs and did her best. So I learned to put my needs on the shelf, on the elf on the shelf, because I was like, my mom already has enough on her plate. I'm not going to give her more issues to worry about.

And for example, I knew she had a certain amount of money each week. I didn't know exactly how much, but in a sense, it's seven, eight years old, that, you know, because I saw her counting at the shops and, you know, now she's a director and everything. So she's very successful now. I'm very proud of her. But then because she was single and in a foreign country, and they don't let you work in the same capacity as you did in your home country, despite the qualifications that you have, boop. She had to do two jobs and count pennies and all this stuff.

and I remember watching her do that and so when we went to the shops I would never ask like oh mom can I have this and I mean down to like I don't know strawberry jam I wouldn't ask her for the things right because I didn't want to burden her with my needs because my needs would be problems and if I burden her

that I'll make her life more harder and then she won't find it so easy to be around me and then I'll lose her approval and her love right so you fear expressing your emotions and I remember when I first started dating my husband we went to was it LA or Vegas? I can't remember. We were in a mall. And he kept going to stores because, you know, he's normal and he's a human being and he wants to go into stores. And I followed him around and watched

him try on pants and try on this and try on a jacket and Hugo Boss. And I never, I never tried on anything myself because I kind of had this feeling of like, I don't want someone standing around waiting for me to try stuff on. It was so ingrained in me. I, never even stopped for a moment and thought, if you asked me cognitively, like, would he have minded? And the answer is, of course, he wouldn't have minded. But in my head, I was so locked in on the fact that any need of mine is inconvenient that I just followed him around, like a sad sack, watching him do stuff. Well, I just followed him around. I'm just going to put this into the camera. And in that realization I had, I was like, wow, this, this, this need that I have to be convenient is gone even into my

relationship with my husband where I just followed him around watching him shop because I remember just to just to stay in the background and not be inconvenient and not make someone wait for me or not make someone spend money and I was like wow I need a slap upside my head because that is so crazy people who have that in their lives they feel guilty every time they express a genuine need they feel like they they shouldn't want flowers or shouldn't want commitment and they should be just so cool and easy going and because along their line somewhere like me they learned that even my mom never made me feel this way on purpose but somewhere along the line I learned that my need could inconvenience a person that is already might be struggling or might need help or whatever so I took it into adulthood but it's not

cute and adorable like so as time went on I obviously tried on stuff and I did stuff and of course my husband liked it and he was like wow you look good in that dress and I was a normal human being but it's a hurdle that I had to go through and manage because the secret is men like high maintenance women because they like to have a manual to how to make you happy. And if you're always there trying to push yourself down, suppress your emotions and nobody knows how to make you happy, it's not fun to be with. Number eight, the fear of being high maintenance often comes from a scarcity mindset. And a scarcity mindset is not going to make you happy and successful in the life.

long run in your life, not in money, not in anything. So if you feel that you're playing small in relationships, let me tell you right now, you are not going to be abundant in money either. The more high maintenance I become, the more affluent I become and the more money I have, okay? If you're afraid someone will leave you because you asked for more, the real issue isn't the request. It's the belief that love is scarce, that money is scarce, that there's a quantity of love in the world that you will not get enough of. And that's not true. When you believe you'll always have opportunities for healthy relationships, even if you ask this guy for that, he says, no, you're like, well, they're going to be lining up outside the door. And they will be

if you become high maintenance and in love with yourself and the idea of you and you just love your life and you build it to its fullest. Honestly, Unbothered three day intensive is available now. I honestly implore you to take it because you will love that masterclass. Scarcity makes people shrink and security allows people to speak. So when you become secure and abundant in yourself and you start to love your life and everything radiates from you, you're going to make more money, people are going to love you more. When you're shrinking, people cannot see you through the weeds of your shrinking. There is nothing adorable or beautiful about it. Number nine, the healthiest women are actually quite specific. The first rule of manifestation is you need to know what you want in order to get it.

money, a house, whatever it is, any superficial thing, love children, which is more like what life is really about, right? But you have to be specific, right? And if you're specific, you might be called high maintenance because you have a maintenance that you need to have, right? People who manifest easily, they know how they like to be loved. They know what drains them. They know what energizes them. They know how to make themselves happy before they let other people know how to make them happy. They know what they won't tolerate. They know their boundaries. They know what kind of life they want. They have, what is it? Ladies and Jens, self-awareness. They have self-awareness. And the most emotionally mature people are usually the clearest about the preferences. And they spend

time achieving them themselves. And they don't let other people derail them either. Because if I've spent so much time trying to get to where I am, I'm going to let you derail me, friend. And number 10. please I beg you stop trying to be easy to love because it doesn't exist it's a myth your goal shouldn't be how can I become easier to love and just to fit in anywhere so I become invisible and unseen your goal is how can I become more honest with myself more honest with what I want and more honest with people around you and then love will find you the right people are looking for honest authentic people they are not looking for a puppy dog that's easy to love although puppy dogs are amazing they're looking for someone who has a genuine connection.

Women have been taught that fewer needs means easier interaction and love. And I don't think that's true. I think knowing your needs and knowing who you are and communicating them clearly and saying to others how to make you happy especially to men because they love that makes you not high maintenance. It makes you a magnetic, absolutely magnetic. stop pretending to be low maintenance and join me in the high maintenance club i love you lots like july you lots see you next time bye