Book Series Bonus #7: You Don’t Have to Earn Your Worth Anymore
Ever feel like you’ve turned into a human vending machine, dispensing kindness, helpfulness, and support on demand? That’s not generosity. That’s survival mode in disguise. Here’s how to stop auditioning for love and start reclaiming your worth.
The Human Vending Machine Moment
Lisa, a client of mine, once told me about the day someone called her “such a giver.” What was meant as a compliment hit differently after six months of coaching. What she heard was: Congratulations, you’ve programmed yourself to dispense kindness on demand.
She realized she’d been inserting kindness for approval, helpfulness for belonging, and her entire self into everyone else’s problems just to earn gold stars that expired every 24 hours. She was giving until she’d become a ghost in her own life.
One night in the cereal aisle, she had an existential crisis because she didn’t even know what cereal she liked anymore. Her taste buds had long since gone unemployed while she bought what her kids wanted, what her husband needed, or what was on sale. That’s what happens when people-pleasing becomes your profession: you disappear inside your own life.
The Good Girl Chokehold
Lisa’s story is not unique. Many of us live in what I call the “good girl chokehold,” constantly performing helpfulness to secure love and belonging. Her nervous system had learned that safety meant being indispensable, a lesson rooted in childhood.
She developed anxious attachment, scanning for rejection and doing whatever it took to maintain connection, even if it erased her. Her brain rewired itself around the belief that:
I matter only if I am useful.
Meanwhile, her stress response ran like a 24/7 customer service line, managing everyone else’s needs while her own went offline.
The Cruel Irony of Over-Giving
Here’s the twist: all that giving didn’t create connection. It prevented it.
By showing up only as helpfulness, Lisa never revealed her authentic self: her boundaries, her preferences, her bad moods. People couldn’t actually love her. They could only love the services she provided.
Her friendships revolved around her planning birthdays, checking in, and keeping things running smoothly. But when she went through her divorce? Silence. That’s what happens when people are trained to see you as a resource instead of a person.
The Truth Nobody Told Us
Your worth was never up for negotiation.
You don’t have to audition for the right to exist.
You don’t have to pay rent on your own life by making everyone comfortable.
You matter because you exist.
Not because you are useful.
Not because you are convenient.
Just because you are.
What Real Love Looks Like
If you stop giving endlessly, some people will leave. That hurts. But it also shows you who was there for your service versus who is there for your soul.
Real love wants:
- You to have needs.
- You to take up space.
- You to be a whole person, messy and imperfect.
- To support you without keeping score.
When you stop performing worthiness and start embodying it, you attract the people who love you: the real, flawed, human you.
Stop Earning What Was Already Yours
This is the heart of End Emotional Outsourcing: How to Overcome Your Codependent, Perfectionist, and People-Pleasing Habits.
You don’t have to keep auditioning for love. You don’t have to keep being the human Swiss Army knife. You don’t have to keep outsourcing your worth to usefulness.
You can reclaim your birthright: inherent worth, just because you exist.
End Emotional Outsourcing comes out September 30. Preorder your copy today at beatrizalbina.com/book and get immediate access to bonus tools that help you stop earning what has always been yours.
You don’t have to be useful to be loved. You just have to be you.
Tags: rumination, overthinking, emotional outsourcing, people pleasing, codependency recovery, nervous system healing, self trust, self validation, boundaries, perfectionism