The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino

From Self-Sacrifice to Soul Nourishment: Reimagining Women's Worth

• Keri Marino • Episode 6

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Breaking generational patterns isn't easy, especially when they're wrapped in the guise of virtue. For centuries, women have been conditioned to believe our worth is measured by how much we sacrifice, how empty our cups become in service to others. This martyr complex doesn't just exhaust us—it fundamentally disconnects us from our own souls.

What if the most radical act of love isn't putting yourself last, but first? Not from selfishness, but from the profound understanding that you cannot pour from an empty cup. Your nervous system, as a woman, sets the tone for everyone around you. When you operate from depletion, that depletion radiates outward. When you operate from wholeness, that wholeness becomes medicine.

True self-nourishment goes far beyond bubble baths and manicures. I'm talking about soul work—deep practices like meditation, yoga, somatics, and intuitive connection that fill you from the inside out. These aren't luxuries; they're necessities for women who want to break the generational curse of self-abandonment. Whether you start with just two minutes of intentional practice or you're ready to dive deeper into devotional paths like bhakti yoga, each step toward self-nourishment is a revolutionary act.

In a world experiencing political unrest, environmental crisis, and social division, we need more women who are deeply resourced and fully present. Your self-devotion isn't just for you—it's for everyone whose lives you touch. The ripple effect of your wholeness extends far beyond what you can imagine. Ready to break the pattern? Join me in The Nourished Woman Sanctuary where we're creating a new paradigm together, one deeply nourished woman at a time.

Let's connect on Instagram @the_nourished_woman or through my website www.KeriMarino.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Nourished Woman podcast, a space for women on a growth and healing journey who want to experience more joy, play and pleasure while feeling deeply rooted within themselves. Body play and pleasure while feeling deeply rooted within themselves body, mind and spirit. I'm your host, keri Marino, somatic yoga therapist, mentor and mama of three. Let's dive in love.

Speaker 1:

For so many women out there, there is a generational story, a paradigm or even a curse that keeps being passed down from one woman to another, one generation to another, and it is this cultural belief that women come last and that our wants and needs are not as important as other people's and that, at the end of the day, if we have anything left to give to ourselves, then that is when we can tend to our own wants and needs and desires. And it is this sort of martyr complex that many women are carrying inside of them, this deep programming around this, and they don't even know it, or some of us even wear it as like a badge of armor. Like I am the martyr. I am putting myself last. I am taking such good care of everybody else in my life. Everyone look and see how good I'm doing at taking good care of everybody else in my life. Everyone look and see how good I'm doing at taking good care of everybody else in my life, and I want to acknowledge that this becomes for so many women a sort of trap that you operate in and it can lead to mental health issues. It can lead to depression. It can lead to disconnection from self. It can lead and so my clients lead to disconnection from self. It can lead and so my clients as far as suicidal ideation. It can lead to all kinds of struggles. And there is this sort of popular thing swirling around on Instagram right now and it's saying like the future health outcomes of our children is largely predicted by the mother's mental health.

Speaker 1:

And I want to acknowledge, like that is real, your capacity, whether you are a mom or not, to be of service in this world and to share your gifts and your blessings and to nurture and care for each other person in your life, whether it's a client or someone that you love, or a friend or whomever it is, or the stranger on the street that you offer to jump their car off when their battery dies. Like your capacity to do that is beautiful and I am in no way asking you to restrict your capacity to pour out into other people, but I am saying that that generational story that your self nourishment has to come last is costing you something and that there can be this powerful shift within when you start to untangle that belief, when you start to unravel the disconnection from yourself and choose a devotional effort of nurturing yourself. And I don't mean like going to get a pedicure or a manicure or a massage or any of those like sort of surface level things that we can do, that might temporarily be a nice dopamine hit, that we can do, that might temporarily be a nice dopamine hit, and like we get a little dopamine hit every time we look at our fingernails and they're pretty and sparkly or whatever it is. I'm talking about deeper work. I'm talking about soul work. I'm talking about you accessing your intuition. I'm talking about meditation and yoga and those practices that really, really, really fill your cup from the inside out, because it's my belief and it may or may not be yours that we need more women who have access to their wholeness operating in this world.

Speaker 1:

Right now, we have a lot of really dramatic things going on with our presidential administration and the Republican-led parties, and many different people's rights are being stripped away. We are seeing a lot of fear and scarcity out in the world on nervous system patterning that makes us fawn or freeze or go into fight or flight or feel stressed or shut down or disconnect even more or like mobilize and become overreactive and feel like we need to control everything. And this is not us leading from our most nourished and whole place. This is not us taking those moments to pause and say, hey, how can I tune in and how can I fill my own cup and how can I really exercise boundaries right? Because boundaries are how I say yes to myself. Boundaries are not about other people. Boundaries are about how we say yes to us.

Speaker 1:

And so this sort of generational shift, this imprint that has come down for women that we come mean women. Our original role right was to grow up and become a wife to someone and then serve that partner that we had and serve them without questioning them and just doing whatever we were told. And our worth was actually measured by how much we served and our capacity to have children and then to be of service to those children. And so it's hardwired in our ancestry and in our nervous systems this sort of martyr vibe of giving, giving, giving, measuring our worth by what we do, and then saving the scraps for ourselves, and this just isn't going to serve you forever. There will likely come a point where you will start to notice that this is costing you something that you don't want to give anymore and that your capacity to be a sovereign, nourished and whole woman sets the tone for everything around you. Like the female nervous system in a house is the primary influence over everyone else in the house, whether there are children in that house or not, everyone is sort of gathering their baseline from where your nervous system is, because that is part of the divine feminine, that is part of our gifts that we're here to channel, and it is also my love, part of your sacred responsibility to yourself, first off, and to everyone else. And you might be listening to this and thinking like well, what does she mean for me to be nourished and whole and for me to focus more of my energy back on myself and really break up with this old story that I have that I need to give, give, give. And what I mean is that I want you to become more aware of this, because so many women are going through the day and not doing things that fill them up on a deeper level, and that is what I want you to become aware of.

Speaker 1:

Are you convening? Are you having conversation with your own soul and spirit? Are you listening to your intuition? Are you doing deeper practices? Intuition, are you doing deeper practices yoga, therapy, somatics, breath work, meditation, mantra, prayer, like whatever it is? Are you accessing those deep, deep realms of self and then nourishing yourself with them and letting that ripple out into your life on a daily basis? Or are you not? And it might be not just these sort of inner practices, but like, are you letting sunshine be on your skin and pause to enjoy that? Are you standing out in the light of the moon? Are you going on a walk and turning off the podcast I'm glad you're here, by the way, keep listening but like just being in a silent communion with yourself, are you dancing and playing the music? Like what are you doing that is absolutely positively just for you and it's not some surface level shit.

Speaker 1:

And if you're not doing that, hello sister, wake up, wake up. That's an old story, that's a generational thing that has been passed down. It is time perhaps, you listen to your inner knowing and see it is time to choose again, and maybe that choosing again starts really small. And you do two minutes of something. I'm going to sit in meditation for two minutes. I'm going to sit in meditation for two minutes. I'm going to walk outside and feel the sunlight on my skin and say a prayer to whatever divine that I connect with for two minutes. I'm going to roll out my yoga mat and I'm going to lay on it for two minutes.

Speaker 1:

And maybe you are further down the path, maybe you're sort of intermediate in this practice of communing with yourself, and so perhaps what you're looking at is really I call it shadow boxing. So when you feel those thoughts come up of, okay, I can't take care of myself, I don't have time, then you box those away and you say, no, love, I am choosing again. I am not going to buy into that belief anymore that everyone else gets fed. Like in an airplane, they tell you to put your own breathing mask on first, and then your children Like, no, we nourish mama and we nourish self, and then we nourish everyone else. And that version of me, she has so much more to offer and so much more to give to this beautiful life and these people in it that I get to experience my days with, and then you might be really far down the path, like, maybe you've been doing yoga for a while, maybe you've really seen the shifts in yourself and you know that you're choosing a different way, and then your practice becomes more of an advanced practice. So how am I moving into a deeper level of knowledge and application of that knowledge in my life?

Speaker 1:

Maybe your yoga practices become longer, maybe you dabble more into the realm of bhakti yoga, which, oh my gosh, if you don't know about bhakti yoga, it is the devotional path of yoga and it is really about this deeper communion with spirit and soul that I'm talking about here, and I'm happy to chat with any of you that want to know more about that directly. You can always message me. But I want to leave you with something important. Every single one of us has this sort of wiring that I'm talking about here the old belief, the martyr vibe, the self-disconnection lesson that we've been taught, and it is a devotional practice to nourish yourself and to do these sort of soulful, sacred practices that really wire you up in a different way and that, if you say yes to them, they can radically change your life, and the ripple effect of that is so much bigger than you could ever imagine. Imagine.

Speaker 1:

So much of the work that I do with my clients is really about helping women grow and heal so that we can be the medicine that ripples out into the world. And so I want you to know that, as you do this work, as you choose self-devotion, as you choose self-nourishment in this body, mind and spirit way, not like surface level self-care, but like really getting in there and loving on all the parts of you so they feel whole and united and linked together, and then you can walk through your days from that place that deeply resourced. Oh my goodness, I am here just to live and love and be a channel. It is the medicine that we need. So if any of you are feeling some of the political unrest and feeling some of the scarcity and the fear, honey, this is part of the medicine. This is you getting into that place where you have broken the old paradigm and you've chosen the new paradigm, and then you are automatically going out and offering something big and wonderful into the world, and you can trust that.

Speaker 1:

If this podcast episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Send me a message on Instagram, at the Nourished Woman or through my website, kerrymarinocom, and if you're looking for a space for deeper support, mentorship or simply a space to feel held, I'd love to have you join us inside the Nourished Woman Sanctuary. The beautiful music you're hearing is from Shawn Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band, and you can find them on all streaming platforms.