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Jan Cendese

@theawarenessoption

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✨ Helping women heal their inner child
🫂so they can finally stop surviving and start living.
Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)

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Comment AWARE to see what we do inside the Awareness Option Project. by @theawarenessoption

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2 days ago

Before you say YES when you really mean NO… PAUSE.

🛑 P — Pause: You don’t owe anyone an immediate answer.

💛 A — Ask: Am I saying yes out of love or fear?

🌿 U — Understand: Someone else’s disappointment is not your responsibility to fix.

✨ S — Set a Boundary: Honor your needs without overexplaining.

💪 E — Empower Yourself: Choose self-respect over approval.

You can be kind without abandoning yourself.

💬 Comment BLUEPRINT below to get my Boundary Blueprint and start breaking the people-pleasing cycle! by @theawarenessoption

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2 days ago

by @theawarenessoption

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4 days ago

15 things your mother may have said that can signal narcissistic or emotionally manipulative patterns:

1. “After everything I’ve done for you.”
2. “You’re too sensitive.”
3. “That’s not how it happened.”
4. “I never said that.”
5. “You always make everything about you.”
6. “No one else has a problem with me.”
7. “I did the best I could.”
8. “You’ll understand when you’re a mother.”
9. “You should be grateful.”
10. “Don’t embarrass me.”
11. “You’ve always been so difficult.”
12. “I’m the only one who tells you the truth.”
13. “You’re just like your father.”
14. “I sacrificed everything for you.”
15. “You’re going to regret this when I’m gone.”

The words themselves aren’t always the problem.

It’s the pattern underneath them.

Guilt instead of accountability.
Denial instead of repair.
Shame instead of curiosity.
Control instead of connection.

And eventually, you may learn that keeping the relationship means questioning your own feelings, minimizing your needs, and abandoning yourself to keep the peace.

Awareness is where that pattern begins to change.

Comment “AWARE” and I’ll send you information about The Awareness Option Project and resources to help you understand the patterns you learned, reconnect with yourself, and begin showing up for your own needs without guilt. by @theawarenessoption

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23 days ago

It’s not suddenly becoming someone who doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

It looks like…

- Saying “let me think about it” instead of automatically saying yes.
- Letting someone be disappointed without rushing to fix it.
- Saying no without writing a paragraph explaining why.
- Noticing resentment as a sign you may have abandoned your own needs.
- Asking “What do I want?” before asking what everyone else needs.
- Allowing people to misunderstand you without scrambling to change their perception.
- Resting without needing to earn it first.
- Realizing that someone else’s discomfort is not automatically your responsibility.
- Choosing relationships where you don’t have to perform, over-function, or prove your worth.
- Feeling guilty after setting a boundary—and keeping the boundary anyway.

Recovery isn’t becoming selfish.

It’s learning that caring for other people doesn’t require abandoning yourself.

Comment SUPER if you’re ready to stop people pleasing and start choosing yourself. by @theawarenessoption

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a month ago

You don’t have to start with huge, uncomfortable boundaries.

Start small.

1. Stop answering immediately.
“Let me think about it and get back to you.”
2. Stop over-explaining your no.
“I’m not able to do that” is a complete answer.
3. Stop making yourself available 24/7.
You’re allowed to respond when you have the capacity.
4. Stop automatically fixing other people’s discomfort.
Someone being disappointed doesn’t mean you did something wrong.
5. Ask yourself what YOU want before saying yes.
Before accommodating them, pause and check in with yourself.

People pleasing teaches you to abandon yourself in tiny moments.

Boundaries teach you to choose yourself in those same tiny moments.

Small boundaries. Practiced consistently. That’s how the pattern changes.

Next week, I’m taking a small group of women through Superwoman Recovery, an 8-week journey from understanding your patterns to actually changing them.

From scanning the room for who needs managing → to resting in it.

From saying yes and resenting it → to saying no without drowning in guilt.

From being loved for what you do → to being known for who you are.

Comment or DM me SUPER and I’ll tell you if this group is the right next step. by @theawarenessoption

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a month ago

It was never really about you. It was about what you had that she didn’t let herself want.

1. Withdrawal of approval — not discipline. Emotional starvation.
She pulled away exactly when you shone the brightest.
→ “Her silence was never proof I did something wrong.”
2. Being made invisible — ignored, dismissed, talked over.
You learned to make yourself smaller so your light wouldn’t threaten hers.
→ “I don’t have to shrink to be safe anymore.”
3. Being made the problem — your feelings became the issue.
Your reaction to what hurt you was used as evidence that you were the problem.
→ “My feelings were never the crime. They were information about what was happening to me.”
4. Conditional love — warmth when you performed. Coldness when you didn’t.
Love felt like a reward for being who she needed you to be instead of being fully yourself.
→ “I am not required to perform to be worthy of love.”

Envy doesn’t always announce itself as envy.

Sometimes it can look like criticism, coldness, comparison, competition, or withdrawing approval.

And a child has no framework for understanding that.

She doesn’t think, “My mother is struggling with her own unmet needs.”

She thinks, “There must be something wrong with me.”

Healing is finally seeing what was happening — and refusing to spend the rest of your life paying for a feeling that was never yours to carry.

Comment AWARE and I’ll send you what we do inside The Awareness Option Project to help you break these patterns. by @theawarenessoption

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a month ago

Kindness is a choice.
People-pleasing often feels like you don’t have one.

1. You say yes before you even know what you want.
Your automatic response is to accommodate first and check in with yourself later.

2. Someone being disappointed in you feels dangerous.
Not uncomfortable. Dangerous. Your body reacts like their disappointment could cost you connection, safety, or love.

3. You’re constantly reading the room.
Their tone changed. Their face changed. Their text felt different. You notice everything because you learned that anticipating other people kept you safe.

4. You feel responsible for everyone else’s emotions.
If they’re upset, you fix it. If they’re uncomfortable, you soften yourself. If there’s tension, you assume it’s yours to resolve.

5. You abandon yourself to avoid being abandoned.
You swallow the need. Move the boundary. Stay quiet. Over-give. Become easier to love.

That isn’t kindness.

Kindness says, “I want to.”
People-pleasing says, “I have to, or something bad might happen.”

And once you can see the difference, you can start choosing yourself without believing it makes you selfish.

Comment AWARE and I’ll send you what we do inside The Awareness Option Project to help you learn what should have been taught long before you learned to abandon yourself to keep the peace. by @theawarenessoption

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a month ago

Some of her parenting wasn’t parenting at all. It was strategy for her to feel better.

1. Love that disappears the second you have a need of your own.
2. Praise in public, contempt in private - so no one else believes you.
3. Comparing you to other daughters until you compete for a love that was never actually available.
4. Rewriting history so confidently you start doubting what actually happened.
5. Making you responsible for her feelings while dismissing yours completely.

Most daughters spend years think they were “too sensitive” or “hard to raise.” They weren’t. They were reacting normally to a relationship that was never actually safe.

Here’s the part that’s hard to sit with: these weren’t accidents or bad days. They were consistent enough to be a pattern - and a pattern is a system, not a mood.

A first step that helps: Start naming it in real time, even privately - “That was a mind game, not love.” Just naming it acuractely starts to loosen its grip on how you see yourself.

But naming it once doesn’t undo year of it. Your nervous system learned to survive this system long before your mind understood what it was surviving.

Comment AWARE and I’ll send you what we do inside The Awareness Option Project to help you finally understand - and untangle - what actually happened to you. by @theawarenessoption

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a month ago

You’ve spent your adult life managing symptoms from childhood trauma, wondering why you can’t just get over it.

Next week, I’m taking a small group of women through Superwoman Recovery, an 8-week journey from understanding your patterns to actually changing them.

From scanning the room for who needs managing → to resting in it.

From saying yes and resenting it → to saying no without drowning in guilt.

From being loved for what you do → to being known for who you are.

Comment or DM me SUPER and I’ll tell you if this group is the right next step. by @theawarenessoption

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a month ago

The relationship in front of you isn’t always the one your nervous system is reacting to.

1. You apologize for things that aren’t your fault, reflexively.
2. You keep the peace even when something is genuinely wrong.
3. You feel most comfortable with people who are a little emotionally unavailable.
4. You need constant reassurance, then feel ashamed for needing it.
5. You shut down completely the moment a conversation gets tense.

People call this “being sensitive” or “needing space.” It’s neither. It’s a nervous system that learned, early and young, that conflict meant danger - and it never got the update that it’s an adult now, with choices.

The uncomfortable truth: your partner isn’t causing most of this. they’re just the closest available screen for a much older projector.

A small shift that helps immediately - name it out loud, even just to yourself: “This is an old pattern, not a current fact.” Saying it interrupts the automatic response by a few crucial seconds.

But interrupting a pattern once doesn’t retrain your nervous system. These grooves were carved over years - they don’t release just because you spot them. You need to focus on interrupting the pattern over and over again until the new pattern becomes automatic.

Comment AWARE and I’ll send you what we do inside The Awareness Option Project to help these patterns actually loosen their grip, not just get labeled. by @theawarenessoption

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a month ago

They’re not lying to you. They’re just not telling you the whole truth.

There’s a difference—and hiding it is costing them.

Sometimes struggling doesn’t look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like:

1. Their texts get shorter, but their emojis get brighter.
2. They ask about your day so they don’t have to talk about theirs.
3. They cancel plans “to be productive,” then do nothing.
4. They laugh a little too quickly at things that aren’t that funny.
5. Everything gets explained away with, “I’m just tired.”
6. They start saying, “I’m fine, honestly”—when no one asked.
7. They disappear for a day or two, then come back acting extra normal.

The tender truth: hiding it isn’t always dishonesty. Sometimes it’s the only way someone knows how to keep standing.

The harder truth: the better someone is at hiding what they’re carrying, the longer they may have been carrying it alone.

Try the Memory Check:

Think of someone who’s seemed “a little off” lately. When was the last time you remember them really laughing—not smiling, but laughing?

If you can’t remember, reach out.

Instead of “You good?” try something specific:

“I was thinking about that time we ______. How are you actually doing?”

Specificity can open a door that a generic check-in never will.

And maybe the person you need to do this with is yourself.

The people who have become experts at looking fine often need someone to notice that they’re not.

Next week, I’m taking a small group of women through Superwoman Recovery—an 8-week journey from understanding your patterns to actually changing them.

From scanning the room for who needs managing → to being able to rest in it.

From saying yes and resenting it → to saying no without drowning in guilt.

From being loved for what you do → to being known for who you are.

Comment or DM SUPER and I’ll send you the details. 🤍 by @theawarenessoption

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a month ago