Maya Nehru Coaching

If any of these phrases live rent-free in your head and you use them on the daily, your nervous system might be doing what it learned to do a long time ago — making you smaller so things stay okay.

These subtle protective responses made so sense in an environment where your needs felt like too much, or where expressing them came with consequences. So don’t hate on them.

Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between then and now. It just knows what kept you safe before, and it keeps running that same script. You can acknowledge that, appreciate it, and now be ready to teach it something different.

Healing looks like slowly giving yourself permission to take up space — to have a preference, to name a need, to let something matter without talking yourself out of it first.

Save this if you recognized yourself in this list. And follow me MAYA NEHRU | Anxiety + Trauma Therapist & Boundaries Coach for more on people-pleasing, anxiety, and what it actually looks like to heal.




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6 subtle signs you’re giving too much in relationships (and your nervous system is keeping score).

Most over-givers don’t realize what’s happening until they’re completely burned out. You give more to feel safe. You accommodate to avoid conflict. You wait for reciprocity that never quite comes.

And the exhaustion is twofold - it’s emotional and it’s physical because your body has a way of telling you the dynamic is off.

The hardest part? A lot of this was learned. If love felt conditional growing up, you probably figured out that giving more = staying safe. That pattern made sense then. It’s just costing you now. And it’s costing you heavily.

Drop a 🫶🏽 if any of these hit and follow MAYA NEHRU | Anxiety + Trauma Therapist & Boundaries Coach for more on managing anxiety, unlearning people-pleasing, and building relationships that don’t require you to shrink.

Monday mood…finally saying no without immediately texting “actually never mind.” 😜

Your nervous system has been running on “keep everyone happy or something bad happens” for so long that doing anything different feels like a threat. But that uncomfortable feeling after you hold a boundary? That’s not a sign you did something wrong. That’s just what change feels like in a body that learned to survive by people-pleasing.

Take today to remind yourself that you’re not doing it wrong, you’re just doing it new.

Save this for the next time you say no and your body convinces you that you ruined everything, and follow me MAYA NEHRU | Anxiety + Trauma Therapist & Boundaries Coach if you’re unlearning people-pleasing one boundary at a time.

Anxious attachment and dating is hard partly because the need for reassurance feels like too much. So you either ask in a way that comes out sideways, or you don’t ask at all and spiral instead. 😵‍💫

And then you’re two hours deep in their Instagram from 2019 looking for evidence of something you could have just asked about. Know the feeling?

The scripts here won’t fix the anxiety, but they give you a way to ask for what you need before the spiral takes over.

Save this for when you’re spiraling & need some words of encouragement, and follow me MAYA NEHRU | Anxiety + Trauma Therapist & Boundaries Coach for more on healthy dating, boundaries, and relationships! ❤️

The goal of early dating isn’t to make someone stay. It’s to see whether they’re a fit.

Healthy dating is about paying attention.
- Paying attention to how they communicate.
- Paying attention to whether their actions match their words.
- Paying attention to how you feel when you’re with them.
- Paying attention to whether you’re staying connected to yourself.

The more invested you become in being chosen, the easier it is to overlook what isn’t working. The more invested you become in discernment, the easier it is to recognize compatibility.

You don’t need to earn consistency. You don’t need to justify your needs. You don’t need to ignore red flags to keep a connection alive.

Your job isn’t to make someone stay, it’s to notice whether they’re a fit for you and the life you want to build.

Which boundary on this list do you find hardest to maintain in early dating?

Follow me MAYA NEHRU | Anxiety + Trauma Therapist & Boundaries Coach for more tips and insights on healthy boundaries and healthy relationships. 🩷

What it’s like being an emotional sponge:

You walk into a room and immediately sense the mood.

Someone says, “I’m fine,” but you can feel they’re not. A friend is stressed, and before long, your chest feels heavy too. You absorb tension, sadness, frustration, and even excitement as if they’re your own emotions.

Being an emotional sponge means you’re highly attuned to the feelings of others. While this can make you compassionate, intuitive, and deeply caring, it can also leave you emotionally exhausted.

Wondering if you might be an emotional sponge? Here’s a checklist:
✨ You feel drained after spending time with certain people.
✨ You take on other people’s problems as your responsibility.
✨ Crowded or emotionally intense environments overwhelm you.
✨ You struggle to tell the difference between your feelings and someone else’s.
✨ You often prioritize others’ emotional needs over your own.

The challenge isn’t your sensitivity (even though that’s what everyone likes to say 🙄), it’s actually the lack of boundaries around it.

You can care deeply without carrying everything.
You can support someone without absorbing their pain.
You can be empathetic without abandoning yourself.

The goal isn’t to become less sensitive. It’s to learn how to stay connected to others while staying connected to yourself.

A helpful reminder: n every emotion you feel belongs to you. Sometimes your job is to notice it, not carry it.

Sometimes what sounds like an ultimatum is a boundary that has been delayed for too long.

When we’ve spent months (or years) tolerating behavior that hurts us, minimizing our needs, or hoping someone will change without a direct conversation, our limits tend to emerge under pressure. What might have been a calm boundary in the beginning can come out sounding sharp, desperate, or absolute. Can you relate?

There is an important to make a distinction: not every ultimatum is a boundary. Some ultimatums are attempts to control another person’s choices, behavior, or autonomy.

A boundary is about what I will do to take care of myself.

An ultimatum is about what you must do or else.

The difference isn’t always obvious, and sometimes our communication contains elements of both.

So if you find yourself issuing an ultimatum, get curious before you get critical:

• What need am I trying to protect?
• What limit have I been ignoring?
• Have I communicated this boundary clearly before reaching this point?
• Am I trying to control someone else’s behavior, or am I communicating what I need in order to remain in this relationship?

You don’t have to communicate perfectly to have a valid need.

And if your boundary came out messy, it may be worth exploring whether it has been waiting a long time to be heard.

Your inner people-pleaser was born from survival.
From needing to be liked to feel safe.
From believing peace meant keeping everyone else comfortable, even if it cost you your own.

Healing for the people-pleaser in you means realizing that love & over-functioning aren’t the same thing. 🫶🏽

Which reminder are you taking with you today?




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