What happens when you stop putting your needs last? Are you truly listening to your inner voice, or drowning it out? What if your needs are not burdens, but guidance?
In this podcast episode, Jennifer Froemel discusses our needs as women redefined with Mara Glatzel.
Meet Mara Glatzel
Mara Glatzel is a coach, speaker, and author who helps individuals build sustainable lives rooted in self-trust and emotional resilience. Through her work, including her book Needy, Mara challenges the stigma around having needs and offers a grounded framework for honoring them without burnout or shame. Drawing on years of experience supporting creatives, entrepreneurs, and helpers, she focuses on boundaries, nervous system awareness, and redefining productivity in a way that supports long-term wellbeing.
Visit Mara’s website and connect on Instagram.
In This Podcast:
- Your needs shouldn’t be last
- Listen to your inner voice
- Framing your needs as information
Your needs shouldn’t be last
As Mara explains, she started doing this work for women because she needed it herself. It wasn’t until Mara’s eldest daughter was born around a decade ago that she realized how burned out she was.
I realized that I couldn’t get by on meeting my needs in the corners of my life, or after everyone went to bed. I was going to have to develop a relationship with my needs that included a felt understanding of what is even possible to need.
Mara Glatzel
There is a lack of vocabulary and a lack of role-modelling, so for both Mara and her clients, there is a desire to understand what is possible for someone to feel fully secure, safe, and seen, and still able to care for those around them.
At the end of the day, your needs should no longer be last. This is the first step to coming back to yourself and getting your needs met.
Listen to your inner voice
Even after years of avoiding yourself, you will still hear your inner voice, the part of you that asks for real witnessing, love, and energy.
You can try to bypass it and ignore it, but it will always come up until you recognize it.
I saw this huge number of women coming in that were on loads of meds, and miserable … because they wouldn’t ask. They wouldn’t listen to that inner voice, and I recognize too that the inner voice is really small, and it whispers really quietly, and if it whispers all the time, then you’re not paying attention, you’re not hearing it, because there’s so much noise all around you.
Jennifer Froemel
When you hear your inner voice, close the gap between listening and doing. Leap yourself and start doing something small every day for yourself.
Framing your needs as information
Mara explains that the way we face our inner needs has to do with us and what we require in order to be well under all of the many circumstances and obligations we find ourselves in.
[Our] needs are these guideposts home to our truest and most fully expressed self, and the more that we can allow for them to just exist … The more information that we have about how we could be living.
Mara Glatzel
Even if you don’t yet know how to meet a need that you feel, let it stick around until you develop the capacity to care for it. Use this as information, because all of these needs show you the life that you subconsciously desire.
RESOURCES MENTIONED AND USEFUL LINKS
Visit Mara’s website and connect on Instagram.
BOOK | Mara Glatzel – Needy: How to Advocate for Your Needs and Claim Your Sovereignty
Donate to Jennifer Froemel’s Lifesaving Work in Nepal
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ABOUT THE FEAR OF CHANGE PODCAST
Change can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. The Fear of Change podcast is all about helping you embrace change and live a more fulfilling life. Hosted by Jennifer Froemel, LCPC, a therapist with nearly 30 years of experience, we cover topics like mental wellness, holistic health, and improving relationships.
Jennifer’s down-to-earth approach makes it easy to understand why we fear change and how to move past those fears. Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, relationship issues, or just feeling stuck, there’s something here for you.
