Being the Bigger Person Without Losing Yourself

This episode dives into the emotional tug-of-war women face when we’re told to rise above, take the high road, and keep the peace — even when it costs us our truth. In this episode, Jacquelynn breaks down the difference between emotional maturity and emotional self-abandonment, how to set boundaries with integrity, and what it looks like to choose self-respect over silence.

This is your reminder that being the bigger person doesn’t mean shrinking who you are.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why “being the bigger person” is so often weaponized against women
• The difference between maturity and people-pleasing
• How to respond calmly without suppressing your emotions
• The signs you’re abandoning yourself in the name of peace
• What grace really looks like
• How to set boundaries without guilt
• Practical steps to protect your peace while staying aligned

Listen if you’ve ever been told:

• “Just let it go,”
• “Don’t stoop to their level,”
• “Be the bigger person.”

Because this episode is your permission slip to stop losing yourself for the sake of keeping everyone else comfortable.

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Chapters

• 1:07 Redefining “Be The Bigger Person”
• 2:24 Conditioning, Parentification, And People Pleasing
• 3:48 Emotional Regulation Versus Reactivity
• 4:22 Boundaries Without Guilt
• 5:34 Grace Or Enabling
• 6:57 Questions To Check Your Motives
• 7:53 EI Versus Emotional Suppression
• 8:26 Pause, Settle, And Communicate Calmly
• 9:48 Walking Away And Letting Consequences Land
• 10:22 When “Bigger Person” Becomes Self-Betrayal
• 12:53 Awareness, Self-Respect, And Fit
• 14:32 Seven Practical Steps To Keep Integrity
• 15:51 Strength Over Silence
• 16:57 Personal Reflections And Growth
• 18:16 Share, Review, And Support The Show
• 21:17 Events, Community, And Contact

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

Hi, welcome back to Just Women Talking Shit, where we have real conversations about life, mental health, womanhood, and everything in between. I'm your host, Jacqueline Cotton, and today we are talking about something that every woman, if not human, has been told in her life. And that is just be the bigger person, which is basically code for swallow your hurt, pretend you're fine, and take care of everyone else's feelings first. So today's question is can you be the bigger person without abandoning yourself? And the answer is absolutely yes. But it requires boundaries, honesty, and actual emotional maturity, not self-sacrifice. Let's get into it. But first, let me take a little tokey toke of my, what is it? It was strawberry or no watermelon woo. I always get so cracked up when I say that. By Ric Flair. Shout out to Ric Flair. I'm really enjoying this watermelon woo vape. So if you are a medical patient or recreational uh cannabis user, I highly recommend it. But anyway, let's, again, like I said, let's get into it. Just had to look get a little wake-in bike, you know, so we can hop right into the actual problem with the whole being the bigger person. So we've all been conditioned, especially as women, to be peacemakers, you know, the fixers, the really the emotional first aid kits, if you will. Just be the bigger person. We've all heard that. We've probably all heard, don't stoop to their level. I know I say that to my kids. Let it go, take the high road, right? And even though I do find myself saying it, there is some truth that I have to get out of my body uh as to how I actually feel about this from a psychology standpoint. Being the bigger person isn't noble if it requires shrinking yourself. And a lot of us learn to be the bigger person because we were parentified, we feared conflict, you know, we weren't allowed to express anger. We were taught that harmony mattered more than honesty. Or because we believed our worth, you know, came from being easy to deal with. Being the bigger person kind of became code for not speaking up, letting people walk all over us, keeping the peace when we are breaking inside, right? And my opinion is that that's not maturity or emotional maturity. That's more like survival mode. So let's talk, you know, about what being the bigger person actually means, because I have a reframe for it. Being the bigger person is not about tolerating disrespect. It's more about emotionally regulating yourself so that you can respond instead of reacting, which, girl, I'm guilty of it. My husband says, like, give yourself 24 to 48 hours before you make any rash decisions, because I've been known to take a hammer to a phone by acting, you know, very quickly, reacting because it can, it can escalate very quickly whenever you are not emotionally regulating yourself so that you can be able to respond and not react. But here's what this looks like: it looks like choosing clarity over chaos. It looks like standing out for yourself without blowing up. It looks like knowing when to walk away instead of engaging, instead of arguing, instead of trying to one up or get the last word in. It looks like holding boundaries without guilt, which just so you know, Cliff Notes, that takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. And you still feel guilt in a sense, but it's the practicing of and the intention behind having those boundaries and not feeling guilty because you respect yourself enough to keep them. It looks like refusing to lose your dignity, not your voice. It looks um like all of these things that sound kind of crazy if you are very, you know, an emotional person and you react quickly without being ratchet or contributing to the what I call petty energy. Because the goal is not perfection, the goal is self-respect. You don't have to yell, you don't have to drag anybody under to stand in your power. Sometimes being the bigger person sounds more like, no, that doesn't work for me, and just nipping it in the bud, right? Sometimes it sounds like I'm not available for this type of conversation. Sometimes it sounds like, you know, I care about you, but I'm not going to abandon myself to make you comfortable, right? Because self-abandonment is not emotional maturity. That is conditioning. You were taught to do that. You were taught to put yourself last. You were taught to minimize your feelings, right? To make somebody else feel comfortable or to kind of fit into that piece of the puzzle where where you needed to fit at that time. I think this is where people get it twisted. Being nice is not equal to letting people treat you however they want. Okay. There is a fine line between grace, which is compassion with boundaries, and enabling, which is compassion at your own expense. Okay. Grace says or sounds like, I understand where you're coming from and I still choose what's best for me. But enabling, letting them get away with it, sounds more like I'll tolerate this because I'm scared to upset you. That's what it's gonna feel like in your body. It's gonna feel like, you know, you're you're compromising on something that you don't agree with because you don't want to piss the other person off. You don't want to make them upset, you don't want to make them mad, you don't want to infringe upon your relationship, but you feel kind of empty, right? So ask yourself, am I doing this out of love or am I actually doing this out of fear? That's the important question. Am I avoiding conflict because I'm tired or because I'm scared? Am I choosing peace or am I people pleasing? Ask yourself those things because being the bigger person never requires ignoring red flags, excusing bad behavior, suppressing or hiding your feelings, pretending something didn't hurt, accepting less than you deserve, right? Because grace doesn't cost you your dignity. It shouldn't cost you your dignity. So if any of those things are raising, raising the red flags in you, just think about it. Because you shouldn't have to do those things to be the bigger person if you sell, if you respect yourself, right? Truth is that a lot of us just confuse the two. But emotional intelligence equals, you know, being able to say, you know, I'm choosing how I respond because I value myself. That's what emotional intelligence sounds like. I'm choosing how I respond because I value myself. You stop and think about it, you don't react, you respond in a collective way. But emotional suppression looks more like or sounds more like I'm choosing silence because I didn't want to upset anyone. Do you see the difference? One is healthy and one is it's just keeping the peace. It's just keeping quiet. It's not being honest with yourself. But being a bigger person also sometimes looks like pausing before responding. Do you know how I said, like, let's not go into the ratchet energy, let's not get stuck in the petty energy. Sometimes it looks like that. So it also looks like letting your nervous system settle, which is where my husband gives me that uh wait 24 to 48 hours rule, because I I need time to take it all in when I allow myself to really go through the range of emotions over the next 24 hours. I make smarter, wiser decisions. I don't make them out of this heightened sense of emotion, out of my insecurities or wounds that maybe I haven't solved yet. Um big the per being, oh my gosh, I just showed up my spit. Being the bigger person, you know, looks like expressing your boundaries calmly, being able to say them without um a doubt in your mind and being able to stand firmly in your beliefs. So being able to, you know, like we were saying earlier, like I respect myself. So I'm not gonna keep abandoning myself to make you comfortable. Being able to say that instead of coming at somebody and and telling them, being able to express yourself in a very calm way helps so much whenever it comes to creating those boundaries and actually making them stick. I've noticed a huge difference when I communicate in a calm manner. Being the bigger person can look like walking away from chaos, like not even engaging with it. You don't have to sit there and say, Oh, I'm gonna be the bigger person. Your actions can speak for themselves. Being the bigger person looks like letting the other person sit with the consequences, not trying to be that first aid kit that we were referencing to in the beginning of the episode, like just letting them sit with what they said and letting them think about it, letting them think about what they did, how they made you feel. Because that's the thing is people are gonna remember how you make them feel, right? When it's all said and done, people remember how you make them feel. Being the bigger person can look like knowing that you don't owe anyone instant forgiveness and being able to say, you know what, like I'm not cool with this. We've got some differences, but and just sitting with it, right? Because you don't owe anyone your silence. You don't owe them an explanation necessarily, but you also, if you do have an explanation, you don't have to be quiet about it. There is a way to communicate in a way that doesn't cause drama. And if there is drama, even after you have taken all the classes, learned how to communicate in an effective manner, you've, you know, you work on your tone, you're presenting it in a calm way, you've been very respectful about the whole process at that point. If there's drama, it's kind of hard to ignore who is creating the drama and where it's coming from. Whenever you start showing up in a way that is the bigger person, right? Now, here's the thing is being the bigger person can become self-betrayal. And here's what that looks like. You're losing yourself if you are always apologizing first, you minimize your feelings. I do that a lot. You let people stay in your life out of guilt. That's another one. You make peace even when you're hurting. Instead of speaking about how you feel and about how you have boundaries and lines were crossed, letting people just keep mistreating you or, you know, being that peacemaker because you have guilt, that that is going to catch up with you. And at some point, these relationships will rupture if they don't rupture frequently. Um, and you might have like some final blowout. You might come back together, but I'm just speaking from experience that when when you let people stay in your life who don't really belong there, who drag you down, who keep getting you in bad situations, who aren't showing up for you when you need them, it does catch up with you. And there tends to be some kind of big blowout. Sometimes there's not. Sometimes people just kind of sneakily sneak away without explanation, which hurts in itself. But again, like when it's all said and done, everybody's true colors show. And if there's drama or it always comes or rises to the surface, like it will reveal itself, right? So just keep working on yourself. You refuse to express anger, you convince yourself it's not a big deal when it is. That's what self-betrayal looks like. And it happens in these tiny, tiny moments. Every time you swallow a comment, right? Every time you you want to say something, you're like, oh, never mind, or you're, you know, made feel to feel uncomfortable in a social setting, and you're like, I'm fine. Every time you do that and you're being the bigger person, right? If it feels like self-betrayal, then you're not being the bigger person. You're just trying to acclimate and not upset anybody, which I don't think is healthy. And when you do that, what I'm saying is, I'm not saying that you should never bite your lip and that you should always voice your voice your opinion. What I'm saying is that you have every right to be comfortable and to let people know that these are my boundaries. This is like how I choose to live my life, this is how I choose to let people into my life, into my energy. When you have this awareness of self-respect, what I'm saying is that you know when and how to be the bigger person, right? So if you find yourself, you know, laughing it all off, saying it's fine, stuff like that, or you go along with something that feels wrong and you know in your gut that it is wrong, that is when you know that you are not staying true to yourself when you do things like that. And suddenly you'll start to realize that you spent your most of your life, if not your whole life, being the bigger person in rooms where no one deserves that version of you. Um, you'll start to actually think about times. And when you make this decision to figure out ways to be the bigger person in a way that is respective of yourself and your goals and your mindset and your mental, you know, your mental health. So then you'll know how to actually be the bigger person without losing yourself. So here's what that actually looks like: being the bigger person without losing yourself looks like one, pausing before reacting. And it's not to suppress your feelings, but it's to choose your response with intention. Number two, naming the truth. So if something hurt you, it's this hurt me. This crossed a boundary. This isn't okay for me. You don't have to be aggressive to be honest, right? Number three, setting a boundary and holding it. The bigger person doesn't keep giving out second chances like Halloween candy. Sometimes love actually looks like limits. Number four, don't justify or overexplain. No is a complete sentence. Okay. I'm not doing that, stands on its own. Protect your patient. Number five, protect your peace without punishing anyone. I think that one's huge. It's not about revenge, it's about release. Number six, let people be disappointed. This is where most women really struggle. You can't be the bigger person and the people pleaser at the same time. Number seven, walk away when it's necessary. Sometimes the bigger person is simply the one with the courage to leave. So remember this: being the bigger person is about integrity. It's not about invisibility. It's about clarity, not about compliance, about strength, not silence. You can be gracious without being a fucking doormat. You can be kind without being a martyr. You can be the bigger person without being the broken one. These are all things that I wish that like my 20, 21-year-old self knew because I remember taking so many jobs. I remember sleeping with men or women, I remember putting myself in really shitty situations because I did not have the confidence, the self-respect, just none of it. None of it to be able to, you know, really own all of the boundaries. Like I put myself in so many situations because I didn't understand any of this. And so I know that even as, you know, a grown woman, um, I come into situations where I have to be the bigger person, but I have to think about this in a way that is empowering versus being the bigger person and being the person that drives home, saying, Oh, I should have said this and I should have said that, or being the bigger person and just really like ruminating on it for a while, or being the bigger person and wishing I would have said something and wondering how they would have responded. How could I, how could I have demanded the respect that I deserved in that moment and not be made to feel small, right? Or how could I have spoken up in a way that let them know like your behavior is inappropriate? The things you say are hurtful, and I deserve better than that. So these are all things I wish I would have known a long time ago. Um, and I hope that you benefit from them, or maybe, maybe you know a younger woman that is struggling with this because it is really easy to get caught up in this being the bigger person mentality in a world where people film everything, they post everything, right? And we are just afraid of standing up, using our voices, and demanding the respect that we deserve. Use your voice, mama. Use your voice even when it shakes, because you deserve all of the respect. But it starts with you showing the world that you respect yourself because they're gonna mirror that back to you. So thank you so fucking much for tuning in to Just Women Talking Shit again. This is episode 123, and I'm just like, holy shit, we're doing it. We're approaching 150 episodes. I'm ready. Let's do it. But it sounds really weird saying that out loud. 123, one, two, three. Going forward, let's have an amazing fucking year. Because I'm just like, actually, I think I'm stoned right now because I just lost complete train of thought talking about one, two, three. I was thinking like spirit, like angel numbers or spiritual numbers. And then I got started thinking, I got on this tangent as I was speaking, mind you, on this tangent of like what one, two, three means. You know, it's a progressive number. It means that we're going moving forward. It's got like all this symbolic shit. But and then I remembered in the middle of my sentence that I wasn't relaying that through my conversation with you. And my brain just kind of skipped out and remembered the watermelon woo Rick Fuller. And now I'm just like, how much time did I waste talking about whatever it was I was just talking about? But I'll I'm gonna go back real quick and just say again, thank you for listening. Um, and that if today's episode hit home, or if you thought of somebody that it might help, share it with a friend. Send it, send it to your partner, send it to your sister, send it to whoever, you know, a younger person that you know, but somebody who needs it, and don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, leave all the stars on Spotify, and then tell everybody else to do the same. Because it's just little old me, little old Jacqueline out in Mississippi doing this thing. Today I'm in my husband's truck, no lighting. We don't really care. I just had to bang an episode out today because I made the commitment to stay strong and steady with um when these are released. And I meant to do this one earlier this week, but I was sick as fuck. So sick. I had the shits. I thought I was gonna throw up. It was a whole thing. I've just felt, well, to be honest, like shit all week. Um, it's been a real shitty situation. I'm gonna see how many shitty jokes I can get into this before I hop off. But so yeah, it's it's just me. And uh I want to take this place as I say that almost at the end of every episode, but I do need your help. So leave a review, send it to your girlfriend, post it in your stories on Instagram, tag me at Jaclyn Cotton, tag the show at just women talking shit, tell everybody about it, share your favorite episodes, leave the stars on Spotify, just do all the things. If you want to support us in a monetary way, us is me. I say us because I want to have a big team one day. I want like a Mel Robbins team, but it's just me. It's just me, and I I pay for it all myself. So if you want to contribute. And you want to get some bonus material, you want some, you know, behind the scenes stuff like that, you can um subscribe now. There's a link somewhere on uh the podcast page, and you can start for$3 a month. It's a little subscription, and you'll get all the behind the scenes, all the bonus episodes, stuff like that. And you'll be part of my official, you know, just women talking shit community. There's nobody in it. Who's gonna be the first? I want to know who's gonna be the first. Um, and what I'm gonna do is everybody who joins, I'm going to mention you in an episode and give you a public shout out because I will just be so fucking grateful to get this thing generating some money so that we can make it better, buy better equipment, take it on the road, travel the country, travel the world, and interview women all around the world who have amazing stories and who are making such big impacts with their life, life's purposes. So, anywho, come hang out with me on socials. If you're near me, let's smoke some weed together. If if you want to hang out in person and you're not near me, I've got events going on. I've got a Galantine's one-day retreat in Aurora, Missouri on February 28th, 2026. That felt weird saying that. 2026, we're almost there. Isn't that crazy? Right now it's only$99 to be able to participate and come to that event. And I'm hosting that with one of my best friends who used to be a client, I'm a Roland, and that is in Aurora, Missouri. Um, and if you want to attend another event, just follow me on social media because that's how you're gonna learn about them. I've got events out the butt coming up, uh, and I share friends and business partners and you know, collaborations, all their events and stuff too. So you'll find something that should suit you if my events don't suit you. But if you're listening to this, I'm willing to bet you're weird as fuck and you stuck around this long because you do vibe with me. So let's do this thing, support however you can, and let me know how I can support you as well by sending me a DM. If you want to email the show, you can do that at JWTSpodcast at gmail.com. You can follow me on Instagram at Jaclyn Cotton. You can follow the show on Instagram or TikTok at uh just women talking shit. Um, and yeah, I thought there was more I was gonna say, but there's not. And that's all. I don't have anything else fancy to say except for I love you and I'm really appreciative of you. So thank you for listening. Bye.