479. Coaching Hotline: How to Say No When You Fear Being Rude & When You Can't Change Your Thoughts Yet
UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone
Kara Loewentheil
4.6 • 5.6K Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do you worry that saying no makes you rude, selfish, or a bad person? In this Coaching Hotline episode, I break down why what you’ve been taught to call “politeness” is often just people pleasing in disguise, and how that conditioning keeps you stuck in self doubt.
Then I answer a question I hear all the time in different forms, what do you do when you understand thought work but you still can’t change your thoughts? I explain why you are not missing a tool, why nothing has gone wrong, and why this frustrating in between stage is actually a normal and necessary part of the process.
Submit your own question here and it might get answered on a future episode: unfuckyourbrain.com/coachinghotline
Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: schoolofnewfeministthought.com/479
Follow along on Instagram: instagram.com/karaloewentheil/
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The Future Coach Podcast is Here!
The Future Coach: How to Succeed as a Life Coach Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond is finally here. Every other week, you'll hear practical advice about becoming a coach, improving your coaching skills, and antidotes to the most common concerns, questions, and brain drama that come up with this work, whether you're just starting out or you're years into your career. If you want to find out more, you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts and hit that follow button.
The Future Coach Podcast is Here!
The Future Coach: How to Succeed as a Life Coach Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond is finally here. Every other week, you'll hear practical advice about becoming a coach, improving your coaching skills, and antidotes to the most common concerns, questions, and brain drama that come up with this work, whether you're just starting out or you're years into your career. If you want to find out more, you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts and hit that follow button.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to unfuck your brain. I'm your host Kara Lowentile, master-certified coach, and founder of the School of New Feminist Thought. I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live. |
| 0:21.3 | Let's go. |
| 0:24.8 | Welcome to this week's coaching hotline episode where I answer real questions from real listeners |
| 0:31.2 | and coach you from afar. |
| 0:33.6 | If you want to submit your question for consideration, go to unfuck your brain.com forward slash |
| 0:39.5 | coaching hotline, all one word, or text your email to plus one 347-997-1784. |
| 0:48.2 | And when you get prompted for the code word, it's coaching hotline, all one word. |
| 0:52.6 | Let's get into this week's questions. All right. First question. |
| 0:58.0 | How do you address the deeply embedded quote unquote politeness in being raised as a female? |
| 1:02.7 | Compounded when that politeness leads to unwanted encounters or attention, quote unquote harassment. |
| 1:07.6 | These are all quotes in the question. Or dangerous situations and then critically |
| 1:11.2 | self-judge. I.e. politely accepting thanking for daily gifts from an older man, which progressed |
| 1:16.8 | a number and frequency of visits until finally saying, quote, I won't take your gifts, I'm not |
| 1:21.1 | interested, I'm uncomfortable, end quote. Paired with doubt, quote, am I an asshole for turning |
| 1:26.1 | these down, or an asshole for not saying no sooner? What if he's just being nice? What if he spent a lot of time or thought on picking these out? End quote. Et cetera. Okay. So, I think it's a great question. And there's sort of a couple, there's always a couple of different answers, aren't there? No, sometimes I'm like there's one answer, but most of the time there's a couple different, |
| 1:45.0 | because there's a couple different strands in each question. |
| 1:47.5 | So how do we deal with the politeness issue, right? |
| 1:52.0 | Is we have to change our thoughts about what that even means and why it's important. |
| 1:57.7 | Why are we supposed to be polite? |
| 2:00.1 | And I think that politeness is kind of a cover for |
| 2:03.4 | feeling entitled to just do what we want or don't want. You don't have to accept a gift from someone |
| 2:10.0 | even if it's not harassment, even if it's not dangerous. If you don't want the gift, you don't |
... |
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