Push Back to Power: Creating Empowered Relationships with the Author of PUSH BACK Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself, Tonya Lester
Real empowerment doesn’t always come from speaking louder. It comes from knowing what your heart is really trying to say.
In this inspiring episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, Becca Powers sits down with psychotherapist and author Tonya Lester, whose book PUSH BACK: Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself is helping women reclaim their power without losing their compassion.
Together, they explore what it truly means to “push back”—not through conflict, but through clarity, self-trust, and courage. Tonya shares how women often ignore early signs of discomfort and how the body reveals what the mind tries to silence.
They also discuss Tonya’s concept of “shock absorbing,” the emotional labor women carry to keep others comfortable, and how to break free from it.
This episode is a powerful reminder to stop people-pleasing, start listening to your body, and build relationships rooted in respect and balance.
The Gift of Conflict
How leaning into discomfort deepens emotional intimacy and self-awareness.
Listening to Your Body
Recognizing early signs of stress before burnout sets in.
Breaking the Shock Absorber Cycle
Releasing the habit of carrying others’ emotions to restore peace.
The Body’s Hidden Language
How physical sensations reveal unspoken emotional truths.
Intentional Relationships
Giving your energy where it’s valued and reciprocated.
Small Shifts, Stronger Bonds
How simple mindset changes strengthen emotional connection.
Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:
When Tonya explains the real meaning of “shock absorbing”
Becca’s reflection on how physical pain revealed deeper stress
The power of noticing when you’re “rehearsing” conversations to keep the peace
Tonya’s advice for recognizing when it’s time to walk away
How lighting up when you see someone can shift the tone of any relationship
Empowering Thoughts to Take With You:
“You deserve it. Make these changes right now.” – Tonya Lester
“You can change your relationships right now. If you change and you behave differently, all your relationships will have to change.” – Tonya Lester
“Don’t bad vibe your partner. Light up when you see them and then talk directly about what you need.” – Tonya Lester
“You are the CEO of your life.” – Becca Powers
“ I'm gonna give my energy where it's appreciated and where I'm valued, but it still takes energy. – Becca Powers
About Tonya
Tonya Lester, LCSW, is the author of Push Back: Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself and a Brooklyn-based psychotherapist and writer known for her work with relationships and communication. Her essay “Couples Therapist, Heal Thyself” was published in the Modern Love column in The New York Times, and she has been writing the popular Staying Sane Inside Insanity blog for Psychology Today since 2020. She has been featured as an expert in The Guardian, Newsweek, Well+Good, HuffPo, Fatherly, and the Bumble site The Buzz. Visit her online at http://www.TonyaLester.com.
Connect with Tonya Lester
Ready to reclaim your voice and boundaries? In Push Back, Tonya Lester shows you how to speak your truth, set limits, and stop being the “shock absorber”—all without losing your heart.
Grab the book here: Push Back: Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself
Power Links
Join Becca in her Facebook Community - The Dragonfly Effect, Where High-Performing Professionals Chase Big Dreams: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1C4z83krsn/
Purchase Becca’s Book - A Return to Radiance, The POWER Method to Ignite Your Soul and Unleash Your Potential: https://www.beccapowers.com/a-return-to-radiance
Invite Becca to Speak: https://www.beccapowers.com/keynotes
Grab Becca’s Free EBook, The High Performer’s Path, The 8 Forces of Potential for Mindset Mastery: https://www.beccapowers.com/
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We Want to Hear From You!
What part of Tonya’s message resonated most with you? Was it her insight on setting boundaries with compassion, her reminder to listen to your body’s wisdom, or her invitation to stop “shock absorbing” and start honoring your truth?
Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour. I have another new World Library author for you. I’m so excited to bring my fellow authors into my world. I have today Tonya Lester, psychotherapist and author of Push Back. It's definitely a title that when I first met Tonya before going live, I thought, this is gonna be fun.
Tonya Lester: Thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.
Becca Powers: So how long have you been a psychotherapist?
Tonya Lester: About 20 years. It was actually a second career for me. I was a struggling actor in my days, and then I had my first son and thought, oh, this isn’t gonna be enough for me. I need to do something different.
Becca Powers: An artist. My parents were full-time positions when I was born—so different, but same in the sense that they eventually had to get real jobs too.
Tonya Lester: I think you crave stability. You have a baby and suddenly you’re like, oh no, I’m gonna really root down. For me, I wanted to be a therapist.
Becca Powers: Let’s talk about lessons you learned as a psychotherapist that influenced writing this book.
Tonya Lester: In my office, a dynamic I see repeatedly is a couple coming in late in the game. Basically, she’s been trying to speak up, assert herself, and she’s not happy with the power dynamics. She feels disempowered and has tried to get what she needs, but he is not really hearing her.
Suddenly, she’s done, and he’s finally shocked into wanting to make a change. She feels she can only empower herself by leaving the relationship.
Often, if they had come five years earlier, we could have done some really good work.
In my own life and my sister’s, I saw powerful, successful women who still had their life force drained from difficult marriages. Even in a loving marriage, I found myself taking a one-down position. I wanted to share what I’ve learned as a psychotherapist and as a woman in the world.
Becca Powers: I have goosebumps because so much of what you are saying resonates with me—personally and professionally. The amount of powerful women in disempowered marriages is very high, even if no one knows from the outside. Social media makes it look packaged: work, kids, relationships—great—but the at-home one is suffering.
Tonya Lester: So often, yes. And for someone empowered professionally, it can be embarrassing how disempowered she is in her marriage. I see women who want to become more empowered. Sometimes couples come in good faith but lack skills for a collaborative relationship. Often it’s good people who want to do better. That’s the audience for this message.
Knowing What You Want
Becca Powers: What is a big lesson from writing the book that listeners might relate to?
Tonya Lester: It’s important to allow ourselves to know what we want. Many women are afraid of that knowledge because it might mean making painful choices.
Key steps: Know your authentic self, values, and desires, speak up in a clear, concise, direct way to the person who needs to hear it, sometimes you must risk productive conflict
Women often couch their requests so deeply that people aren’t clear about what they’re saying. Learning to speak clearly is essential.
The Hard and Worth It
Becca Powers: I understand this intimately. I was in a narcissistic work environment, in a disempowered state, and collapsed on the bathroom floor. That’s when I realized: “You are the CEO of your life.” That empowered me to take control. But it was hard.
Tonya Lester: Nothing ever changes without considerable pressure on the system—workplace, relationships, family. We are safe-seeking creatures. The only way to live authentically is to step into power. Toxic situations may fall away, but you must go through the fire to come out the other side.
Tonya Lester: My biggest hope for this book and my sister, my wonderful sister, said this when she read, I joke. She's my be difficult muse. To really go through the hard stuff and what joy comes out of the other side of that. She said, I felt invigorated when I read the book and the feeling of invigoration, which you know, gives energy for change.
This idea of “I can do this. I can make these changes. My life can be better than it is now. I deserve to be clear and known and grounded in the truth of who I am.” That’s my biggest hope for the book.
The irony is that the conflict created when you start stepping into this and pushing back leads to the only true close relationships. The only true emotional intimacy is on the other side of that conflict. We should look at conflict—not abusive, not scorched earth—as our strongest bids for connection and our best hope to change things in work or personal relationships.
Becca Powers: I’m intrigued by this. It helps listeners identify earlier in the process where they might push back. Often, we face change when we’re at a breaking point. Can we talk about where change could happen earlier?
Tonya Lester: Women are often socialized to ignore early discomfort. Very early on, you might have a twinge in your stomach or trouble sleeping on Sunday nights. We slowly adjust, trying to pacify someone—a narcissistic abuser or even someone we care about.
The body is often our first sign of distress.
Becca Powers: Absolutely. I lived with a stress hook from my ear wrapped around my shoulder for two years, thinking I injured it at the gym. When I left that environment, it disappeared.
Tonya Lester: Our minds try to create stories to make sense of bad behavior and blame ourselves. But this is disempowering. I call it Shock Absorbing. Many women operate as the shock absorber in relationships and environments, taking the brunt of all hits to make others comfortable.
It’s not until we say, “I’m not taking all these shocks. The person giving out the shocks is the one who has to start absorbing them.” That can be done by holding silence until it’s uncomfortable for the other person or clearly stating, “I’m not happy. This needs to change. This isn’t working for me anymore. That really upset me. I found that hurtful.” These phrases aren’t cruel—they’re clear.
Becca Powers: What else might be an early warning sign besides the body and shock absorbing?
Tonya Lester: Besides the body, notice how others feel empowered. Is everyone absorbing for one difficult person? Look for allyship and connection. Notice how it feels to walk into a room—energy shifts can be telling.
If you find yourself rehearsing how to say something to avoid triggering someone, that’s an important sign. Very few relationships require only one rehearsal. Usually, it’s our pattern with certain people.
A universal truth: if you find yourself on the bathroom floor crying, it’s time for a dramatic change.
Becca Powers: Yes. The body is fascinating—light years ahead of our mind and heart. Rehearsing what we say can be a critical early indicator.
Tonya Lester: Exactly. The book is a workbook with scripts and exercises for immediate implementation. It’s designed to give yourself permission to make big changes because we have one life and deserve to make it as good as it can be.
Becca Powers: Let’s talk about empowerment. What are your hopes for the book in helping someone go through it cover to cover?
Tonya Lester: I hope readers change their relationships for the better, feel loved, heard, and seen.
If we’re not telling the truth about who we are, we block emotional intimacy for ourselves and others. For example, with my husband, I was doing a lot of shock absorbing, putting him first, but keeping things from him. On the other side of discomfort is emotional connection.
Emotional intimacy is your greatest career success, your closest relationship with friends and family, where you can give and receive love as equals. That doesn’t happen while we’re shock absorbing or lying to ourselves or others.
I hope women feel empowered in the ways advocated in the book. Individually, these changes ripple out to society. Success in personal relationships can empower us at larger societal levels.
Becca Powers: I feel that too. The collective temperature matters—many of us are shock absorbing.
Tonya Lester: Yes, shock absorbing is born of a need to protect and seek safety. If you’re a shock absorber, you’re not crazy—you’re reacting to a very real environment.
Tonya Lester: We shock absorb to protect our children, maybe especially our daughters. But the truth is, if we're over shock absorbing, we're just making ourselves smaller, smaller, smaller, to be safer, safer, safer. And then there is no change either in our individual relationships or for the collective.
One thing that has to be part of this conversation is that sometimes you have to leave. Sometimes, if you don't have leverage to change what you need to change, you have to pave your way out the door.
I have a whole section in my book about situations where you’ll have to push back hard all the time. In your personal relationships, you have to decide if you really want to live that way. If you're with someone very narcissistic, anytime you drop your guard, they’ll go back into old patterns. You have to be firm and assertive about what you need all the time, which can feel exhausting. Sometimes you have to find someone more collaborative.
Becca Powers: Especially women I’ve worked with, once they see improvement, they almost take a step back. Patterns have been with us for a long time, whether healthy or not. The pathways are always there, so slipping back happens.
Tonya Lester: That’s such a good point. There are two ways to think about this. One is we ask for what we want, then almost panic when we get it because it feels uncomfortable. There’s the fear: what if they’re mad? What if they resent me?
Instead, it’s about recognizing that the other person’s needs are important, but my needs deserve a seat at the table too.
Intentionality and Energy in Relationships
People often say relationships are hard work, but I prefer to think of them in terms of intentionality and energy. Maintaining change and keeping a relationship healthy takes effort. If we divert our attention elsewhere, it’s easy to slip back. Our primary relationships need daily energy and attention to stay on track.
I remember a beautiful interview with novelist Alice Walker. When she was writing her first novel, she made sure her kids felt seen and valued when they walked into the room. I realized I wasn’t doing that for my husband. Telegraphing unhappiness with a tired or negative vibe doesn’t help anyone. Instead, light up when you see your partner and then talk about what you need.
Becca Powers: Don’t bad vibe your partner. Instead of immediately unloading your day, start with pleasantries.
Tonya Lester: When my kids were little, my husband and I made a rule to stop the tired Olympics. We wouldn’t compete over whose day was worse. We take turns and are supportive of each other.
Tonya Lester: You can change your relationships right now. If you behave differently, all your relationships will have to change. If you want your life to be different, you have to be different.
The book lays out ways to be different in a way that women will find empowering, hopeful, and exciting. I’ve seen positive responses repeatedly. You can do this. This is possible for you.
Tonya Lester: The book Push Back, Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself is in bookstores everywhere. You can order on Amazon, Brunson Noble, or Bookshop. My website is tonyalester.com and I’m active on Instagram @TonyaLestersPsychotherapy.
Becca Powers: Please follow her.
Tonya Lester: You deserve it. Make these changes right now.
Becca Powers: Now too. I got the goose. Well, thank you so much for being a guest. It was a pleasure to
Tonya Lester: interview you. Thank you, Becca. This was wonderful. I really appreciate it.
