Mindful Advocacy

Announcing Self-Advocacy Foundations, a 5-week course built on the SABOR framework to help you set boundaries, speak up, and advocate for yourself.

You had the perfect thing to say. You knew it in the moment. The meeting was happening, the conversation was unfolding, and you could feel the words forming — and then something stopped you. You stayed quiet. You smiled. You said ‘I’m fine’ or ‘that works for me’ or you just let it go.

And then you spent the next three hours replaying the conversation, thinking about everything you should have said.

If that pattern feels familiar, this post is for you. And today, I have something to announce that I’ve been building for a long time — something I genuinely believe can change that cycle.

But first, I want to talk about why self-advocacy is so hard in the first place. Because until you understand that, the tools won’t fully land.

The Real Reason Self-Advocacy Feels Impossible

Here’s what I’ve seen over and over, in my own life and in the lives of people I’ve worked with: we don’t struggle to advocate for ourselves because we lack courage, intelligence, or confidence. We struggle because we were taught — from a very early age — that our needs are less important than other people’s comfort.

Those lessons didn’t come as explicit instructions. They came as messages. “Don’t be difficult.” “Be grateful for what you have.” “Nice girls don’t make a fuss.” “Just be a team player.” In some families and workplaces, the message was delivered even more harshly. In some relationships, speaking up was actually dangerous.

Over time, those messages became internalized. They became the automatic thoughts that fire whenever we think about asking for what we need: Am I allowed to say this? Will they be angry? Am I being too much?

This is not a character flaw. It’s conditioning. And conditioning, once you understand it, can be changed.

That understanding — that the struggle is rooted in what we were taught, not who we are — is the foundation of everything I teach.

Introducing the SABOR Framework

Several years ago, I started developing something I call the Self-Advocacy Bill of Rights — or SABOR. It’s a 10-right framework that I created because I needed it myself before I knew it existed. The premise is simple, but the implications are profound:

Self-advocacy is not a personality trait. It is a right. And rights don’t require permission.

The 10 SABOR rights are:

• Right to Know Myself
• Right to Know My Rights
• Right to Set Boundaries
• Right to Say No
• Right to Speak Up
• Right to Follow My Dreams
• Right to Stay Persistent
• Right to Trust Myself
• Right to Self-Compassion
• Right to Celebrate My Wins

Each right addresses a core area where people commonly silence themselves, shrink, or abandon what they actually need. Together, they form a complete picture of what self-advocacy looks like — not just in one dramatic moment of speaking up, but as an ongoing, integrated practice.

What makes this approach different from most boundaries or assertiveness content is the rights-based framing. Most courses start with skills: here’s how to say no, here’s a script for a difficult conversation. And those tools can be helpful — but they don’t stick when the underlying belief is still ‘I’m not really allowed to want this.’ SABOR addresses that belief first.

Don’t have a copy of the SABOR? No worries! Subscribe to our email list and receive a free copy of the Self-Advocacy Bill of Rights through my platform on Podia. You can unsubscribe anytime.

Link to Podia homepage here for all course offerings and to download the SABOR document.

Announcing Self-Advocacy Foundations

Today, I’m officially launching Self-Advocacy Foundations — a 5-week course built entirely on the SABOR framework.

This course has been a long time coming. I’ve spent years developing the SABOR framework, testing the workbooks, refining the case studies and scripts, and building a curriculum that doesn’t just teach you what self-advocacy is — but takes you all the way from understanding your rights to actually using them in your real life.

Here’s what each week covers:

Week 1: Self-Advocacy as a Right, Not Permission

We start by laying the foundation. Before any skill-building, we look honestly at the conditioning that created your current patterns. We introduce the SABOR framework, learn the 5-Step Reframe Process, and each student creates a Personal Rights Declaration — a living document that grounds everything that follows.

Week 2: The Right to Know Myself

You can’t advocate for what you need if you don’t know what you need. This week is a deep dive into self-awareness: values identification, emotional intelligence, recognizing patterns of self-abandonment, and building the internal validation that doesn’t depend on other people’s approval.

Week 3: Boundaries, No, and Voice

This is where we get practical. Boundary-setting frameworks. How to say no without guilt. How to speak up assertively in workplaces, relationships, and healthcare settings. Real scripts for the conversations you’ve been avoiding for months — maybe years.

Week 4: Rights, Persistence, and Self-Trust

This is the week I’m most proud of. We cover your actual legal rights in workplace and healthcare settings. We talk about what to do when systems push back, dismiss you, or gaslight you — and we build the documentation and persistence strategies to keep advocating even when it’s hard.

Week 5: Self-Compassion, Dreams, and Celebrating

We close with sustainability. Self-compassion — being a good advocate for yourself, not just a relentless critic of your own progress. Authentic goal-setting that comes from what you actually want. Celebrating how far you’ve come. And integrating everything into a Personal Self-Advocacy Action Plan you keep beyond the course.

Who This Is For

This course was built for people-pleasers who are exhausted by always coming last. For professionals who have the skills, the knowledge, and the experience — but can’t seem to make themselves heard in rooms that should value what they bring. For people recovering from relationships or environments that penalized them for having needs.

And especially for people who already know, intellectually, that they should set limits and speak up — but find the gap between knowing and doing to be enormous. That gap is what this course is designed to close.

If you’ve ever been labeled “too sensitive,” “difficult,” or “dramatic” for expressing needs — this work is for you.

Why This Matters Right Now

We’re living through a cultural moment where burnout is endemic, the boundaries conversation is finally mainstream, and people are starting to ask not just ‘how do I cope?’ but ‘how did I get here, and how do I actually change the pattern?’

The self-help market is full of content about mindset and motivation. What’s harder to find is a course that actually addresses the roots — the conditioning, the fear, the deeply held belief that speaking up is selfish or dangerous — and then builds skills that hold up under real-world pressure. That’s what I’ve spent years trying to create.

You deserve tools that work. Not just in theory, but in the actual moment when someone puts you on the spot, when the meeting is happening, when you’re sitting across from a doctor or a boss or a family member and you can feel yourself starting to fold.

What’s Available and How to Enroll

Self-Advocacy Foundations is available in two formats:

Self-Paced On-Demand — $197

Start anytime. Move at your own pace. Includes all 5 weeks of course content, one premium workbooks, case studies, scripts, self-assessment tools, action plans, and 365 day access. Payment plans are available.

Small Group Coaching — $697

An intimate 6-week experience with a maximum of 6 participants per cohort. Includes weekly 60-minute live sessions with me directly, personalized coaching and real-time feedback, all self-paced course materials, and accountability throughout. Includes a 15-minute one-on-one coaching session at the beginning and end of each course.

Spots are limited and applications are required.

To enroll or learn more, my Podia page or email me directly at Courtney.MindfulAdvocacy@gmail.com.

If you’re not ready to enroll yet, I’d love to have you join the free webinar — The Self-Advocacy Bill of Rights: 10 Rights You Already Have (But May Not Be Using). It’s a 45-minute deep dive into the SABOR framework with real tools you can use right away. Registration is on my Podia website.

The Next Step

Your voice matters. Your needs matter. You have the right to speak up — not because you’ve earned it or because someone has given you permission, but because you do. You always have.

If you’re ready to start building the skills to actually use that right, I’d be honored to be part of that work with you.

Click here to enroll today.

About the Author

Courtney Trevino is the Founder and CEO of Mindful Advocacy and the creator of the SABOR framework — the Self-Advocacy Bill of Rights. She is passionate about helping people move from silence to self-advocacy through trauma-informed, rights-based tools and frameworks. Courtney combines personal experience with structured, evidence-informed approaches to personal development. She believes self-advocacy is a right, not a personality trait — and that belief is the foundation of everything she teaches.