Your Utmost Life

"I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore": Why Your Confusion Isn't Failure

• Misty Celli • Episode 30

Share episode

Send us a text

If you've ever caught yourself staring in the mirror, wondering when you started looking so exhausted, or scrolling through old photos of the woman you used to be—the one with dreams and direction—this episode is for you.

You've been told that good mothers sacrifice everything. So you did. And now you feel lost, confused, and as though you've somehow failed because you no longer know who you are.

But what if your confusion isn't evidence of failure? What if it's evidence of readiness?

In this episode, I'm challenging one of the most damaging beliefs keeping women stuck: that feeling lost about your identity means something is wrong with you. I'll share why you're not actually lost—you're buried. And there's a massive difference.

You'll discover:

  • Why the "lost" feeling is actually a feature, not a bug in your system
  • The radical reframe that changes everything (you're not lost, you're buried)
  • 4 specific shifts to move from buried to breakthrough
  • What research says about women and identity in midlife (hint: you're not alone)
  • How your confusion is actually directing you back to YOU

Plus, I'm sharing my own story of the night I cried myself to sleep grieving a woman I thought I'd lost—and what I discovered she'd been doing all along.

The woman you're looking for isn't gone. She's been patient, waiting for you to remember she was never supposed to fit into the small boxes others created for her.

Your confusion isn't a problem to solve. It's an invitation to discover.

THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF:

✓ You can't remember the last time someone asked "What do YOU want?" and you had an answer

✓ You've googled "Why do I feel empty when I should be grateful?"

✓ You love your family but feel like you've disappeared

✓ You watch other women who seem to have it together and wonder what's wrong with you

✓ You've believed that feeling confused means you've failed somehow

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Research on midlife transitions (10-20% clinical crisis vs. universal discontent)
  • Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Women's Mental Health study
  • The 4-step process for moving from buried to breakthrough

FINAL THOUGHT:

You are not lost. You are not broken. You are becoming fully you.

And the world needs the woman you're becoming more than it needs the woman you think you should be.

📲Empower a friend who needs to hear this, letting her know she’s not alone in her struggles - Share this episode today.

🔗 Get daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Never missed a conversation that powerfully reminds you of who you truly are - Subscribe to the podcast now.

✨ Continue your journey of self-discovery and empowerment with free resources, articles, and more - Visit Your Utmost Self to explore.

SPEAKER_00:

If you're listening to this, I want you to know that you are not alone. I know that you deeply love your family, but lately you've caught yourself staring in the mirror, wondering, when did I start looking so exhausted all the time? You can't remember the last time someone asked, What do you want? and you had an answer that wasn't about everyone else's needs. You're craving that moment of being seen and valued for you. Maybe in the quiet of the night, you've Googled things like, why do I feel empty when I should be grateful? Hoping that no one ever checks your search history your search history. Or maybe you've thought, I don't even know who I am anymore. I love my family, but I feel like I've lost myself. My dreams, they're nowhere to be found. Somewhere along the way, you begin to feel lost, unsure of who you truly are anymore. And maybe you've begun to believe this feeling means that you failed or that the you that you once knew is gone forever. Listen, I see you. I get it. You have spent years pouring yourself out for everyone, your family, your spouse, your kids, because that's what good moms do. So of course it feels like you've faded. You've been so busy being needed that your own space to simply be has disappeared. You've been told that good mothers must sacrifice everything. Meanwhile, you watch other women who seem to have it all together while you feel like you're wandering in the dark, searching for your way. If you are tired of asking yourself, is this all there is? And when you look in the mirror, you feel like this isn't who I was meant to be. Welcome to your utmost live podcast. My name is Misty Chelle, and I am a personal development and transformation guide here to help you step into your highest potential and design the life that you were meant to live. One that feels true, rich, and deeply satisfying. On this podcast, we'll dive into the principles and strategic tools that will help you achieve lasting success across all areas of life, health, relationships, confidence, goal setting, and even dive into bigger topics like growth, purpose, love, and parenting. This is the space where you begin your journey of becoming your utmost self, living a life you truly love by design, not by default. This is the Utmost Life Podcast. Welcome to the journey of becoming who you were meant to be. No one is asking for anything. And in that quiet moment, a thought sneaks in and a heaviness sits on your chest. Who am I when no one needs me? Maybe you have found yourself scrolling through old photos on your phone, staring at the woman you used to be, the one with dreams, plans, and a clear purpose. She was the woman who knew what she wanted and chased it fearlessly, and you wonder, where did she go? When did I stop being me and start being everyone else's person? If you've ever caught yourself thinking, I don't know who I am anymore, you are far from alone. The data shows that while only 10 to 20% of people experience a clinically defined midlife crisis, nearly everyone faces a prolonged period of discontent about their life, generally between the ages of 40 and 60, no matter who they are. You love your kids, your family, your life, but somewhere along the way, you have felt like you've vanished. And maybe, deep down, you begun to believe that feeling lost means you failed, or that the woman you once were is gone forever. But here's what I want to challenge today: the idea that feeling confused about your identity means there's something wrong with you. Because there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. What if I told you that you're not lost at all? What if I told you that this confusion isn't a sign of failure, but proof that you're ready to discover what's truly going on inside you? Let's start with the hard truth. The feeling of being lost that you're experiencing, it's not a bug in your system, it's a feature. Let me explain what I mean. For years, you have been operating under the cultural programming that good mothers sacrifice everyone and everything for their families. Not everyone, all of themselves and everything for their families. You have been told that selflessness is the highest virtue and that wanting more than an organized calendar, a clean house, and a happy, healthy family makes you ungrateful. But here's where that belief starts to crumble. If feeling lost about your identity meant that something was wrong with you, then every woman navigating major life transitions would be fundamentally flawed. Are we really saying that motherhood, marriage, and personal growth inevitably damage women? Think about every woman you admire who seems whole, authentic, and alive, these women didn't avoid the confusion. They moved through it. They didn't have it all figured out from the beginning, they grew into their brilliance. Here's what I want you to consider. Isn't it more important to understand what you're experiencing than to judge yourself for experiencing it? And isn't raising children who see their mother as a whole person more valuable than raising children who see their mother only as a caretaker? When you feel most lost, is it in the quiet moments alone with your thoughts or when you're constantly serving others? Because feeling unclear and overwhelmed is very different from feeling truly disconnected from yourself. I want to propose a radical reframe. You're not lost, you're buried, and there is a huge difference. Let's explore why this distinction matters. Lost implies that you don't know where you are. Buried means you know exactly where you are, but you need to dig yourself out. It's like being in a dark room. You're not lost, you just can't see yet. But the room hasn't changed. You just need to flip on the light. Would you expect a caterpillar and its cocoon to know it's becoming a butterfly? The caterpillar doesn't feel lost during metamorphos. It's in the process of becoming. The confusion, the not knowing, the feeling like everything is changing, that's not evidence of being lost. That's evidence. That's not evidence of being lost. That's evidence of transformation. What if your confusion isn't a flashing warning light that something's wrong, but a flashing indicator light trying to direct you back towards something that matters? You. Let me share something personal with you. As a mom who's been exactly where you are several years ago, I found myself in my own version of this story. I was successful by every external measure. I had a good marriage, I had healthy children, a great career, but I kept catching myself staring into the mirror, wondering, when did I start looking so tired all the time? I couldn't remember the last time that I had an answer to the question, what do you want? Where my mind didn't automatically answer with what I thought would make everyone else happy. One evening, my husband made an offhand comment about missing the woman he married. And something in me just broke. Not because he was being cruel, he wasn't. He wasn't trying to be in the least, but because I realized that I missed her too. That night I cried myself to sleep. Not the stress crying of overwhelm, but that deep soul-level crying of grief. I was grieving a woman I thought I'd lost. But here's what I discovered. She wasn't lost. She was buried under years of expectations and shoulds and belief that growing into my role as a mother and a partner meant shrinking out of my role as an individual woman. The research shows that most challenging aspects of midlife include changing family relationships, rebalancing work and personal life, and rediscovering oneself. What I experienced wasn't unique. It was part of a well-documented pattern that researchers have been studying for decades. The truth is, midlife often becomes a time of reflection and reassessment. But here's the thing: not everyone experiences the psychological upheaval so often associated with a midlife crisis. The confusion that I felt wasn't a sign that I was heading in the wrong direction. It was actually a sign that I was starting to understand something deeper about myself and where I was headed. Here's what really happens when you feel like you don't know where you are anymore. You begin by operating from a narrow definition of yourself. You've been doing this for so long that when life creates a space for you to be more, it feels foreign. You've been told that identity is fixed and that you should know who you are by now. But identity is a destination. It's a continuous process of understanding who you are in the whole life. And right now, you're in that sacred space between who you've been and who you're discovering yourself to be. The women who feel most lost are often the ones who are most ready to understand what's really happening. Not by someone else, but by themselves. So how do you move forward from buried to understanding? How do you stop believing that confusion means failure and start seeing it as information? Let me share with you four specific shifts that can make a difference. First, let's change your language because language literally rewrites your brain. So the next time you catch yourself thinking, I don't know who I am, I want you to try something and I want you to add one tiny word to the end of that sentence, the word yet. I don't know who I am yet. Do you feel that? That shift. Lost implies you've made a mistake. Yet means that you're gathering information. That one word creates space for understanding instead of shame. Second, I want you to go on a treasure hunt for yourself. So tomorrow, grab a notebook and write down every role that you currently play. Mother, partner, employee, daughter friend, all of them. Then beside each role, write one thing about yourself that existed before that role ever did. So maybe next to mother, you write, I love poetry. Next to partner, you might write, I am naturally curious about architectural design. Next to employee, maybe it's I have strong organizational skills that make me feel capable and confident. Here's what I want you to understand. These aren't things that you've lost. They're things that have been buried under the weight of responsibility, but they're still there. They're waiting for you to remember them. So, third, I want you to start practicing what I call micro rediscovery. You don't need to quit your job or follow eat, pray, love to Italy to reconnect with yourself. Start with five minutes a day, just five. Doing something that feels like you. Not you as a mother, not you as a partner or an employee, but you as an individual human being. Here's exactly what this looks like. Tomorrow morning, before everyone else wakes up, spend exactly five minutes doing something that existed before you became everyone's everything. Like reading a book. Maybe it's putting on headphones and listening to music that makes your soul come alive. Maybe it's writing three pages of whatever comes to mind. Maybe it's dancing in your kitchen or stepping outside to feel the sun on your face. The goal isn't to find yourself at all, like to find yourself all at once. It's simply a reminder that you existed independently of your roles. And finally, what I want you to completely do is refine your relationship with confusion. Instead of seeing confusion as evidence that something is wrong with you, I want you to start seeing it as evidence that you're gathering information. When you feel unclear or uncertain, get curious. Ask yourself, what is this confusion trying to show me? What wants to be understood? Because here's the truth. Confusion isn't comfortable, but it's not dangerous. It's actually the space where new understanding lives. It's the cocoon before the butterfly. So now let's talk about what becomes possible when you shift this belief. When you stop seeing confusion as a failure and start seeing it as information about who you're becoming, everything changes. When you model wholeness instead of sacrifice, your children learn that they don't have to disappear into their roles to be valuable. They learn that being human means being complex, multifaceted, and continuously growing. When you show up as a complete person in your relationships, your connections deepen. When your partner doesn't fall in love with your perfect performance, they fell in love with your authentic humanity. When you honor your own process of understanding yourself, you give permission to every woman in your life to do the same. You become part of the solution to a cultural problem that has been crushing women for generations. But what happens if you don't make this shift? What if you continue to keep believing that feeling confused means you're broken? Research from the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Women's Mental Health found that by the time women hit midlife, about 23% have gone through at least one episode of major depression, and 30% have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. But here's where it gets even more concerning. Women who've dealt with both depression and anxiety were twice as likely to report lower quality of life during midlife compared to those who didn't have either of those disorders. What the research really points to is this. Women who have spent years suppressing their own identity, prioritize family roles, putting everyone else's needs before their own, are more vulnerable to these mental health challenges as they get older. And the ripple effect? Their children often struggle with forming their own sense of identity because they never saw their mom as an individual, just as someone defined by her roles. But here's what I really want you to understand. This isn't just about you feeling better. This is about changing the narrative for generations of women who become, who come after us. As a mom who believes that we need to model wholeness, not just sacrifice. I want you to know when you choose to see confusion as information instead of failure, you're not just healing your own relationship with yourself. You're healing the cultural wound that tells women they must choose between being a good mother and being a whole human being. You're proving that it's possible to love your family deeply and have a rich complex inner life. You're demonstrating that service to others doesn't require self-abandonment. So let me leave you with this. The woman you're looking for isn't lost. She's not gone. She's not broken. She's patient. She's impatiently waiting for you to remember that she was never supposed to fit into this small box that others created for her. Your confusion isn't evidence of failure. It's evidence of readiness. Ready to stop judging yourself for feeling disconnected and start understanding what's really happening to you. Ready to understand that identity isn't something you find once and keep forever. It's something that you discover and rediscover as you grow, change, and become more of who you've always been underneath the roles. And speaking of understanding what's really happening to you. If something I said today hit home, if you caught yourself thinking, wow, she really gets it, then please subscribe to this so you never miss a chance to keep growing and becoming your utmost self. We're in this together, and I cannot wait to keep the conversation going with you. But before we end today, I want you to remember this. You're not lost, you're not broken, you are gathering information about who you're becoming, and the world needs the woman that you are discovering more than it needs the woman you think you should be. The confusion you feel is not a problem to solve. It's information you need to live a whole authentic life. You are more than everyone's everything. You are someone.