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Transcript

Why Your Boundaries Hold When Nobody Pushes Back (And Collapse When They Do) · Your Utmost Life

• 0:00
  Misty Celli: She's been practicing it for three days.
• 0:02
  Misty Celli: Not the boundary itself, but the words, the exact right way to say it so it would land without making things weird, without starting a fight, or without leaving the other person feeling like she'd let them down.
• 0:15
  Misty Celli: She had the sentence memorized.
• 0:17
  Misty Celli: She'd been practicing it in the car and in the shower.
• 0:20
  Misty Celli: She'd been saying it to herself in the mirror at 6 a.m.
• 0:23
  Misty Celli: with her coffee going cold on the counter for a week.
• 0:26
  Misty Celli: And then the moment came.
• 0:27
  Misty Celli: She opened her mouth, and what came out was softer than what she planned.
• 0:32
  Misty Celli: Smaller, a half version of the thing that she'd been rehearsing.
• 0:36
  Misty Celli: It was wrapped in so many qualifiers that by the time she finished, it barely counted anymore.
• 0:42
  Misty Celli: Not because she didn't want the boundary, but because she didn't trust that she was allowed to have it.
• 0:47
  Misty Celli: If you've ever practiced a boundary so many times that you could say it in your sleep and then watched yourself walk it back the moment someone reacted, this episode is for you.
• 0:55
  Misty Celli: Today we're going to talk about why the script keeps failing and why the fix has nothing to do with finding better words.
• 1:01
  Misty Celli: So if you've ever wondered why you can't set a boundary perfectly when nobody pushes back and lose it completely when they do, stay with me.
• 1:08
  Misty Celli: Do you ever catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and barely recognize the woman staring back?
• 1:12
  Misty Celli: The one who once dreamed big and had passion and a purpose that went beyond meeting everyone else's needs?
• 1:17
  Misty Celli: If you've caught yourself thinking, is this all there is?
• 1:20
  Misty Celli: and then felt guilty for even thinking it, you're in the right place.
• 1:24
  Misty Celli: You were never meant to disappear into your roles, but somewhere between everyone's needs and expectations, you became invisible and disconnected.
• 1:31
  Misty Celli: Running your days on autopilot started to feel like just the way things are.
• 1:35
  Misty Celli: It isn't.
• 1:36
  Misty Celli: You are more than everyone's everything.
• 1:38
  Misty Celli: You are someone.
• 1:39
  Misty Celli: And she is still in there.
• 1:40
  Misty Celli: The woman with dreams that matter, a voice that deserves to be heard, and a life that was always meant to include her.
• 1:46
  Misty Celli: This is where you reconnect to her and live your utmost life.
• 1:49
  Misty Celli: Not by accident, not by obligation, but by design.
• 1:52
  Misty Celli: Welcome to your utmost life podcast.
• 1:54
  Misty Celli: I am Misty, identity and life design coach for ambitious mothers.
• 1:58
  Misty Celli: But before we get into it today, if you haven't hit follow or subscribe yet, do it now.
• 2:03
  Misty Celli: So I can't hold a boundary stops being where your story ends.
• 2:07
  Misty Celli: Let's get into today's episode.
• 2:10
  Misty Celli: You want a boundary, not a dramatic one, just a small, honest one.
• 2:14
  Misty Celli: The kind that says, this is what I have capacity for right now, and actually stands.
• 2:19
  Misty Celli: So you do what makes sense and you Google, looking for the right way to say it.
• 2:24
  Misty Celli: You search through scripts looking for the exact phrasing that other women have used, the word-for-word way to say no without starting a fight, without disappointing anyone, or without leaving the conversation feeling like the villain.
• 2:38
  Misty Celli: You screenshot a few and choose one that you think sounds good.
• 2:42
  Misty Celli: You run through the sentence in your head and decide, yes, that one.
• 2:46
  Misty Celli: That's the one that will work.
• 2:48
  Misty Celli: And then you practice it in the car, in the shower, right before the conversation, standing in the hallway, quietly mouthing the words to yourself one more time.
• 2:57
  Misty Celli: And when the moment comes, when nobody pushes back, when the other person just nods and says, Okay, it works.
• 3:05
  Misty Celli: You did it.
• 3:06
  Misty Celli: The script held.
• 3:08
  Misty Celli: But then one day, someone doesn't just say okay, they push back.
• 3:12
  Misty Celli: They ask why.
• 3:14
  Misty Celli: They seem hurt or irritated, or they say something like, I just don't understand why this is such a big deal.
• 3:21
  Misty Celli: And in that moment, the script is gone.
• 3:24
  Misty Celli: Not because you forgot the words, but because the words were never backed by anything you actually believed.
• 3:30
  Misty Celli: You practiced the delivery, but never asked yourself why you were allowed to want this in the first place.
• 3:37
  Misty Celli: So when someone challenged the boundary, there was nothing underneath it to hold the line.
• 3:41
  Misty Celli: And what happens next is the part that costs you the most.
• 3:45
  Misty Celli: You soften it.
• 3:46
  Misty Celli: You apologize, you say, no, no, no, it's fine, don't worry about it.
• 3:51
  Misty Celli: You spend the next two hours replaying the conversation, convinced that you said something wrong, and you go looking for a better script, and the pattern starts again.
• 4:01
  Misty Celli: This isn't a failure of delivery, it's a failure of the foundation.
• 4:06
  Misty Celli: You know exactly where you need a boundary.
• 4:10
  Misty Celli: With your mother, with your husband's schedule, or with the version of yourself that says yes before you have even thought about it.
• 4:17
  Misty Celli: But underneath the wanting, a sentence is running.
• 4:20
  Misty Celli: Designing my life around myself means abandoning my post.
• 4:24
  Misty Celli: It's a belief running in the back of your mind and keeping you in a pattern.
• 4:29
  Misty Celli: Somewhere in you, boundary and abandonment got wired together, and you've been trying to have one without triggering the other ever since.
• 4:37
  Misty Celli: It doesn't always sound word for word like that sentence.
• 4:41
  Misty Celli: Sometimes it sounds like I don't want to be selfish.
• 4:45
  Misty Celli: Sometimes it sounds like I just need to find the right way to say it.
• 4:50
  Misty Celli: Sometimes it's that feeling in the chest when someone pushes back on something you wanted and you immediately wonder, maybe I'm asking just for too much.
• 5:02
  Misty Celli: But underneath all of this, there is this.
• 5:05
  Misty Celli: If I put myself in the equation, I'm taking something away from the people who need me.
• 5:11
  Misty Celli: And so even when you want a boundary, you know you really need one, you don't set it.
• 5:18
  Misty Celli: So you borrow language, collecting the right way to say it, word for word, instead of building conviction, all because you didn't trust your own reasoning to hold if someone questions it.
• 5:30
  Misty Celli: Asking for permission before you set it, the script becomes a way of pre-negotiating.
• 5:35
  Misty Celli: It's, is this okay?
• 5:37
  Misty Celli: Checking whether the boundary will be acceptable to the other person before committing to it, rather than deciding it's yours to set.
• 5:44
  Misty Celli: You rehearse instead of root.
• 5:46
  Misty Celli: You practice the exact phrasing so you can deliver it smoothly, but you haven't done the work underneath it.
• 5:54
  Misty Celli: You don't actually know why you are allowed to want this, only how to say it.
• 5:59
  Misty Celli: And when someone reacts badly, you treat it as proof you did it wrong.
• 6:03
  Misty Celli: Not that boundary setting will occasionally meet resistance.
• 6:06
  Misty Celli: So you keep it conditional on it going smoothly.
• 6:09
  Misty Celli: If the other person doesn't accept it gracefully, you retract it, apologizing or softening it into nothing.
• 6:15
  Misty Celli: Because a script only works as long as everyone cooperates with it.
• 6:19
  Misty Celli: You didn't choose this pattern on purpose.
• 6:22
  Misty Celli: You just started believing somewhere along the way that your needs are only valid if they're acceptable to everyone else.
• 6:29
  Misty Celli: And so every boundary attempt carries a silent question underneath it.
• 6:33
  Misty Celli: Is this okay with you?
• 6:34
  Misty Celli: And the moment the answer is no, the boundary goes out the window.
• 6:39
  Misty Celli: That changes today.
• 6:40
  Misty Celli: Collecting scripts to protect yourself is the worst way to try to have a boundary because the one tool you're leaning on is the first thing that fails when you actually need it.
• 6:50
  Misty Celli: And I say that with so much care because I understand why we do it.
• 6:54
  Misty Celli: When you believe that designing your life around yourself means abandoning your post, that having limits means letting people down, you're not going to walk up to a hard conversation with confidence.
• 7:07
  Misty Celli: You're going to go looking for armor, something to hide behind, something that sounds right and might just get you through.
• 7:15
  Misty Celli: A script feels like armor, like you've done the work to prepare and are ready for battle.
• 7:20
  Misty Celli: And if you do get the words right, the other person will receive it well.
• 7:25
  Misty Celli: You'll have held your boundary, nobody will be hurt, and everything will be fine.
• 7:30
  Misty Celli: So you collect them and save them and practice them in the car while sitting at red lights.
• 7:36
  Misty Celli: I'm not here to shame that.
• 7:37
  Misty Celli: I'm here to show you why it doesn't hold.
• 7:40
  Misty Celli: Let me ask you something.
• 7:42
  Misty Celli: If the script is what's protecting your boundary, what happens when someone goes off script?
• 7:48
  Misty Celli: Because they will, they always do.
• 7:51
  Misty Celli: Real conversations don't follow the rehearsal.
• 7:54
  Misty Celli: Someone asks why.
• 7:56
  Misty Celli: Someone gets quiet in a way that feels like disappointment, or someone says, I just thought you'd want to help me with this.
• 8:03
  Misty Celli: And suddenly the sentence you practiced doesn't fit the moment that you're standing in.
• 8:08
  Misty Celli: And here's what that moment reveals.
• 8:11
  Misty Celli: The script was protecting the conversation, not the boundary.
• 8:15
  Misty Celli: There's a difference.
• 8:17
  Misty Celli: A boundary held together by the right words only survives when the words land the right way.
• 8:23
  Misty Celli: But a boundary is only real if it survives contact with a real reaction that you didn't plan for.
• 8:30
  Misty Celli: So let me ask you the hard question.
• 8:32
  Misty Celli: If your boundary collapses every time someone pushes back, was it actually a boundary?
• 8:38
  Misty Celli: Or was it a request you were hoping they'd accept?
• 8:41
  Misty Celli: Because there's a difference between those two things, a very big one.
• 8:46
  Misty Celli: A request needs agreement to survive.
• 8:49
  Misty Celli: A boundary doesn't.
• 8:51
  Misty Celli: Now, let's take this all the way.
• 8:54
  Misty Celli: If the script is what makes the boundary real, then without the script, you have no boundary.
• 8:59
  Misty Celli: That means someone else's reaction decides whether your limits are valid.
• 9:04
  Misty Celli: Think about that for a second.
• 9:05
  Misty Celli: If you hand the authority to your own boundary to whoever is on the other side of the conversation, if they receive it well, you have a boundary.
• 9:14
  Misty Celli: If they push back, you don't.
• 9:17
  Misty Celli: That's not protection, that's permission.
• 9:20
  Misty Celli: And here's the real cost of running on permission.
• 9:23
  Misty Celli: The moment that you most need to hold the line when the pushback is real and the pressure is high is exactly the moment the script fails.
• 9:34
  Misty Celli: Because scripts require a cooperation of an audience.
• 9:38
  Misty Celli: Identity doesn't.
• 9:40
  Misty Celli: And if the script were really working, why does the boundary keep not holding?
• 9:45
  Misty Celli: You've collected more scripts, you've tried more phrasing, you've practiced more carefully, and yet still softening at the last second, apologizing when someone seems disappointed, still going home and replaying the conversation, wondering what you should have said differently.
• 10:02
  Misty Celli: A belief that keeps asking you to prove it with more words, more practice, or a more perfect delivery isn't a solution.
• 10:10
  Misty Celli: It's a loop.
• 10:11
  Misty Celli: Here's what's actually true: a memorized script is someone else's identity wearing your voice.
• 10:18
  Misty Celli: It was written from someone else's conviction, someone else's values, or someone else's sense of what they are and aren't willing to do.
• 10:27
  Misty Celli: And when you say it, even when you've said it perfectly, there's nothing underneath it that belongs to you.
• 10:34
  Misty Celli: So the first time it's tested, there's nothing to hold the line.
• 10:38
  Misty Celli: But a boundary rooted in an identity is different.
• 10:42
  Misty Celli: I am a grounded, honest, courageous woman.
• 10:46
  Misty Celli: That's not a sentence you practice.
• 10:48
  Misty Celli: It's something you already know to be true.
• 10:50
  Misty Celli: And a decision that flows from it doesn't need to be re-argued every time it's questioned because you're not performing a line, you're standing on something real.
• 10:59
  Misty Celli: The question that changes everything isn't, will this be acceptable to the other person?
• 11:05
  Misty Celli: It's is this true, regardless of how it lands.
• 11:09
  Misty Celli: A boundary rooted in identity doesn't need argument to be valid.
• 11:13
  Misty Celli: It needs to be true about who you actually are, what you actually have capacity for, and what you are no longer willing to do.
• 11:21
  Misty Celli: And that stays true whether the other person collapses or pushes back.
• 11:26
  Misty Celli: Your post was never about making sure everyone else approves of your limits.
• 11:31
  Misty Celli: An identity-based boundary protects you.
• 11:33
  Misty Celli: And it's the only kind that survives contact with a real conversation because it isn't performing a line.
• 11:40
  Misty Celli: It's standing on something already known to be true about who you are.
• 11:44
  Misty Celli: A boundary you have to ask permission for isn't a boundary yet.
• 11:48
  Misty Celli: So you have a choice right now.
• 11:50
  Misty Celli: You can keep collecting scripts, keep searching for the perfect sentence, practicing the right phrasing, and hoping the next conversation cooperates and keep feeling exactly what you've been feeling.
• 12:02
  Misty Celli: The boundary that holds when nobody pushes back, the collapse when they do, the replaying, the apologizing, and the starting over.
• 12:11
  Misty Celli: Or you can let this be the moment that you stop borrowing someone else's conviction and start standing on your own.
• 12:18
  Misty Celli: Not because the words got better, but because you stopped needing them to be perfect.
• 12:22
  Misty Celli: The escape from the script loop is there.
• 12:25
  Misty Celli: You just have to be willing to root, not rehearse.
• 12:29
  Misty Celli: Here's what this belief looks like once it's running your week.
• 12:32
  Misty Celli: You want to say no to something, and before you even decide if you want to do it, you're already calculating whether your no will be well received.
• 12:41
  Misty Celli: Not is this something I have capacity for, but will she be okay with this?
• 12:46
  Misty Celli: Will he understand?
• 12:47
  Misty Celli: Will this start something I don't have the energy to finish?
• 12:51
  Misty Celli: You pencil yourself in with an asterisk.
• 12:54
  Misty Celli: Everything you want, the hour, boundary, the limit you've been meaning to set comes with an invisible footnote, unless it causes a problem.
• 13:04
  Misty Celli: And so you wait, waiting for the right moment, the right phrasing, or the right version of the conversation when nobody gets upset, nobody needs anything, and everyone cooperates.
• 13:16
  Misty Celli: That moment rarely comes.
• 13:19
  Misty Celli: So the boundary gets delayed, it gets softened or dropped entirely, and you tell yourself you'll find a better way to say it next time.
• 13:27
  Misty Celli: But that comes at a cost.
• 13:29
  Misty Celli: This week it costs you the limit you needed to set and didn't.
• 13:33
  Misty Celli: The energy you spent on something that wasn't yours to carry, the hour at the end of the day that's gone, and you're not even sure where it went.
• 13:43
  Misty Celli: Underneath that, it costs you something quieter.
• 13:47
  Misty Celli: Every time you retract a boundary under pressure, you confirm something to yourself.
• 13:52
  Misty Celli: Not out loud, but in the body, in your soul.
• 13:55
  Misty Celli: You confirm that you weren't allowed to want it in the first place, that the pushback was proof that maybe you were asking for too much.
• 14:46
  Misty Celli: You're not just losing the boundary, you're losing ground in your own belief about yourself.
• 14:51
  Misty Celli: And 10 years from now, if nothing changes, the women who have practiced rooting instead of rehearsing will have built something you can't buy with a better script.
• 15:01
  Misty Celli: They'll know who they are.
• 15:03
  Misty Celli: They'll know what they're willing to do and what they aren't.
• 15:06
  Misty Celli: Not because they found the perfect phrasing, but because they stopped needing approval to make a decision.
• 15:11
  Misty Celli: And you'll still be Googling.
• 15:13
  Misty Celli: That's not weakness.
• 15:14
  Misty Celli: That's a woman who's confirmed her own worst suspicion one too many times.
• 15:19
  Misty Celli: It wasn't the boundary that was wrong.
• 15:22
  Misty Celli: It was that you're not allowed to want this.
• 15:25
  Misty Celli: All because you never chose to stand on anything sturdier than a sentence you memorized.
• 15:32
  Misty Celli: That's not your destiny.
• 15:34
  Misty Celli: It's just the road that you've been on, and the road can change.
• 15:39
  Misty Celli: Designing your life around yourself is not abandoning your post.
• 15:43
  Misty Celli: It never was.
• 15:45
  Misty Celli: Your post was never make sure everyone approves of my limits.
• 15:50
  Misty Celli: That was never the job.
• 15:52
  Misty Celli: You just picked it up somewhere along the way and started treating it like it was scripture.
• 15:56
  Misty Celli: Here's what I know the moment that you stop asking, will this be acceptable, and start asking, is this true?
• 16:04
  Misty Celli: Something settles.
• 16:05
  Misty Celli: Not just in the conversation, but deep inside you.
• 16:09
  Misty Celli: You stop rehearsing and you start knowing.
• 16:13
  Misty Celli: And the people around you feel it, not because you become harder or mean, but because you become more honest.
• 16:20
  Misty Celli: A woman who knows who she is doesn't need to perform her limits.
• 16:25
  Misty Celli: She just lives them.
• 16:26
  Misty Celli: That's the utmost woman.
• 16:28
  Misty Celli: Not the woman with the perfect script, but the woman who doesn't need one.
• 16:32
  Misty Celli: So let me ask you honestly, do you want to keep borrowing conviction that isn't yours?
• 16:38
  Misty Celli: Or are you ready to build your own?
• 16:41
  Misty Celli: If you're ready to stop rehearsing and start rooting, to finally know who you are clearly enough that your limits don't need a perfect delivery to hold, then grab the free training in the show notes or go to yourutmost.com forward slash starter.
• 16:57
  Misty Celli: Three words, 15 minutes, and you'll walk away knowing who you are underneath every role you carry.
• 17:04
  Misty Celli: So your boundaries come from the inside out, not the outside in.
• 17:09
  Misty Celli: I want to tell you about a woman.
• 17:10
  Misty Celli: Not one specific person, but a woman living in a hundred different conversations and a hundred different kitchens.
• 17:17
  Misty Celli: She's been working on one boundary for six weeks.
• 17:20
  Misty Celli: Six weeks of thinking about it, researching it, and writing out the exact sentence she was going to say.
• 17:27
  Misty Celli: She had three different versions saved in her phone.
• 17:30
  Misty Celli: One for if the conversation went well, one for if it didn't, and one for the follow-up she was already dreading.
• 17:36
  Misty Celli: She knew the words well and she was so proud of herself.
• 17:40
  Misty Celli: And then she had the conversation.
• 17:42
  Misty Celli: And it went fine, not great.
• 17:45
  Misty Celli: There was a moment of tension, a pause that felt longer than it was, but the other person nodded and she held it, and she walked away feeling something she hadn't expected.
• 17:56
  Misty Celli: Not relief, but fragility, weakness.
• 17:58
  Misty Celli: The boundary had survived, but barely.
• 18:01
  Misty Celli: Like it was made of something thin.
• 18:03
  Misty Celli: If the other person had pushed just a little harder, the whole thing would have come apart.
• 18:08
  Misty Celli: And she realized she couldn't tell you why she had the boundary.
• 18:12
  Misty Celli: Not really.
• 18:13
  Misty Celli: She could tell you what she had read.
• 18:16
  Misty Celli: She could tell you the script she'd practiced, but if someone had looked her in the eye and asked, why do you need this?
• 18:23
  Misty Celli: She didn't have an answer that belonged to her.
• 18:25
  Misty Celli: She had a sentence, not a conviction.
• 18:28
  Misty Celli: A few minutes later, she'd done different work.
• 18:30
  Misty Celli: Not script worked, but identity work.
• 18:33
  Misty Celli: She'd spent time with the question of who she actually was, not who everyone needed her to be.
• 18:39
  Misty Celli: She'd written it down, three words, said them out loud, and let them settle.
• 18:43
  Misty Celli: And one day, a version of the same conversation came up.
• 18:47
  Misty Celli: No preparation or rehearsal.
• 18:49
  Misty Celli: She hadn't pulled up her notes or practiced it in the car.
• 18:53
  Misty Celli: Someone pushed back on something she'd said and she felt the familiar pull.
• 18:58
  Misty Celli: The maybe I should just let this go.
• 19:00
  Misty Celli: And then something else happened.
• 19:02
  Misty Celli: She didn't let it go.
• 19:03
  Misty Celli: Not because she'd found a better script, but because she knew something the script never gave her.
• 19:09
  Misty Celli: She knew who she was and what she said was true about her, what she had capacity for, what she was no longer willing to do.
• 19:17
  Misty Celli: And that didn't stop being true because someone was uncomfortable with it.
• 19:21
  Misty Celli: She held it quietly without flinching or apologizing.
• 19:25
  Misty Celli: And when the conversation was over, she didn't replay it for two hours.
• 19:29
  Misty Celli: She went on with her day.
• 19:30
  Misty Celli: That's the difference between a borrowed boundary and a rooted one.
• 19:34
  Misty Celli: One needs the other person to cooperate.
• 19:37
  Misty Celli: The other just needs to be true.
• 19:39
  Misty Celli: Now, I know it's coming up for you.
• 19:40
  Misty Celli: I don't even know what my boundary actually is, Misty.
• 19:44
  Misty Celli: So how do I root into something I can't clearly identify?
• 19:49
  Misty Celli: This is one of the most honest objections and the most common.
• 19:53
  Misty Celli: Here's the thing: the reason the boundary feels unclear isn't because you're bad at boundaries.
• 19:59
  Misty Celli: It's because you've been so focused on how to say it that you've skipped the step that comes before it.
• 20:05
  Misty Celli: Before the words, there's a question.
• 20:08
  Misty Celli: And the question isn't how do I say this?
• 20:10
  Misty Celli: It's who am I and what is true about what I have capacity for right now?
• 20:16
  Misty Celli: When you know who you are, your limits clarify naturally, not because you thought harder about them, but because they start flowing from something real instead of something borrowed.
• 20:26
  Misty Celli: That's the work we're doing, and it starts with three words.
• 20:30
  Misty Celli: What if an identity-rooted boundary just sounds like I'm being rigid or selfish?
• 20:35
  Misty Celli: It's a concern so many of us have.
• 20:37
  Misty Celli: We love, we desire to be helpful, and we don't want to hurt anyone or be difficult.
• 20:43
  Misty Celli: A script sounds like a performance.
• 20:46
  Misty Celli: Identity sounds like a person.
• 20:48
  Misty Celli: When you know who you are and you say something true from that place, it doesn't come across as rigid.
• 20:55
  Misty Celli: It comes across as honest.
• 20:57
  Misty Celli: There's a quality of groundedness that other people actually respond to better than the carefully rehearsed version, even when they don't like the answer.
• 21:07
  Misty Celli: Rigid is when you're holding a line you don't understand.
• 21:10
  Misty Celli: Rooted is when you're standing on something you do.
• 21:13
  Misty Celli: Like most, you've probably tried to know myself before, doing the journaling and the reflection, but it didn't change how you showed up in the hard moments.
• 21:22
  Misty Celli: And that's because reflection without a living filter doesn't stick.
• 21:26
  Misty Celli: The difference isn't the insight.
• 21:29
  Misty Celli: It's having something short enough and clear enough that you can actually access it in the middle of a real conversation.
• 21:35
  Misty Celli: Not a journal full of notes, not a paragraph, three words.
• 21:39
  Misty Celli: I am a grounded, honest, courageous woman.
• 21:43
  Misty Celli: That's short enough to remember when you're standing in the hall with your heart going fast.
• 21:48
  Misty Celli: That's the thing you come back to when someone pushes back and the old pattern tries to take over.
• 21:53
  Misty Celli: The reflection you've done wasn't wasted.
• 21:56
  Misty Celli: You just haven't had somewhere to put it yet.
• 21:58
  Misty Celli: And here's what I want to say to all of it.
• 22:00
  Misty Celli: Every version of, I don't know if this will work for me.
• 22:04
  Misty Celli: You've already proven the script doesn't work under pressure.
• 22:07
  Misty Celli: You know that.
• 22:08
  Misty Celli: You've lived it.
• 22:09
  Misty Celli: So the question isn't whether identity-rooted boundaries are perfect, it's whether they're more solid than what you've been standing on.
• 22:17
  Misty Celli: They are.
• 22:18
  Misty Celli: And the only way to know that for yourself is to try it.
• 22:22
  Misty Celli: Picture a conversation, not a big one, just a regular one.
• 22:25
  Misty Celli: Someone asks you to take something on: a favor, a commitment, a thing that used to automatically get a yes from you before you'd even checked whether you had the capacity for it.
• 22:34
  Misty Celli: And this time something is different.
• 22:37
  Misty Celli: Not the conversation, but you.
• 22:51
  Misty Celli: Not because you googled it, not because you found a script for this exact scenario, but because it's simply true about who you are right now in this season and you know it.
• 23:00
  Misty Celli: So you say it.
• 23:01
  Misty Celli: Not perfectly, maybe not even smoothly, but from somewhere real, it comes out, and the other person pauses.
• 23:09
  Misty Celli: Maybe they push back a little and you notice, and you don't feel the collapse coming.
• 23:15
  Misty Celli: The poll is there, that familiar, maybe I should just say yes, but it doesn't have the same grip because you're not holding a borrowed sentence.
• 23:24
  Misty Celli: You're standing on something that belongs to you, and you hold it, not with a speech or a long explanation, just with the quiet steadiness of a woman who knows who she is.
• 23:34
  Misty Celli: And when the conversation is over, you don't replay it for two hours.
• 23:38
  Misty Celli: You don't second guess it.
• 23:40
  Misty Celli: You just go with your day.
• 23:42
  Misty Celli: That Tuesday exists, not because you found better words, but because you stopped needing the other person to cooperate with your limit in order for the limit to be real.
• 23:53
  Misty Celli: That's what rooting instead of rehearsing actually feels like.
• 23:57
  Misty Celli: And it starts with three words.
• 23:59
  Misty Celli: See the woman in that Tuesday?
• 24:01
  Misty Celli: The one who didn't rehearse her way through the conversation, the one who held it from the inside out, not because she was harder or colder, but because she finally had something real to stand on?
• 24:10
  Misty Celli: Ask yourself, which woman do you want to be in that moment?
• 24:14
  Misty Celli: The woman who borrowed the words or the one who knew herself well enough that she didn't need them.
• 24:18
  Misty Celli: The invisible mama is still out there collecting scripts, hoping the next one finally holds.
• 24:23
  Misty Celli: The utmost woman put the note app down a while ago.
• 24:26
  Misty Celli: She didn't need a better sentence.
• 24:28
  Misty Celli: She needed to stop borrowing one.
• 24:30
  Misty Celli: Here's your one step.
• 24:32
  Misty Celli: Go to the link in the show notes or head to yourutmost.com forward slash starter.
• 24:37
  Misty Celli: Get your three words to recognize and reconnect with the woman beyond the roles so your limits can finally come from the inside out.
• 24:45
  Misty Celli: Say this one with me.
• 24:46
  Misty Celli: I am someone whose boundaries don't need permission to be real.
• 24:50
  Misty Celli: If this one landed, if something in you recognized that you've been rehearsing when you needed to be rooting, leave a review.
• 24:58
  Misty Celli: It helps the next woman who needs to hear this find it.
• 25:00
  Misty Celli: And if you know someone who's been collecting scripts instead of building conviction, send this to her.
• 25:06
  Misty Celli: Until next time, remember you are more than everyone's everything.
• 25:11
  Misty Celli: You are someone.