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Transcript

"I'm Fine" And Why Those Two Words Might Be the Most Expensive Thing You Say · Your Utmost Life

0:00
Misty Celli: You said them today, maybe this morning, maybe in the car, maybe when someone who loves you looked right at you and asked how you were doing.
0:07
Misty Celli: And those two words came out before you even had a chance to check to see if they were true.
0:11
Misty Celli: I'm fine.
0:13
Misty Celli: Automatic, reflexive, practiced.
0:16
Misty Celli: Here's what I need you to know.
0:18
Misty Celli: Those two words are not a statement.
0:21
Misty Celli: They are a warning.
0:22
Misty Celli: And here is what I want to spend this entire episode on because I think it might be the most important thing I've ever said on this podcast.
0:29
Misty Celli: Again, those two words are not a statement.
0:32
Misty Celli: They are a warning.
0:34
Misty Celli: And the moment they come out of your mouth, the moment that you feel that automatic reach for them is not the moment to push through.
0:41
Misty Celli: It's the moment to stop.
0:42
Misty Celli: This episode is for the woman who's been saying, I'm fine, for so long she stopped hearing herself say it.
0:49
Misty Celli: The woman who is so good at pushing through, so practiced at head down, get it done, keep it together, that she has no idea what it costs her until her body starts paying the bill.
0:59
Misty Celli: The woman who loves her people so completely that admitting she is not okay feels like betrayal of everything she is holding together.
1:07
Misty Celli: If that is you, stay with me because what I'm about to tell you is something nobody has probably ever said to you before.
1:14
Misty Celli: The thing about I'm fine, the thing that makes it so dangerous is that it sounds like strength, it feels like strength, it has been treated like strength your entire life.
1:25
Misty Celli: And I'm going to show you today that it is not strength.
1:29
Misty Celli: It is a signal, and ignoring it is the most expensive thing you are doing to yourself right now.
1:35
Misty Celli: Before we go anywhere, I want you to do something.
1:38
Misty Celli: Think about the last time you said those words, not to a stranger, to someone who was actually asking, someone who was looking at you, someone who maybe knew the answer before you gave it.
1:49
Misty Celli: And I want you to feel just for a second what was actually true in that moment.
1:54
Misty Celli: Not what you said, but what was true.
1:57
Misty Celli: That gap has a name, and today we are going to call it what it is.
2:01
Misty Celli: And if something just shifted in you even a little, stay.
2:05
Misty Celli: Hit subscribe because the woman who felt that shift, she deserves to keep hearing it.
2:11
Misty Celli: You've been showing up for everyone, the kids, the job, the relationship, the to-do list that never ends.
2:17
Misty Celli: And somewhere in all of that, you looked up and realized you have no idea who you were anymore.
2:22
Misty Celli: Not the roles, not the titles, you.
2:25
Misty Celli: That quiet thought, is this all there is?
2:27
Misty Celli: Isn't ingratitude.
2:29
Misty Celli: It's a signal.
2:30
Misty Celli: It means the woman you were made to be is still in there, waiting to be heard.
2:34
Misty Celli: I'm Ms.
2:34
Misty Celli: Celli, Identity and Self-Leadership Coach for Ambitious Mothers, and this is your Utmost Life Podcast.
2:40
Misty Celli: Every episode, we do real work, not inspiration you forget by the time you start the car.
2:46
Misty Celli: Real tools to reclaim your identity, protect your time, and start living a life that feels like yours, built by design, not by default.
2:54
Misty Celli: If you are ready to stop disappearing and start becoming, you're in the right place.
2:58
Misty Celli: Let's begin.
2:59
Misty Celli: You can see it before anyone else does.
3:02
Misty Celli: You catch it in the mirror.
3:04
Misty Celli: Not the tired eyes, not the undone hair, something deeper, a flatness, like someone turned the lights down a little.
3:11
Misty Celli: Like the woman who is usually right there behind your eyes has taken a step back.
3:16
Misty Celli: And you look at her, at yourself, and you think, I just need to get through this week.
3:21
Misty Celli: There is a specific feeling that lives in your body when I'm fine is about to come out.
3:27
Misty Celli: A tightness in your throat, a heaviness in your chest, a feeling in your belly that just feels icky, a slight bracing, like something in you is getting ready to hold on just a little longer.
3:39
Misty Celli: You have felt that feeling so many times you've stopped noticing it.
3:43
Misty Celli: It's just part of the texture of getting through the day.
3:46
Misty Celli: But your body has been keeping score.
3:48
Misty Celli: The not sleeping, the not eating, the tension that lives in your shoulders that you've classified as normal.
3:55
Misty Celli: The way you move through the day with your head down and your jaw set and your whole self contracted around the task of getting it done.
4:02
Misty Celli: Your body knows.
4:03
Misty Celli: It has been trying to tell you, and every time those two words come out, I'm fine.
4:09
Misty Celli: You tell it to be quiet for a little longer.
4:11
Misty Celli: The noise of your life has a sound.
4:14
Misty Celli: The calendar notifications, the hey hun from down the hall, the group chat pinging at 10 p.m.
4:20
Misty Celli: And there is something underneath the noise of your life, underneath the schedule and the to-do list and the needs of everyone around you that has been trying to get your attention.
4:30
Misty Celli: Not loudly, it doesn't get loud anymore.
4:33
Misty Celli: It got quiet a long time ago because every time it tried to speak up, you pushed through.
4:39
Misty Celli: You got it done.
4:40
Misty Celli: You kept the peace, but it's still there.
4:42
Misty Celli: Low, steady, persistent, and it sounds something like this is not sustainable.
4:49
Misty Celli: Something has to give.
4:50
Misty Celli: I cannot keep going at this pace and stay whole.
4:54
Misty Celli: You've heard it, you've pushed it down, you have said I'm fine over it.
4:59
Misty Celli: Here is what I want you to understand before we go any further.
5:03
Misty Celli: The fact that you can push through, the fact that you are so strong, so capable, so relentlessly able to keep going, that is not a superpower in this moment.
5:15
Misty Celli: It is the thing that has been working against you.
5:18
Misty Celli: Because a woman who cannot push through eventually stops.
5:21
Misty Celli: She sits down, she asks for help, she heeds the warning.
5:25
Misty Celli: A woman who can push through indefinitely, she doesn't stop until her body makes her.
5:30
Misty Celli: And y'all, that is not strength.
5:32
Misty Celli: That is a warning signal being ignored for so long it becomes a crisis.
5:37
Misty Celli: Every woman I know who is deep in this place, hollow, running unempted, already showing it in her body, she says the same thing when I ask how she's been, without fail, every single time.
5:48
Misty Celli: I'm fine.
5:49
Misty Celli: I'm okay.
5:50
Misty Celli: I just need to get through this week.
5:52
Misty Celli: I know those words.
5:54
Misty Celli: I have lived inside those words.
5:56
Misty Celli: I have said them in the mirror when the true answer was so far from fine that I didn't even know where to start.
6:03
Misty Celli: And here is what I know now that I didn't know then.
6:07
Misty Celli: I am fine is not a report.
6:09
Misty Celli: It is a request.
6:10
Misty Celli: It is the part of you that is exhausted and hollowed out and quietly desperate asking everyone around you to please, please not make her say the real thing out loud right now.
6:22
Misty Celli: And today, that is what we're going to do.
6:24
Misty Celli: We're going to say the real thing.
6:26
Misty Celli: Let me tell you what is actually happening inside you when those words come out, because it isn't strength and it isn't a lie exactly.
6:34
Misty Celli: It is something more specific than either of those things.
6:37
Misty Celli: It is a woman who has learned through years of being the one who holds everything together that her not okayness is a burden she cannot afford to put down.
6:47
Misty Celli: That if she admits she is not fine, something will break, someone will worry, something will fall apart.
6:53
Misty Celli: And she cannot be the reason things fall apart, because she is the reason things hold together.
6:58
Misty Celli: So she says I'm fine, not because she is, but because the alternative feels like failure.
7:05
Misty Celli: And here is this belief underneath it, the one I want to name directly today, because I don't think anyone ever has said it to you this clearly.
7:13
Misty Celli: If I admit that I am not fine, everything falls apart.
7:18
Misty Celli: I fail myself and I fail my family.
7:21
Misty Celli: That belief right there, that is what I am fine is protecting.
7:26
Misty Celli: And I understand it.
7:27
Misty Celli: I understand it completely because when you have been the one holding everything together for so long, when your strength is the thing other people's stability is built on, admitting that you are not okay feels like pulling a load-bearing wall out of a house.
7:41
Misty Celli: You are not being dramatic.
7:43
Misty Celli: You genuinely believe that if you let go, even for a moment, everything comes down.
7:48
Misty Celli: So you don't let go.
7:49
Misty Celli: You say, I'm fine, and you push through.
7:52
Misty Celli: And then because the hollowness and the exhaustion have to mean something, you decide it means that you're not doing enough.
8:00
Misty Celli: So you add something, a new routine, a new system, a new plan to optimize and improve and fix what feels broken.
8:07
Misty Celli: You fill the calendar a little more, you tighten the grip a little harder.
8:11
Misty Celli: But can I tell you something?
8:12
Misty Celli: You just have done the one thing guaranteed to make this worse.
8:16
Misty Celli: Because you don't need more on the calendar, you need less.
8:20
Misty Celli: You don't need to fix yourself, you need to find yourself.
8:24
Misty Celli: She is still in there underneath all the pushing through.
8:28
Misty Celli: She hasn't left, she's just gotten quiet.
8:31
Misty Celli: Because every time she tried to say something, you said, I'm fine, right over the top of her and kept moving.
8:37
Misty Celli: She has been waiting long enough.
8:39
Misty Celli: And here is what I need you to understand because this is the part that changes everything.
8:43
Misty Celli: Those two words are not a statement of fact.
8:46
Misty Celli: They are a signal.
8:48
Misty Celli: And in a few minutes, I'm going to show you exactly what they're signaling and what to do the moment they come out of your mouth.
8:54
Misty Celli: If I admit I'm not fine, everything falls apart.
8:58
Misty Celli: I fail myself and I fail my family.
9:00
Misty Celli: You have been living this belief, maybe for years, maybe for decades.
9:04
Misty Celli: Every time someone asks how you are and you say, I'm fine when you're not, this belief is running underneath it.
9:11
Misty Celli: Every time you push through instead of stopping, this belief is the engine.
9:15
Misty Celli: And I want to honor it before I dismantle it because it didn't come from nowhere.
9:20
Misty Celli: You learned this.
9:21
Misty Celli: You learned that your strength was what other people depended on.
9:24
Misty Celli: You learned that your falling apart had consequences for the people you love, for the life you've built, for the version of yourself you committed to being.
9:33
Misty Celli: You are not weak for believing this.
9:35
Misty Celli: You are a woman who loves her people and has carried that love as responsibility for a very long time.
9:41
Misty Celli: That belief kept things together once.
9:43
Misty Celli: I need you to hear that.
9:45
Misty Celli: It served a purpose and it has long since stopped serving you.
9:49
Misty Celli: Because here is what that belief is actually costing you right now, today.
9:54
Misty Celli: It is costing you the warning.
9:56
Misty Celli: Because I'm fine when it's not true is not just a social nicety.
10:01
Misty Celli: It's your internal alarm system being overridden.
10:04
Misty Celli: Your body knows before your mind admits it, the tightness in your chest, the flatness behind your eyes, the not sleeping, the not eating, the hollowness showing up in your behavior before you even register it consciously.
10:16
Misty Celli: That is your system telling you something has to change.
10:19
Misty Celli: And every time you say I'm fine over it, you delay the response.
10:23
Misty Celli: You push through the crisis point further down the road.
10:26
Misty Celli: And the longer you delay it, the higher the price when it arrives.
10:30
Misty Celli: But here's the cost I need you to see underneath that one.
10:34
Misty Celli: Every time you say I'm fine when you're not, you teach yourself that you're not okayness is not worth acknowledging.
10:42
Misty Celli: You send yourself the message, what is happening inside me is not important enough to name.
10:47
Misty Celli: My pain is not legitimate enough to admit.
10:50
Misty Celli: I don't deserve the attention it would take to actually address this.
10:53
Misty Celli: That message compounds over months, over years, and it does something specific to your relationship with yourself.
11:01
Misty Celli: It teaches you to be the last person you turn to.
11:04
Misty Celli: It teaches you that you are the one who manages, who absorbs, who gets through, not the one who gets to be held or heard or helped.
11:14
Misty Celli: And the woman who has spent years turning away from herself when she needs herself most, she doesn't just lose her energy.
11:21
Misty Celli: She loses her identity.
11:22
Misty Celli: She becomes a function.
11:24
Misty Celli: And one day she looks up and realizes she doesn't know who she is outside of what she does for everyone else.
11:30
Misty Celli: That is the hidden cost of I'm fine.
11:32
Misty Celli: And I need you to feel the future cost because this one matters.
11:36
Misty Celli: Your body is keeping score whether you are or not.
11:40
Misty Celli: The pushing through, the head down, the jaw set, the relentless forward momentum, it works until it doesn't.
11:46
Misty Celli: And when it stops working, it doesn't slow down gradually, it stops.
11:50
Misty Celli: Women who have been saying I'm fine for years don't drift into crisis.
11:54
Misty Celli: They arrive there suddenly because the system that was compensating finally runs out.
11:59
Misty Celli: I have been fine when my marriage was on the rocks, fine when I felt like a ghost in my own life, fine when my body was telling me in every way possible that something had to change.
12:09
Misty Celli: And every time I pushed through instead of stopping, I paid for it later.
12:13
Misty Celli: With my health, with my presence, with the version of myself I wanted to be and kept not being because I was too busy being fine.
12:21
Misty Celli: The woman you are becoming under the weight of this belief, hollow, invisible, running on empty, she is not the woman you were made to be, and she doesn't have to be who you become.
12:32
Misty Celli: But she needs you to stop saying I'm fine long enough to actually hear her.
12:36
Misty Celli: So let me ask you something before I give you the truth to replace this with.
14:00
Misty Celli: The moment those words come out of your mouth, the moment that you feel that tightness, that flatness, that automatic reach for that phrase, that is not the moment to push through.
14:10
Misty Celli: That is the moment to stop, to breathe, to turn towards yourself for just long enough to ask, what is actually happening right now?
14:18
Misty Celli: What do I actually need?
14:20
Misty Celli: Not to fall apart, not to fail your family, to reset, rejuvenate, refeel, refocus, recalibrate.
14:29
Misty Celli: Because a woman who heeds her own warning, who stops when the signal fires, she doesn't fall apart.
14:35
Misty Celli: She catches herself before the fall.
14:37
Misty Celli: And that, that is not weakness.
14:40
Misty Celli: That is the most courageous thing she can do.
14:42
Misty Celli: I want to tell you something I don't talk about very often.
14:45
Misty Celli: There is something that happens when an ambitious woman, a woman who is strong, capable, devoted, spends years saying I'm fine when she isn't.
14:54
Misty Celli: It's called the identity eraser effect.
14:57
Misty Celli: Every time she overrides the signal, every time she pushes through instead of turning toward herself, she teaches herself that she is the one person in her whole life who doesn't count.
15:07
Misty Celli: And that lesson compounds quietly, invisibly, until one day she looks up and the woman she used to be is almost completely gone.
15:14
Misty Celli: And the cruelest part is that she added to her own erasure, not out of weakness, but out of strength, out of love, out of the fierce, devoted, relentless pushing through that everyone around her depended on.
15:27
Misty Celli: That is the mechanism underneath I am fine.
15:30
Misty Celli: It is not coping, it's erasure.
15:32
Misty Celli: Slow, invisible, self-administered erasure.
15:35
Misty Celli: I want to tell you about my own relationship with those two words, because I have said them more times than I can count and more seasons than I can name.
15:43
Misty Celli: I have been fine when my marriage was struggling and I didn't know if we were going to make it.
15:47
Misty Celli: Fine when I felt like I was going through the motions of a life I had chosen but couldn't fully inhabit.
15:52
Misty Celli: Fine when I sat in that booth at the restaurant and realized that my family wouldn't skip a beat without me.
15:58
Misty Celli: Fine when my body was telling me in every language it had that something had to give.
16:03
Misty Celli: I have been fine in the darkest seasons of my life, and the moments where fine was the furthest thing from the truth, and I said it anyway, automatically, reflexively, because that is what I knew how to do.
16:16
Misty Celli: What I wanted underneath all that fine was something I didn't have words for for a very long time.
16:22
Misty Celli: I wanted to be known, not managed, not needed, not depended on, but known.
16:28
Misty Celli: I wanted someone to look at me, really look at me and see past the fine to what was actually there.
16:34
Misty Celli: And I wanted to be able to let them.
16:36
Misty Celli: But every time someone got close to see it, every time my husband looked at me with that look, the one that said he knew, the one that asked the question without words, I reached for the same two words automatically.
16:48
Misty Celli: Because admitting I was not fine felt like the one thing I could not afford.
16:52
Misty Celli: Like pulling the load-bearing wall, like failing the people who needed me to be okay.
16:58
Misty Celli: I remember sitting in my car one afternoon, the world moving around me, everyone fine, everything functioning, and feeling something in my chest that I had stopped letting myself name.
17:07
Misty Celli: And instead of saying I'm fine over it one more time, I just sat with it for a second.
17:12
Misty Celli: That was the beginning.
17:14
Misty Celli: What shifted and it didn't shift all at once, it shifted over time, was understanding what those words actually were.
17:20
Misty Celli: Not strength, not coping, a signal.
17:23
Misty Celli: My own internal alarm system firing.
17:26
Misty Celli: And I understand that the bravest thing I could do was not push through the alarm.
17:30
Misty Celli: It was stop and listen to it.
17:32
Misty Celli: My husband, after 20 years together, he knows.
17:35
Misty Celli: He has learned to hear what I'm fine actually means.
17:38
Misty Celli: When those words come out of my mouth, he knows.
17:40
Misty Celli: We both know.
17:41
Misty Celli: And what happens next is not a crisis.
17:43
Misty Celli: It's a pause, a breath, a turning toward instead of a way.
17:47
Misty Celli: A moment of, okay, what is actually happening right now?
17:51
Misty Celli: What do I actually need?
17:53
Misty Celli: Not to fix everything, just to see it clearly enough to take one step toward myself.
17:58
Misty Celli: The moment that cracked it open for me was not dramatic.
18:01
Misty Celli: It was quiet.
18:02
Misty Celli: It was realizing that every single time I said I'm fine in the darkest moments of my life, I was not protecting my family.
18:10
Misty Celli: I was disappearing from them.
18:12
Misty Celli: The wife and the mother I truly am, present, alive and whole, she was not available to them when I was in I'm fine mode.
18:19
Misty Celli: The version of me that showed up when I was hollow, going through the motions there in the room and absent from herself.
18:25
Misty Celli: And my children, my husband, they didn't need me to be fine.
18:29
Misty Celli: They needed me to be there, really there.
18:31
Misty Celli: And I am fine was the thing I used to keep them from the real me while convincing both of us I was showing up.
18:38
Misty Celli: What changed was not dramatic either.
18:40
Misty Celli: It was practice.
18:41
Misty Celli: Learning to feel the heaviness, the specific physical sensation in my chest that precedes those words, and treat it as information instead of something to push through.
18:51
Misty Celli: Learning to pause when I felt it, to turn toward myself for just a moment to ask, what is actually happening?
18:58
Misty Celli: What do I actually need right now?
19:01
Misty Celli: Sometimes the answer was rest.
19:03
Misty Celli: Sometimes it was a conversation that I had been avoiding.
19:06
Misty Celli: Sometimes it was 15 minutes alone with my coffee before the day began.
19:10
Misty Celli: Not a complete overhaul, just one moment of turning toward instead of away.
19:15
Misty Celli: And in that turning, every single time, something released, not solved, but released.
19:21
Misty Celli: Like the system had been bracing, finally got permission to excel.
19:25
Misty Celli: And what I found, what I am still finding, is this.
19:42
Misty Celli: That something needs tending and I am worth tending to.
19:47
Misty Celli: So are you.
19:48
Misty Celli: If you have felt something in that story, if any part of it was yours, come find me on Instagram and send me the one word that describes where you are right now.
19:56
Misty Celli: Just one word.
19:57
Misty Celli: I read every single one and I want to know yours.
20:00
Misty Celli: I know what some of you are thinking, so let me name it.
20:04
Misty Celli: But people are counting on me.
20:06
Misty Celli: I just can't stop.
20:07
Misty Celli: Here's what's true: the version of you that is hollow, running unempted, saying I'm fine when everything is far from it.
20:14
Misty Celli: She is not fully available to the people counting on her.
20:18
Misty Celli: She's in the room, but she's not actually there.
20:20
Misty Celli: The woman your family needs, present, alive, whole, she is not accessible when you are depleted.
20:27
Misty Celli: Stopping long enough to tend to yourself is not abandoning the people who need you.
20:31
Misty Celli: It's the only way to actually show up for them.
20:35
Misty Celli: I've always been the strong one.
20:37
Misty Celli: Admitting I'm not okay feels like weakness.
20:40
Misty Celli: I need to say this directly to you.
20:42
Misty Celli: You are not too weak to say I'm fine.
20:46
Misty Celli: You are too strong.
20:47
Misty Celli: Your strength, you're pushing through, head down, relentless ability to keep going is the exact thing that has allowed you to override this signal so long.
20:57
Misty Celli: It takes enormous strength to do what you have been doing, and it is costing you everything.
21:02
Misty Celli: Real strength is not the ability to keep going past the warning.
21:06
Misty Celli: Real strength is the courage to stop when the signal fires and asks, What do I actually need right now?
21:12
Misty Celli: I'm already overwhelmed.
21:14
Misty Celli: I don't have time to add one more thing.
21:17
Misty Celli: Well, here's the thing about drains.
21:20
Misty Celli: The things that are quietly pulling you away from yourself, they don't feel like drains.
21:26
Misty Celli: They feel like responsibilities, like things you have to do, must get done, cannot let fall.
21:32
Misty Celli: And every time you feel that hollow, empty something is off feeling, the instinct of an ambitious woman is to add something.
21:39
Misty Celli: A new routine, better system, more pressure on yourself to be better, do more, fix what's wrong.
21:46
Misty Celli: The hollow feeling is not a productivity problem, it's a depletion signal, and you cannot schedule your way out of depletion.
21:53
Misty Celli: The answer is not more, the answer is less.
21:57
Misty Celli: Subtract first.
21:58
Misty Celli: Turn toward yourself first.
22:01
Misty Celli: Everything else builds from there.
22:03
Misty Celli: I'm fine does not hold forever.
22:06
Misty Celli: Your body is keeping score, and the woman who keeps saying it past the point where it's even remotely true, she doesn't slow down gradually.
22:14
Misty Celli: She stops all at once in a way that is far more disruptive to the people she loves than a pause would ever bend.
22:22
Misty Celli: You have the choice right now that she didn't think she had.
22:25
Misty Celli: Stop before the stop is made for you.
22:28
Misty Celli: And the first stop, the smallest, most respectful one, is just telling the truth about where you actually are.
22:35
Misty Celli: Before I paint this, I need to say something.
22:38
Misty Celli: You are allowed to not be You are allowed to feel the tightness and stop and say, I need a moment.
22:45
Misty Celli: I need to turn toward myself right now.
22:48
Misty Celli: You are allowed to heed your own warning.
22:51
Misty Celli: That is not weakness.
22:52
Misty Celli: That is not failure.
22:54
Misty Celli: That is a woman who has finally decided that she is worth listening to.
22:59
Misty Celli: Right now, this Tuesday, you wake up already braced, the list is running, the weight is there before you open your eyes.
23:07
Misty Celli: And when someone asks how you are, the words come out automatically.
23:11
Misty Celli: I'm fine, all's good.
23:12
Misty Celli: And you keep going, head down forward, because stopping feels like the one thing you cannot afford.
23:18
Misty Celli: And the hollow gets a little deeper, and the flatness gets a little wider.
23:23
Misty Celli: And the woman you used to be gets a little quieter.
23:27
Misty Celli: Now, picture a different Tuesday.
23:29
Misty Celli: Same house, same life, same people.
23:33
Misty Celli: You wake up and something is different before you even move.
23:37
Misty Celli: Not because everything is perfect, but because you know how to read yourself now.
23:42
Misty Celli: You feel the tightness, and instead of reaching for I'm fine, you feel it as information, as a signal worth heeding, and as your own internal compass pointing you towards something that needs attention.
23:54
Misty Celli: You can see it in how you move through the morning, not braced, not contracted, present.
24:01
Misty Celli: You make your coffee and sit with it for 10 minutes before the day starts, not because you found extra time, but because you decided your signal was worth responding to.
24:10
Misty Celli: You can hear your own voice, not the one that manages and pushes through, but the quieter one underneath it, the one that knows what you need before anyone else asks.
24:21
Misty Celli: And when your husband looks at you this morning and asks how you're doing, what comes out is not automatic.
24:27
Misty Celli: It's true.
24:29
Misty Celli: My body's a little tired.
24:30
Misty Celli: I need a slow start this morning, and the world does not fall apart, and your family does not crumble, and something in the room gets warmer because the real you just showed up.
24:42
Misty Celli: You feel the difference in your body.
24:44
Misty Celli: The tightness that used to live permanently in your chest is not a constant anymore.
24:49
Misty Celli: You know it when it arrives, you treat it as the gift it is, and your body, the one that has been keeping score for years, starts to trust you.
24:58
Misty Celli: Starts to believe that when it sends the signal, someone is going to listen.
25:03
Misty Celli: That Tuesday is not a fantasy.
25:05
Misty Celli: That is a woman who learned to stop saying I'm fine when she wasn't, who learned that the warning was a gift, who turned toward herself just far enough, just long enough to rest, rejuvenate, refill.
25:19
Misty Celli: She didn't fall apart.
25:21
Misty Celli: She came home.
25:22
Misty Celli: Here's what we covered today.
25:24
Misty Celli: I am fine when it's not true is not strength.
25:28
Misty Celli: It's a signal.
25:28
Misty Celli: Your body's alarm system firing.
25:31
Misty Celli: And every time you say it over the truth, you delay the response and deepen the cost.
25:36
Misty Celli: The belief underneath it, if I admit I'm not fine, everything falls apart, is the thing that keeps you pushing past the warning.
25:44
Misty Celli: And it's costing you your presence, your identity, and the version of yourself that the people you love most actually need.
25:51
Misty Celli: You do not need more on your calendar.
25:54
Misty Celli: You need to turn toward yourself, rest, rejuvenate, refill, refocus, recalibrate.
26:01
Misty Celli: And the moment those words want to come out when you feel that tightness in your chest, that is not the moment you push through.
26:08
Misty Celli: That is the moment to stop, to breathe, to ask, what is actually happening right now?
26:15
Misty Celli: What do I actually need?
26:17
Misty Celli: Not because you are weak, because you are worth listening to.
26:23
Misty Celli: The next time those words want to come out, I'm fine, all is good, I'm okay.
26:29
Misty Celli: I will feel what is actually true first.
26:32
Misty Celli: I'm not too weak to stop.
26:34
Misty Celli: I am too strong to keep going past the warning.
26:37
Misty Celli: My signal is a gift, and I am worth heeding it.
26:41
Misty Celli: When you close this episode, the voice is going to say, You don't have time to slow down.
26:47
Misty Celli: Everyone needs you.
26:48
Misty Celli: Stop being selfish.
26:50
Misty Celli: Answer it with this A hollow woman cannot feel anyone.
26:55
Misty Celli: I tend to myself so I can actually be there for the people I love.
26:59
Misty Celli: That is not selfish.
27:00
Misty Celli: That is the most loving thing I can do.
27:03
Misty Celli: Will you do something for her?
27:05
Misty Celli: The woman who is saying I'm fine right now and doesn't know this exists yet?
27:10
Misty Celli: Leave a review.
27:11
Misty Celli: 30 seconds.
27:12
Misty Celli: That is how she finds her way here.
27:14
Misty Celli: She is out there right now.
27:16
Misty Celli: Your review is how she finds this.
27:18
Misty Celli: And if you know her, the woman in your life who says, I'm fine with that specific flatness, that specific tightness, that automatic reach for those words, send her this episode.
27:30
Misty Celli: You don't have to explain it.
27:32
Misty Celli: She'll know.
27:33
Misty Celli: Next week, we are talking about the truth about your circumstances, the story that you have been telling yourself about why now isn't the right time, why your situation is too complicated, why the women this works for are different from you.
27:47
Misty Celli: We are taking that story apart piece by piece.
27:50
Misty Celli: Next week you might hear yourself in ways you weren't expecting.
27:53
Misty Celli: I'll see you there.
27:55
Misty Celli: You are more than everyone's everything.
27:58
Misty Celli: You are someone.
28:00
Misty Celli: I'll see you next week.