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Why Do I Feel Invisible When I Take Care of Everyone? · Your Utmost Life

• 0:00
  Misty Celli: Because if your worth comes from taking care of everyone, then every time a roll ends, a little piece of you goes with it.
• 0:06
  Misty Celli: The kids grow up and build their own lives.
• 0:08
  Misty Celli: The job changes.
• 0:10
  Misty Celli: Your mama doesn't need you to drive her to her appointments anymore.
• 0:13
  Misty Celli: And one day you're standing in a quiet kitchen with nobody needing a thing from you, and you honestly don't know who's left.
• 0:19
  Misty Celli: I don't want that for you.
• 0:20
  Misty Celli: And it doesn't have to go that way.
• 0:22
  Misty Celli: There is a practice that takes less than a minute a day and changes what your worth is standing on.
• 0:27
  Misty Celli: You're the one that everybody counts on, the one who keeps the whole thing running.
• 0:32
  Misty Celli: You're proud of that, and you should be.
• 0:34
  Misty Celli: People come to you because they know that you'll handle it.
• 0:37
  Misty Celli: You've loved, you've provided, you've shown up over and over.
• 0:40
  Misty Celli: But here's the deal.
• 0:42
  Misty Celli: Somewhere along the way, you erased yourself in the process.
• 0:46
  Misty Celli: In this episode, I will show you how to stop disappearing when life gets full.
• 0:50
  Misty Celli: You'll walk away with one practice that takes seconds a day and keeps you connected to the woman you are beyond your roles, even in your busiest season.
• 0:58
  Misty Celli: That means your people get the real you, not just what you do for them.
• 1:02
  Misty Celli: You finish a full day and you're still in it.
• 1:05
  Misty Celli: And your worth stops rising and falling with how much you checked off.
• 1:09
  Misty Celli: You will start it today, before this episode ever ends.
• 1:12
  Misty Celli: Do you ever look around your own home, your own calendar, and your own day and realize there isn't much of you in it?
• 1:19
  Misty Celli: Or catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and barely recognize the woman looking back, the one who once dreamed big and had purpose and passion beyond meeting everyone else's needs?
• 1:27
  Misty Celli: You keep the meals plated, bills paid, and the whole household moving.
• 1:30
  Misty Celli: But somewhere along the way, you left yourself off the list.
• 1:33
  Misty Celli: If you have ever wondered whether there's more to life than keeping it all going and then felt guilty for even thinking it, you're in the right place.
• 1:40
  Misty Celli: You were never meant to disappear into your roles.
• 1:42
  Misty Celli: You are more than everyone's everything.
• 1:45
  Misty Celli: You are someone.
• 1:46
  Misty Celli: And somewhere inside, you already know that.
• 1:48
  Misty Celli: This is where you remember who you are and design a life that includes you, from worth and identity to how your mornings start and how your home flows.
• 1:56
  Misty Celli: A life you live on purpose, fully alive.
• 1:58
  Misty Celli: Welcome to your Utmost Life Podcast.
• 2:00
  Misty Celli: I'm Misty, an identity and life design coach.
• 2:03
  Misty Celli: If you haven't hit follow or subscribe yet, do it now because you deserve a life that includes you starting today.
• 2:10
  Misty Celli: Let's get into it.
• 2:11
  Misty Celli: Every one of us has a season where everything speeds up.
• 2:15
  Misty Celli: For a lot of us, it's the holidays.
• 2:17
  Misty Celli: With the lists and the gathering and the running, your rush season might look completely different.
• 2:22
  Misty Celli: It might be that stretch from March to May where there are eight birthdays between both families and your friends, and you're the one remembering every single one of them.
• 2:30
  Misty Celli: It might be the season you spent helping your mother recover, or the quarter at work when everything lands on your desk.
• 2:36
  Misty Celli: Whatever yours is, you know how it goes.
• 2:39
  Misty Celli: You start out excited, or at least willing.
• 2:42
  Misty Celli: You say yes because you love these people and you want it to be good.
• 2:46
  Misty Celli: Then the days start running together.
• 2:48
  Misty Celli: You're eating, standing up and saying, I'm fine, so often it stops meaning anything.
• 2:53
  Misty Celli: A couple of weeks in, and you catch a reflection and barely recognize that tired woman looking back, and you realize you haven't heard your own voice ask for anything in days.
• 3:03
  Misty Celli: You feel the weight in your shoulders before your feet ever hit the floor.
• 3:07
  Misty Celli: If that's where you are right now or where you've been more times than you can count, you don't have to explain it away or remind yourself how blessed you are.
• 3:15
  Misty Celli: You can be grateful for every single person in your life and still feel like you're gone missing somewhere in the middle of loving them.
• 3:21
  Misty Celli: A thought comes with it, usually late at night or alone in the car.
• 3:25
  Misty Celli: If I stopped doing all of it, would anyone even notice me?
• 3:29
  Misty Celli: Or the harder one, who am I if nobody needs me?
• 3:32
  Misty Celli: You haven't said that out loud to anybody, have you?
• 3:35
  Misty Celli: It feels ungrateful.
• 3:36
  Misty Celli: Does any of that sound familiar?
• 3:38
  Misty Celli: What I want you to know is that the hollow feeling in the middle of a full life is telling you something.
• 3:44
  Misty Celli: And once you hear it, you can do something about it.
• 3:47
  Misty Celli: What it's telling you comes down to a belief that most of us never choose on purpose.
• 3:52
  Misty Celli: My worth is taking care of others.
• 3:54
  Misty Celli: Now I want to be gentle with that one because it comes from love.
• 3:57
  Misty Celli: Somewhere along the way, you learned that being needed felt like being valued.
• 4:02
  Misty Celli: Maybe you watched your own mother live that way, or you were the helpful one growing up, the dependable one everybody bragged about.
• 4:08
  Misty Celli: Maybe in your hardest seasons, being useful was the one thing that made you feel like you were holding it together.
• 4:14
  Misty Celli: It made sense, but it also cost you more than you let yourself add up.
• 4:18
  Misty Celli: Day to day, it costs you in the small stuff, the coffee that goes cold, the meals that you eat over the sink, and you carry a kind of tired that sleep can't fix because your body isn't what's worn out.
• 4:30
  Misty Celli: Underneath that, it costs you your presence.
• 4:33
  Misty Celli: When your worth comes from what you do, the people you love end up getting your function instead of you.
• 4:39
  Misty Celli: You're in the room, but you're running the room.
• 4:42
  Misty Celli: Your husband gets the logistics instead of the woman he married, and your kids, old enough now to see you as a person, keep seeing the role.
• 4:50
  Misty Celli: Anyone watching you, whether it's your daughter, your niece, or a younger woman at work, is learning that a woman's worth is measured by how much she gives away.
• 4:59
  Misty Celli: If we're honest, a little resentment starts creeping in toward the very people we love most, and the guilt shows up right behind it.
• 5:07
  Misty Celli: Then there's the longer cost.
• 5:08
  Misty Celli: If your worth comes from taking care of others, every time a roll ends, a little piece of you goes with it.
• 5:15
  Misty Celli: The kids grow up and build their own lives, the job changes, your mama doesn't need you to drive her to her appointments anymore.
• 5:22
  Misty Celli: And one day, you're standing in a quiet kitchen with nobody needing a thing from you, and you honestly don't know who's left.
• 5:29
  Misty Celli: I don't want that for you, and it doesn't have to go that way.
• 5:32
  Misty Celli: There's a practice that takes less than a minute a day and changes what your worth is standing on.
• 5:37
  Misty Celli: Now, I am no gardener, y'all, but I know nothing blooms without good soil.
• 5:42
  Misty Celli: Our worth is the soil.
• 5:45
  Misty Celli: It's the ground that everything in our life grows from, including how we love, how we show up, our dreams, our standards, our joy, and yes, how we take care of people.
• 5:56
  Misty Celli: Caregiving is one of the most beautiful things growing in your garden, and it grew from your worth.
• 6:03
  Misty Celli: When we get those mixed up, we keep pulling from the plant and never tend to the ground.
• 6:07
  Misty Celli: And then we wonder why everything feels so depleted.
• 6:10
  Misty Celli: Your worth was there before you ever took care of anybody.
• 6:14
  Misty Celli: You don't earn it by giving enough, you don't lose it when you rest.
• 6:17
  Misty Celli: You remember it.
• 6:18
  Misty Celli: Remember your worth, and you'll remember you.
• 6:21
  Misty Celli: Worth comes first and everything else flourishes from it.
• 6:25
  Misty Celli: Who you are, how you live, and what you will and won't accept anymore.
• 6:29
  Misty Celli: I'll be honest, I've had times in my life when I've looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the woman looking back, or have thought, I don't remember what I really wanted outside of ensuring the whole household is running smoothly, the family is thriving, and I'm rocking at handling everything for everybody.
• 6:46
  Misty Celli: I loved being told how amazing I was, but inside, I felt like I was not quite hitting the mark.
• 6:53
  Misty Celli: And honestly, I didn't know exactly what the mark was, but just that I was letting myself down.
• 6:59
  Misty Celli: Like the woman I desire to be wasn't achieved yet.
• 7:03
  Misty Celli: Do you know what I mean?
• 7:04
  Misty Celli: Like you think I love my life, I don't want to change it exactly, but I want to change me.
• 7:12
  Misty Celli: I want to feel like me.
• 7:14
  Misty Celli: I want to feel whole, complete, alive.
• 7:17
  Misty Celli: I want to remember all of me.
• 7:20
  Misty Celli: She isn't gone by the way.
• 7:22
  Misty Celli: She's been there the whole time.
• 7:24
  Misty Celli: She just got quieter as everything around her got louder.
• 7:29
  Misty Celli: The restlessness at the end of a full day is her tapping you on your shoulder.
• 7:34
  Misty Celli: Or the 2 a.m.
• 7:35
  Misty Celli: scrolling is her whispering to you, don't forget me.
• 7:39
  Misty Celli: I'm here.
• 7:40
  Misty Celli: For me, the rush season is the holidays.
• 7:42
  Misty Celli: I love them, the festivities, the laughter, the people around the table.
• 7:46
  Misty Celli: I love the anticipation as they get closer.
• 7:49
  Misty Celli: It's when memories get shared and traditions get enjoyed.
• 7:53
  Misty Celli: It's the time of year where I feel the past and the present all at once.
• 7:58
  Misty Celli: Every year, I have my short list of must-watch movies, and we hold stories about our snow escapades growing up.
• 8:05
  Misty Celli: You look around at everyone you've been blessed to know and those you still get to hug.
• 8:09
  Misty Celli: All of those reasons are exactly what makes the season so sneaky.
• 8:14
  Misty Celli: It's all good stuff, so I say yes to it all, and it's easy to get swallowed up in the doing.
• 8:20
  Misty Celli: What I want underneath it all is simple.
• 8:22
  Misty Celli: I want to actually feel the joy that I've been looking forward to and be included in my own holidays instead of just producing them.
• 8:30
  Misty Celli: But somewhere inside, I believed my job was to make it wonderful for everybody else, and that my part of the joy would come after the dishes were done, after everybody had what they needed, after I'd made every moment special for everyone else.
• 8:46
  Misty Celli: After never came.
• 8:47
  Misty Celli: I remember one year, like it was yesterday, the holidays came, my heart was full, and everything ran like clockwork.
• 8:55
  Misty Celli: The family was there, the gifts got handed out, the food was delicious, and everyone loved every minute of it.
• 9:01
  Misty Celli: I know because they talked about it for months, but for me, January came and I was empty.
• 9:07
  Misty Celli: I was worn out and hollow, and if I'm being really honest, I was very disappointed.
• 9:13
  Misty Celli: A few days into January, I was sitting on the couch one afternoon crying.
• 9:17
  Misty Celli: I'm trying to figure out what went wrong because nothing did.
• 9:20
  Misty Celli: It all went exactly the way it was supposed to go, right?
• 9:25
  Misty Celli: But then it hits me.
• 9:26
  Misty Celli: I wasn't part of it.
• 9:28
  Misty Celli: I was there for every bit of it, and I wasn't found in any of it.
• 9:32
  Misty Celli: And I'm not just talking about the pictures.
• 9:34
  Misty Celli: When movie night came and everybody asked what we should watch, I never said what I wanted.
• 9:40
  Misty Celli: When I planned the food, I left off my favorite dish just to save a little bit of time.
• 9:45
  Misty Celli: Nobody excluded me but me.
• 9:48
  Misty Celli: Everyone in that house would have told you I was loved, I was valued, and I was important.
• 9:54
  Misty Celli: But somewhere in all of that doing, I decided that I wasn't.
• 9:59
  Misty Celli: Sitting there with tears running down my face and an ache in my chest, I realized I let a season that should have warmed my heart turn into one I'd remember for the wrong reasons.
• 10:11
  Misty Celli: My worth was right there the whole time.
• 10:13
  Misty Celli: I just never counted myself in.
• 10:16
  Misty Celli: So I pull out my journal and I write it all down.
• 10:19
  Misty Celli: What I just realized, a vow to never let that happen again, and the steps that I'd take to treat myself as important as I treat everyone else.
• 10:28
  Misty Celli: I include myself because I'm worthy of being included, not of just doing for others.
• 10:34
  Misty Celli: I love them and I love me.
• 10:36
  Misty Celli: Then I pick up my phone and write what I'd say to a dear friend.
• 10:41
  Misty Celli: You are worthy and you are allowed to choose yourself today.
• 10:45
  Misty Celli: A few months later, I got another long list in my hand, and I'm crossing off the things that matter to me, the special ones with my name written all over them.
• 10:54
  Misty Celli: One of them is a food and wine pairing class at our favorite winery, the one that I've been planning for months.
• 11:01
  Misty Celli: I hear myself say, to save a little time and money this crazy month, I'll just take that off the list.
• 11:07
  Misty Celli: Later that afternoon, my alarm goes off, and there it is in my own words.
• 11:11
  Misty Celli: You are worth the time.
• 11:14
  Misty Celli: You are worth the moment.
• 11:16
  Misty Celli: You are allowed to choose you two.
• 11:19
  Misty Celli: I put me back on the list.
• 11:20
  Misty Celli: Later that month, my husband and I are sitting on the porch overlooking the vineyard talking about the pairings that surprised us and flipping through the upcoming events to plan our next trip back.
• 11:30
  Misty Celli: Yes, I could have crossed that weekend off, and yes, I could have saved the money, but it refueled me and it reconnected us.
• 11:38
  Misty Celli: The list is still long most days, but I'm in my days now.
• 11:43
  Misty Celli: My worth was never in the doing.
• 11:45
  Misty Celli: It was the nutrient-rich soil the doing grew from, and the woman I'd been missing had been inside me the whole time, waiting for me to slow down long enough to hear her and to include her.
• 11:56
  Misty Celli: Have you ever had a moment like that where you realized you've been waiting on permission that only you could give?
• 12:03
  Misty Celli: This is why I built the identity starter kit.
• 12:05
  Misty Celli: It's free and it walks you through the first step of remembering who you are underneath every role you carry.
• 12:12
  Misty Celli: It's at yourutmost.com forward slash starter.
• 12:16
  Misty Celli: Or the link is in the show notes.
• 12:17
  Misty Celli: So here it is, the practice I promised you.
• 12:20
  Misty Celli: I call it the worth first warning.
• 12:22
  Misty Celli: And it runs as a loop with each message you write, setting up the next one.
• 12:26
  Misty Celli: It starts with one line.
• 12:28
  Misty Celli: Before you check your messages or help anybody, write a single line you'd say to a dear friend, the way you would text your best friend if she called you crying on the way home from a hard day.
• 12:37
  Misty Celli: Use your own words as long as they're kind and true.
• 12:40
  Misty Celli: Then put it in your phone as a reminder, a task, a calendar alert, or the label on an alarm, whichever one you will actually see.
• 12:49
  Misty Celli: Schedule it to go off later.
• 12:51
  Misty Celli: You get the benefit of writing it now and a second dose when it finds you later on.
• 12:56
  Misty Celli: Here's how the loop runs.
• 12:57
  Misty Celli: Say it's four in the afternoon and you've got a minute, so you write your first line and you schedule it for tomorrow morning, about 10 minutes after your alarm wakes you up.
• 13:05
  Misty Celli: At 6.10 the next morning, your phone dings and there are your words from yesterday.
• 13:11
  Misty Celli: Read them out loud and let yourself hear your own voice say them.
• 13:15
  Misty Celli: Then choose two things for the day.
• 13:17
  Misty Celli: One small act of service that you will do anonymously, and one act that honors you, done visibly out in the open for you.
• 13:26
  Misty Celli: The anonymous act could be paying for the coffee behind you, leaving a note on a coworker's chair, or rolling your neighbor's trash can up the driveway.
• 13:35
  Misty Celli: The visible act could be sitting down and eating your lunch while it's hot, telling your family you're taking a walk and then going, or wearing the earrings that you've been saving.
• 13:44
  Misty Celli: Every time you make that pairing, you're teaching yourself something true.
• 13:49
  Misty Celli: You're worthy before you serve anyone, and you matter right alongside the serving.
• 13:55
  Misty Celli: Before you set the phone down that morning, write your next line and schedule it for sometime between 11 and 2, right in the busyness of the day when you're most likely to forget yourself.
• 14:04
  Misty Celli: When it dings, read it.
• 14:06
  Misty Celli: Take a breath and write tomorrow morning's line.
• 14:09
  Misty Celli: Mornings hand off to the midday, and midday hands off to the next morning.
• 14:14
  Misty Celli: So the habit strengthens every time the loop comes around.
• 14:18
  Misty Celli: It takes seconds and the impact compounds.
• 14:21
  Misty Celli: One small line doesn't look like much, but weeks of them add up to a different relationship with yourself.
• 14:27
  Misty Celli: Your challenge is to write your first worth line today, before this day is over, and schedule it for tomorrow morning about 10 minutes after your alarm.
• 14:35
  Misty Celli: Make sure it's set to come through, even if do not disturb or your focus setting is still on.
• 14:40
  Misty Celli: Because the whole point is that it reaches you.
• 14:43
  Misty Celli: If you're somewhere where you can, pause right now and write it.
• 14:46
  Misty Celli: I'll be right here.
• 14:47
  Misty Celli: This takes less time than reading one group text.
• 14:50
  Misty Celli: When time feels like the obstacle, what's usually underneath it is a quiet belief that we aren't worth the time.
• 14:57
  Misty Celli: You're worth 30 seconds.
• 14:58
  Misty Celli: You're worth a whole lot more than that, but we'll start with 30.
• 15:01
  Misty Celli: The first time you read your own words out loud, it might feel a little awkward, and that's all right.
• 15:06
  Misty Celli: If your best friend sent you that line, would you screenshot it and keep it?
• 15:10
  Misty Celli: The awkwardness is just what receiving your own kindness feels like when you're out of practice.
• 15:15
  Misty Celli: If affirmations or journaling haven't stuck for you before, that doesn't make you bad at following through.
• 15:20
  Misty Celli: Most of those attempts started at behavior, trying to talk yourself into acting differently.
• 15:25
  Misty Celli: This starts underneath behavior at worth.
• 15:28
  Misty Celli: You aren't convincing yourself of anything new.
• 15:30
  Misty Celli: You're reminding yourself of something that has always been true.
• 15:34
  Misty Celli: And because each message sets up the next, you don't have to rely on remembering since the loop carries you.
• 15:39
  Misty Celli: A calm season doesn't show up on its own.
• 15:42
  Misty Celli: It gets built one small choice at a time.
• 15:45
  Misty Celli: Your calendar is going to fill up whether you start this or not.
• 15:48
  Misty Celli: So the real question is whether you'll be in it.
• 15:50
  Misty Celli: Picture it, the first day of school, the party you're hosting, the family dinner everybody's driving in for.
• 15:56
  Misty Celli: You know how that day usually goes.
• 15:58
  Misty Celli: The alarm goes off and your phone is already full of questions about who's bringing what, a reminder about everybody else's appointments, and a list you didn't finish.
• 16:07
  Misty Celli: You're behind before your feet hit the floor.
• 16:10
  Misty Celli: You feel like a hot mess drinking your coffee cold at the counter.
• 16:13
  Misty Celli: You skip your lunch and you don't think about yourself once until you lie down the night.
• 16:17
  Misty Celli: You're wondering where the day went and where you went with it.
• 16:20
  Misty Celli: Now, picture the same day with the same calendar.
• 16:23
  Misty Celli: At 610, your phone dings and it's your own words from yesterday.
• 16:27
  Misty Celli: You sit on the edge of the bed and you read them out loud.
• 16:30
  Misty Celli: Your own voice sounds steady and warm, and you take one full breath, feeling it enter your body and charge you for the day.
• 16:38
  Misty Celli: You pick your two acts, something you'll do where nobody sees, and something for you that everybody will.
• 16:44
  Misty Celli: Maybe you tell your husband that you'll take 20 minutes to walk before the day starts, and then you go.
• 16:49
  Misty Celli: The cool air on your face and nobody needing anything from you.
• 16:53
  Misty Celli: The day is every bit as full as it was going to be, but around lunchtime you're sitting in the car between errands when your phone dings again.
• 17:00
  Misty Celli: You read the line, smile a little, and write down tomorrow's before you pull out.
• 17:05
  Misty Celli: That evening you sit down, you eat while the food is hot, laugh at the story, and actually hear the end of it.
• 17:10
  Misty Celli: Your daughter watches you say, I'm gonna sit for a minute without apologizing, and something in her face changes.
• 17:16
  Misty Celli: Somebody who loves you says, You seem a little bit more like yourself lately.
• 17:20
  Misty Celli: You're the same woman with the same full life and the same people you do anything for, but you're living inside your own rhythm now, moving at a tempo that is yours instead of running at everybody else's.
• 17:32
  Misty Celli: That's your utmost self.
• 17:33
  Misty Celli: She was there all along and now she's bloomed.
• 17:37
  Misty Celli: You are allowed to want that.
• 17:39
  Misty Celli: The whole thing, not the nutrient depleted version where you get five minutes after everybody else is taken care of if you're not too tired.
• 17:46
  Misty Celli: You don't have to earn it first.
• 17:48
  Misty Celli: The more often you remember your worth, the more of yourself you bring into every moment.
• 17:53
  Misty Celli: Can you feel the difference between those two days?
• 17:56
  Misty Celli: When you got here, maybe you were feeling invisible in a full life, and now you know why.
• 18:04
  Misty Celli: Remember, she isn't gone, she's been quiet.
• 18:06
  Misty Celli: When you remember your worth, you remember you.
• 18:08
  Misty Celli: So here's what we do next.
• 18:10
  Misty Celli: Head to yourutmost.com forward slash starter and grab the identity starter kit.
• 18:15
  Misty Celli: Your worth is the soil, and the starter kit is where you start seeing what's been growing in it all along.
• 18:20
  Misty Celli: And how to ensure what you're producing is the fruit you actually desire.
• 18:24
  Misty Celli: It's free, and the link is in the show notes.
• 18:27
  Misty Celli: Now say this with me out loud if you can.
• 18:29
  Misty Celli: I am a woman whose utmost self is already inside her.
• 18:32
  Misty Celli: She has been whispering and now I hear her.
• 18:35
  Misty Celli: Real quick before you go, I want to warn you about something.
• 18:39
  Misty Celli: When you're writing that first line, a voice is going to show up and tell you this is silly.
• 18:44
  Misty Celli: It'll tell you that you don't have time for little notes to yourself.
• 18:47
  Misty Celli: Or it'll ask, who do you think you are?
• 18:49
  Misty Celli: This isn't true about you.
• 18:51
  Misty Celli: That voice is the identity eraser effect trying to keep you erased because it's familiar.
• 18:57
  Misty Celli: Answer it with the very words I wrote.
• 18:59
  Misty Celli: I am here.
• 19:00
  Misty Celli: I am worthy.
• 19:02
  Misty Celli: I am allowed to choose myself today.
• 19:04
  Misty Celli: Those words are true about me, but they're also true about you.
• 19:08
  Misty Celli: If this one landed or you heard yourself somewhere in it, take 30 seconds and leave a review.
• 19:13
  Misty Celli: Reviews are how other women find the show, and they help another woman sitting where you were earlier today hear that she is worthy.
• 19:20
  Misty Celli: And if you thought of a woman who hosts every gathering and never sits down, or your sister who's been driving back and forth taking care of your mama, send her this episode and maybe a worth text of your own while you're at it.
• 19:30
  Misty Celli: Next week, we're taking this from worth into how you lead your own days.
• 19:34
  Misty Celli: You'll learn how to lead as the woman beyond the rules by making one identity first decision before dinner.
• 19:41
  Misty Celli: Remember your worth, and you'll remember you.
• 19:44
  Misty Celli: You are more than everyone's everything.
• 19:47
  Misty Celli: You are someone.