Latest / Your Utmost Life / How to Change Who I Am (Even When I Feel Stuck in My Identity)
Transcript
- 0:00Misty Celli: Have you ever caught yourself thinking this is just who I am?
- 0:03Misty Celli: This is just what life looks like for people like me.
- 0:06Misty Celli: Maybe it slips out quietly almost like a sigh.
- 0:09Misty Celli: Maybe it shows up when you're tired or overwhelmed or staring at the same to-do list that somehow followed you from yesterday.
- 0:15Misty Celli: You love your family.
- 0:17Misty Celli: You're grateful for your family.
- 0:18Misty Celli: You're doing your best.
- 0:20Misty Celli: And yet there's this subtle ache, a longing that you don't talk about.
- 0:25Misty Celli: It's a sense that something inside you has dimmed, not disappeared, but this softened into a glow that used to burn brighter.
- 0:33Misty Celli: And every time you feel that longing, something else shows up right behind it.
- 0:37Misty Celli: Guilt, resistance, a voice that says, you should be grateful, you shouldn't want more.
- 0:43Misty Celli: This is just who you are.
- 0:45Misty Celli: Last week we talked about how self-love isn't selfish.
- 0:49Misty Celli: It's actually what allows you to show up fully for your family.
- 0:52Misty Celli: And I told you that we were going to go deeper.
- 0:54Misty Celli: Well, today we're going to talk about why that message might have triggered something in you, why it might have felt uncomfortable or even impossible.
- 1:02Misty Celli: Because the truth is, you're not resisting self-love.
- 1:06Misty Celli: You're resisting the idea that you are allowed to change.
- 1:10Misty Celli: And that resistance didn't start in adulthood.
- 1:13Misty Celli: It didn't start when you became a mother or when life got busy or when responsibilities piled up.
- 1:19Misty Celli: It started much earlier.
- 1:21Misty Celli: If you were tired of feeling like you don't know who you are anymore, and when you look in the mirror, you catch yourself thinking, is this all there is?
- 1:28Misty Celli: Even though you know you were made for more, you're in the right place.
- 1:31Misty Celli: I'm Misty Chelli, and I help women step into their highest potential and design a life that feels true, rich, and deeply satisfying.
- 1:38Misty Celli: A life built by design, not by default.
- 1:41Misty Celli: On this podcast, you will learn the principles and strategic tools that create real, lasting transformation in your health, your relationships, your confidence, your goals, and the deeper parts of you like purpose, growth, love, and parenting.
- 1:53Misty Celli: This is where you begin the process of becoming your utmost self and reclaiming a life that feels like yours again.
- 1:59Misty Celli: Welcome to your utmost life podcast.
- 2:01Misty Celli: Today we are talking about one of the most common and most damaging beliefs women carry.
- 2:07Misty Celli: This belief that this is just who I am, I can't change.
- 2:11Misty Celli: It sounds harmless, it sounds humble, and it even sounds responsible, but it's not true.
- 2:16Misty Celli: It is a belief, a belief that quietly shapes your identity, your choices, your relationships, and your future.
- 2:23Misty Celli: By the end of this episode, I want you to walk away with a new belief, one that says, this is who I learned to be.
- 2:30Misty Celli: I can rewrite the script.
- 2:32Misty Celli: Let's talk about where this belief actually comes from.
- 2:35Misty Celli: I want you to imagine a movie set.
- 2:37Misty Celli: There's a director's chair sitting right in the middle of it.
- 2:41Misty Celli: And for most women, without even realizing it, the person sitting in that chair, the one that's calling the shots, making the decisions, and shaping the story, it's not your 40-year-old self, it's your seven-year-old self.
- 2:53Misty Celli: Now, I know that might sound dramatic, but stay with me because this is one of the most important things I'm going to tell you.
- 3:01Misty Celli: By around age seven, your brain has already formed its core beliefs about who you are, what things mean, how the world works, where you fit in, what love requires, and what safety feels like, what you're allowed to need and what you're allowed to express.
- 3:16Misty Celli: You decided as a child how to interpret tone, conflict, disappointment, rejection, success, and love.
- 3:23Misty Celli: And here's what most of us don't realize.
- 3:25Misty Celli: Those early experiences didn't just create memories.
- 3:29Misty Celli: They created a logic system that's still running your life today.
- 3:33Misty Celli: Now here's the thing: your brain isn't trying to hurt you.
- 3:37Misty Celli: It's actually trying to protect you.
- 3:39Misty Celli: Your mind is wired to scan for danger.
- 3:42Misty Celli: And change, even good change, registers as a threat.
- 3:45Misty Celli: So it keeps you in the familiar.
- 3:47Misty Celli: Not because it's right, but because it's known.
- 3:50Misty Celli: Because known feelings safe, even when it's painful.
- 3:53Misty Celli: Your memory says, this is how it always has been.
- 3:56Misty Celli: Your logic says, so this is how it will always be.
- 4:00Misty Celli: And together they whisper on repeat, this is just who I am.
- 4:04Misty Celli: But here's the truth that nobody told you.
- 4:06Misty Celli: You are not meant to live the rest of your life inside the limits of who you were at seven.
- 4:11Misty Celli: You are allowed to outgrow the beliefs that once protected you.
- 4:15Misty Celli: You're allowed to expand beyond the identity you built in childhood.
- 4:19Misty Celli: You are allowed to become someone your younger self never imagined.
- 4:24Misty Celli: Let's talk about what happens when you keep living from that childhood logic.
- 4:29Misty Celli: When you believe this is just who I am, you're not just accepting yourself.
- 4:34Misty Celli: You're actually limiting yourself.
- 4:36Misty Celli: And that limitation creates consequences.
- 4:38Misty Celli: It shows up as challenge and pain and dissatisfaction that compounds day after day, year after year, until you have built this mountain of evidence that proves to yourself that nothing can change.
- 4:52Misty Celli: See, I was right.
- 4:53Misty Celli: This is just who I am.
- 4:54Misty Celli: And here's the part that we don't like to admit.
- 4:57Misty Celli: It doesn't just affect you.
- 4:58Misty Celli: You might think this is my internal struggle.
- 5:01Misty Celli: This is just me dealing with my own stuff.
- 5:03Misty Celli: But just like you can tell when something is off with your kids or your spouse, when they're distracted or distant or just not fully present, they can feel it with you too.
- 5:13Misty Celli: They feel the disconnection, the shortness in your responses, the moodiness, the distance.
- 5:18Misty Celli: Not because you don't love them, but because you're living a half-life when there is so much more of you available.
- 5:24Misty Celli: You can't fully show up for them when you're not fully showing up for yourself.
- 5:28Misty Celli: You can't give them the best version of you when you've convinced yourself that this diminished version is all you are.
- 5:35Misty Celli: And here's the deeper truth: the one that lands harder for moms.
- 5:39Misty Celli: Your children are learning from you the same way you learned at seven.
- 5:43Misty Celli: They're watching how you treat yourself.
- 5:45Misty Celli: They're watching what you believe you're allowed to have.
- 5:47Misty Celli: They're watching whether you shrink or you rise.
- 5:50Misty Celli: This belief doesn't just shape your life, it shapes theirs.
- 5:54Misty Celli: So let me ask you something.
- 5:56Misty Celli: Do you know anyone who has transformed their life?
- 5:59Misty Celli: Someone who surprised you because they're no longer that train wreck they used to be.
- 6:03Misty Celli: They've grown, they've matured, they've become wiser, more grounded, more responsible.
- 6:08Misty Celli: They're no longer who they once were.
- 6:10Misty Celli: And do you also know someone who hasn't changed at all?
- 6:13Misty Celli: Someone who probably frustrates the fool out of you because they refuse to grow up, to mature, to think beyond themselves.
- 6:19Misty Celli: Well, here's the question.
- 6:21Misty Celli: Here's the challenge for you.
- 6:22Misty Celli: If transformation is possible for them, why do you believe it's impossible for you?
- 6:28Misty Celli: If someone else can grow, evolve, and become a different version of themselves, then the belief that this is just who I am, I can't change, cannot be a universal truth.
- 6:37Misty Celli: It's not a fact.
- 6:38Misty Celli: It is a sentence.
- 6:40Misty Celli: It is a story, a script written by a child who didn't know any better.
- 6:44Misty Celli: This is where the belief shifts from that's who I am, I can't change, to that's who I learned to be, I can rewrite the script.
- 6:52Misty Celli: You're not fighting your identity.
- 6:55Misty Celli: You're updating it.
- 6:56Misty Celli: You're stepping back into the director's chair of your own life.
- 6:59Misty Celli: Let me share with you how this played out in my own life because I didn't wake up one day and just decide to become a different person.
- 7:06Misty Celli: I didn't have some dramatic breakdown or breakthrough moment where everything suddenly made sense.
- 7:11Misty Celli: I had something much quieter than that.
- 7:13Misty Celli: I had exhaustion.
- 7:14Misty Celli: I was tired of feeling like I was living someone else's life, tired of checking all the boxes but feeling empty, tired of looking in the mirror and not recognizing the woman staring back at me.
- 7:25Misty Celli: I was tired of saying, I'm fine when I wasn't fine.
- 7:29Misty Celli: I was disappearing.
- 7:30Misty Celli: And the worst part, I thought that was just how life worked.
- 7:33Misty Celli: I thought that's what being a responsible adult, a good mother, a good wife looked like.
- 7:39Misty Celli: You sacrifice, you shrink, you make yourself small enough to fit into everyone else's needs.
- 7:43Misty Celli: That's just who I am now.
- 7:45Misty Celli: But then something shifted, and it wasn't a big moment.
- 7:48Misty Celli: It was a small question that would not leave me alone.
- 7:51Misty Celli: And I started noticing people around me who had changed, people who used to be a mess, who had been stuck in the same patterns, the same problems, the same limitations for years.
- 8:01Misty Celli: And then one day, they weren't anymore.
- 8:03Misty Celli: They had grown, they had evolved, they had become different versions of themselves.
- 8:07Misty Celli: And I kept thinking, if they can change, why can't I?
- 8:10Misty Celli: And every time I asked myself that question, I waited for the answer.
- 8:14Misty Celli: I waited for the reason, the excuse, the explanation for why I was different.
- 8:19Misty Celli: But the honest answer was, I'm not uniquely broken.
- 8:23Misty Celli: I'm not the exception to the transformation.
- 8:25Misty Celli: I'm not the one person for whom growth doesn't work.
- 8:29Misty Celli: The only thing keeping me stuck was the belief that I was stuck.
- 8:32Misty Celli: So I chose.
- 8:34Misty Celli: Not confidently, not with some grand plan or clear roadmap, not with the guarantee that it would work.
- 8:40Misty Celli: I just chose.
- 8:41Misty Celli: I just chose to stop letting a seven-year-old run my life.
- 8:44Misty Celli: I chose to stop believing that who I had been was all I ever could be.
- 8:48Misty Celli: I chose to start asking myself, what would the truest version of me do?
- 8:53Misty Celli: Instead of what's the safest thing to do.
- 8:55Misty Celli: And once I chose, everything began to change.
- 8:58Misty Celli: Not all at once, not magically.
- 9:00Misty Celli: There was no lightning bolt moment, but step by step, choice by choice, day by day.
- 9:05Misty Celli: I started reconnecting with the parts of myself that I had buried.
- 9:08Misty Celli: I started speaking up in conversations where I used to stay silent.
- 9:12Misty Celli: I started setting boundaries where I used to just accommodate everybody.
- 9:15Misty Celli: I started pursuing things that lit me up instead of just things that needed to get done.
- 9:20Misty Celli: And guess what happened?
- 9:21Misty Celli: My light grew brighter.
- 9:22Misty Celli: My relationships deepened.
- 9:24Misty Celli: Not because I became perfect, but because I became present.
- 9:28Misty Celli: Joy returned, passion returned, my voice returned.
- 9:32Misty Celli: I became a whole person again.
- 9:34Misty Celli: And here's what shocked me.
- 9:35Misty Celli: My family, they flourished because of it.
- 9:38Misty Celli: Not because I abandoned them to go find myself, but because I stopped abandoning myself to take care of them.
- 9:45Misty Celli: They didn't need a martyr.
- 9:46Misty Celli: They needed a mother who fully was alive, and that's what I became.
- 9:50Misty Celli: Not because I became someone different, but because I became someone truer.
- 9:55Misty Celli: The woman I am now, she would be unrecognizable to the woman I was years ago.
- 10:00Misty Celli: And the woman I was five years ago would be shocked, maybe even threatened by the choices that I have made today.
- 10:07Misty Celli: But that's the point.
- 10:09Misty Celli: You're not supposed to stay who you were.
- 10:11Misty Celli: You're supposed to grow.
- 10:12Misty Celli: You're supposed to evolve.
- 10:14Misty Celli: You're supposed to look back at your younger self with compassion and think, I am so glad I am not her anymore.
- 10:21Misty Celli: So what does this look like for you, for you today, right now?
- 10:25Misty Celli: Let me make it really simple.
- 10:27Misty Celli: There are three steps, and the first two happen in your mind.
- 10:30Misty Celli: The third one is where the real work begins.
- 10:33Misty Celli: Step one is simply name the belief.
- 10:35Misty Celli: Say it out loud if you need to.
- 10:37Misty Celli: The belief that this is just who I am.
- 10:41Misty Celli: And step two, tell yourself the truth.
- 10:43Misty Celli: Say no, this is who I learned to be, and I can learn something different.
- 10:49Misty Celli: And then step three, make one small, defiant choice.
- 10:54Misty Celli: One choice your old identity wouldn't make.
- 10:58Misty Celli: Maybe it's saying, I need 20 minutes without the apology that usually follows, without the explanation, without making yourself small enough to fit into everyone else's needs first.
- 11:09Misty Celli: Maybe it's finally signing up for that class you've been thinking about for two years, the one that keep bookmarked and then talking yourself out of because it's just not the right time or it's too expensive, or who am I to think about doing that?
- 11:22Misty Celli: Maybe it's simply naming out loud to yourself, to your partner, to a friend.
- 11:28Misty Celli: I am allowed to want more.
- 11:30Misty Celli: And wanting more doesn't make me ungrateful.
- 11:33Misty Celli: That's it.
- 11:34Misty Celli: That's the beginning.
- 11:35Misty Celli: Because here's what happens.
- 11:37Misty Celli: Choosing is what teaches your brain a new logic.
- 11:40Misty Celli: Choosing is what creates new memories.
- 11:43Misty Celli: Choosing is how you rewrite who you are becoming, not who you were, who you are becoming.
- 11:50Misty Celli: Now I know what might be happening in your head right now.
- 11:52Misty Celli: You might be thinking, okay, Misty, this sounds good in theory, but you don't understand.
- 11:57Misty Celli: I have tried to change before.
- 11:59Misty Celli: I've tried to prioritize myself before.
- 12:01Misty Celli: And every time I do, the guilt shows up.
- 12:03Misty Celli: The logic falls apart.
- 12:05Misty Celli: Somebody needs something, and I fall right back into the same pattern.
- 12:08Misty Celli: And you know what?
- 12:09Misty Celli: You're right.
- 12:10Misty Celli: That probably will happen.
- 12:11Misty Celli: Because change isn't a straight line.
- 12:14Misty Celli: It's messy, it's inconsistent.
- 12:16Misty Celli: You're going to take two steps forward and one step back.
- 12:20Misty Celli: You're going to make a choice for yourself and then feel guilty about it.
- 12:23Misty Celli: You're going to set a boundary and then immediately want to take it back.
- 12:26Misty Celli: But here's what I need you to understand that guilt, that resistance, the voice that says, who do you think you are?
- 12:33Misty Celli: That's not proof that you're doing something wrong.
- 12:36Misty Celli: That's proof that you're doing something different.
- 12:39Misty Celli: That discomfort isn't a stop sign.
- 12:41Misty Celli: It's a sign that you're actually changing the script.
- 12:44Misty Celli: You're updating the program.
- 12:46Misty Celli: You're teaching your brain new logic.
- 12:48Misty Celli: And yes, it's going to feel uncomfortable at first because your nervous system is wired to keep you safe, not to keep you growing.
- 12:56Misty Celli: And growth always feels risky to your brain that's been running the same pattern for 30, 40 years.
- 13:02Misty Celli: But let me paint you a picture of what's on the other side of that discomfort.
- 13:06Misty Celli: When you start making choices from your truest self instead of your smallest self, you end up waking up and you recognize yourself.
- 13:14Misty Celli: Not the role you played, not the identity that you perform, but the actual you.
- 13:20Misty Celli: You stop feeling like a stranger in your own life.
- 13:23Misty Celli: You stop moving through your days on autopilot, checking boxes but feeling nothing.
- 13:28Misty Celli: You start feeling connected to yourself, to your choices, to the life that you're building.
- 13:34Misty Celli: You stop apologizing for taking up space.
- 13:37Misty Celli: You stop shrinking to make other people comfortable.
- 13:40Misty Celli: You stop performing fine when you're not fine.
- 13:43Misty Celli: You become the woman who knows what she needs and isn't afraid to name it.
- 13:48Misty Celli: The woman who can hold her own desires without feeling selfish.
- 13:51Misty Celli: The woman who says, I matter too, without guilt drowning out her voice.
- 13:56Misty Celli: That's who you become.
- 13:57Misty Celli: And here's what that looks like in your actual life.
- 14:00Misty Celli: Your relationships get better.
- 14:02Misty Celli: Not because you became perfect, but because you became present.
- 14:05Misty Celli: Your kids stop getting the exhausted, irritable version of you and start getting the version who has energy left to actually enjoy them.
- 14:13Misty Celli: Your marriage stops feeling like a business partnership where both just are managing logistics.
- 14:19Misty Celli: Because when you show up whole, there's actually something to connect to.
- 14:23Misty Celli: Your work gets better, your creativity returns, your confidence grows.
- 14:28Misty Celli: Not because you suddenly became more capable.
- 14:31Misty Celli: You were always capable, but because you were no longer operating from a place of depletion.
- 14:37Misty Celli: You stop living your life in your head, worried about everyone else's opinions, afraid of getting it wrong.
- 14:43Misty Celli: You start living your life in your body, in the present moment, making choices that feel true instead of safe.
- 14:50Misty Celli: And here's the part that matters most.
- 14:52Misty Celli: Your kids watch you do this.
- 14:54Misty Celli: They watch you choose yourself without abandoning them.
- 14:57Misty Celli: They watch you grow without apology.
- 14:59Misty Celli: They watch you become, and that becomes their blueprint for what's possible.
- 15:04Misty Celli: So here's the real question.
- 15:06Misty Celli: And I want you to sit with this.
- 15:08Misty Celli: Are you willing to keep living a half-life because it feels safer than risking a whole one?
- 15:14Misty Celli: Are you willing to stay small because it's familiar, even though it's suffocating?
- 15:19Misty Celli: Are you willing to let that seven-year-old keep running your life because challenging her logic feels too hard, too uncomfortable, too risky?
- 15:27Misty Celli: Or are you ready to step back into the director's chair of your own life?
- 15:32Misty Celli: Because here's what I know.
- 15:34Misty Celli: You love your life and still long for more.
- 15:36Misty Celli: You can be grateful and still grow.
- 15:39Misty Celli: You can honor who you've been and still become who you're meant to be.
- 15:43Misty Celli: That longing isn't disloyalty.
- 15:46Misty Celli: That longing is your soul telling you there's more of you to become, and you get to choose.
- 15:52Misty Celli: You get to stay in the story that you've been telling yourself.
- 15:55Misty Celli: This is just who I am.
- 15:56Misty Celli: I can't change.
- 15:58Misty Celli: Or you can start writing a new one.
- 16:01Misty Celli: This is who I learned to be, and I can learn something truer.
- 16:06Misty Celli: The question isn't whether you're capable of transformation.
- 16:09Misty Celli: The question is, will you choose it?
- 16:12Misty Celli: If you felt that whisper, that tug, I want you to take one small choice today that is your, this is just who I am self would never make.
- 16:22Misty Celli: And if you're ready to start rewriting the script of who you are becoming, keep walking with me here on the podcast.
- 16:28Misty Celli: This is exactly what we're going to do together honoring your story, rewriting your logic, and reclaiming the version of you that feels fully alive.
- 16:37Misty Celli: And before you go, I want to leave you with this you are more than everyone's everything.
- 16:43Misty Celli: You are someone.
- 16:45Misty Celli: So take the journey back to you because you are worth it.
- 16:49Misty Celli: I will see you next time.