Have you ever hidden a self-help book? Closed a browser tab when someone walked by? Downplayed that you’re seeing a therapist or coach?

You’re not alone. That moment of shame isn’t just yours—it’s part of a deeply rooted belief many women carry: If I need help, it means I’m weak or broken. But what if that belief is the very thing keeping you stuck, disconnected, and exhausted?

In this powerful episode of the Your Utmost Life podcast, we explore the hidden cost of this belief—and the path to reclaiming your strength through authentic connection and support.

Inside, you’ll learn:

• Why capable women feel ashamed of seeking support
• How the belief that “I should handle it on my own” fuels isolation, performance, and burnout
• How cultural praise for self-sufficiency created the Identity Eraser Effect—and why it’s time to undo it
• The 3 mindset shifts that change everything:
  1. Awareness without judgment
  2. Reframing help as a strategic investment
  3. Practicing presence over performance
• What it looks like to go from Invisible Mama to Utmost Woman—without walking away from the life you’ve built

You’ll also hear a raw personal story about hiding a book on body dysmorphia and the wave of shame that followed—plus practical steps to build what I call your Growth Résumé and begin seeing support as a sacred strength.

Take one small, brave step today—journal about the belief, share this episode, or finally explore that resource you've felt drawn to but hesitant to pursue.

This is your invitation to step out of isolation, into growth, and begin designing a life with truth, intention, and connection at its center.

📲 Share this episode with a friend who needs to know she’s not broken—just buried. Let her know she’s not alone.

🔗 Follow along on Instagram for daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are.

✨ Continue your journey at Your Utmost Self - free resources, articles, and more.

Shame has a way of silencing us—especially when speaking up would serve us most. Have you ever tucked away a self-help book when someone walked in? Or made a casual excuse for that personal growth video that “just started playing”? That tiny flicker of concealment reveals something deeper: a quiet belief that needing help means you’re somehow broken.

This belief is part of a cultural myth that strong women should figure it all out alone—and it creates the perfect trap. You can’t grow without acknowledging where you’re struggling, but acknowledging it feels like confirming your inadequacy.

The irony? The most successful, confident, fulfilled people in the world aren’t avoiding help—they’re intentionally seeking it. In fact, 94% of top performers work with coaches. The strongest women don't avoid help—they embrace it as their superpower.

For years, I lived behind a “perfect” image while silently struggling, believing that if I were truly strong, I wouldn’t need support. But the breakthrough came when I realized this: asking for help isn't weakness—it’s wisdom.

In this episode (and this post), we’ll walk through five transformative practices that will help you shift your relationship with support:

1. Conscious Awareness
2. Building an Evidence Portfolio
3. Reframing Help as Strategic Growth
4. Graduated Exposure
5. Embracing Discomfort as Growth

You’ll discover that the discomfort you feel when reaching out isn’t a sign to pull back—it’s proof that you’re standing at the edge of real, powerful growth.

So this week, when shame about needing support tries to creep in, pause and remind yourself: This isn’t weakness—this is wisdom.
Being an Utmost Woman isn’t about having it all together. It’s about doing what matters, from a place rooted in who you truly are.

What if you’re not broken at all? What if… you’ve just been buried?

✨ Take one small step toward support this week—listen to a podcast, journal, or open up to someone you trust. Growth doesn’t have to be big to be brave.

📲 Share this episode with a friend who needs to know she’s not broken—just buried. Let her know she’s not alone.

🔗 Follow along on Instagram for daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are.

✨ Continue your journey at Your Utmost Self - free resources, articles, and more.

You've done it all—affirmations, vision boards, gratitude journals. You’ve picked your word of the year, whispered “I am enough” into your mirror, and tried to stay positive… but something still feels off.

That quiet ache—the emptiness that lingers despite your best efforts—has a root cause most personal growth advice skips over. And it's not because you're broken or undisciplined.

It’s because you’re building on a foundation that was never solid to begin with.

In this episode of The Your Utmost Life Podcast, we explore the neuroscience, psychology, and soul behind why motivation fades—and what you truly need instead. You'll learn:

• Why 80% of people abandon their growth goals in just 6 weeks (hint: it's not lack of willpower)
• How subconscious beliefs formed in childhood silently override your conscious efforts
• Why you can’t positive-think your way out of a story you’ve never questioned
• What’s actually keeping you stuck in the False-Healing Trap—and how to get free

We’ll walk through a new path to real transformation, one that doesn't demand you do more, but invites you to go deeper. You’ll discover three powerful Self-Worth Anchors to help you rebuild from within:

1. Get honest about what you really believe—beneath the mantras and mirror quotes
2. Trade surface positivity for sacred honesty—because pretending isn’t healing
3. Begin from identity, not effort—you don’t build worth, you uncover it

This journey isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about remembering who you’ve always been before the world told you who to be. You are not broken—you are buried. And it’s time to rise.

Featured Quote:

Your Utmost Life Alignment Check-In
Not just another motivational worksheet—a mirror to your truth.
→ Download now

Ready for a Different Kind of Growth?

Let this episode be your invitation to stop fixing and start uncovering. Because when healing starts at the root—when you rebuild from your worth—everything else follows naturally.

👉 Download your free Alignment Check-In and take the first gentle step toward a life built on truth, not performance.

📲 Share this episode with a friend who needs to know she’s not broken—just buried. Let her know she’s not alone.

🔗 Follow along on Instagram for daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are.

✨ Continue your journey at Your Utmost Self - free resources, articles, and more.

Have you ever plastered motivational quotes on your mirror, dutifully recited affirmations, or created vision boards—only to still feel invisible and overwhelmed? That nagging sense of falling short isn’t because you’re broken or haven’t found the right mantra. It’s because we’ve been building our personal growth on the wrong foundation.

In this episode, we’re pulling back the curtain on what I call “the False Healing Trap”—our cultural obsession with surface-level positivity that promises transformation but delivers frustration. Because when there’s a gap between what you’re saying and what you truly believe about yourself, your brain creates resistance—not from stubbornness, but from protection.

I share the personal breaking point that changed everything for me—sitting on my closet floor, surrounded by self-help books, finally writing the painful truth instead of one more forced affirmation. That moment of raw honesty became the doorway to real healing—the kind that rebuilds you from the inside out.

💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why your affirmations and mantras aren’t working—and what’s actually keeping you stuck
• How self-worth—not mindset—is the true foundation of lasting growth
• The difference between motivation and meaning—and why one fades while the other transforms
• How false positivity creates chronic exhaustion and performance-based living
• What your resistance really means (hint: it’s not weakness—it’s wisdom)
• How to reconnect with your true self instead of trying to “fix” yourself
• The 3 Self-Worth Truths that will finally shift your growth from frustration to freedom

💬 Favorite Quotes from the Episode:

🧭 Resources + Next Steps:

✅ Download your free guide:
Your Utmost Alignment Check-In — a powerful tool to help you uncover the hidden beliefs shaping your life and begin rebuilding your foundation on truth and self-worth.
👉 Download now

💛 Share this episode with a mom friend who’s feeling like she’s tried it all—but still feels stuck. This might be the truth she’s been waiting for.

🎧 You Might Also Like:

• Ep 10: How to Reclaim Who You Are When You’ve Forgotten Who That Is
• Ep 9: The Strength Lie—How “Just Push Through” Is Breaking Midlife Moms
• Ep 5: Why You’re Not Broken—You’re Buried (And What to Do Next)

💭 Final Word:

Self-worth isn’t something you earn—it’s something you uncover.
When you start from that truth, transformation isn’t a struggle—it’s a homecoming.

This is your invitation to stop surviving and start becoming your Utmost Self.

Until next time, friend—
Remember: You are not broken. You’re buried. And it’s time to start digging yourself out.

📲 Share this episode with a friend who needs to know she’s not broken—just buried. Let her know she’s not alone.

🔗 Follow along on Instagram for daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are.

✨ Continue your journey at Your Utmost Self - free resources, articles, and more.

Have you ever felt like you're living someone else's story? That strange limbo where you've given so much of yourself away that you barely recognize what's left? You're not alone.

Somewhere along the way, many of us adopted the belief that clarity must come before action—that we need to have everything figured out before taking even the first step toward change. This seemingly logical approach is actually what keeps us trapped in confusion, endlessly searching for answers yet never moving forward.

The truth is revolutionary yet simple: clarity doesn't precede movement; movement creates clarity. Just like driving at night, your headlights only illuminate the next hundred feet, but that's enough to keep going. Each step reveals the next, and transformation happens not in the planning but in the doing.

Through the Your Utmost Life Method's three phases—Discovery, Design, and Do—we learn that becoming unstuck doesn't require a five-year plan or perfect understanding. It begins with awareness, not answers. It continues with gentle shifts in direction guided by our core values. And it flourishes when we finally give ourselves permission to take small, aligned actions without requiring complete certainty first.

Research shows that 70% of women spend an average of 2.5 years feeling stuck before making transformative changes. That's nearly a thousand days of waiting for permission to begin. What might happen if you stopped requiring yourself to have it all figured out and instead took one brave step today?

Download the free Your Utmost Alignment Check-In at https://yourutmostself.com/alignment-checkin/ and discover what small shift might create the momentum—and clarity—you've been waiting for. Your path forward isn't waiting for you to understand it fully. It's waiting for you to begin walking.

📲 Share this episode with a friend who needs to know she’s not broken—just buried. Let her know she’s not alone.

🔗 Follow along on Instagram for daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are.

✨ Continue your journey at Your Utmost Self - free resources, articles, and more.

Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered, "Who am I beyond being a mom?" That question might seem small, but it's profoundly important. According to research, 71% of mothers report being most strongly defined by their roles as mothers—a number that jumps to 87% for those not in the workforce. When that all-consuming role shifts, many women find themselves in what I call the "invisible mama syndrome," experiencing a gradual erosion of personal identity that happens so subtly they don't realize it until they feel like strangers in their own lives.

This episode is deeply personal because it's about that moment when you discover you've become a supporting character in your own journey—and how to step back into the lead role without guilt, drama, or waiting for permission. I share my own story of setting a table for dinner and realizing I had only laid out three plates, not because I had forgotten someone, but because I didn't count myself. That moment broke me in a soft, quiet way as I recognized how I had confused efficiency with purpose and mistaken being needed for being fulfilled.

The beautiful truth is that reclaiming yourself doesn't require demolition of your current life. You don't need to blow up your marriage, quit your job, or move away. What you need is reconnection, not reconstruction. Through the Your Utmost Life Method—Discover, Design, and Do—you can begin transforming this transition into transformation. We explore three simple practices you can start today: the morning mirror exercise, identity inventory, and one decision rule. These aren't assignments to complete but invitations to return to yourself.

Whether you're approaching an empty nest or simply feeling lost in the demands of motherhood, remember: you don't need anyone's permission to evolve, but you do need to give yourself permission to begin. Download the free Your Utmost Alignment Check-In and join a community of women walking the same path of reclamation and redesign. You weren't meant to disappear as your next chapter begins—you were meant to emerge.

📲 Share this episode with a friend who needs to know she’s not broken—just buried. Let her know she’s not alone.

🔗 Follow along on Instagram for daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are.

✨ Continue your journey at Your Utmost Self - free resources, articles, and more.

Are you tired of being tired—but still feel like slowing down means letting people down?

In today’s episode, we’re unpacking the quiet belief so many women carry: “If I can just push through, everything will be okay.” But what if that belief is the very thing keeping you from the energy, joy, and connection you crave?

Misty shares the vulnerable story of her own burnout—and the moment her daughter said something that changed everything. Together, we’ll uncover why the “Push Through” mentality isn’t strength—it’s survival. And more importantly, you’ll walk away with a powerful new framework for Sustainable Vitality that’s rooted in your worth, not your willpower.

This episode is a must-listen if you’ve ever:

• Said “I’m fine” when you’re anything but
• Felt guilty for resting
• Skipped your own doctor’s appointments but made everyone else’s
• Secretly feared what would happen if you stopped being the one who “holds it all together”

IN THIS EPISODE

💥 The 3 biggest lies midlife women are taught about strength
🧠 Why “pushing through” is glorified—and why it’s slowly breaking us down
❤️ The truth about modeling burnout for the next generation
🔄 How to flip the belief that rest is selfish
🛠 The Sustainable Vitality Framework:

1. Energy Audit – Identify what drains or restores you
2. Permission Protocol – Set guilt-free boundaries and micro-rest practices
3. Sustainability Design – Create systems that support worth-based living

WORDS TO REMEMBER

Your exhaustion isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom.
You don’t earn your worth through depletion.
You embody it by choosing restoration.

FREE RESOURCE MENTIONED:

🎁 Your Utmost Life Alignment Check-In
Feeling out of sync with yourself? This 5-minute check-in will help you spot where you’re misaligned—and where to begin again.

👉 Grab it at yourutmostself.com/alignment-checkin

You know you’re ready for more. More meaning. More connection. More you.

The Your Utmost Life Alignment Check-In gives you a clear, hopeful glimpse into where you are right now — and where your next steps are waiting.

In just a few minutes, you’ll:
✅ Find hidden places you’ve drifted from yourself
✅ See strengths you’ve forgotten you have
✅ Spark new hope that you don’t have to start over—you can realign

Ready to rediscover yourself? Grab your free Check-In now.

CONNECT & SHARE

If this episode resonated with you, would you leave a review or share it with a friend who could use it? Your words help other women find this podcast and start their own journey toward living from worth—not burnout.

📲 Share this episode with a friend who needs to know she’s not broken—just buried. Let her know she’s not alone.

🔗 Follow along on Instagram for daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are.

✨ Continue your journey at Your Utmost Self - free resources, articles, and more.

🎙️ Episode 8: Breaking Free From the "Now What?" Story

Have you ever looked around your quiet house and asked, “Now what?”
You’ve spent years being the glue, the organizer, the nurturer. And now that your kids are becoming more independent—or have already left—you’re left standing in unfamiliar stillness, questioning who you are without the day-to-day rhythm of motherhood.

In this heartfelt and powerful episode, Misty takes you deep into the emotional journey so many midlife moms silently navigate—the shift from full-time motherhood to an uncharted chapter of rediscovery. She shares her own vulnerable story of identity loss and how she transformed the “Now What?” moment into the most liberating and purposeful season of her life.

✨ In this episode, you’ll discover:

• The truth behind the “Now What?” moment and why it's not a loss—but an invitation.
• Three misconceptions keeping moms stuck in confusion, guilt, and invisibility.
• How to shift from a silent identity crisis into your most powerful transformation yet.
• Misty’s 3-step Purpose Recalibration Framework to rediscover who you are beyond motherhood:
  • The Identity Inventory – Reconnect with your gifts, values, and longings.
  • Curiosity Cultivation – Explore new passions without pressure or guilt.
  • Impact Design – Start shaping a new chapter with meaning and confidence.
• How to model aliveness, growth, and self-worth for your children—even as they grow into independence.

💬 Episode Quote:

👣 Your Next Steps:

1. Journal Your Identity Inventory
Set aside quiet time this week to ask: What brings me joy? What dreams have I shelved? What skills have I developed through motherhood?

2. Try One New Thing This Week
Say yes to something just for you—without needing it to be “productive.” Remember, curiosity leads to clarity.

3. Begin Designing Your Next Chapter
Think about the impact you want to make now. What lights you up? What contribution only you can make?

Join the conversation on Instagram: @yourutmostself

📲 Share this episode with a friend who needs to know she’s not broken—just buried. Let her know she’s not alone.

🔗 Follow along on Instagram for daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a conversation that reminds you who you are.

✨ Continue your journey at Your Utmost Self - free resources, articles, and more.