"I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore": Why Your Confusion Isn't Failure

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If you've ever caught yourself staring in the mirror, wondering when you started looking so exhausted, or scrolling through old photos of the woman you used to be—the one with dreams and direction—this episode is for you.

You've been told that good mothers sacrifice everything. So you did. And now you feel lost, confused, and as though you've somehow failed because you no longer know who you are.

But what if your confusion isn't evidence of failure? What if it's evidence of readiness?

In this episode, I'm challenging one of the most damaging beliefs keeping women stuck: that feeling lost about your identity means something is wrong with you. I'll share why you're not actually lost—you're buried. And there's a massive difference.

You'll discover:

• Why the "lost" feeling is actually a feature, not a bug in your system
• The radical reframe that changes everything (you're not lost, you're buried)
• 4 specific shifts to move from buried to breakthrough
• What research says about women and identity in midlife (hint: you're not alone)
• How your confusion is actually directing you back to YOU

Plus, I'm sharing my own story of the night I cried myself to sleep grieving a woman I thought I'd lost—and what I discovered she'd been doing all along.

The woman you're looking for isn't gone. She's been patient, waiting for you to remember she was never supposed to fit into the small boxes others created for her.

Your confusion isn't a problem to solve. It's an invitation to discover.

THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF:

✓ You can't remember the last time someone asked "What do YOU want?" and you had an answer

✓ You've googled "Why do I feel empty when I should be grateful?"

✓ You love your family but feel like you've disappeared

✓ You watch other women who seem to have it together and wonder what's wrong with you

✓ You've believed that feeling confused means you've failed somehow

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Research on midlife transitions (10-20% clinical crisis vs. universal discontent)
• Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Women's Mental Health study
• The 4-step process for moving from buried to breakthrough

FINAL THOUGHT:

You are not lost. You are not broken. You are becoming fully you.

And the world needs the woman you're becoming more than it needs the woman you think you should be.

📲Empower a friend who needs to hear this, letting her know she’s not alone in her struggles - Share this episode today.

🔗 Get daily encouragement and behind-the-scenes heart-to-hearts: @yourutmostself

🎧 Never missed a conversation that powerfully reminds you of who you truly are - Subscribe to the podcast now.

✨ Continue your journey of self-discovery and empowerment with free resources, articles, and more - Visit Your Utmost Self to explore.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
If you're listening to this, I want you to know that
you are not alone.
I know that you deeply love yourfamily, but lately you've caught
yourself staring in the mirror,wondering, when did I start
looking so exhausted all thetime?
You can't remember the last timesomeone asked, What do you want?
and you had an answer thatwasn't about everyone else's
needs.

(00:21):
You're craving that moment ofbeing seen and valued for you.
Maybe in the quiet of the night,you've Googled things like, why
do I feel empty when I should begrateful?
Hoping that no one ever checksyour search history your search
history.
Or maybe you've thought, I don'teven know who I am anymore.
I love my family, but I feellike I've lost myself.

(00:42):
My dreams, they're nowhere to befound.
Somewhere along the way, youbegin to feel lost, unsure of
who you truly are anymore.
And maybe you've begun tobelieve this feeling means that
you failed or that the you thatyou once knew is gone forever.
Listen, I see you.
I get it.
You have spent years pouringyourself out for everyone, your

(01:06):
family, your spouse, your kids,because that's what good moms
do.
So of course it feels likeyou've faded.
You've been so busy being neededthat your own space to simply be
has disappeared.
You've been told that goodmothers must sacrifice
everything.
Meanwhile, you watch other womenwho seem to have it all together

(01:27):
while you feel like you'rewandering in the dark, searching
for your way.
If you are tired of askingyourself, is this all there is?
And when you look in the mirror,you feel like this isn't who I
was meant to be.
Welcome to your utmost livepodcast.
My name is Misty Chelle, and Iam a personal development and

(01:47):
transformation guide here tohelp you step into your highest
potential and design the lifethat you were meant to live.
One that feels true, rich, anddeeply satisfying.
On this podcast, we'll dive intothe principles and strategic
tools that will help you achievelasting success across all areas
of life, health, relationships,confidence, goal setting, and

(02:08):
even dive into bigger topicslike growth, purpose, love, and
parenting.
This is the space where youbegin your journey of becoming
your utmost self, living a lifeyou truly love by design, not by
default.
This is the Utmost Life Podcast.
Welcome to the journey ofbecoming who you were meant to
be.

(02:53):
No one is asking for anything.
And in that quiet moment, athought sneaks in and a
heaviness sits on your chest.
Who am I when no one needs me?
Maybe you have found yourselfscrolling through old photos on
your phone, staring at the womanyou used to be, the one with
dreams, plans, and a clearpurpose.
She was the woman who knew whatshe wanted and chased it

(03:16):
fearlessly, and you wonder,where did she go?
When did I stop being me andstart being everyone else's
person?
If you've ever caught yourselfthinking, I don't know who I am
anymore, you are far from alone.
The data shows that while only10 to 20% of people experience a
clinically defined midlifecrisis, nearly everyone faces a

(03:39):
prolonged period of discontentabout their life, generally
between the ages of 40 and 60,no matter who they are.
You love your kids, your family,your life, but somewhere along
the way, you have felt likeyou've vanished.
And maybe, deep down, you begunto believe that feeling lost
means you failed, or that thewoman you once were is gone

(04:01):
forever.
But here's what I want tochallenge today: the idea that
feeling confused about youridentity means there's something
wrong with you.
Because there is absolutelynothing wrong with you.
What if I told you that you'renot lost at all?
What if I told you that thisconfusion isn't a sign of

(04:22):
failure, but proof that you'reready to discover what's truly
going on inside you?
Let's start with the hard truth.
The feeling of being lost thatyou're experiencing, it's not a
bug in your system, it's afeature.
Let me explain what I mean.
For years, you have beenoperating under the cultural
programming that good motherssacrifice everyone and

(04:44):
everything for their families.
Not everyone, all of themselvesand everything for their
families.
You have been told thatselflessness is the highest
virtue and that wanting morethan an organized calendar, a
clean house, and a happy,healthy family makes you
ungrateful.
But here's where that beliefstarts to crumble.

(05:06):
If feeling lost about youridentity meant that something
was wrong with you, then everywoman navigating major life
transitions would befundamentally flawed.
Are we really saying thatmotherhood, marriage, and
personal growth inevitablydamage women?
Think about every woman youadmire who seems whole,
authentic, and alive, thesewomen didn't avoid the

(05:30):
confusion.
They moved through it.
They didn't have it all figuredout from the beginning, they
grew into their brilliance.
Here's what I want you toconsider.
Isn't it more important tounderstand what you're
experiencing than to judgeyourself for experiencing it?
And isn't raising children whosee their mother as a whole
person more valuable thanraising children who see their

(05:51):
mother only as a caretaker?
When you feel most lost, is itin the quiet moments alone with
your thoughts or when you'reconstantly serving others?
Because feeling unclear andoverwhelmed is very different
from feeling truly disconnectedfrom yourself.
I want to propose a radicalreframe.

(06:12):
You're not lost, you're buried,and there is a huge difference.
Let's explore why thisdistinction matters.
Lost implies that you don't knowwhere you are.
Buried means you know exactlywhere you are, but you need to
dig yourself out.
It's like being in a dark room.
You're not lost, you just can'tsee yet.

(06:32):
But the room hasn't changed.
You just need to flip on thelight.
Would you expect a caterpillarand its cocoon to know it's
becoming a butterfly?
The caterpillar doesn't feellost during metamorphos.
It's in the process of becoming.
The confusion, the not knowing,the feeling like everything is
changing, that's not evidence ofbeing lost.

(06:54):
That's evidence.
That's not evidence of beinglost.
That's evidence oftransformation.
What if your confusion isn't aflashing warning light that
something's wrong, but aflashing indicator light trying
to direct you back towardssomething that matters?

(07:14):
You.
Let me share something personalwith you.
As a mom who's been exactlywhere you are several years ago,
I found myself in my own versionof this story.
I was successful by everyexternal measure.
I had a good marriage, I hadhealthy children, a great
career, but I kept catchingmyself staring into the mirror,

(07:35):
wondering, when did I startlooking so tired all the time?
I couldn't remember the lasttime that I had an answer to the
question, what do you want?
Where my mind didn'tautomatically answer with what I
thought would make everyone elsehappy.
One evening, my husband made anoffhand comment about missing
the woman he married.
And something in me just broke.

(07:56):
Not because he was being cruel,he wasn't.
He wasn't trying to be in theleast, but because I realized
that I missed her too.
That night I cried myself tosleep.
Not the stress crying ofoverwhelm, but that deep
soul-level crying of grief.
I was grieving a woman I thoughtI'd lost.
But here's what I discovered.

(08:17):
She wasn't lost.
She was buried under years ofexpectations and shoulds and
belief that growing into my roleas a mother and a partner meant
shrinking out of my role as anindividual woman.
The research shows that mostchallenging aspects of midlife
include changing familyrelationships, rebalancing work
and personal life, andrediscovering oneself.

(08:39):
What I experienced wasn'tunique.
It was part of a well-documentedpattern that researchers have
been studying for decades.
The truth is, midlife oftenbecomes a time of reflection and
reassessment.

But here's the thing (08:53):
not everyone experiences the
psychological upheaval so oftenassociated with a midlife
crisis.
The confusion that I felt wasn'ta sign that I was heading in the
wrong direction.
It was actually a sign that Iwas starting to understand

(09:14):
something deeper about myselfand where I was headed.
Here's what really happens whenyou feel like you don't know
where you are anymore.
You begin by operating from anarrow definition of yourself.
You've been doing this for solong that when life creates a
space for you to be more, itfeels foreign.

(09:35):
You've been told that identityis fixed and that you should
know who you are by now.
But identity is a destination.
It's a continuous process ofunderstanding who you are in the
whole life.
And right now, you're in thatsacred space between who you've
been and who you're discoveringyourself to be.
The women who feel most lost areoften the ones who are most

(09:59):
ready to understand what'sreally happening.
Not by someone else, but bythemselves.
So how do you move forward fromburied to understanding?
How do you stop believing thatconfusion means failure and
start seeing it as information?
Let me share with you fourspecific shifts that can make a

(10:20):
difference.
First, let's change yourlanguage because language
literally rewrites your brain.
So the next time you catchyourself thinking, I don't know
who I am, I want you to trysomething and I want you to add
one tiny word to the end of thatsentence, the word yet.
I don't know who I am yet.
Do you feel that?

(10:41):
That shift.
Lost implies you've made amistake.
Yet means that you're gatheringinformation.
That one word creates space forunderstanding instead of shame.
Second, I want you to go on atreasure hunt for yourself.
So tomorrow, grab a notebook andwrite down every role that you
currently play.
Mother, partner, employee,daughter friend, all of them.

(11:04):
Then beside each role, write onething about yourself that
existed before that role everdid.
So maybe next to mother, youwrite, I love poetry.
Next to partner, you mightwrite, I am naturally curious
about architectural design.
Next to employee, maybe it's Ihave strong organizational
skills that make me feel capableand confident.

(11:28):
Here's what I want you tounderstand.
These aren't things that you'velost.
They're things that have beenburied under the weight of
responsibility, but they'restill there.
They're waiting for you toremember them.
So, third, I want you to startpracticing what I call micro
rediscovery.
You don't need to quit your jobor follow eat, pray, love to

(11:49):
Italy to reconnect withyourself.
Start with five minutes a day,just five.
Doing something that feels likeyou.
Not you as a mother, not you asa partner or an employee, but
you as an individual humanbeing.
Here's exactly what this lookslike.
Tomorrow morning, beforeeveryone else wakes up, spend

(12:09):
exactly five minutes doingsomething that existed before
you became everyone'severything.
Like reading a book.
Maybe it's putting on headphonesand listening to music that
makes your soul come alive.
Maybe it's writing three pagesof whatever comes to mind.
Maybe it's dancing in yourkitchen or stepping outside to
feel the sun on your face.

(12:29):
The goal isn't to find yourselfat all, like to find yourself
all at once.
It's simply a reminder that youexisted independently of your
roles.
And finally, what I want you tocompletely do is refine your
relationship with confusion.
Instead of seeing confusion asevidence that something is wrong
with you, I want you to startseeing it as evidence that

(12:51):
you're gathering information.
When you feel unclear oruncertain, get curious.
Ask yourself, what is thisconfusion trying to show me?
What wants to be understood?
Because here's the truth.
Confusion isn't comfortable, butit's not dangerous.
It's actually the space wherenew understanding lives.

(13:12):
It's the cocoon before thebutterfly.
So now let's talk about whatbecomes possible when you shift
this belief.
When you stop seeing confusionas a failure and start seeing it
as information about who you'rebecoming, everything changes.
When you model wholeness insteadof sacrifice, your children

(13:32):
learn that they don't have todisappear into their roles to be
valuable.
They learn that being humanmeans being complex,
multifaceted, and continuouslygrowing.
When you show up as a completeperson in your relationships,
your connections deepen.
When your partner doesn't fallin love with your perfect
performance, they fell in lovewith your authentic humanity.

(13:56):
When you honor your own processof understanding yourself, you
give permission to every womanin your life to do the same.
You become part of the solutionto a cultural problem that has
been crushing women forgenerations.
But what happens if you don'tmake this shift?
What if you continue to keepbelieving that feeling confused

(14:18):
means you're broken?
Research from the MassachusettsGeneral Hospital Center for
Women's Mental Health found thatby the time women hit midlife,
about 23% have gone through atleast one episode of major
depression, and 30% have beendiagnosed with an anxiety
disorder.
But here's where it gets evenmore concerning.

(14:40):
Women who've dealt with bothdepression and anxiety were
twice as likely to report lowerquality of life during midlife
compared to those who didn'thave either of those disorders.
What the research really pointsto is this.
Women who have spent yearssuppressing their own identity,

(15:01):
prioritize family roles, puttingeveryone else's needs before
their own, are more vulnerableto these mental health
challenges as they get older.
And the ripple effect?
Their children often strugglewith forming their own sense of
identity because they never sawtheir mom as an individual, just
as someone defined by her roles.
But here's what I really wantyou to understand.

(15:23):
This isn't just about youfeeling better.
This is about changing thenarrative for generations of
women who become, who come afterus.
As a mom who believes that weneed to model wholeness, not
just sacrifice.
I want you to know when youchoose to see confusion as
information instead of failure,you're not just healing your own

(15:47):
relationship with yourself.
You're healing the culturalwound that tells women they must
choose between being a goodmother and being a whole human
being.
You're proving that it'spossible to love your family
deeply and have a rich complexinner life.
You're demonstrating thatservice to others doesn't
require self-abandonment.

(16:07):
So let me leave you with this.
The woman you're looking forisn't lost.
She's not gone.
She's not broken.
She's patient.
She's impatiently waiting foryou to remember that she was
never supposed to fit into thissmall box that others created
for her.
Your confusion isn't evidence offailure.

(16:29):
It's evidence of readiness.
Ready to stop judging yourselffor feeling disconnected and
start understanding what'sreally happening to you.
Ready to understand thatidentity isn't something you
find once and keep forever.
It's something that you discoverand rediscover as you grow,
change, and become more of whoyou've always been underneath
the roles.

(16:51):
And speaking of understandingwhat's really happening to you.
If something I said today hithome, if you caught yourself
thinking, wow, she really getsit, then please subscribe to
this so you never miss a chanceto keep growing and becoming
your utmost self.
We're in this together, and Icannot wait to keep the

(17:11):
conversation going with you.
But before we end today, I wantyou to remember this.
You're not lost, you're notbroken, you are gathering
information about who you'rebecoming, and the world needs
the woman that you arediscovering more than it needs
the woman you think you shouldbe.
The confusion you feel is not aproblem to solve.

(17:32):
It's information you need tolive a whole authentic life.
You are more than everyone'severything.
You are someone.