When Being Everything for Everyone Leaves You With Nothing for Yourself
There is a silent truth that almost every woman I know carries. We were raised to be helpful, nurturing, reliable, and capable. From a young age, we are taught that our value is tied to how much we can do for others. But no one actually prepared us for the reality of being all of those things at the exact same time for every single person in our lives.
We become the housekeepers, the emotional anchors, and the project managers of our households. We are the taxi service for our kids and the dependable employees who keep showing up even when our bodies are begging us to stop. We are the partners who try to stay loving while carrying an invisible weight that no one else seems to see.
We do all of this without any training or preparation. Most of us are just winging it, trying to stay afloat while feeling stretched so thin that nothing gets the full version of us anymore. Somewhere along the way, we move ourselves to the very bottom of the priority list. We put our own needs lower than the laundry, the deadlines, and the expectations of everyone we love. Eventually, something cracks. We realize we no longer know who we are when no one is asking us for something.
The Seasons That Change Us
For me, that realization came in layers as my life began to shift in ways I did not see coming. It started with the loss of my mom. Losing her felt like losing the person who held the roots of who I was. Her absence forced me to face questions I had avoided for years. I had to ask who I was without her there to see me. Grief has a way of reshaping your identity without asking for your permission first.
Then came the season when my kids grew up and moved into their own worlds. You spend years pouring into them and caretaking every detail, and then suddenly you walk into a quiet house and wonder what your purpose is now. No one teaches you how to redefine yourself when the role that once filled your entire life becomes smaller and quieter.
When you add on the shifts that happen in our careers and our long term relationships, it can feel like the ground is moving underneath your feet. You look around and realize the systems and roles you gave all your energy to have changed, and you are left standing in the middle of your life wondering what is left.
The High Cost of Self-Abandonment
There is a kind of exhaustion that sleep cannot fix. It is the kind that comes from abandoning yourself a little at a time until you realize you have been surviving on empty for years. We often mistake this for "being a good person" or "being selfless," but the truth is that you cannot pour from an empty cup indefinitely.
When we lose our sense of self, everything else starts to feel like a performance. We show up for work, we show up for our families, and we show up for our friends, but we are just going through the motions. We are playing the part of the woman everyone expects us to be, but we have forgotten the woman we actually are.
This is the moment where many of us finally pause. It usually isn't because we want to, but because life pushes us to see the truth. We have spent so many years being everything for everyone else that we forgot to be someone for ourselves.
How to Start the Remembering
If you are asking yourself when you forgot who you were, know that the path back is not about reinventing yourself from scratch. It is about a "remembering." It is about peeling back the layers of expectations and roles to find the person who was there all along.
Here is how you start:
Audit your energy. Look at where you are giving your power away simply because you feel you "should."
Create a pocket of peace. Find ten minutes a day that belong to no one but you. No chores, no scrolling, no demands. Just you.
Identify your anchors. What are the things you loved before the world told you who to be? Was it a hobby, a specific way of dressing, or a way of speaking? Start bringing those small pieces back.
Reclaiming Your Identity Online and Offline
This feeling of being "lost" often shows up most clearly in how we present ourselves to the world. When we don't know who we are, we tend to hide behind templates, trends, and the "costumes" of what we think a successful woman or business owner should look like.
If you are ready to stop performing and finally understand who you are in this new season of life, I want to help you find that clarity. My Personal Brand Code workshop was designed to help you strip away the borrowed identities and reconnect with your real voice.
This isn't just about marketing. it is about finding the "spark" that makes you unmistakable. Whether you are rebuilding your career, starting a new project, or just trying to feel like yourself again, understanding your own "code" is the first step toward standing on your own feet again.
The world does not need a version of you that is burnt out and blending in. It needs the woman you were always meant to be.