You're Not Stuck. You're Loyal to an Old Identity.

Most women aren't actually stuck. You think you're stuck, but you're not. Most women are just loyal. We're talking about four identities that I see most women silently loyal to.

Familiarity feels safer than expansion, even when it's literally killing you. So hyper-independence isn't a strength. It's literally a trauma response with a glow-up. A glow-up meaning, you know, that you can handle everything.

But here is the brutal truth that no one really is saying. Now they are keeping you hostage and they were, they are making you feel stuck. It's time to let them go. Now I've learned that speaking up for myself and for other women, especially on behalf of other women, is an extremely important part of my work and part of my mission and platform to give women a voice, to show you that you matter.

Welcome to the Unblocked Woman podcast. I'm Amy Sanders. For years, I believed the next level of my life and business would come from a better strategy, working harder, figuring out that perfect plan. But eventually I saw the real truth.

The biggest ceiling in our lives is not strategy. It's identity. The patterns we don't see, the subtle ways we play small. The version of ourselves that we keep defaulting back to, even when we know we're capable of more.

This podcast is where we bring those patterns into the light. We talk about identity, leadership, growth, and what it actually takes to become the woman who can truly hold the life and business she wants. No fluff, no performance, just honest conversation about stepping fully into your power. So go ahead and subscribe and follow the show.

And remember, the moment you see the pattern, you can finally break it. And welcome back to the show. If you have ever caught yourself saying, I don't know why I keep doing this to myself about a relationship, maybe a business decision, a self-sabotaging pattern, maybe the way you talk to yourself, the way you keep ending up exhausted, resentful, or right back in the same place that you swore you would never return to, this episode, my friend, is for you. Because here's what I want to put out onto the table today.

Most women aren't actually stuck. You think you're stuck, but you're not. Most women are just loyal. They're loyal to a version of themselves that no longer fits where they are trying to go.

They're loyal to a pattern that's keeping them safe or has kept them safe in the past. They're loyal to an identity that's keeping them safe in the past. They're loyal to a pattern that somewhere along the way became the only one that their nervous system knows how to come home to. I was saying that wrong, but your nervous system, it's familiar to your nervous system.

However, once we name it in that way, once we stop calling it stuck and start calling it what it actually is, everything changes. So that's what we're doing today. We're talking about why ambitious, self-aware, driven women keep cycling through the same patterns even after they've done all of the work. We're talking about four identities that I see most women silently loyal to.

And I'm going to share my own personal story about how I was loyal to all of them for years. So what I'm teaching you today, what I'm talking about, is that you're not alone. You're not alone. What I'm talking to you about today is something that I have absolutely lived.

And by the end of this, I'm going to give you one question that if you can sit with it honestly, it will change how you move forward. So let's get into it. First and foremost, let's talk about the word stuck and why it's doing damage. The word stuck implies that you are powerless, that it's something external, it's something outside of you.

It implies that you are waiting for something to unstick you. Now, if you think about that, that would be really hard to change. You're waiting for something to unstick you. You're waiting for something on this external environment, in this external place to help you get unstuck.

And what I see in my work with women is something completely different. They're not stuck. They're just loyal. Just like I mentioned earlier, they are being loyal to this version of themselves that is no longer serving who they are today, who they are now.

And that version thinks that it's keeping them comfortable and safe because it's familiar. And familiarity feels safer than freedom. Because when you start to experience freedom, it's new. Your nervous system doesn't like new things.

So your nervous system will retract back to familiarity. It will retract back to what it knows, meaning that that's why you keep showing up in the, you know, you break up with somebody and then yet your next relationship, you see the same thing. You maybe divorce somebody, you remarry, and then your relationship has a lot of the same things. Maybe your money activities.

I mean, I can keep going on about different ways that this shows up in your life, but it's actually your nervous system that keeps you coming back to what's familiar. Because freedom is scary. Your nervous system does not actually care about your goals. You think it does, but I'm telling you, it does not.

It cares only about safety. Safety is what it knows that's familiar. Familiarity feels safer than expansion, even when it's literally killing you. It's keeping you what you think is stuck.

That's why you can do all of that inner work and you can still keep returning to the same patterns. You're like, there, I'm doing that freaking thing again. I earned all this money and then I spent it all within a few months. It's gone.

I keep having the same fights with my kids. The thing is, is you're not failing. You're just following that gravitational pull of an identity that knows how to keep you alive in conditions that no longer exist. So let's talk into these, or let's talk about these four loyalties.

Number one is the over-functioner. You're the one who remembers your mother-in-law's medication schedule, your kid's permission slip deadline, and your husband's dentist appointment. And somehow you're also the one apologizing when something falls through the window. You're the one who cracks.

If a friend asks, how are you? You simply say, good, I'm busy before your brain even has checked in with your body. And then later you realize that you have had a migraine that you've been ignoring since Tuesday and today's Friday. This over-functioner, maybe you're the one that goes on vacation and you spend the first three days twitching because there's nothing to manage, no one to manage.

And then by day four, you're reorganizing the rental house pantry. Does this sound familiar? At work, your boss says, hey, can someone take this on? And your hand goes up before you've even processed what this is.

You've got a stomach bug last month that you thought wasn't that important. So you didn't rest because there was laundry to do. Essentially, the over-functioner has been built in environments where you had to be the one that had to hold everything together. If you didn't do it, it didn't get done.

No one else would. But now you can't stop performing competence even when you're drowning. You've taken on way too much. You've gotten so good at carrying everything that nobody, including you, knows what you would be like if you actually put it down and paused for a second.

That is the over-functioner explained. The second one is the people-pleaser. And the people-pleaser is when someone asks where you want to eat and you say, I don't care, you pick. And you actually believe it in the moment.

It's only in the car on the way there that you realized that you were craving sushi, but you didn't speak up. She said, I don't care. You laughed at a joke at work that you actually found offensive. Then you replayed the laugh in your head for the rest of the day.

And you laughed at it for three days, wondering why you didn't actually show how you truly felt about that joke. Your sister texts you something that's passive-aggressive, and you find yourself drafting a response that makes her feel better about being mean to you. You say yes to everything, including hosting Thanksgiving, before your brain caught up with your mouth. And now it's October, and you're resentful at people who haven't done anything yet.

And you're sitting with that motion the entire time leading up to Thanksgiving. You can tell within 30 seconds of walking into a room who's in a bad mood, who needs reassurance, and who's annoyed with whom. But if anyone asks what you need, you genuinely have to think about it. You don't actually know because you don't stop long enough to ever ask yourself what you want.

The people-pleaser. explained is you were built in environments where your worth was conditional. So you had to give and give and give and put yourself last in order to feel worthy. You learned to read rooms before you even knew how to read a book because that's how you stayed safe.

And honestly, you weren't being fake. You weren't being strategic. Or let me say that correctly. You weren't being fake.

You were actually being strategic. Because that's how you were able to survive. There is a big difference. The third one, I call the hyper independent woman.

A friend offers to bring you soup when you're sick. And you say, No, I'm fine. I don't worry. Don't even worry about it.

It's fine. And then later that day, you're crying alone as you're eating crackers, not feeling good. You move departments by yourself rather than ask for anyone to help you for two hours. And it took you a couple days to get moved out because you needed help.

And instead you did it all on your own. By the way, these examples, I swear I've done every single one of these things. That's why I'm giving them those examples. Okay, your partner says, Let me handle dinner.

Okay, your partner says, Let me handle dinner tonight. And you feel a weird flicker of panic, like you're being demoted. You'll Google something for 45 minutes before texting the friend who literally does this for a living. But you don't want to bother your friend, you're independent, you can do this on your own.

So you waste the time instead of just asking someone for help. Somebody compliments you and you immediately deflect it. You say, Oh, it was nothing. It wasn't a big deal.

Because being seen as needing the compliment feels more exposing. Then the compliment itself. You realize recently that you don't actually know what it feels like to be taken care of. Not in a sad way, but in a huh?

Huh? Way. You were built in environments where needing someone was unsafe. And so you learned to be extremely independent.

You struggle to receive help even still and you hold on to it. You're not going to be able to do it. You're not going to be a lot of weight on your shoulders. Because it still doesn't feel okay to ask for help.

To inconvenience anyone. And now you can't receive help without flinching. You will burn yourself out before you ask for any kind of support. Hyper independence isn't a strength.

It's literally a trauma response with a glow up. A glow up. Meaning, you know, that you can handle everything. A lot of people look at you like, Oh, she does so much.

But essentially, you are drowning. The fourth one is what I call the second guesser. You know, within five minutes of meeting him, that he was not right. Yet, you dated him for two years.

Because you just did. Even though you knew he wasn't right. You polled four friends about a question of whether to take a job, even though they know nothing about the job. Yet, you'd already accepted it in your head on the drive home before you even had the interview.

You will write a text, you'll delete it, you will rewrite it, you will screenshot it, you will send it to a group chat. And after all of that, then you might send it. You're on your way to the party and your gut says no. Don't go.

Yet, you go anyway. You end up leaving early and you're annoyed with yourself the whole drive home because you went, even though you knew that you shouldn't have gone. You asked your therapist what she thinks you should do about something you've already decided on. You're not actually looking for input here.

You're looking for permission to trust yourself. So you've decided, but yet, if the therapist says, Yeah, yeah, this is good. Then you're like, Okay, there's my permission. Okay, I'll do it.

She asks you, What do you think in a meeting? And you say, I could be wrong. But before you even share the idea that turns into be the one that they actually go with. The second guesser is built in environments where her instincts got punished.

So she learned to not trust herself. She knows the answer, but she will still ask five people. She can't trust her own clarity, even when it's screaming at her. The truth is, she doesn't have an intuition problem.

She has a self trust problem, dressed up as an intuition problem. And here's the thing, each of these women show up in this way because of how they were raised. Chances are you have been at least two of them in your life. But being that woman got you here.

It got you to where you are today. So if you look at your entire journey, they did play a role. And they were brilliant strategies for the moment that they were built for. But here is the brutal truth that no one really is saying.

Now they are keeping you hostage and they were they are making you feel stuck. The life that you want the person that you know that you actually are all the way to your core. She is there. The life is there.

But they are on the other side of letting these women go. It's time to let them go. Now I have already told you. I have been all of these women.

And for years to be completely honest, I was all of these women at the same time. I was loyal to every single one. I was the overfunctioner. Because my strength was tied up in how much I could do.

I couldn't ever make a decision on my own because I felt like I would get in trouble if I made it. I was taught not to ask for anything. I was taught that my voice didn't have significance or matter. So I people pleased.

But the one that I was the most loyal to loyal to was the hyper independent woman. And she's still to this day, the one that I struggle to let go of the most. And all of them still come up for me. So as I'm recording this podcast, like I am in no way perfect at all of these.

But I do hope that by sharing with you my growth, and then also explaining what these women are and what they do and why, that you can identify yourself within one or all of those, these women. And that's what it is in my case anyway. So that you can make a change for yourself. So that you can start to feel more comfortable with yourself.

So that you can start to feel more free and more alive. And more true to who you actually are. So funny story that happened literally this week, as I was putting together this podcast, is one of them came up for me. So I have this best friend, and she is incredible.

She has loved me since I was 12 years old. And we have done life together. There is actually eight of us in this group that I am just so incredibly humbled, honored, and just completely blessed to have in my life. All of these women, and she's one of them.

And she has seen me through every stage of my life, like from 12 years old until now. At this point, our kids are friends, and it's so fun. But my point is, is we... She loves me.

I know she loves me, just like I love her. And in a few months, I am putting on an amazing retreat. There's more on that later, by the way. But she has the most amazing place that would be perfect for me to host this retreat.

And what I realized was, when I was putting this retreat together, and how I want it to feel, and her place popped up in my mind, I like literally freaked out. I was scared to ask her. Like, I'm literally, like, my heart is pounding. I'm scared to ask her.

And I have to ask myself, why? Like, first of all, the very worst thing that could happen is that she says, no, it doesn't work out. And at that point, we just find another space. Fine.

It works, right? That's the worst thing that could happen. But the best thing that could happen is that my retreat could become even better, because her place is literally perfect for the type of vibe that we are putting together. And I have to ask myself, why?

Because I have to ask myself, why? Why am I putting together? But that younger Amy in me came up because I was taught to handle all of it myself. I was taught to not ask for help.

And I was taught that if someone said no, it meant that they didn't like me. Something is wrong with me. I'm too much. I'm too selfish.

I'm too greedy. And so that is, that's like my knee-jerk response, even still, even though I am a coach, I'm still a coach. I'm still a coach. Even though I have been doing this work for so long, that was my knee-jerk response.

And so, true story, I waited for two weeks. I avoided asking her for two weeks. And my partner with the retreat kept following up with me, saying, hey, have you asked her yet? And I hadn't.

So I finally sent the text. Literally scared half to death, my heart beating out of my chest. She responds. She didn't respond right away.

I think she responded maybe an hour or two hours later. And she was totally happy to let me use her place. And here I had been stressing. It had been like just sitting on my shoulders for two weeks.

So dumb. But that's what these identities do. And I'm telling you this story because that was just this week that I finally asked her. It was a couple weeks ago that I was supposed to.

So here's what I want you to know. All of these patterns, they do serve a purpose. They have served a purpose. But they no longer serve you now.

If I wouldn't have asked her, our retreat will not be as amazing as it's going to be. Her place is perfect for how we want this to fill the location, everything. I know that by not asking for help from people, I literally know that it has cost me millions in my business, in my life. It's set me back years instead of months because I have had to learn stupid things on my own that I'm not even like excited about.

But I would do them on my own because I would be so scared to ask for help, even hired help, even help that I'm paying. It has been totally crippling to me to be this independent woman that's actually not really, not really getting the lesson here. I'm still learning. I am not perfect, as you can see.

I still have a childhood wound that I am healing, but I am healing it. I am doing the work. But I have also grown. I have grown a lot.

I have learned that my voice does matter. I am actually on this podcast and you are tuning in. I have learned that speaking up for myself and for other women, especially on behalf of other women, is an extremely important part of my work and part of my mission and platform to give women a voice, to show you that you matter. Today, it is still a daily practice for me, but it's getting better.

I'm getting better at it. And my life has expanded far beyond what I used to dream that I'd be able to create because I stopped believing the stupid lies that I believed back in the day that became real. It became an identity for me in order for me to survive my childhood. My words are getting a little twisted up here.

So, looking back at this, I wasn't stuck, but I was loyal. And my knee-jerk response, even years later, is to go back to that identity. But when I stopped being so loyal, that's when my life changed and that's why I'm so passionate about talking to you and trying to help you. So, how do we change this?

How do we change these four women? The over-functioner, the people-pleaser, the hyper-independent woman, the second-guesser. How do we change them? That's what we're going to talk about next.

So, there is a question that I want to give you. And this question is the question that really, truly helped and continues to help me as I move through every different season of my life and every season of growth. Instead of asking, why am I stuck? Try asking, what pattern am I still being loyal to?

The reason why this is so powerful is when you decide that you're stuck, being stuck makes you the victim, but being loyal, gives you the agency. When you say that you're stuck, it looks like it's from the outside, like you have to get unstuck, like you're, I also picture myself like with muddy shoes and I'm like stuck in mud and I have to like get unstuck. But loyal looks inside, like what do I need to change in order to do something different here? Stuck wants someone to rescue you, but loyal asks you to, draw the loyalty.

And the moment that you can name the pattern, that's when you stop unconsciously becoming it. You have a choice to do something different. So, this is how you're going to use this in real time. You'll ask when you catch yourself in a familiar emotional cycle, you will ask, okay, what pattern am I still being loyal to?

When you say, I always do this, ask, what pattern am I still being loyal to here? What do I see? When you're about to collapse into an old version of you, ask the question, what pattern am I still being loyal to? When you feel the pull to shrink, please perform or prove, ask that question.

And I want you to try this for one week. Every time you catch yourself in a pattern, instead of judging it, just ask that question. Ask the question, why am I still loyal to this? Who am I being right now?

And what does she actually serve? Does she actually help me where I am trying to go? Or is she holding me back? That is what I want you to do.

Awareness is the first step, but awareness again, it's just the first step. If you don't practice, doing anything different, it's just expensive insight. It's still keeping you in the same place. Knowing something doesn't change your behavior, but here's what actually creates the shift.

Number one, you're being aware. You see it, you name the pattern, you name the loyalty. Number two is you embody it. You shift it.

You practice being someone who doesn't do the same thing. Doesn't do the pattern anymore. You let go of it. And it's not in like a forced way.

You're not trying to push. You're just noticing and you're saying, I choose to do something different this time. And then you practice it. You become magnetic.

You stay in the new pattern long enough that your nervous system updates. Your nervous system sees this and says, okay, it's actually okay for me to be this new person. This is the deep work. You do not shift your identity through force.

You shift it through practice. You don't shift it. You don't shift it by just being aware you shift it through practice. And this is what we do inside the unblocked women and also the collective.

Uh, we don't just look at the patterns. A lot of coaches will help you see it, right? Okay. There it is.

But staying in the new identity longer and longer, long enough for it to become you is when things shift. This is not a seven day challenge. It's a homecoming. It's coming home to who you actually are.

So if I could leave you with like one thing today, it is this. You are not stuck. You are loyal and loyalty can be withdrawn. Your next level is not waiting for you to become more disciplined, more credentialed, more healed, more ready.

It's waiting for you to stop returning to who you used to be. You're not her anymore. It's waiting for you to stop being loyal to. A woman whose conditions no longer exist.

Those conditions are done. They're gone. So if this episode hit you in the chest, if you felt seen, or if you were called out in any possible way, I literally truly want to hear about it. DM me on Instagram.

My handle is in the show notes, but in case you just want to hear it, it's it's dot Amy Sanders, or you could even just send me the word on block. And I'll send you more information on how we do this work inside them. Blocked method. Also, if you got anything out of this, make sure you save it or send it to a woman in your life who needs to hear it.

Hit subscribe because we have more good ones coming. And I want this podcast to inspire as many women as possible. So until next time, go withdraw a loyalty and I will see you here next week. Bye.

Thanks for listening. To the unblocked woman. Listen, you don't rise by waiting. You rise by leading.

So if this episode sparked a shift, send it to a woman who needs to hear next. And if you're ready to go deeper, join the unblocked woman collective or begin the unblocked method at Amy Sanders. co and remember, see it shifted, become magnetic. Your next level starts now.