Ep #188: No One Is Coming to Save You (And That’s the Best News You’ll Ever Hear)

In this episode, I share one of the most liberating truths a woman can realize in midlife: no one is coming to save you. While that may sound confronting, it is also incredibly empowering. For so many years, we wait for relationships to improve, for circumstances to change, or for someone else to give us permission to live the life we truly want.

Midlife is not a crisis. It is a wake-up call. It is an invitation to stop outsourcing your authority and begin trusting the wisdom, strength, and resilience that have been within you all along.

I use the metaphor of an acorn to illustrate how everything you need to become the most vibrant and grounded version of yourself is already inside you. Your transformation happens through small, daily acts of self-respect, honesty, healing, and courageous action.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why no one else can create the life you are longing for

• How midlife exposes the places where you have abandoned yourself

• Why self-trust is built through action, not waiting

• The acorn metaphor and what it reveals about your inner potential

• Daily non-negotiables that help you thrive

If you are ready to stop waiting and start creating a more aligned life, I would love to support you. https://calendly.com/coachwithmikki/clarity_call

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Full Episode Transcript:

What if the reason your life suddenly feels so misaligned in midlife isn't because something is going wrong, but because something inside of you is finally waking up? Well, welcome to Led from Within. I'm Mikki Gardner, and this is a podcast for women who are done outsourcing their authority and are ready to claim a life aligned with who they are today. Because midlife doesn't need to be a crisis. It can be a return to yourself, to clarity, to courage, and to inner authority. So let's begin.

Hi. Welcome back to the podcast. There's a conversation that I have, frankly, far too frequently with women who, uh, have known that their relationship, their marriage is over and they just want time.

Time to figure out how to go about it, time to fix things, time to prepare themselves, time to get ready. But essentially, what it comes down to is they're waiting for someone to come and rescue them. They're waiting for the situation to change, for the other person to change, for their spouse to choose differently, to show up differently. And they keep trying in every way, shape or form, over functioning, ignoring, turning a blind eye, not saying the things that need to be said right.

And then they come to me when maybe the divorce has happened or. Or the other partner has cheated or whatever the situation, they can no longer not face what is going on because it has been thrust upon them. And they're coming to me confused, feeling broken, feeling like they don't have what they need to move forward. But the thing about it is that so often when we start to have conversations and uncover what's going on, they've known all along what's been going on. They've just been choosing to ignore it. And this episode may be a little confronting, but I need to be honest about it, because too often we complain, we play the victim, and we act like things are being done to us.

But when we're really honest, most women will realize that they've been waiting, just waiting, maybe for years, waiting for the relationship to get better, uh, waiting to feel chosen in their life, waiting for clarity on what to do next, waiting for the money to do what they need to do, waiting for the kids to grow up so that it'll, quote, unquote, be easier, waiting for someone to finally see them, prioritize them, rescue, uh, them. But in all of this waiting, one day, either by other people's actions and decisions or through your own, it will hit you that no one's coming. No one's coming to save you, to bring you all of these things on a silver platter. And strangely, that can become the most powerful moment of your life. Because the truth of the matter is, you were never meant to be rescued. You were meant to remember your own power.

But we have been sold a whole bunch of fairy tales. You know, we've absorbed stories about Prince Charming, about happily ever after, about being chosen. And being chosen means that we are therefore saved, safe. We have been conditioned to believe that we need a man or someone to protect us. We have been, uh, told that good women sacrifice. That's just the way that it is. That if you love hard enough, the other person will change. If you wait long enough, things are going to get better. And if you keep everybody else happy, one day it's going to be your turn.

And then we have these modern Instagram versions of these same fairy tales. The perfect relationship, the perfect marriage, the perfect healing journey. The perfect financial sort of breakthrough and Phoenix Rising. The perfect political climate for us all to live in. The perfect body. The perfect timing, the perfect children. And we spend years and years and years outsourcing our own power to circumstances that are outside of us. We keep trying to change our lives without changing ourselves.

But this is where midlife becomes the wake up call, where it becomes about recalibration instead of crisis. Because these illusions, these fairy tales, they just don't work anymore. There is a part of us that knows they are made up, that they're bullshit and that they aren't actually helping us. And midlife forces us to see it. Because our body starts speaking louder and louder and louder. The resentment has built so high that we can't not feel it. Burnout hits us from all of the energy in the doing. The autopilot that we have been on stops working. And the roles that once really seem to fit pretty nicely now feel like they are suffocating us.

And too often, midlife then starts to feel like a punishment. Because relationships are changing, bodies changing, identities are changing. Things aren't working the way they used to. But it is not a punishment. It's simply exposure. Midlife is exposing us to the places where we have abandoned ourselves, waiting for someone else to come and make it better, to come and save us. But no one is coming.

Nobody is going to suddenly prioritize your healing and say, here you go, it's your time. Nobody is going to come and regulate your nervous system for you. Uh, nobody is going to build the self confidence inside of yourself to take action on what you truly know inside of yourself to be true. And nobody can choose to live your life for you. But the Thing that we don't talk about enough, the part of the fairy tale that we don't talk about and expose is that this realization and understanding that no one is coming is actually the doorway to our own freedom.

And what do I mean? You know, every client that I start with, I give them the same speech at the beginning and I talk about a little acorn. And when you look at a little acorn, it has everything it needs inside of it to become 100 foot tall oak tree that can withstand any storm, right? It's so tall, it's so grounded, it is so, so strong. And it has this beautiful big canopy that offers shade and protection for everybody underneath it. But everything inside, uh, to become that tree exists inside the acorn. M.

The acorn doesn't have to effort to become an oak tree. It doesn't have to force itself, it doesn't compare itself. It doesn't ask permission. It simply needs good soil, water, sunlight and time.

And I think if a lot of us are being honest, we haven't been planted in ideal soil to be able to grow to our fullest version. That might be because of childhood. It could be because the soil that we grew up in as a child did not offer us the ability to grow in all of the areas that we needed to. It could be emotionally unavailable relationships, right, that are not ideal soil to thrive in. Betrayal, chronic self abandonment, right? The over functioning that so many of us do. The survival mode that so many of us are living in. The nervous system that is trained to be hypervigilant instead of finding its own safety.

Instead, what midlife and what the time of when we realize this, when we start to really understand and become aware that we are required for our own healing, our own growth and our own next best version of ourselves. You are not broken because you're struggling to bloom in these environments that are made to deplete you, right? They're not ideal soil. They don't have the nutrients for you. So it's time for you to take you and your acorn and plant it in the soil that will help it grow.

But here's the part that so many people just don't like. That your life changes through small daily acts of integrity, of self respect, of honesty and awareness. They're not these big dramatic breakthroughs, right? It's not always the divorce or the moving or the changing of jobs. It's not one dramatic moment. It's not one soulmate. It's the uh, daily non negotiables that actually create the soil for you. To grow. So what are those?

It's doing the healing work. It's going to therapy. It's breath work. It's moving our bodies. It's drinking enough water. Water. Getting enough sleep. Setting boundaries. Resting. Telling ourselves the truth. Keeping promises to yourself. Saying no.

Learning how to regulate your nervous system. Learning how to process your emotions. Learning how to say no. Taking a walk. Making that appointment. Having that hard conversation. Repairing the relationship. Asking for help. Opening the bank account, applying for the job. Right?

It's taking the action because confidence is built through evidence. Right? Uh, when we start moving forward, we create more confidence because we're seeing something different. Self trust is ourselves. To move in that direction is built through action. Not through thinking about it, not through feeling ready, but through action.

Nobody is coming to rescue you from, uh, the life that you have been participating in. And the beautiful thing that I want you to know is that you don't need rescuing nearly as much as you think you do. You are more capable, more empowered, and have more resources than you give yourself credit for. And it's time to tap into what is already within you. Just like that little acorn. And plant yourself in the soil to thrive.

This is not a Disney movie. No knight is running over the hill to save you. You are the knight in shining armor. You are the adult the. That your younger self needed. You are the protector that you need. You are the nurturer. You are the truth teller. You are the safe space. And you are the one who will finally say, I am done abandoning myself. Not one more time.

This is your time to listen to the truth inside of you. To trust yourself, to take action and to stop waiting. Maybe nobody is coming to save you because your life was never supposed to be placed in someone else's hands. And maybe this season that you're in, this midlife moment isn't an end. Maybe it is the moment that you stop waiting. The moment that you stop bargaining. The moment that you stop negotiating with everyone around you. You stop outsourcing your authority, asking everybody else what to do. You stop hoping someone else is gonna build the life that you ache for. And instead, you plant yourself in better soil.

You give yourself the water, the sunlight, the truth, the rest, the support, the integrity, the love that you need, little by little. And when you do that, you become the most beautiful version of you. The one that your soul is calling you to be. That oak tree was always inside of the acorn. And everything you need is already within you. M.

It's your choice. You get to decide. And it's Your time to put the flag in the ground, to stake your claim and to choose what the next season of your life is going to look like. And you can choose to let it be the most vibrant, alive, joy filled, passionate version because that is available to you.

If you are ready to stop outsourcing your authority and you're ready to start listening to what life and your body and your soul has been trying to tell you, then I want you to connect with me. You can do that over on Instagram. You can use the link in the Show Notes to get on my weekly newsletter and get encouragement each week delivered to your inbox. And if you need help, I want you to know that help is available. You can get on the waitlist for within my group program that will be launching in the fall. And if you need more immediate support, you can jump on a clarity call where uh, I will help you map out the next steps for you so that you can actually start moving your life in a different way. Today we will create that non negotiable plan so that you don't need anyone coming to save you because you are too busy doing it yourself.

You are not alone, my friend. I just want you to know that while no one is coming to save you, you're not alone in this journey. No one gets to hold the power over your life anymore. You get to choose and I want you to choose the most beautiful, aligned next step for you. I'll see you next week.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I hope that it spoke to you and you found something useful to take away from it. If you did, I would be so grateful if you would take 2 seconds to subscribe to the show, which will help you because you won't miss another episode. And it would help me because you would never miss another episode. And if you are in the giving spirit and would take 30 seconds to rate and review this episode, it would do wonders for the show and for me. Thanks so much for being here and I can't wait to talk to you again next week.