EP140 The High-Functioning Trap: Why Success Still Feels Empty

You’re the one who gets sh*t done aren’t you?

Whether it’s because you’re the capable one, or the reliable one, or just generally the one that everyone looks at and thinks…’ooooh, she’s got her life together.’

And to be fair… you do, right?

So explain this.

Why do you feel so f*cking exhausted all the time?

Why does it permanently feel like something is slightly off?

Why does success not quite feel the way you’d thought it would?

This episode is where we go in on your Survival Self.

The version of you that didn’t just inherit beliefs… but adapted, performed, and built a whole goddamn life from them.

The one who learned:

• what gets approval
• what avoids criticism
• what keeps you safe
• what makes you belong

And then became very, very bloody good at it.

The problem?

That version of you was designed only for safety and approval.

Not for freedom. Not for fulfilment either. And most definitely NOT for the life you’d consciously choose now.

Inside this episode, you’ll start to notice:

• Why high-functioning women still feel disconnected
• The subtle ways you’re still proving (without realising)
• How over-performing, perfectionism and control are actually survival patterns
• Why achieving more doesn’t fix the feeling
• And the identity shift that actually changes things

Because you’re not stuck.

You’re just still being the version of you that worked.

This is the second part of the identity series:

• Last week: The Inherited Self
• This week: The Survival Self
• Next week: The Sovereign Self (the Queen version of you underneath all of this)

If this is hitting something in you, you’ll want to go deeper with it.

My Edit Your Life: No Bullsh*t Reinvention Journal is designed to help you actually work through these patterns and start designing and installing your next-level identity.

And if you’re ready to go all in on this work at a much, MUCH deeper level, I’ve opened a limited number of VIP Identity Reinvention spaces for May.

Drop me a message on the Gram or email me directly 📩 sarah@thequeenofreinvention.com

Go take your life back Queen 👑

🔥 DOWNLOAD FREEBIES TO FUEL YOUR REINVENTION

📲 FOLLOW on Instagram and Facebook

🩷

Transcript

00:01

Hola and welcome, welcome. Welcome to the reinvention era podcast with me, your host, Queen of reinvention, Sarah Elizabeth, and this podcast is where we peel back all the layers of our identity. It's a bit like emptying out your handbag and finding all sorts of shit that you forgot you even had, including things that abso-freaking-lutely should have been binned years ago, but it's in the bottom of your handbag. So we're going in, we're going in in the handbag. We're going all in this week on the survival version of you, the survival self, if you will. Last week we talked about the inherited self, which is the identity that you absorbed without any choosing, before you had any agency, any choice, any any say over it whatsoever. It was the belief, the patterns, the rules, that you just took on from everyone and everything around you.

01:11

But this week, we're going in. We're going even deeper, because you didn't just inherit an identity. You bloody adapted one and all. You know, that version of you that everyone else totally relies upon, like the strong one, the capable one, the one always gets shit done, the one people look at and go, Oh, she's got her life together. That one, right? We need to talk about her, because that version of you, she might just be actually the exact reason you feel exhausted, disconnected, like something's just missing. The survival self is basically the version of you that has learned how to operate in the world that you were given.

02:13

I'll say that again, the survival self is the version of you that has learned how to operate in the world that you were given

02:29

now. The thing you need to know, she's clever as fuck. She figures out really, really quickly, what gets approval, what avoids criticism, what keeps you safe, what helps you belong. She figures all of that out. And then she doubles down on all of it, and for most of you listening, your survival self isn't falling apart. She's not chaotic. She's not hanging on by a very thin thread. She's actually really high functioning, really high functioning. She's the achiever. She's the one who holds everything together, the responsible one, the productive one, the reliable one, the capable one, the woman everyone looks up to because she seems to handle life. She just handles it so damn well.

03:37

But the thing is, no one sees what's actually underneath all of that, because underneath all that capability, your survival self is usually trying to prove something. 

03:52

She's trying to prove something.

03:59

It might be defending the identity that you've inherited, trying to make it safe, trying to make it enough. Oh, enough. And once you realise how all of this shows up where it goes, about uncomfortable love, because once you hear it, you will start clocking it absolutely everywhere. It looks like stuff like over, explaining yourself, justifying decisions no one even knew you bloody asked about, but you're justifying it, just in case. It's like being the first to apologise, even when you've done absolutely nothing wrong. You know, I always think when someone bumps into you, that's always a classic one, right? Someone bumps into you, in like a street or shop or whatever, if you're anything like me, you go, oh, sorry. They walked into me and I'm saying sorry. What's that about? We always have to say, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, I exist, sorry, I'm breathing. 

05:18

You know, it's that kind of working twice as hard as every other fucker, not even because you love it, because you may well love it, but more because you're terrified of what happens if you stop terrified of being replaceable. So so then you end up, almost like controlling everything, micromanaging, you know, having to be the most ordered, the most prepared person in the room, so that you've got your mask on and no one can see you, because control feels safe, right? It looks like being fiercely independent, hyper independent, doing everything yourself, never asking for help, and yet still craving connection at the same time, you know, just let people in, just enough, but not enough to really see you.

06:32

It looks like that perfectionism that would exhaust anyone else, but you hold yourself to it every single goddamn day like an almost impossible standard that you've set yourself. And sometimes actually, you know what it also looks like, achieving the goals, getting the promotion, building the life, all the accolades tick, all the boxes tick, and feeling absolutely nothing when you get there.

07:04

You know, I see this so clearly in my own life. As it turns out, was a bit of a clever kid, right? I read. I learned to read ridiculously early. My party trick when I was about four was spelling gymkhana, I mean, who does that? You know, I read the bloody dictionary for my bedtime reading. My dad used to teach me fractions on the walk home from brownies. Intelligence became my thing, right? I thought it was because I was in the queue for intelligence and missed out on the beauty one. But anyway, when my head teacher leaving primary school then told my dad that I had the potential for Oxford or Cambridge, wow, that identity locked itself in, didn't it? That's who I was.

07:54

That's who I was, except life didn't quite go that way. At 17, I decided that earning money for clothes was far more interesting than a levels.

08:13

And then at 18, I was pregnant, and suddenly there was a hell of a lot of assumptions. You know, people don't talk about them out loud today, but they're there. They're there. So that potential has been lost. Oh, teenage mother, she's just all those limited options now. Oh, she's just gone down the wrong path. Oh, god, there's no way back from this. Is it? She just fucked up her life, and she

08:42

No one says it, no one says it out loud, but it's there, and my survival self, well, fuck me. She had something to say about that. So when I was 19 and a new mum, I joined Mensa, as you do. And why did I do that? It wasn't because it changed my life in any way, shape or form. It didn't open any freaking doors for me. It didn't do anything for me, actually.

09:11

But I was proving something. I was proving I wasn't just another teenage mum. I was proving that clever little Sare was still in there, proving that I hadn't wasted my life, which was what everyone thought, right? And that's what our survival selves do. They collect the evidence to support the identity that they've built to prove to everyone, because it it keeps you safe, that control of it, right? And your version might not be Mensa, but it'll be something, whether it's the good girl, the achiever, the career girl, the one who never causes trouble, the one who makes everyone proud, the nice girl, whatever it is, at some point you worked out what was valued around you to your people, what got you the praise, what made people approve of you, what made people relax about you, and because we are wired for belonging, you just became more of that. We don't do the shit that will piss other people off, do we, in case we rejected and all that, so we develop this version to be accepted.

10:34

And that's that's the really tricky bit, because your survival self isn't bad. She's not trying to screw you over. In fact, your survival self is fucking brilliant love. She's got you through life. So far, she's built what you have right now. Through everything, she's made you capable. But your survival self was just designed for safety, not for freedom, not for fulfilment, not for the life that you might actually otherwise consciously choose. Now, would you choose the life you're living? Honestly? Look at your life, given the choice of anything, would you 100% choose the life that you live now?

11:32

Because you can bet your survival self got you there, and that's amazing, because she's got you this far. So you can keep pushing high, you keep achieving, keep proving, keep outward and everything together and yet And yet still feel like something's missing, like it's just not quite right, like there's more. There's more to life than this.

11:58

Because survival, yes, it got you here, but it's not what's going to be there to take you to the next level. And that's why the work I do is actually really very simple.

12:13

Simple. It's not easy, but it's simple because it's about designing who you want to become, and then installing that identity into your life.

12:29

I call it like the ID Install. Identify your identity, who you've been.

12:37

Then design who comes next, and then install that queen.

12:42

Because otherwise, your survival self will just keep leading you and taking over until you consciously and intentionally choose something else.

12:59

So this week, just as last week we talked about looking at the inherited self. And when you sound like you're talking like your mother, this week, we're looking at the survival self. Don't try and change anything yet, just notice it. Where in your life might you be completely over performing? Where in your life do you live by that proving energy? Where are you proving to someone or something, whatever you're proving? Where are you doing shit for approval instead of desire, a delulu desire. Where have you been the version of you that works instead of the version that actually feels like you? Because I promise you your survival self, she got you here, absolutely, but she's not the one who leads you next, not if you want a different life.

14:05

So if you want to take this up a bit of a notch, the edit your life, no bullshit. Reinvention journal is available on Amazon now. It's on all the Amazons, and it's based on the Edit Code, which is emotional rehab do the damn thing, identity, Alchemy, thought, detox, there's an explanation of each one of them thoroughly in the beginning of the journal, there's this, there's pre stuff. There's a lot of explanations in there, and it's all in there to help you really work through all these layers of the inherited self and the survival self. Over 12 weeks, it's a total game changer. When I first started doing this, I was really, it was like peeling back, like I said, getting all my shit out my handbag and going, fuck me. I don't know what I've had that in there since about 2014, game changer. Because then you get that ID Install you get to design and install the next level version of you.

15:11

So do check out my love. Do check it out. And if you do also want to go all in on a VIP level, on designing your next level self. Do drop me a message because we can talk, because I'm opening up three spaces for May. It's gone out to my email list first, because that's the right thing to do. But I've got three spaces opening for May, and that's where we go really, all in deep, and it's just me and you going in deep on actually, what that looks like, and what your next level self can achieve and how, because that's the crucial part that designing your next level self, and I go through all of that with you. So if you want to do that, oh, let's talk about

16:00

but for now, that was the inherited self last week. This week, we've done the survival self. Next week, we're going into the sovereign self, the Queen version of you under all of this. It's not inherited. It's not proven. It's just beautiful you. You really don't need to work harder to become her. You just need to stop letting survival you decide who you are.

16:32

So I really hope that's helped this week, I'm literally on my survival self, literally this week, with his continued fucking IV antibiotics, with me cannulas and me fucking daily visits to hospital and oh my god, but anyway, hopefully by next week, I will see the return of my own sovereign self and all so I will be back in your beauts badass earbuds for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. I'm sending you so much love. Bye.