The Create Your Day Podcast
You didn’t work this hard just to feel stuck, exhausted, or disconnected from your own life. Create Your Day is where high achieving, heart driven women come to get real about what it takes to actually feel good while building success. Hosted by Jenn Cody, your no-fluff, no-apologies bestie in your earbuds, this show dives deep into the mindset shifts, emotional wake-up calls, and small (but mighty) moves that lead to real alignment, real confidence, and a life you actually want to wake up to. If you're done with perfectionism, overthinking, and waiting for "someday," you're in the right place. Listen in for tough love, practical tools, personal stories, and a-ha moments that will leave you thinking, "Wait, why has no one ever told me this before?!" Ready to create your day (and your life) on your terms? Let’s go!
The Create Your Day Podcast
96. Why You Keep Choosing the Cage (Even When the Door is Open)
Have you ever noticed yourself panicking when your calendar suddenly has white space? That anxious feeling when you have freedom might be a sign you're building your own prison cell.
This episode dives deep into why we recreate systems of control even when no one is asking us to. I'm building on my popular "Freedom Audit" episode (Episode 81!) to explore why, even when the door stands wide open, we consistently choose to remain in cages of our own design. The patterns keeping us trapped are sneaky - they're often rewarded in society and deeply rooted in identities we think we need to be seen, safe, and worthy.
Freedom requires surrender, and surrender requires vulnerability. For those who've survived by controlling everything, that vulnerability feels threatening—almost like death. We cling to our to-do lists like life rafts while simultaneously resenting how full they are. Our addiction to being seen as capable, competent, and needed creates a powerful neurological reward every time we power through tasks.
Breaking free requires interrogating your loyalty to old identities: What part of you is afraid to be seen as unproductive or (gasp) average? Then practice leaving things undone on purpose - not because you forgot, but as an intentional choice. This teaches your nervous system that nothing implodes when you're not over-functioning. Start celebrating restraint and discernment rather than only celebrating output and achievement.
You didn't work this hard to recreate the same pressure in a different form. The door to your cage is open - you just need to stop locking it from the inside. Take a moment this week to consider what you can subtract rather than add. What can you intentionally leave undone? This small rebellion against your old identities might be the key to creating the freedom you've always wanted.
Thanks for listening!
Connect With Me:
📩 Join my email list: https://www.jenncody.com/weekly-balance
📱 DM me on Instagram: @jenncody
If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend who needs to hear this message!
🎧 Subscribe to and Review The Create Your Day Podcast on:
📌 Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Buzzsprout
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Create your Day podcast. My name is Jen Cody. I am your host. Thank you so much for being here. If it's your first time here, welcome to the podcast. If it is not your first time here, welcome back.
Speaker 1:Out of every episode I've ever created, and that is episode 81, I believe it's called the Freedom Audit and it really hit a nerve. So I want to build on that a little bit. And this episode is not about awareness, it's about ownership. It is about our subconscious ways that we recreate systems of control even when no one is asking us to. So welcome to this week's episode. Take a few minutes, grab yourself a nice cold drink and just sit back, relax, throw those AirPods in and let's spend some time together.
Speaker 1:Because this episode, the Freedom Audit, had a lot of you messaging me and there was a recurring theme that has gone on since that episode hit, which is quite a while ago, back, I want to say, around the holidays or maybe even before that in 2024. But a lot of you. The resounding message that I seemed to hear was basically holy shit, am I building my own prison cell? And you know what Most of us are. So the answer is yes, but being aware of that is not enough. So what I want to do this week is really talk about why, even when the door is wide open, why do we consistently choose to stay in the cages that we build? And I'm going to give you some fair warning. This episode may sting a little bit, and sometimes those are the cages that we build. And I'm going to give you some fair warning. This episode may sting a little bit, and sometimes those are the ones that we need to listen to the most clearly, right? So if you're multitasking right now, I'm going to ask you to come back to me. Can you spend the next 15 minutes really focused on just what we're talking about? Because the patterns that we're going to unravel today they're sneaky, they're actually rewarded in society and they are deeply rooted in identities that we think we need in order for us to be seen, in order for us to be safe, in order for us to be worthy.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the freedom fantasy. We all have it. Every single one of you out there knows exactly what I'm talking about. We have this fantasy of freedom where our calendar belongs to us. Not only does it belong to us, it's clear, right, the mornings are slow, we're working less, we're earning more at the same time and we're just kind of sipping our lattes and in our leisure wear and what is it at leisure? So in real life, that's not what actually happens, because I'm willing to bet that in reality, when there is open space, you panic a little bit, you micromanage those outcomes. I had a coaching call this morning and the person was talking about an employee of theirs that's going on a very well-deserved vacation next week and they said she's in a little bit of a panic mode, like she doesn't even know what to do when she's not working.
Speaker 1:And that's what many of us do. We cling to our to-do lists like they're life rafts and then we resent everyone else for how full those to-do lists actually are. Why do we do that? Why is it that we are holding on to that resentment? We are panicking when we have white space in our calendar.
Speaker 1:And how do those two things live in the same time, right? How do they actually coexist? And the reason is because freedom requires surrender and surrender requires vulnerability, and that feels like death to someone who has survived by controlling everything around them. We are so afraid to let go of what we think is holding us up, that it feels like we're just going to die if we let go of it, right, we're just going to. There will be nothing, no structure around us to actually hold on to if we surrender and get vulnerable and lean into that freedom.
Speaker 1:But I am here to tell you today, my friends, control is not what makes you safe. Control is an illusion. It makes you feel safe but it keeps you super small. It keeps you playing small. It keeps you from growing as a person. It keeps you from growing in your professional life, in your family. It just keeps you stagnant. So, even when you technically have freedom, subconsciously you're filling that space with obligations, with urgency, with these expectations that are all self-imposed. And the reason for that is because you do not know who you are. Without the struggle and that's hard for some of us to hear right we become so ingrained, our identity becomes so wrapped up in what we're going through and what we're dealing with that we don't know who we are without it.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to call it, like I see it, this is an addiction. It is a performative addiction, but it's an addiction to be capable, it's an addiction to capability. We want to be seen as capable. We've built this identity around being the one who can handle it. I want to be the fixer, I want to be the closer, I want to be the competent one. I want to be the one that people come to when they need something. I'm going to say that I don't, I'm going to say I've had enough, it's too much. It's too much. But inside, deep inside, you do want that. You want people to see you as the fixer, the closer, as being competent. Your nervous system is literally giving you a high five every single time you power through right. You know the feeling I'm talking about. When you end your day and you have been able to keep that machine running, you are absolutely mentally high-fiving yourself, even if outwardly, you are resentful. So capability is not the same thing as capacity and competence is not a personality trait. It's like a mask that you're wearing.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that is absolute truth but no one really talks about is that we might be focusing on over-functioning, because you're actually terrified as being perceived as any of the following lazy, messy, ordinary, right, generic. We don't want to be seen as that. We don't really want to be seen as human. We want to be seen as special. We want to be seen as well. We want to be wanted. First of all, we want to be needed. It makes us feel good on a cellular level to be needed, to be wanted.
Speaker 1:Because what happens if we stop that? And we're afraid that if we stop outperforming, if we're not consistently trying to be better, then we're going to lose that position. We're going to let someone else be seen as capable, someone else be seen as the competent one that people should go to, and then where does that leave us? Where does that leave you? Who are you if you're not impressive? Who are you if you're not doing for everyone else? And this is this trap. It's like a competence trap. It keeps you chasing that external validation, even after you've quote unquote made it Like you are competent. People love you, they need you, they want you, they want to be around you, and you have proven time and time again that you are capable of doing all the things.
Speaker 1:So this is why your version of rest you know who I'm talking to right now, so listen up who out there. You know who I'm talking to right now, so listen up. Who out there? Your version of rest is still secretly, a little bit productive. You know it. Raise your hand. I know you know it. It's why you don't feel free ever, even when, technically, you are free. You do not have to stay in the cage. So what do you do? Right? You don't need another freaking time audit. You don't need to just lean into it. You don't need to switch your mindset and light a candle and yada, yada, yada. You need to do the following. This is tough, right? We're going to go to some deep, dark places today. This is what I want you to do Interrogate your loyalty to your old identities.
Speaker 1:Does that sound a little harsh? It's true, and it's necessary. Interrogate your loyalty to your old identities. What part of you is afraid to be seen as unproductive? What part of you is afraid people may think you're selfish or God forbid average? Who are you trying to impress? Do those people even know you're alive? If this is a social media thing, right? Who are you trying to impress? People on the interwebs who do not even know who you are?
Speaker 1:Let's get a grip and interrogate our loyalty to our old identities, and then I want you to practice leaving things undone on purpose. I see you're twitching. I could tell you're twitching already. Yes, it's supposed to make you twitch. That is the point. Don't finish tonight. Whatever it is that you were planning to finish tonight, let the text go unanswered. I want you to show yourself, teach your nervous system that nothing is going to implode when you're not over-functioning. How amazing is that going to be to find out when you go to sleep tonight and you will go to sleep, I promise you may lay there a little longer than normal because you're going to be twitchy that you're not finished.
Speaker 1:You didn't finish. You didn't wrap the day up in a bow, but and that's done on purpose it's different when it's done on purpose. Practice that. Can you switch your mindset that when you're leaving something undone on purpose, that's the same thing as it being done? Does that make sense to you? I know it's not exactly the same thing as being done, but leaving something undone on purpose, fulfilling that promise to yourself and going to sleep at the end of the day is doing what you set out to do, because what you set out to do was to leave something undone. I know I'm talking in a little bit of a riddle. Hopefully it's making sense.
Speaker 1:This is to teach your nervous system that you are going to be okay. You are going to wake up tomorrow and it's still going to be the next day. You're still going to have your to-do list, you're still going to have a calendar, you're still going to have meetings to go to and places to rush to and all of the things You're still going to do. That Nothing happened, nothing imploded.
Speaker 1:Teach yourself that and this is the only way to teach yourself that and you know, this is why going to go off on a tangent like I usually do this is why people who have really been through it, people who have really hit some rock bottom moments this is why they're able to kind of float through right they start to become have you heard the expression like things rolling off a duck's back. I guarantee you some of the people you know that you feel that way about, like, oh my God, they just let everything roll off their back. They're practiced in knowing that it didn't kill them for something to roll off their back. They had no choice at some point but to let something roll off their back. Show me someone that's not stressed over a bill that's a few days late and I'll show you someone that has had to go months without paying a bill because they didn't have the money. So a few days doesn't stress them out the way it does to someone who has never had to do that. Now I'm not telling you to not pay your bills. I'm just saying that it is the practice of being able to leave things undone that teaches your nervous system that it's okay to do that and that's a great thing to teach your nervous system. That whole practice helps you to rewrite your reward system.
Speaker 1:So we spend a lot of time celebrating our achievements, celebrating our output. It's all based on results. That's what we celebrate. Did I finish this? Yes. Did I check this box? Yes. Did I have this conversation? Yes, and that's what we celebrate. What if you rewrite that system and you start to celebrate restraint? You start to celebrate saying no, you celebrate discernment and maybe even celebrate a little bit showing up half-assed when that's all you have to give that day. Celebrate those moments and teach yourself that they are just as important to those end results as the active moments, because perfection is its own cage.
Speaker 1:We all have spent time in our lives building cages, building cages, and we live there. We're so comfortable there. Me too, I have been comfortable there. But this cage, the door is open. I promise you, the door is open. It's not about becoming less ambitious, because you know, I'm all about you achieving what you want to achieve. This is how you get there in one piece. This is how you get to be ambitious without being imprisoned by it, because isn't that what it's about? Isn't that what we want to do? So this is what I want you to sit with today. And if you got this far amazing, if you've started to wander off and you're doing something else, come back to me right now. Here's what I want you to sit with today. And if you got this far, amazing, if you've started to wander off and you're doing something else, come back to me right now. Here's what I want you to sit with today.
Speaker 1:You did not work this hard to recreate the same pressure for yourself. You did not work this hard to just create a different cage with different furniture in it. Right, you worked hard for your freedom. You say you want freedom, but until you stop equating worth with performance, your life is always going to feel like a series of things that you have to do, even when you chose to do them. It always will feel like a series of things you have to do so for this week.
Speaker 1:Can you start by not adding more? Take a pause, take a moment. What can you subtract? What can you let be undone? When you look at your list of things to accomplish this week, are there one or two things that you can say? You know what? I don't care if these don't get done this week. Not as a strategy, but how about a little rebellion? Rebel against those old identities. Remember step one interrogate your commitment to those identities. Rebel against them. This is something that is going to change the way you operate in your day-to-day life. That door is open. What you need to do is stop locking it from the inside. And that's what's happening. All of this pressure that you're putting on yourself. It's all locking that door from the inside. So thank you so much for being here with me today. I hope this was helpful information for you.
Speaker 1:If you haven't already listened to episode 81, the Freedom Audit, go back and listen to that, where we talk all about whether or not you're building a life or building a prison, and then come back and listen to this episode with a fresh set of ears and a fresh set of eyes and think about how you can really challenge those old beliefs, challenge those old behaviors, interrogate those old identities. Why are we so committed to them? What does it look like if we let them go and try on a new identity? I'm telling you, it is going to change the way you operate on a day-to-day basis, and that makes me excited for you because, guess what? This is how you go out and create your day, create your life in the best way possible, learning to have discernment and celebrate that discernment. Celebrate the pauses, celebrate all of the downtime.
Speaker 1:And when you see white space on your calendar, don't freak out. It's okay. Grab a book that you want to read, put a podcast on, like this one. That's what that white space is for. So, thanks for being here. I would love it if you would take a moment to leave a review, leave a rating for the podcast. It's how we reach more people. The more people we reach, the more people we can help. Go out there, create your day in the best way possible. And until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I will see you next week. Take care.