The RISE Experience
It's not always about becoming someone different.
Sometimes it's about realizing you've been disconnected from yourself for longer than you thought.
The RISE Experience is a podcast for the woman who can handle a lot. She shows up, gets things done, keeps life moving… and still quietly wonders, Why don't I feel like myself anymore?
Shannon Denniston is the founder of RISE, with a deep background in behavior change and the human side of transformation. Through RISE, she explores what real transformation actually looks like — the patterns underneath what we do, the beliefs and roles we've carried, the relationships that shape us, the systems that support us, and the identity shifts that happen when our old ways of functioning stop carrying us.
A lot of what gets called "starting over" isn't starting over at all. It's learning to notice what's been running in the background, reconnect with your own voice, and move forward without erasing who you've become.
No reinvention. No pretending you need to become a whole new person. Just honest conversations about finding your way back to yourself, with faith as an anchor, and learning how to live from that place.
The RISE Experience
Are You Loved for Who You Are or Just Needed for What You Do?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
If you stopped always picking up the phone, always fixing, always holding everything together, would the people in your life still stay close? I want to sit with that question and gently untangle the difference between being needed and being truly known and loved.
Episode Summary
If you’re the woman who gets the late-night text, who always figures it out, who never drops the ball, this is for you. I’m going one layer deeper into the pattern of building love and belonging on how useful you are, and the quiet fear that if you stop showing up, you might stop mattering.
Together we’ll name the ache underneath all the giving, the part of you that longs to be seen and stayed for, even when you’re not doing anything for anyone. We’ll look at what it costs to lead with usefulness, what Scripture (especially Romans 8) has been saying all along about love you don’t have to earn, and how to begin receiving love as who you are, not just what you bring to the table.
Key Takeaways
- How early on you may have learned that being helpful, responsible, or “the strong one” felt like the safest way to be loved.
- The difference between giving from fullness and giving because you’re afraid of what might happen if you stop.
- Why always being available and never asking for much keeps you from being truly known.
- A key question to sit with: Would they still be calling if I didn’t always answer?
- How confusing being needed with being loved quietly shapes the way you show up in your closest relationships.
- Why the fear you feel when you imagine saying “I can’t this time” says more about what the relationship was built on than how lovable you are.
- How Romans 8 invites you into a love that has nothing to do with your performance or usefulness.
- A simple inner shift: choosing to receive appreciation as being about who you are, not only what you did.
- How to honor the version of you who learned to lead with usefulness and gently let her rest.
- A new picture of yourself as a woman who walks into the room already enough, giving from fullness and not fear.
Episode Chapters
00:40 When staying small in relationships started for you
02:10 The late-night text and the warmth of being needed
04:00 How usefulness became the safest way to be loved
06:00 “I’m a helper, I’m a giver” – when strategy becomes identity
08:10 Giving from fullness vs. giving from fear
10:00 The longing to be known beyond what you do
11:50 Choosing to stop hiding behind usefulness
13:10 What your fear is really telling you about your relationships
15:20 Receiving appreciation as who you are
17:10 Letting the “always useful” version of you rest
18:50 Romans 8 and a love you don’t have to earn
19:40 Prayer for the woman who’s tired of only being needed
Memorable Quotes
“Being needed gives you a place in the room, but it was never meant to be the only language you know for feeling loved.”
“There’s a real difference between giving from fullness and giving because you don’t yet trust that who you are is enough apart from what you do for everyone else.”
“Being known isn’t something someone does to you when they finally pay enough attention; it’s something you do when you stop hiding the real version of you behind everything you provide.”
“The fear that if you stop being useful you might stop mattering is not information about how much they love you—it’s information about what you’ve built the relationship on.”
“The woman you’re finding your way back to doesn’t have to earn her place in a room. She walks in, and her presence alone is enough. She gives, but from fullness and not fear.”
Resources Mentioned
Scripture: Romans 8
About the Podcast
Welcome to The RISE Experience — a podcast for women who are finding their way back to themselves. This is a space to slow down when everything feels loud, to lead from steadiness instead of urgency, and to finally hear yourself think again. Here we talk about identity, faith, and the quiet inner wisdom that gets buried under all the doing. A place to pause, reflect, and rise from clarity instead of pressure.
Follow The Rise Experience and share this with one friend who’s been beating herself up for the thing she reaches for when life gets loud.
Your next step: https://msha.ke/risewithshannon
Read the blog: https://www.risewithshannon.blog/
Come hang out:
FB: Shannon Bell Denniston
IG: @risewithshannon
SEO tags
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