This Isn't Burnout, It's Identity Collapse

Sometimes the loneliest place isn't failure. It's success, when the life you've built on the outside looks like everything, and the inside feels like nothing.

In this episode, Ky Kingsley gets honest about why she created the UnMother Me Podcast, and what it really means to be trapped in survival success. Survival success is the achievement we build on top of coping mechanisms: the over-performing, the perfectionism, the hyper-control that helped us survive difficult seasons, impossible expectations, and identities that were never really ours to begin with.

Ky shares the moment she looked at her own life, the career, the income, the home, the marriage, and realized that everything she had built reflected an identity she wasn't aligned with. And the terrifying truth was that stepping off that rocket ship felt impossible.

If you've ever wondered why slowing down feels more dangerous than burning out, this episode is for you.

You'll hear:

• What survival success actually is, and why high achievers are most at risk
• Why this isn't burnout, it's identity collapse
• What it really takes to move to the next level (and why you don't have to burn it all down)
• Why Ky paused the podcast, and what brought her back

You are not alone in this. And this is the place where we start asking the questions that change everything.

Subscribe to UnMother Me on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Join the conversation inside the Wealth With Wellbeing Collective at kykingsley.com

Ready for your next evolution?

Join Wealth With Wellbeing Collective™, a private community for high-capacity women and leaders who’ve outgrown their old identity and want success that feels like home.

Inside you’ll find:
 • The 5-Day Safe to Receive Reset
 • Weekly Group Coaching Call
 • A Community of High Capacity Leaders Creating Wealth With Wellbeing
 • Prosperity & Strategy Workshops
 • A grounded space to reconnect to who you’re becoming

Join the community + access free resources:
https://www.skool.com/wealthwithwellbeings/about

Connect with Ky Kingsley:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kykingsley1
 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ky.align/                                           website: www.kykingsley.com

You don't need to survive your success.

Transcript

0:01

Sometimes the loneliest place is not failure, it's success. Especially when your success is costing you everything. So let's talk a little bit about why I started Unmother Me. There was a time in my life where, from outward appearances, everything seemed successful. Had the job, had the husband, the marriage, the children, the four thousand square foot home, the multi-figure, fixed figure income. Everything on the outside looked like success. However, everything on the inside felt really messy. And what caused this to happen? In retrospect, when I look back on this time of my life, really what was going on was that I had built in my high-achieving, overperforming, hyper-focused self, perfectionist self, this life that really wasn't a reflection of the pieces of me that I valued the most. Essentially, I had created this high-achieving life out of an identity that I really wasn't aligned with. And I called this survival success. It's success that we do based upon coping mechanisms and ways of being in the world that helped us get through rough childhoods, amazing childhoods, expectations at school or from parents, whatever those external influences were that pushed buttons inside of you, causing you to overperform and underfunction in terms of how you are connecting to and caring for yourself. That's survival success. And that's why I created Unmother Me to really start unraveling those identities and pieces of ourselves, the roles we play, the limiting beliefs we have. Just start questioning the stuff that is holding us prisoner in our lives. And how do you step outside of a life that you're living that requires you to go 90 miles an hour? I once described this as I'm on a rocket ship to the moon and you're asking me to jump off into the unknown. I had no idea what my life would possibly look like if I took my foot off the gas even for a second. And frankly, I was terrified to find out. If this is resonating with you at all, I just want you to know you're not alone in this experience. Over 47% of Americans are suffering burnout. This isn't burnout. This is an absolute identity collapse. The identity that is building the life you're living is not the identity that is going to help you find your way to the next level. I also want to let you know that you're not going to have to burn it all down to get where you want to go. Honestly, you're going to take the skills that you're currently using and the success that you currently have and expand on it. That may sound easy, but it's not. It's awkward and uncomfortable and terrifying, frankly, if you're a person who has been leading through control and perfectionism and fixing and carrying everything for everyone in every area of your life. Sometimes I'm doing my own episodes and sometimes I'm inviting guests on to be able to talk through it, but we're here to collaborate on this mission together. And so I really want you to know that I see you, you are not alone. I am here for you. And I will continue to show up for you. And so why did I pause? What happened? I put out four episodes and then I paused. Well, it's an interesting thing. I got four episodes in and took a pause to be able to go deeper with my own work and align it more deeply with this emerging identity that I am nurturing and growing and continues to evolve. And I didn't really see the podcast as being the center of my ecosystem that I was creating. And what I learned is it's absolutely the voice of the brand. And I have to have the courage to be able to show up here on a weekly basis to be able to really resonate with women like yourself and men too, frankly, who I am trying to help get to the other side of this very, very lonely place. So that's it, folks, for this week. It's really just about being here and letting you know I see you and you are not alone in this.