Ep 23 - How Pride Keeps You Stuck and the Shift Into Humility That Changes Everything

Ego, identity, and the hidden patterns keeping you in the same loop and how to break free through awareness, nervous system safety, and soul-led growth.

What if the part of you that feels strong… is actually the part keeping you stuck?

In this episode of Midlife Audacity, Celeste DiDona explores the hidden ways pride shows up in everyday life — not as arrogance, but as protection. Through the lens of neuroscience, nervous system regulation, and the deeper meaning of Palm Sunday, she reveals how pride can quietly keep you looping in familiar patterns, blocking growth, connection, and expansion.

You’ll learn:

• Why pride often disguises itself as strength
 • How your nervous system reinforces identity loops
 • The deeper symbolism of Palm Sunday and chosen humility
 • Why external validation creates instability in midlife
 • How to shift from ego-led patterns into soul-led living

This episode is a powerful invitation to release control, soften into awareness, and choose a more grounded, aligned way of moving through your next chapter.

Soulful Sunday Newsletter:  Each week, you’ll hear from me in a way that’s simple, intentional, and easy to stay connected to.

Book Study Seminars:  Soul School has opened up new room called, Book Study Seminars.  This room meets four times a year to read, study and unpack not only the words, but our lives, together.  Our spring theme is identity expansion and we start May 7th. For four weeks, we’ll study together using, The Big Leap by Gay Henricks, as our anchor text. Together, we will explore what has been keeping you in your upper limit, how your identity may be capping your expansion, and how to begin feeling safe stepping into your next level self.

Soul School: A curriculum for midlife women who are ready to remember their wisdom, protect their energy, project their power and come back into alignment. You don’t need fixing. You need to remember. Open for enrollment NOW.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there. Before we begin, I want to share something with you. This winter book study seminar with the surrender experiment has been something really special. Each week I find myself genuinely excited to step into this space to teach, to listen, and to explore what it actually means to surrender ego consciousness and begin following the lead of soul consciousness and what life is really offering to all of us. Things that were in plain sight that we never could really see. This isn't just something we're reading about, it's something that we're practicing and living and noticing in real time and using the book as our guide. And I can feel what's opening up here, which is why I'm so excited for what's coming next. At the end of April, we'll be opening the doors to our spring book study seminar, where we'll be diving into the big leap by Gay Hendricks. This next season, spring, is all about expansion, exploring your zone of genius and gently moving beyond the limits you've been living inside of, even the ones that feel comfortable. So if you've been craving a space where you're not just consuming ideas, but you're actually integrating them into your life, I'd love to invite you into this next room. Spots will be limited, and this is a space for women who are ready to go there. So click in the show notes to join my newsletter, and you can find out all the details of when this launches from that. All right, let's get into it. Welcome back to Midlife Audacity. I'm your host, Celeste Dona, teacher, writer, speaker, and guide for women who are ready to rise into their next chapter boldly, soulfully, and unapologetically. Today we're going to talk about something that most people don't realize is quietly running their life. Pride. And how pride is keeping you stuck in patterns even when you think you're growing. So let's get into this. Pride gets a bad reputation. We think of pride as arrogance, ego, loud, obvious. But the kind of pride that actually keeps most women stuck, including myself, is kind of subtle. It's a little bit more like, I'm fine, I've got this. I don't need your help. I already know this. How many of you find yourself saying these things? Maybe it's in your own head, or maybe it's even out loud, where you kind of think you can handle everything on your own, and you really don't need to reach out to others to support you. And then what I find, and at least this happens to me, is that we end up becoming very resentful. Like, wow, I'm taking on everything, and nobody around me seems to notice or care or is stepping up to the plate to offer to help. I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling those feelings, right? And I think a part of it is that on the surface, us doing everything and us like having this pride and saying, I'm fine and I've got it and I can do this, we view it as a type of strength. But this type of pride is keeping us looping. Because if you already know, then what this actually ends up doing is it stops us from receiving. If you don't need help, you are actually blocking connection. If you've got it handled, you stop growing. Do you see where I'm going with this? Right? Pride quietly is closing so many doors. And I never really looked at it like that, but it's the truth. And it's been something that has been kind of creeping up in the background for me. And I thought, what a better day than to talk about it today. So let's look at the science of this, right? Your brain, as we've spoken about many, many times on this podcast, is wired for safety. Your nervous system literally wants predictability, familiarity, control. So when something challenges your identity, and when you're asked to be seen differently, stretch and expand, right? And you are allowing others in, your system sees this as a flag, right? And it will start to go back to familiar programming. Nope, nope, nope, we're good here. I'm good. Pride steps in as the protector, right? And it starts to tell us, no, no, don't go there. You got this, you can handle it on your own. You don't need help. And this is this loop, right, that keeps us living the same day in and day out. And this pattern, right, is something that we do need to become aware of and start to interrupt. Because, like I said earlier, this is really getting us in the way of expansion, of growth, of connection, of really leaning into our soul consciousness, because this is all driven by ego consciousness. This is our mind going to work to protect. And if we don't stop and pause and recognize and become a loving witness to this, it will continue this same pattern. And I know for myself, what ends up happening as a byproduct of that is resentment begins to build. Because here's really the truth: we are not meant to carry it all. We feel like we should. We feel guilt and shame if we, the mother, we the wife, we the matriarch of our family somehow doesn't, you know, do everything for everybody, we start to beat ourselves up over it. And this is an old program that is running in the background that we do need to recognize and stop. Ladies, this is such a critical, pivotal awareness that we can allow ourselves to have, um, and really start to acknowledge is our pride getting in the way? And where is it really limiting us in terms of our growth and our expansion? And I was really thinking a lot about this this morning. I was actually in um, I had committed to during Lent, I had committed to um four, well, 10 weeks of like Bible study. And so on Sundays, I was kind of digging into scripture and um I was actually immersed in the story of Esther. And this morning I was reading and I was really thinking about Palm Sunday, which is today as I record this episode. Um, and I was thinking about this in terms of today, Palm Sunday. If you're Catholic, um, you would know that this is when um Jesus enters Jerusalem, right? And people are lined up and they're praising him, they're celebrating him, they're calling him a king. Um, and it's really quite interesting because he chooses to ride in on a donkey. Not a horse, not in armor, not in a version of power, which would with being a king, right? And what the people would have expected, right? Because they're now, you know, cheering him on and saying that he's the king, he's the messiah, and he's coming in on a donkey. Hmm. And it really did get me thinking about this. This was intentional. At the time, you know, horses symbolized war and dominance, and a donkey, and I had to look this up, a donkey symbolized peace, humility, and alignment. So isn't it interesting that Jesus chose, he actually like told his disciples exactly where to get the donkey that he was going to be riding in on? So while the crowd is projecting power onto him, he's embodying something completely different, right? And isn't it interesting if you're Catholic and you know the story of Holy Week and what happens, right? That same crowd that's praising him on Palm Sunday is the exact same crowd that turns on him days later, which tells us that your identity is built on being seen and validated and approved, then you're gonna always feel unstable. And that links exactly back to what I was talking about earlier. If you are letting your pride lead, your ego consciousness lead, then it's going to be unstable. And you're going to feel resentment when nobody is praising you, right? Because you are only looking for that external validation, that external approval. And you're gonna rise and fall. And if you get that praise and that approval, you're gonna feel really great and pleased with yourself, right? And like proud. And when you do not get it, which I find is often what ends up happening, when you don't get it, you're going to be so let down, right? So disappointed, because you're attached to this external validation of what what you view, what people view you as. This is what Jesus was doing on the donkey. He did not need to prove to the masses he already knew. He already felt worthy of a king. Right? And ladies, we should feel like we are daughters of a king. That we don't need to show up and prove our worth day in and day out. Right? Pride is about performing, humility is about embodying. Pride needs to be seen. Humility is rooted in who you are. And so I find this to be really a valuable conversation and even maybe a valuable wake-up call, especially in midlife, right? Where you feel like you're you're tired. And the reason why you're tired is because your whole life, or at least for me, I know for my most of my married life, I was always um striving for that recognition. And I would be very disappointed and let down when I did not receive it. And I think in midlife we start to take off that mask, or at least I did. And I was like, nope, no more. You know, I don't have to prove, I don't have to be validated, I know who I am. And maybe at this point in your life you're like, I don't really even know who I am without that. And that's also something to really lean into and be aware of, right? Like, who am I if I don't continue that that loop, right? Um, so it's really not being judgmental of it, not trying to fix it, just notice it, you know, and notice where you're saying, I already know this, I'm fine, I'm good. Notice where you're resisting support, notice where you're choosing control over growth, and then just soften a little bit because you don't need to rip pride out, you know. Gently, gently, you can become aware of it, and then you can simply choose again. That's the work. That's the work to simply be aware of it and then choose differently. So think about this as you are to Holy Week, if you are Christian. I want you to see where you're trying to prove your worth. Where is pride keeping you in control and out of alignment? Where are you choosing to be right instead of being free? Be honest. Cause that's where the work begins. And remember, you're a daughter of a king, which means that you don't have to perform for your worth. Pride tries to prove, whereas truth simply lives. So, what would it look like to stop proving and to start living? To loosen your grip just a little, to soften just enough to see what's actually true. Not perfect, not finished, just aware, just open, and willing to choose differently. That's it. That's the shift. All right, until next time. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And like always, if you know someone that would appreciate it, please share it and leave a review. Bye bye.