Feeling Second: When You’re Unseen, Unheard, and Learning to Come Back to Yourself

What does it feel like to live as if you’re second?

In this deeply personal episode of Wellness Within Her, Jeri Mallow shares an honest and vulnerable reflection on what it means to feel unseen, unheard, and not fully chosen—whether in relationships, family, or life.

Through the powerful story of Leah and her own experience with estrangement, Jeri explores the emotional weight of striving to be enough, the quiet pain of disconnection, and the moment everything begins to shift.

This episode is not about quick fixes or easy answers—it’s about truth, awareness, and learning how to come back to yourself when you’ve been measuring your worth by someone else’s response.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right but still not feeling enough, this conversation will meet you right where you are.

🎯 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why feeling “second” can quietly shape your identity
• How striving for validation shows up in everyday life
• The emotional reality of estrangement and disconnection
• What the story of Leah reveals about self-worth
• How to stop overgiving and come back to yourself
• The powerful mindset shift that leads to emotional freedom

Thanks for being here on Wellness Within Her. Remember, this chapter matters, your story matters, and the wellness God placed within you is enough. If you’d like to explore personal growth, healing, and purpose with me one on one, you can connect with me at lakeshorelifecoach.com.  Behind every smile is a woman carrying a weight she shouldn’t have to bear—let’s speak honestly, share vulnerably, and lift that weight together.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Wellness Within Her. So I did a talk at a church. I talk at many different locations for women's conferences and churches and things like that. And this one I did, and I just had to turn it into a podcast. It was just so incredibly moving for me because I don't think we talk about what it feels like to feel second. And it's not in like an obvious way, but in that quiet, underlying way where you just feel like you're not chosen and you're not seen and you're not quite enough for someone. And the hard part is we still function, right? We still can run our businesses and take care of our family and show up for everyone and still have this quiet thought in the back of our mind. Why doesn't it feel like I'm enough? And I felt that not just once, not just in one season, but waves throughout my life. So I'm Jerry, and today isn't going to be a perfectly packaged episode. You know me, I like to be transparent. This is gonna be one of those conversations where I just tell the truth because I think there are too many women walking around holding this feeling and not being able to say it out loud. So let's start by talking about Leah. And that's what I was talking about at this church. It's a woman from the Old Testament, a woman who looked most of her life, she lived most of her life feeling overlooked. Now, this wasn't her being misunderstood or her feeling seen. This is like actually being seen not even on an occasion, like unseen all the time, and she was consistently overlooked. Okay, and what I love and what you know breaks my heart about Leah's story is that scripture doesn't rush past her pain, it doesn't even soften it, it doesn't try to spin it even into something prettier than what it was. Leah knew what it was like to be second, like second choice, second preference, second to the woman standing next to her. And I think if we're all being honest, most, you know, there's many women who can feel that way too. You can love God deeply and you can serve faithfully and and show up to life consistently and still quietly wonder, do I really matter? So today isn't about fixing that question, it's just about answering it in a different way. And I really want you to lean into answering it the way that God would answer it, because Leah's story begins in Genesis 29, where she becomes Jacob's wife, and not because he chose her, she was given to him. And scripture tells us plainly that Jacob loved Rachel, but Leah was not loved. There was no poetic language here, like none, like no hallmark storylines, no metaphors, no apple orchards where everything turns out okay. It was just the truth because Leah lived every day beside a woman who was preferred by her husband, and every day married to a man who loved someone else, and every day trying to earn what she had never fully received. And maybe the hardest part, Leah knew it. Like she knew she was not chosen, she knew she was not seen, and she knew she was living in comparison. And so she did what many of us do when love feels uncertain. She tries harder and harder and harder and harder. I kind of think of it like when my kids were toddlers and they would walk up to me and just kind of pull on my skirt or my pants, and when I was talking to someone else and wanting my attention, but just kept going, look at me, mommy, look at me, look at me, look at me. Like that's what I think Leah was doing. Leah hoped if she produced enough, if she gave enough, if she proved enough, then maybe she would finally be chosen. And when Leah started to have children, the names that she gave her first three sons, they tell a story of her heart, like just painful to hear this. The first son's name was Reuben, and after she gave birth to him, she said, It is because the Lord has seen my misery, surely my husband will love me now. Holy cow, like this reflects her longing to be seen and to be loved in this child. Like I produced a son, now will you love me? The second son was Simeon, and Leah said, Because the Lord heard that I'm not loved, he gave me this one too. Like she felt unheard and believed that God heard her pain, but nothing changed. So then the third son came along, Levi, and now she said, Now at last my husband will become attached to me because I have borne him three sons. Like she hoped this child would finally create connection and attachment with Jacob. And did you hear that? Like, every name she gave is a plea. Like every name is hope wrapped in effort. Every name says, maybe now, maybe now I'll matter. Maybe now I'll be enough. Maybe now I'll be chosen. And I think this is where Leah's story stops being ancient. This just starts getting personal. Because so many women don't believe they actually lack worth. They just believe worth has to be earned. And if we're honest, we still do this. I'm gonna be honest, I still do this. I hear my friends say this, I hear myself say this. Maybe if I keep the house together more, maybe if you know I'm that more patient, go with the flow, mom. You know, maybe if I serve more at church, maybe if I don't rock the boat in any social situation, maybe then I'll feel my worth. And I'm gonna ask you something that I just want you to take a quiet second. You don't have to answer it out loud, you don't have to write it down. I just want you to think about this. If I took away everything you do, like who you help, what you hold together, why would you matter? If I took everything away. I once asked a group of ladies, who are you when you're useless? Like when you are truly doing nothing, who are you? And this woman raised her hand, and I I mean she just instantly had tears, and she said, Nobody. I am nobody if I'm not doing something. And you can hear in my voice, like, I can still picture the pain in her face by saying she's nobody. So who are you when you're not doing anything? Who are you when you're not being useful? Because the truth is, the woman you are when you're doing everything is the exact same woman you are when you're just being. And if that feels really hard to believe you're not alone, it was humbling. And again, if I can be honest, it's a little painful, it's a lot painful. Because what I began to see was this: I was doing the same exact thing that Leah did. I have been in seasons where I completely named my worth through output, through achievement, through responsibility, through service, hoping, maybe without even realizing it, that if I just did enough, then my value would be unquestioned. And seeing that woman answer I'm nobody, it exposed a place in my heart that still wanted to be chosen. And in the same scripture that I read to you about Leah with her three sons, there's the most tender line, I think, in the Bible. It's Genesis 29, 31 says, When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved. So not when Leah fixed it, not when she got it right, not when she earned it, just when God saw her. God didn't wait for Leah to become confident, he didn't wait for her to stop striving, he didn't even wait for her to heal herself, he didn't wait for her to go on Amazon and buy all these self-help books. He responded to her pain. Because this is who I believe God is. He sees the places we hide, he sees the effort behind the smile, and he sees the longing we've normalized, and he sees you. And when Leah gave birth again to son number four, something changed. She named her son Judah, and this is what she says when he was born. This time, I will praise the Lord. Her focus shifts from seeking Jacob's love to praising God. In fact, she doesn't make mention Jacob at all, right? Judah means praise. And for the first time, Leah stopped tying her worth to someone else's response. She stopped striving, she stopped explaining, she simply says, This time I will praise the Lord. And what praise looks like and what it looks like in real life, praise doesn't mean everything is fixed. It means I'm gonna stop measuring my worth by what's missing. Because praise wasn't denial, it was alignment. Right? It's that it's that tension between I believe in you, help me with my unbelief, because our son has been estranged from us from almost four years now. And I'll say this just plainly, like I have in other episodes. Grieving someone who is still alive is a kind of pain I wish on no one. And I'm not going to clean this up because it's not clean. There's something about estrangement that people don't fully understand until they've lived it. And it's not just distance, it's the silence, it's the wondering, it's the conversations that never happen, the moments you thought you'd have that you don't have. He lives like six minutes from us and we don't speak. He asked for no contact, and and we're honoring that. And I'm telling you, I screwed that up big time. He asked for it right away, and I just wanted it to have contact with him. I sent letters, I stopped at his house, I did everything possible. But whether I do it or I don't do it, that doesn't make the ache disappear. But by not doing it, it helps me become more aligned. So estrangement is so much more common right now than people realize. I don't know if you've heard about it, it's so much in the news and on social media. You hear about it more and more, and they say one out of every four families is dealing with this, but it still comes from this quiet layer of judgment, unfortunately. Because I've had people say to me, you know, before, well, my child, you know, would never stop talking to me. There must have been something that happened, and you must have done something wrong. I people have said that, and honestly, I can understand why they think that, but I really respond this way. If you don't think that I would have bet my life that my son would have never stopped talking to us, you have no idea what I'm going through. Because he loved his family so much, he looked so forward to being an uncle, and he loved being at any of the family gatherings, and yet here we are. He doesn't just not speak to me and my husband and my daughter, he doesn't speak to any one of us and our entire family. Not all estrangements come from bad parenting, not all distance comes from a single moment or mistake. Sometimes it's complicated, sometimes it's painful. I don't even know. I laugh because I think sometimes it's painful. No, it's always painful, but it is sometimes just part of a larger story that we just don't fully see yet. And so, like I said, we we live in the same town, and he drives a red pickup truck, and let me tell you, my heart drops every time I see one. And I feel that ache rise up again, and I have to remind myself, God sees my pain in this moment too, and he also sees how much I love him unconditionally. So last month, it had been an entire year since I'd even seen him or reached out to him or anything, and really worked on myself. And one night after work, I was driving home and I was praying, literally in the moment I was praying with a broken heart of confusion. Like, why don't I ever run into him? We literally live in the same town when I never see him. I just I just want to see him. Like, did God think it would be too painful for me? Was he protecting me? Like, I was doing the why, why, why, why? And I came over a hill, and just like that, a red truck appeared, and it was my son. And he drove right past me. And he almost had this look like there's my mom. And then he was gone. And the next week, the same day a week later, he drove by me again, and this time he covered his face. And then a week later, in the grocery store, I turned an aisle, and he was there. We each took two long looks, probably of shocking looks to each other. And then he turned around and rushed away. He turned one more time around and looked at me. And I'm sure I look like I had just seen a ghost. There's a helplessness in all of this, and no amount of strength or success can override. If you're in a season where you feel unheard by someone you love, or even by God, you're not alone. Sometimes faith isn't loud certainty. Sometimes it's quiet trust in the middle of unanswered prayers. So maybe today you came feeling overlooked. Maybe you pressed play on the podcast because you're tired of proving, or you just quietly wondered if who you are is enough. But I want to remind you. Let Leah remind you. You don't have to perform to be seen. You don't have to strive to be chosen, and you don't have to earn what God already knows. Because the God who saw Leah sees you. And that is enough. And I've had to learn very slowly, very imperfectly, how to come back to myself. Not in a, hey, I've got this all figured out way, but in a I can't keep living like this way. Just being able to ask myself, what do I need right now? Where in my life am I kind of overgiving? And where am I hoping someone else will fill something that I haven't filled? You don't come first in your life when someone chooses you. You become first when you stop leaving yourself. So if you're feeling this, I just need you to hear me. You are not the only one. There are so many women who look strong, who look like they have it all together, and are quietly carrying this exact feeling. And the moment you say it, even to one person, something is going to shift. I'm not here to tell you, like, oh, it all resolves and it all makes sense and it all gets tied up in a bow. You can see that the end of my story wasn't my son ran down the aisle and he hugged me, or I did the same. But I'm here to tell you, you don't have to keep striving to be seen. You don't have to keep proving your worth. And you don't have to keep living second. You were never second. You just learned how to measure yourself by someone else's response. And if this is you right now, just start here with these two words. This time, then finish the sentence in a way that feels true for you right now. This time I won't abandon myself. Maybe it's this time I will be honest about what I feel. Or maybe this time I will stop proving and start being. And you can always go back and listen to this again and write these down, or you can just kind of think them through as we're talking about them. But the first question is where in my life have I been quietly feeling second and not saying it out loud? Maybe it's relationships, maybe it's in your family or in your place of work or business, or maybe it's friendships. Just let yourself be honest here. Where in my life have I been quietly feeling second and not saying it out loud? The second question is: what have I been doing to try to feel more seen, heard, or chosen, and how is that actually making me feel? So gently notice if you've been over-giving, over-explaining, or over-trying. I think this happens so simply, and we don't realize how much we're overriding ourselves. But just being able to over-explain something. So even when someone asks me to do something and I say no, I'm really cautious. I don't over-explain why I can't do it. Thank you for thinking of me. I I don't have that in my schedule right now. Or I just even say thank you so much for thinking of me. It doesn't fit right now. I'm so sorry I can't do it. So, what have I been doing to try to feel more seen, heard, or chosen, and how is that actually making me feel? The more we overgive, over-explain, over-try, we tend to start feeling not like ourselves. So just be honest with that question as well. Question number three, if I'm really being honest, what part of me feels hurt, unseen, or longing right now? And that's not the superficial surface answer. I'm talking about the deeper one. Which part of me feels hurt, unseen, or longing for right now? What do you long for? What hurts? The fourth question: what would it look like to choose myself in this season instead of waiting to be chosen? Again, this question is small, real. It's doable. It does not have to be perfect. What would it look like to choose myself in this season instead of waiting to be chosen? I know these are powerful questions, and sometimes people have said, Well, what if the answer is I don't know? That's okay. Ask yourself these questions tomorrow. You might hear a completely different answer. That's growth, that's change, that's you being done, being stuck. And if something in this conversation, if it felt a little too familiar and you're thinking, you know, this this is kind of exactly where where I am, I just want you to know you actually don't have to walk through this alone. This is the work I do with women every week, not fixing you. Just standing next to you as you come back to yourself, helping you to understand what you're carrying and why it feels the way it does, and how to move through it in a way that actually feels grounded and true. There's so much power when I get to say to myself, Wow, the work I'm doing feels like me. It feels authentic. So if you're in that season, you're feeling unseen, disconnected, or just tired of holding it in, holding all of it on your own. I offer free clarity sessions. This is a real conversation. It's not, there's no pressure in them. It's just space for you to be honest about where you are and what you need. And if nothing else, just take one small step this week. The one small step is actually towards yourself. You're not second. Take care.