The Moment You Choose Yourself Again w/ John R. Miles | EP 699

There is a moment when you look at your life and realize something important. You have been waiting. You have been giving your energy away. You have been putting everyone else first. And somewhere along the line, you started disappearing from your own story. This solo episode is about that moment. The moment you choose yourself again. John R. Miles explores why so many of us learn to shrink to fit other people’s expectations, and what happens when you finally decide that your voice, your needs, and your well-being matter too. He breaks down the four core patterns that lead to self-abandonment and explains how a single shift can change your confidence, your relationships, your energy, and your future. When you choose yourself even once, your life begins to reorganize around that truth. If you have ever felt stuck or invisible, or like you have been living a version of your life that no longer feels like your own, this episode will help you take the next step back home to yourself. Read the full show notes here: https://passionstruck.com/stop-abandoning-yourself/Listen, Watch, and Go DeeperAll episode links are gathered here, including my books You Matter, Luma, and Passion Struck, The Ignited Life Substack, YouTube channels, and the Start Mattering apparel store:https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesDownload the Companion WorkbookThe Choose Yourself Again Activation Guide is available now at TheIgnitedLife.net. Support the MovementEveryone deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter. Show it. Wear it. Live it.https://StartMattering.comDisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a licensed physician, therapist, or other qualified professional. Connect with John Pre-Order The Mattering Effect: https://matteringeffect.com/Book John to Speak: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking/Keynotes, books, podcast, and resources: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesChildren’s Book — You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Substack: https://www.theignitedlife.net/Support the Movement: https://startmattering.com/. Every human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter. Wear it. Live it. Show it. DisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00John R. Miles?

  Coming up next on Passion Struck, there comes a moment when it hits you. Simple, brutal, and life-changing. No one is coming to save you. No one else gets to choose your energy, your boundaries, your healing, or your future. That truth can feel like a free fall until you realize it's also the first day of the rest of your life. Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning,

• 0:44John R. Miles?

  heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter.

• 1:12John R. Miles?

  Hi friends and welcome back to episode 699 of Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles, and today we're talking about the turning point that changes everything, the moment you choose yourself again. We're deep into our new series, The Season of Becoming. This week alone, Susan Grau showed us how to rebuild after loss, and Anne Libera reminded us that becoming is an improv act, messy, playful, and brave. But here's what I need you to hear underneath all of it. None of the tools, guests, or insights matter until you make one decision inside your own chest, that decision that says, "I'm done waiting. I'm done shrinking. I am worthy of

• 1:55John R. Miles?

  my own investment. I choose me again." That single choice rewires how you show up in relationships, work, confidence, everything.

• 2:07John R. Miles?

  So if you've ever felt stuck, burned out, or like you've been living someone else's version of your life, this episode is your permission slip to come home. One quick favor before we dive in. If Passion Struck has ever lit something up in you, hit that share button and send this to one person who needs to hear it today. And if you're ready for the workbooks, reflections, and community that go deeper, come join us on my Substack at theignitedlife.net. Last thing, if you haven't left a review lately, a quick five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify means the world and helps new listeners find us. All right, let's talk about why we abandon ourselves in the first place and what it

• 2:51John R. Miles?

  actually feels like when you finally stop. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

• 3:07John R. Miles?

  Look, nobody wakes up one morning and says, you know what? Today, I'm gonna throw myself under the bus. It doesn't work like that. It's death by a thousand tiny cuts. You swallow one no, you let one boundary slide, you tell yourself, it's fine, I'll deal with it later, about 400 times. And then, on some random Tuesday, you look around and think, wait, whose life I even live in? It still looks like your house, your job, your people, but it doesn't feel like you're in there anymore. I've watched this happen to literally thousands of people, and every single time, the same four patterns show up.

• 3:49John R. Miles?

  And this week, Susan Grau and Anne Libera basically held up giant neon signs pointing right at them. All right, let's just call this first one what it is, fear of disappointing people. And don't even try to act like this isn't you, because I'm raising my hand over here too. This is the one where you would literally rather chew glass than tell somebody no, or let them down for five seconds. You will cancel your own plans, drain your bank account, show up sick, lie, whatever it takes, because God forbid, somebody thinks you're not nice, or you're selfish, or you're letting the team down. That feeling in your stomach.

• 4:32John R. Miles?

  When you're about to say no, and it feels like you're jumping off a cliff. That's this. That's the fear of disappointing people running the show. And I'm telling you right now, it's gotta go. Pattern number two, and buckle up because this one is gonna sting. Getting tangled up in your own damn roles. You know exactly who you are in this one. You're the strong one. You're the fixer. You're that person everybody texts at 2:00 a.m. when their life's on fire because they know you'll pick up. You're the human Swiss Army knife, and you love it until you realize you have zero clue who you are when nobody needs anything from you.

• 5:16John R. Miles?

  You got the cape on 24 by 7, and you're wondering why you're exhausted and resentful and empty. That's this pattern. That's you turning yourself into everybody else's answer key and forgetting you're a whole-ass person underneath the superhero costume. Let's burn that cape right now. Pattern number three, and oh my God, this one is sneaky. Emotional outsourcing. This is when you have handed the remote control of how you feel about yourself to every single person in your life. Your mom's mood controls you. Your boss's tone in that email controls you. Your friend not texting you back fast enough? Spiral city.

• 6:02John R. Miles?

  You wake up and your self-worth is basically a group chat vote. You feel good only when everybody else is happy with you. You feel like trash the second somebody's quiet or pissed or distant. You have outsourced your entire emotional operating system to people who don't even know if they have the password. And I'm here to tell you, take that damn remote back today. Pattern number four, and this one pisses me off the most. Learned self minimizing. This is the voice in your head that still sounds like your third grade teacher,

• 6:42John R. Miles?

  your mom, your ex, whoever telling you, don't be loud, don't want too much, don't take up too much space. So we get really, really good at making ourselves small. Earlier this week, Susan Grau talked about banging her head against walls, trying to force life to look right. And Libra talked about how creativity dies the second you start playing it safe. Same energy. Choosing yourself again is deciding you're done folding yourself up to fit somebody else's box. Those four things, they're not character flaws. They're survival strategies that we picked up because at one point, they kept us safe or loved or accepted.

• 7:26John R. Miles?

  The problem is they don't expire on their own. You have to fire them. And one day, maybe on a random drive, maybe at 2:00 a.m., maybe in the middle of another fight you're too tired to have, you finally feel it. Staying small is starting to hurt worse than whatever happens if you stand up. That's the moment. That's the threshold. And next, we're walking straight through it together. Here's the thing about choosing yourself again. It never starts as a grand declaration. It starts as a crack, a tiny internal rupture that says, I can't keep doing this.

• 8:07John R. Miles?

  Sometimes it shows up as exhaustion that you can't push through anymore. Sometimes it's anger, the quiet kind, the kind that tells you you've ignored too many truths. Sometimes it's grief. Sometimes it's clarity that feels like it came out of nowhere. But underneath all of it is the same sentence. I'm done. Abandoning myself. And once that line appears, it never goes away. It doesn't show up when the calendar is empty, or when you've had a good night's sleep, or when the people around you are finally ready for you to change. It usually arrives in the middle of a mess, when you're holding everything together,

• 8:49John R. Miles?

  when you're bending in 12 directions at once, when you're trying so hard to keep the peace that your soul is the only thing not invited. Choosing yourself again rarely arrives as relief. At first, it arrives as truth, and truth is disruptive. It's the moment your soul stops negotiating. For years, your soul will whisper, it will nudge, it will give taps. But there comes a moment, and Susan described it so well this week, when that whisper becomes a knowing, not loud, not dramatic, just undeniable. Susan said in our interview, when your soul is done, it's done.

• 9:33John R. Miles?

  It won't let you pretend anymore. And that line right there, that's the moment people confuse with crisis. But it's not crisis, it's the awakening. It's the moment you stop asking for permission. This is the internal shift that changes everything. You stop waiting for someone to validate your feelings, someone to give you the green light, someone to say yes. You're allowed to change, someone to make it easier for you. You stop outsourcing the decision, you stop pulling the room, you stop negotiating your needs with people who benefit when you have none. And you choose yourself, not because you're ready,

• 10:15John R. Miles?

  but because not choosing yourself is no longer survivable. It's the moment that fear flips direction.

• 10:24John R. Miles?

  People think that moment of choosing yourself is about becoming brave. It's not. It's when the fear of staying the same finally outweighs the fear of changing. It's when remaining silent feels more dangerous than speaking up. When staying small feels more painful than growing. When pleasing everyone feels more suffocating than disappointing someone. That's when the access tilts. It's the moment you stop performing and start living. Anne said something in our conversation from yesterday that fits perfectly here. She told me improv breaks the second you try to look good instead of being real.

• 11:08John R. Miles?

  And that is so true in life, too. Choosing yourself again is the moment you drop the performance. You stop acting out the version of yourself that keeps everyone comfortable. And you let the real version, the messy, honest, intuitive, evolving version, step forward. It's the moment you stop editing your existence. It doesn't come with fireworks. It comes with a full body exhale. People romanticize choosing yourself, but it's not a movie montage. It's not a big speech. It's not a triumphant song playing while you walk into the sunset. It's quieter than that. It feels like a deep breath you haven't taken in years.

• 11:52John R. Miles?

  A loosening in your chest, a sense of home you can't logically explain. A tiny spark of recognition. There I am. Choosing yourself again is not about becoming someone new. It's about returning to the person you were before the world convinced you to shrink. And when you make that choice, even once, even in the smallest way, something incredible happens. Your energy shifts. Your confidence lifts. Your intuition sharpens. Your relationships recalibrate. Opportunities you couldn't see before start to appear. Because choosing yourself again doesn't change what you do. It changes who you become.

• 12:34John R. Miles?

  Next, we're breaking this down piece by piece. What actually changes when you finally stop abandoning yourself and start betting on you? So here's a question I want you to sit with for a moment. What's one small way you could choose yourself today? One boundary, one truth, one pause, one "I matter to" moment? That could shift the entire direction of your life. If you want to reflect on it with me, come share your thoughts over at theignitedlife.net. My Substack community, where we go deeper into these conversations every week. And before we continue, I want to tell you something I'm incredibly proud of. I just announced my first children's book, You Matter Luma.

• 13:14John R. Miles?

  It's a story about a little bunny who feels too small to matter until she discovers her light changes everything. It's a story about belonging, empathy, and self-worth. The same themes we explore in today's episode. And when you preorder, you're helping bring this message of mattering to families everywhere. You can preorder now at Barnes & Noble or visit youmatterluma.com to learn more. Now, a quick word from our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. It truly helps us keep bringing you conversations that matter.

• 13:50John R. Miles?

  You're listening to Passion Struck on the Passion Struck Network. Okay, here's what nobody tells you. Choosing yourself isn't a cute little affirmation. It's a full system reboot. And once that decision lands, even one time, your entire life starts rearranging itself around it. Let's break down exactly how. When you stop abandoning yourself, the first thing that comes back online is your energy. Why? Because self-abandonment is one of the biggest energy leaks in the world. Every boundary you don't hold drains you. Every "yes" you don't mean drains you. Every time you silence yourself drains you. When you choose yourself again, that leak stops.

• 14:33John R. Miles?

  You feel it the same day, like someone finally plugged you back in. Your body literally goes, "Thank God, we're finally telling the truth." You see, confidence isn't something you chase. It's the byproduct of keeping promises to yourself. It's saying, "I can count on me." And here's the beautiful part, your brain believes the actions you repeat. Do it once, spark. Do it twice, fire. You keep doing it, that's a new identity. You don't become confident, you stop betraying yourself long enough for the confidence that was always there to come home. And that's when your intuition gets louder. You see, you've been ignoring that

• 15:16John R. Miles?

  gut feeling so long, it went quiet. But the moment you choose yourself again, your intuition surges back, like a radio signal finally turned to the right frequency. This is why people suddenly start saying things like, "I just knew." It didn't feel right anymore. Something in me said no. Or for the first time, I listened. Your soul stops whispering and starts yelling, "Hell no," or "Hell yes." And for the first time, you don't argue. Next, your relationships either level up or fall off. And thank God, when you stop being a human doormat, some people lose their minds. The ones who loved easy access

• 15:59John R. Miles?

  to you will throw a tantrum. Let them. These are the mosquitoes in your life that I often talk about and wrote about in my book, Passion Struck. The bloodsuckers, the invisible suffocators, the pain in the asses. However, the right people, they breathe a sigh of relief because they finally get the real you. You stop attracting emotional vampires and start attracting humans who can handle the full wattage. And then there are opportunities. Most people think opportunities show up when life gets better. Nope. Opportunities show up when you get better aligned. Choosing yourself again recalibrates your decision-making.

• 16:43John R. Miles?

  You start noticing openings you used to ignore. You pursue things you used to talk yourself out of. You walk away from things that were draining you. Doors don't open. You finally stop standing in front of them. And when you choose yourself again, you stop living the Thanksgiving leftover life you drifted into, and you start living the life you consciously are building. You stop reacting to everybody else's script, and you start writing your own damn story. That's when becoming actually begins. So yes, choosing yourself again...

• 17:18John R. Miles?

  Seems small at first. It feels private. Sometimes it even feels scary, but the ripple effect is massive. One decision, one moment where you say, "I'm done abandoning me." That's all it takes for everything. Your energy, your confidence, your relationships, your future, to start reorganizing around the truth of who you are. So, we're getting to that point of the episode where I'm starting to wrap this up, and I'm not letting you leave without a very specific, very simple assignment that will change everything if you actually do it. Okay, stop. Stop waiting for the perfect moment, the big dramatic overhaul,

• 18:00John R. Miles?

  the day you wake up magically fixed. That day is never coming. Choosing yourself again doesn't start with quitting your job, leaving your marriage, or moving to Bali. It starts with one little hell no moment today. I'm giving you five moves that are so stupid simple, you have zero excuse. Do one. Do all five. Just do something before the weekend ends. Number one, one boundary. Not a fence around your whole life, just one brick. Pick the thing that's been pissing you off for weeks. The favor you always do, the conversation

• 18:39John R. Miles?

  you dread, the person who dumps their drama on you all the time. Today you say, "Hey, that doesn't work for me anymore." You don't need a PowerPoint. You don't need to be mean. Just say it. Text it right now while you're listening. I'll wait. Done? Good. That tiny little sentence just put you back in the driver's seat. Number two, one glorious, life-giving no. Look at your calendar, your phone, your to-do list. Find the thing that makes your soul deflate the second that you think about it. Say no to that. No, I can't make it. No, I'm not available. No, period. Say it today. Watch how fast the oxygen comes back into

• 19:24John R. Miles?

  your lungs. No is not rude. No is oxygen.

• 19:30John R. Miles?

  Then there's number three, five minutes that are 100% yours. Not for the kids, not for work, not for someone else's dreams. Five minutes, put your phone on do not disturb. Step outside, walk around the block, stretch on the floor. Write one on a sentence in your notes app. Whatever lights even a tiny spark in you. Five minutes is not a luxury. It's a declaration that I still exist under all this noise. And then there's number four. Say the thing that you're pretending isn't true out loud right now. I'm exhausted. I'm pissed off. I want out. I deserve more. Say it to the steering wheel.

• 20:15John R. Miles?

  Say it in the shower. Say it to your dog. It doesn't matter. The second the truth leaves your mouth, the pretending loses its power. Say it like you're daring the universe to prove you're wrong. I dare you. And then lastly, number five. One move today that screams, I'm on my own team. Take the nap. Eat the meal sitting down. Apply for the job that feels out of reach. Don't answer the text. Buy the thing that's just for you. Do the thing that makes zero logical sense, but feels like a hell yes in your body. One choice that says, I matter too. That's it. That's the whole game.

• 20:58John R. Miles?

  Keep stacking them and six months from now, you won't recognize the old version of you. That's how this works. As we close today, I want you to hear this clearly. Becoming isn't a season on your calendar. It's the season inside you. A season that opens up the moment you decide that you are worthy of your own allegiance. It doesn't require readiness, just willingness. It doesn't require perfection, just honesty. It doesn't require permission, just your own truth. Because the doorway to your next chapter isn't out there somewhere.

• 21:37John R. Miles?

  It's in the moment you stop abandoning who you are and start honoring who you're becoming. So today, choose yourself, even if it's imperfect, even if it's inconvenient, even if you're scared, because once you do, your life won't return to what it was. It will rise to meet who you are. And this journey continues next week. On Tuesday, I'm joined by Brent Gleason to explore his new book, All In: A Raw, Transformative Look at Commitment, Resilience, and the Psychology of Going All In When Everything in You Wants to Pull Back. It's a powerful extension of today's message.

• 22:19John R. Miles?

  Choosing your path, choosing your standards, choosing you.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  If I had to pick one thing, and I think a lot of veterans would resonate with this, is your experiences in the military, especially if you've had any experience downrange, is about perspective and really looking at the world and your life and the impact you want to have through a completely different lens. And you have a greater degree of discipline then because of that to eliminate things from your life that really are either adding no value or are blockages and threats to living a meaningful, purpose-driven life that'll have a positive impact on others.

• 22:54John R. Miles?

  Until next time, remember, to matter is to be seen. And that revolution starts with one gaze, one name, one I noticed. This is John Miles. You've been passion struck. Now go start the revolution.