The Moment You Can't Outrun Yourself Anymore

THE MOMENT YOU CAN'T OUTRUN YOURSELF ANYMORE

There comes a point when the armor you built to survive starts suffocating you. When the 3 AM ceiling stares become unavoidable conversations with yourself. When your body finally says: "We can't keep running."

This is that moment—raw, unfiltered, and absolutely necessary.

In this episode, we dive into:

• The 3 AM reckoning - when your nervous system won't let you pretend anymore and your chest is tight from dreams you can't remember
• The armor trap - how protection that once saved you now keeps you small, and why your wounds became your identity
• The breakthrough realization - you are not what happened to you; you are not your survival story
• Body wisdom - how trauma lives in your shoulders, jaw, and breath, and what it's trying to tell you
• The scariest truth - healing means living as your authentic self, not the person your pain created
• Real freedom - not when the hurt stops, but when you stop letting it run your life

This isn't about fixing yourself. You were never broken.
This is about remembering who you are underneath all that protection.

If you're ready to stop running from yourself, this conversation is for you.

Share this episode with someone who's been staring at their own ceiling lately.

Connect with us: @LiftOneSelf on all platforms | LiftOneSelf.com for discovery calls

Remember: You matter. Your healing matters. Your authentic self is worth fighting for.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Lift One Self
• 0:23 When You Can't Outrun Yourself
• 1:47 Your Wounds Are Not Your Identity
• 3:50 Finding Freedom Beyond Pain
• 6:50 Closing Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, matt Nye, and this is a space where we dive deep into the messy, beautiful work of coming home to yourself. If this is your first time here, welcome. If you've been on this journey with me, thank you for showing up again. Thank you for showing up again.

Speaker 1: 0:23

Today we're talking about the moment when you can't outrun yourself anymore. When you finally turn inward, it's 3 am and you're staring at the ceiling again. Your heart is racing from a dream you can't remember, but your body remembers everything your chest tight, your jaw clenched, that familiar ache you can't name. This is when it happens, when you can't outrun yourself anymore. I know you're listening to this for a reason. Something in you is ready to stop pretending everything is fine. So you turn inward and you ask who am I beneath all this armor? Where does my pain end and someone else's begin? What am I soothing when I find myself nodding along to plans that make my soul feel heavy, like you know? When you say yes, when you darn well know you want to say no, when I apologize for taking up space in my own life, when I'm afraid of disappointing others, then I am of abandoning myself. When I shut people out instead of letting them close, when I scroll late into the night instead of facing what I feel. Is this the wound or is it my life force suffocating underneath my survival? That's the line. That's when you start taking your power back. I used to think being strong meant never letting anyone see me break. Turns out, being strong means breaking in front of the right people, and let's not lie to ourselves.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Getting there isn't clean. It's not easy. It's messy as hell, it's uncomfortable, it's falling off again and again. It's scraping yourself on old patterns you swore you've healed from. It's the arguments that explode before you even realize you're triggered. It's tears in the shower, the slam cupboard door, the silence that feels like exile, and sometimes, yes, it's joy, because joy cracks you open too. The journey is learning to put down the knife you've been holding. So long you forgot it was cutting your own hand. You've been wearing your wounds like armor, and armor that never comes off becomes a prison. Here's the truth that will stop you cold.

Speaker 1: 3:01

The wound isn't what happened to you. The wound is believing you are what happened to you. Your trauma taught you to survive, and survival was never meant to be your whole life story. Our body carry the scars of survival. Our mind spin endless scripts, expectations, mind spin endless scripts. Expectations, shoulds, meanings, how the world should be, how others should show up, how we should always keep it together. That's the trap. That's what's been bleeding you dry, not just what happened, also the story you keep writing about it, the meaning.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Let's pause for a mindful moment, right here, right now. Stop. Notice your breath, without changing it. Notice the tension sitting in your shoulders, your jaw, your chest, maybe even your lower back or hips. Back or hips. This is the armor, this is what's been keeping you alive and what's been keeping you exhausted.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Take one of you listening right now, the part that recognizes this voice. That's not your wound talking, that's your wisdom. It's been waiting so patiently for you to remember. Let your body know, for just this moment, it's safe to soften. Take another deep inhale, hold it Gently, exhale, allowing your body to soften some more, allowing safety in just being, because when we go within, when we sit underneath the defense, beneath the noise, that's when freedom becomes possible.

Speaker 1: 5:26

Not because the pain disappears and also not because life suddenly makes sense. Instead, instead, we stop giving the wound the microphone, we stop letting our survival story run the show and when we start remembering I am my wholeness, I am my wisdom, I am my life force, we can say thank you protection. We can say thank you protection for keeping me safe. I can take it from here. So ask yourself, what am I soothing by the way I show up in the world? Is this my wound speaking, or is it my life force trying to breathe? Freedom isn't when the pain ends. Freedom is when you stop letting it write your story.

Speaker 1: 6:17

The scariest thing isn't that you might fail. It's that you might succeed, and then you'll have to live as the person you actually are, not the person your pain made you become. Your life force has been waiting underneath your survival this whole time. It's time to let it breathe, let it be seen, come home again and again with a little less armor each time. Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time.

Speaker 1: 6:57

If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation, that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery call Liftoneselfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.