The Femme Cast | Unapologetic Power & Purpose for Soul-Led Women

The Highway Breakdown That Changed Everything: How I Let Go of a Life That Wasn’t Mine

• Maria Rei

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Have you ever felt trapped in a life that looks “perfect” on paper but leaves your soul aching? The quiet slide into people-pleasing, over-functioning, and chasing approval can leave you exhausted, anxious, and misaligned—your body screaming in subtle ways through rashes, sleepless nights, digestive issues, and stress.

In this episode of The Femme Cast, I take you inside my pivotal highway breakdown—the moment my intuition finally became louder than the fear of leaving it all behind.

We unpack:

🎤 How people-pleasing shapes misaligned careers, relationships, and friendships

🎤 The difference between effort that is hard but meaningful versus effort that is forced and draining

🎤 Body signals as early warnings of misalignment and how to honor them

🎤 Why the courage to stop over-functioning is the first step toward self-led choices

🎤 Balancing duty, caregiving, and self-respect without losing yourself

🎤 How to make small, repeatable “integrity moves” that ripple into major transformation

🎤 Releasing the need for a fixed five-year plan and embracing a life guided by intuition

This conversation isn’t about dramatic escape fantasies—it’s about real, actionable shifts. I guide you through the messy courage of pausing the performance, telling the truth, setting boundaries, and letting gravity sort the props from the aligned. Alignment isn’t a single leap—it’s a series of honest adjustments that awaken your energy, restore your clarity, and reconnect you to your infinite potential.

If a part of you whispers, “This isn’t it,” know this: you’re not breaking—you’re breaking open. Listen as I share the raw, unfiltered experience of surrendering what no longer serves, honoring your body’s wisdom, and discovering the freedom of choosing yourself first.

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✦90-Minute Breakthrough Session — Power, Purpose, Impact
A deep-dive session to help ambitious, soul-led women break free from emotional blocks, heal old patterns, and fully reclaim their power, purpose, influence, and impact.
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https://www.thefemmecast.com/breakthrough



SPEAKER_00:

Hey guys, what is up? And welcome back to the show. Welcome if you're new. I'm so excited and grateful to have you guys here. I wanted to talk about um, you know, going back to that moment, I guess probably before I did the whole blowing up my life thing, right? That I've talked so much about on the podcast. And, you know, just kind of really honing in on that moment that I realized the life that I was living really wasn't mine. And I think, you know, in all fairness, I think this happens to a lot of us where, you know, we go down a path we never intended. You know, life has a way of just sort of happening and we start moving forward in careers that we didn't anticipate or moving into positions we didn't anticipate. Um, you know, we're in a relationship that didn't look like what we thought should look like. And I think in a way that's healthy. And I think in a way, you know, life, life is supposed to surprise us and is supposed to work out in ways that maybe we didn't imagine. And I think that sometimes some of the beauty and the magic is in letting go of what we think we want and letting, you know, the universe kind of surprise us with what we actually want and what we actually need. Um, and I think that gets to be a very magical and beautiful co-creative process that we get to experience as we walk through life. But there's something like there's something very different when you're moving through life as a people pleaser. When you're moving through life as a people pleaser, as somebody who's constantly worried about what everyone else is gonna think or say or do, or how they're gonna react or respond to every decision that you make, every goal that you set, every um action that you take to move forward, right? There's something very unique in that because when your barometer for finding the right decision is constantly what everyone else's response is going to be, you're never gonna make aligned decisions. You're always gonna make decisions on the um, what's it called, that hinge on how others are gonna react or respond to every decision that you're making, every action that you're taking, every way that you're moving forward, right? That is going to be what all your decisions kind of hinge upon, right? Or most, right? At least some of the heavier ones, anyway. Um, everything from what you're gonna wear that day to where you're gonna go to school, to who you're gonna marry, to what kind of career you're gonna have, to where you're gonna live, um, what kind of home are you gonna have, like all of these decisions can very much be influenced by what you think other people will think, right? Um and it it takes a people pleaser to really understand that. It really does. And you know, when we move through life, making decisions from that place, we set ourselves up for waking up one day to a life that we never wanted for ourselves. We wake up to a life that whether somebody told us we should have it, or we just assumed we should have it, or we that's what everyone else was doing. So we just assumed that we we should, that's what we should be doing too, which is a kind of the category that I kind of fell into. Um, you know, um it it it can it can it can be a very daunting feeling when you have that realization um that you the life that you're living is not the the life you were supposed to be living in. It's a very powerful and it's a very it's a very um sort of soul-moving moment when that does occur. And it usually happens, and I've noticed this, I've seen this in myself, and I've seen this in my clients. This usually happens around the 40-year mark, through 30 to 40. Um, it starts to get to where, you know, in your 30s, you're probably um, you know, expending all your energy, and I mean all of it, trying to hold it together, right? You're expending all your energy trying to make the career work, even though you're miserable. You're expending all your energy trying to help the relationship to thrive, even though it's constantly triggering you, it's following up, like it's but not in a way of like learning and healing, but where you know you're settling, you know that you're settling, you know that you deserve better, but you keep trying to make this work, you keep trying to create an environment for this relationship to thrive because you're so invested in this relationship, you're so invested and wrapped up in this relationship succeeding because you've literally built the rest of your life on it, or at least a good chunk of it, right? Um you, you know, you're holding on to the home and the image and the friendship circles and everything that doesn't feel aligned anymore, and it's taking so much work to hold it, right? And you're constantly um fixing and soothing and filling gaps and and and making sure that you're you're strategizing and making all the extra effort to make sure all these pieces keep working for you when they're not, and this becomes a very draining process. You get very burnt out. And if you're anything like me, you actually start to have physical manifestations of a lot of these things. So I had manifested, I remember I had um I was covered in skin rashes and inflammation. Um, I was having um eating, um, what's it called, food intolerances and digestive issues, sleep disturbances. Like it was just getting very intense. And it was years of me having this almost like this subtle ununderlying knowing that things weren't working, that this was not right. Right? Like the message was there. And there was a part of me that, like, dude, you ain't you ain't supposed to be here. Can we hightail it out of here now, please? And I know there was a part of me that was like, mm-mm, nope, this isn't the job for you. Nope, mm-mm, nope, this is not the relationship for you. Nope, this is not the home, definitely not the home for you. Nope, nope, this is definitely not the friendship circles that you're meant to be in. And I kept ignoring it. I kept ignoring it and kind of like sweeping it under the rug, trying to make it work. We're always, always, always trying to make it work. We're always, always, always putting in the extra effort to make sure that change doesn't happen, that things don't come to an end. Because I don't know, somewhere we think we're terrified of these things coming to an end because I don't know if it's because of a fear of that they're never going to be replaced or we're never gonna do better. Or what if that's not it, then what is kind of feeling? I don't there's so many, there's so many things. Like when I think back to you know, the career that I was so so fighting to hold on to and like just pouring all my energy into, I think there was a part of me that just believed, but if I walk away from this, like I'm an idiot. Like this is this checks all the boxes. It gives me all like the cushy life, the security, the benefits, everything I ever would have wanted, but it was coming at the price of my own peace. You know, I was looking at my relationship and I'm like, but this the dude checks all my boxes. Like, you know, he he, you know, he's he's you know, comes from from a from a good family, he comes from a good home. Um, you know, he's you know, responsible. We like, you know, we we we come we we come from from similar, you know, backgrounds. But it wasn't it, it was so forced because I was constantly trying to create connection. I was constantly trying to create um intimacy and a relationship that just was already like checked out.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

And so I was expending all my and my energy trying to create all this intimate and connection that just was not there anymore. And I was literally, whatever, if anything was left, I was strangling it because I was holding on so tight. Right? Friendships where I had to put on a face every time we went out together, every time we hung out together, every time we went out for drinks or cocktails or um, you know, visiting the local watering hole every Thursday night after work, trying to like release the stress of the jobs we all hated but worked our asses off for, you know? Um, and constantly having to find the next smart thing to say or the next sharp outfit to wear in order to fit in and be liked. And I really, I started to realize, you know, as as time went on, I started to realize and as I was going through my pro my my healing process and my healing journey, and I started to really shift and transform. A lot of these relations did not like who I was becoming. And this is like later down the line. I'm kind of fast-forwarding a little bit, right? Um, but a lot of these relationships did not like what I what I was becoming. They didn't like when I was not convenient, when my schedule wasn't convenient. They didn't like when I was caught when I wasn't constantly looking for ways to be entertaining, to be witty, to be fun, to make them look good in their socials. You know, that was that was kind of they were so superficial that they were literally dependent on me showing up in a way that made them look and feel good. And when I couldn't show up in a way that made them look and feel good, then it created friction in the relationship. And so that's that's how I kind of knew, right? And if only I'd paid attention sooner, because this happened um much later, but if only I paid attention sooner, but I should have known because I was trying to forcefully show up in a way that I thought these relationships needed me to show up and say the witty things that they needed me to say and do the smirky with the quirky little remarks and and whatever to keep them entertained. And I should have, I should have realized then that those relationships weren't as aligned as as I thought that they were, you know. Um, so this went on for a very long time. And like I said, the constant working, the striving, the strategizing, trying to keep everything together and hold everything together and keep everything afloat and keep everything, all my relationships and my career and everything thriving was taking a lot of my energy. And because I was fighting against myself, because there was a part of me that just wanted to let it all go, that just did not want to strive anymore, that just didn't want to handle anymore, that didn't want to manage anymore, didn't want to strategize anymore, and just wanted to let the pieces fall where they may. And I could not, I could not, for the life of my, I could not find the courage to do that because it was so scary. Because in the back of my mind is who am I if any or all of these things fall away? What if they're never replaced? Or what if they'll never be replaced with anything as good? Like, what if this is as good as it gets? And I kick myself in the ass later and I live to regret it. Because somewhere there was a belief that this is as good as it gets. And so I better not let this go. Because if I let any of these pieces of my life go, chances are they won't be replaced, and if they are replaced, it's not going to be as good as it is right now. I can't imagine, I can't even imagine it being as good as it is as it is right now. And that's very important because sometimes just because you can't imagine, we think if we can't imagine something that it's real, but it's not, because there's so many things that can happen in this life that are far beyond anything we could have ever thought was possible, but we don't stay to that possibility. And that is so key in this journey. But um, this all came to a head. And I've talked about this moment before, and it was the moment where I was in the car and I was driving home from work, and it was a Friday afternoon in the middle of summer. It was a hot, hot, hot, hot, hot day. Muggy, super muggy day. I was stuck in gridlock on the highway, literally inhaling smog. Um, and you know, just traffic was stuck. It was like 4:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, stuck on the northbound hideway trying to get um home. And, you know, you know the feeling, right? Like you've been there when you're driving home from from work on a Friday afternoon after, you know, a week at a job that you hate, you are waiting for your weekend to start, right? Like you're like, oh my God, I can't believe it. Friday's finally here. Like, let's do this, you know? Like you're usually so lit up on a Friday afternoon. I was dying inside. I was dying. We had just come home from vacation. I realized on that vacation how wildly misaligned we are. And I actually remember saying halfway through our vacation, I said, Do you not see like we're moving in two totally different directions here? Like you're going left, I'm going right. Um and and I remember having this moment of like this this this has an expiry date. And I'm seeing the expire. I don't know what the expiry date is, but I'm seeing that there is an expiry date on this relationship, and it's coming fierce and it's coming fast. Um, and it it became so that you know, the alignment in that relationship was so the misalignment in that relationship was so obvious. Like I saw it so obviously that I now could not unsee it. Like it couldn't go away. Um, and so there I am. Like it was like the the week, and maybe there was a bit of vacation blues that were probably like post-vacation blues that were probably influencing this experience because you know, everybody everybody's kind of on a downer when they come back from vacation, right? Because you're kind of like, oh, okay, well, whatever, back to life, right? Um, but this was intense, like this was like next level. And so I'm driving home on a Friday afternoon, and instead of being happy that I'm going home and the work week is done and I can just enjoy, I'm having a nervous breakdown on the highway and I'm balling my eyes out. And I want to turn my car around and not stop till I hit Mexico, which is probably a few days' drive away, maybe a week. Give or take. I I don't want to go home. I don't want to face anyone I know. I I don't want to go back to my job. I don't even care to go home and pick up my belongings. Like, okay, I have gas, I have my car, I have my keys, I have a credit card. Good, we're done. Let's go, you know? Um, there wasn't a single part of my life that felt right to me in that moment. Not one. And you know, I remember calling up a friend of mine and telling her, like, dude, like, I don't know what's happening right now. I'm freaking out. I'm shaking. I'm crying hysterically on the highway. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to go home. Like, I don't, I just don't want to go home. I don't want to go, I don't want to go back to this life. Like, I don't know how to, I don't know how to get through the next day in this life. And it was scary for me because I'd never been in that in a position like that. But it was also probably one of the most profound moments in my life because it was in that moment. It was in that moment that a very powerful unfolding began that would probably take a very long time to unfold because I had a lot of resistance to this unfolding process. Okay. Um, but that moment was so key and so pivotal to how my life was going to unfold over the next few years. And now I will gladly look back on that moment and think, oh my God, thank God I arrived to that day. Like, thank God I finally showed up to the fucking party of my life. Because that's exactly what happened that day. I showed up and said, This is not, this is not the life that I wanted. This is not the life that I created. And I'm gonna take a stand for that now. And I'm gonna make some bold ass fucking decisions, some scary decisions, and trust that it's gonna work, all everything's gonna work out for my highest good, as long as I listen to and trust my intuition. And you know, when I think back, I think, my God, what an incredible moment. But it did not feel like that while I was in it. And when I was in it, it felt like I was dying. It felt like I didn't, I I I felt like I just wanted to run away. I wanted to hide. It felt like this feeling of failure of my life being broken, of me being broken, but it was anything but I was I was not broken in that moment. I was literally if I was breaking open, is what was happening. And it was probably one of the most beautiful and magical moments of my life. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. And so many amazing things happened to me following that moment, right? But that that was first, that was key, that was pivotal. Okay. And my only regret is not having listened to that just a little bit sooner, right? And I know that we're moving through this time and space right now where a lot of people are probably experiencing a lot of the same thing, you know, where you're kind of looking at your life and you're kind of thinking, did I do this wrong? Did I make the wrong choices? Is this not right for me? And it'll start to feel not right. And it will start to feel forced, and it will start to feel like it's taking all your effort to keep all the moving parts working and afloat. And you'll get that little nudge, that little voice that says, This is not right for you, and you're gonna try and ignore it. You're not going the right way, you'll stuff it down. This is not the job for you, or the relationship for you, or the friends for you, you know it. You'll make the best of it because you're too afraid to do the opposite, which is let it go. So here's my advice to you. If you find yourself in that situation, my advice to you, I know the letting go part is scary, and you don't even have to let go yet. Don't even entertain that yet, right? Rather than deciding what to let go of, why not just and this is my advice, and this is what I wish I would have done sooner rather than later, is okay, well, what if I just stop trying? What if I just stop trying so hard to make all these pieces work? Because here's the thing if it's truly a line, and listen, has my business taken a lot of hard work? Yes. Have I had to make a ton of sacrifices to make it happen? And and and I'm still like to this day, absolutely, absolutely. It's there's been hard moments. Um, and there's been um, you know, a lot of um tweaks and adjustments and redirects along the way, a hundred percent, a hundred percent, like a thousand times. But here's the thing. Here's the pieces that were missing. Yes, it felt hard, but also I was so excited to do this. I was so like turned on by what I was doing. Granted, like the focus shifted here and there a little bit so that it became more authentic and more aligned, sure. And that was kind of a bit of a learning process, so be it. It is what it is, especially when you're when you when you're coming back. I really want you to let this think in. When you're coming back from a lifetime of making decisions according to what everybody else wanted from you or what you thought everybody else wanted for you, and now you're making decisions based on what you actually want, that that's a bit of a process. That takes that's got a little bit of a learning curve, right? You gotta unlearn and then relearn and read, you gotta unlearn what you what you know and learn new ways. So, all that to say, um, what would it look like if you just stopped trying? Right? Just stop trying. Stop trying to to like bending over backwards and sacrificing your mental health just to keep this job. Stop trying to to extract intimacy and connection from a relationship that just isn't giving it anymore. Stop trying to show up as an inauthentic version of yourself to keep friends around that really aren't aligned for you. Just come back to self. Come back to who would you be if you weren't afraid of losing that person, that partner, that job, those friends, that career, right? How would you show up? What would you focus on? What would you enjoy doing? Who would who would the real you actually be if you weren't constantly performing? And just come back to that slowly. Take your time, baby steps, one tiny decision at a time, come back to that person. What would she be doing? What would she be saying? How would she be showing up? What things would she be pass passionate about in doing, in creating, in being? Focus on that. And then, you know, maybe ask yourself, what would you do? What would you say? Who would you be if you weren't afraid of how other people were gonna respond? And those are the most important questions to be asking yourself when you're moving along this path of try of starting to discover that, huh? Maybe not the life that I would have chosen for myself. And sure, like obviously, like things happen, life happens. Like, if anybody were to ask me right now, hey, is your life like, you know, moving exactly the way you had hoped? No. I had never planned to be a caregiver for my parents. That was not part of the life plan. Am I doing it? Yes. Because in this moment, that feels like the aligned choice for me. Because I don't feel like I would be okay with myself if I didn't do it. It has nothing to do with what everyone else will think. I won't be okay with myself if I don't do something to um support my parents. Am I doing it to the right balance? That's up for question, right? Um, that is something that I revisit and I check in with myself constantly to make sure that I am aligned, right? And to make sure that I am giving to the point where I know that I am taking care of them to the best of my ability, but also taking care of myself and taking care of the things that I need to do, right? And taking care of my relationships and making sure that we all have balance, right? Um, and that's something that we're constantly, constantly revisiting again and again, like within ourselves, within each other, within the family. Um, that is something that we're we're constantly navigating and figuring out our way through, right? None of us would have chosen this, none of us, but we are here to do this because I think all of us kind of feel like we wouldn't feel right if we didn't with ourselves, okay? And I think that's the difference. There's a difference between saying I'm making a decision because, you know, being internally um, being internally guided, right? Saying I need to do this because I wouldn't feel right with myself if I didn't, versus I need to do this because other people would be upset if I didn't. Those are two distinct ways of making decisions. And so what you need to start doing is making more decisions from that place of I wouldn't feel right for my with myself if I did this or didn't do this. And less decisions based on I wouldn't feel right with myself if people or people wouldn't feel right about me if I did or didn't do this. Right? Make sure that you start making let letting go. Letting go of all the things you've been trying to control and start making decisions that you feel you can feel right by making. Action taking actions that you can feel right taking, making decisions that you can feel right taking, and let that be your North Star and start there. The rest will reveal itself in time. You don't need to figure it all out. Now, I think sometimes we need to figure it all out, like we always need to have access to the five-year plan. Let that go. Okay. You're not gonna okay. If you want to leave the, if you're not sure this is the right relationship, well, you're not gonna figure out your next five-year plan for what a relationship should or should not look like and who that's gonna be and when that's gonna come into fruition. If this isn't the right career for you, you're not gonna figure out what the next right career is for you and the five-year plan and getting there or the front, like whatever it is, just letting it all go. Let go of the plan, let go of the need to know. And I think that's probably the scariest thing is we want to know, we want the guarantee, we want to know exactly what's coming and when and what we need to choose and to focus on. Don't. That's the trap. Because this process is an unfolding. And in the unfolding, all we need to commit to doing is letting go of the things that feel forced. Not hard, because sometimes the good things in life do are can be challenging, but forced. Letting go of the things that feel forced, that are tired, that are draining, that are just depleting all of your energy. Let those go. Let go of trying to prevent them from falling away. Let the pieces fall where they may. If they are meant to stay in your life, they will. If they're only in your life because you're forcing them to be there, you don't want them anyway. So let them go, save your energy, and start making decisions from what I would feel right with deciding right now. What would what direction would I feel right? What next step would I feel right in taking? And do that. Everything else will reveal to itself to you along the way. The life that you're aligned to live is revealed to you one tiny action at a time. It's not gonna come on a five-year plan. It's not gonna come on some sort of, you know, the next HR assessment that you did in your corporate nine to five, right? It's not gonna come from um, you know, whatever survey you've taken, online survey you've taken, or magazine survey that you've taken to try and figure out who you are and what what lights you up. Those help. Not to say they're completely wrong. They do help, but they're very general, they're very broad. Like we are each one of us, and I truly, truly, truly believe it. I believe this with my whole heart. Each one of us has a powerful purpose for being here. I think we have many purposes. I think we have a collective purpose. I think we have a purpose for what how we're here to be and what we're here to contribute to the world. And I feel like we that we have a purpose for who we are in our connections, in our relationships, and in our families, and our communities, and how we're just our energy and our presence just shifts people, right? I believe that there's so many, there's so much nuance to who we are as individual beings that to put it into a survey is nothing more than a disservice. You're so much more than that. So, yeah, you can use these tools as guides and blah, blah, blah. Of course, of course, you can use them, and of course, I'll give you some clues. But the real work is in the self-reflection, okay, and the internally led choices, self-reflection, internally led choices, one choice at a time, more and more of who you are and your magic and your mirror and and and your beauty and and your essence and who you are to be in this world will be revealed to you through those choices. But you have to be willing not to let go, let go, yes, metaphorically let go. Like not cling on to these things that you've been trying to forcefully hold into your life. Like just let go to the point where let them decide for themselves if they want to be in your life or not. And if they don't, they don't. And if they do, great, then you can evolve together. And if they don't, then you can, I promise you, anything that falls away from your life that is not aligned for you will absolutely be replaced. May take some time, right? As things shift and you shift and you change and you go through your metamorphosis, but they will all be replaced. And that I can promise you by something better. And your letting go of the things that aren't aligned is an intention that you share with the universe to say, hey, no longer available for this. I'm no longer available for things that aren't aligned with me, that aren't aligned with my essence and my soul and who I'm here to be. I'm no longer available for settling. I'm only available for what's truly aligned for me and my purpose in this life. And that's exactly what you open the door for when you do this work. So let me know what resonates for you in the comments below. And until next time, you guys, massive love.

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Maria

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