Who Are You When No One Needs You

You can do everything “right” and still feel like you disappeared inside your own life. That’s the tension we get into with women’s empowerment coach Andrea Universo, starting with one brave question: who are you outside of everyone else? When identity gets built on roles like wife, mother, caretaker, high achiever, any big shift can feel like the ground drops out. Andrea shares what changed for her when her daughter went to college and she realized how many women live on the “I’ll be happy when” track, always chasing the next train station without touching real joy.

We talk self-awareness in a way that’s honest and usable: the dusty mirror moment where you finally see yourself clearly again, the inner critic that sounds like a “mean girl” in the back of your head, and the practice of turning that volume down with small, compassionate wins. Andrea’s “bad witch and good witch” metaphor is funny, but it lands because it names what so many of us experience in our self-talk, especially during transitions, confidence rebuilding, and midlife reinvention.

We also go deep on how growth changes relationships. When you evolve, some people still hold the old version of you, and that can feel lonely. Andrea explains it through a canoe-and-shore image and then offers a simple framework for personal growth and purpose: Connect, Learn, Grow, Lead. The missing piece for most of us is Learn, asking who am I and why do I want what I want, so we stop looking for fulfillment in external milestones.

If you’ve been feeling restless, stuck, or strangely numb after reaching goals, hit play and come back to yourself with us. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s been carrying everyone else, and leave a review so more women can find this conversation. Contact Andrea here womenleadnow.org today to get started.

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Question

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome back to the Sheet Suite Society, the podcast where we celebrate the real, the raw, and the remarkable journeys of women who chose to bet on themselves. I'm your host and empowerment Sherpo Dahlia, and today's guest is someone who asked herself a question that so many of us have never dared to sit with. Who am I outside of everyone else? Andrea Universo is a women's empowerment coach whose journey to that work started not in a boardroom or a business plan, but in a quiet moment of recognizing that she, like so many women, had spent years defining herself entirely through her roles wife, mother, caretaker. And when those roles shifted, she had to go looking for herself. What she found on the other side, and what she now helps other women find, is the kind of clarity that only comes when you get genuinely, fearlessly curious about who you actually are. This conversation is warm, it's real, and it will make you think, I know you're going to love it. Let's dive in. We'll start where you are today. What is your what do you do today? What is your day like today?

The Train Station Trap Of Goals

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Today specifically. So I'm a I am a women's empowerment coach. And I spend every minute of every day trying to lift someone else. Um, it's just well, let me just tell you a little bit about my story and my relationship to women. And I love that your goal is to share the stories of women because it's kind of the same thing, kind of the same mission that I have. When my daughter went away to college, um getting her through that first year, she was an athlete and she's very goal-oriented, and she kept going through these, what I call the train station, right? Like trying to make it to the next train station, I'll be happy when. She was missing out on so much joy of getting there and not even celebrating when she did get there. And as I was coaching her through that, I was recognizing that we all do a lot of that. And we did the when's the you can't wait till because you're following this path that society says you should follow. And get there doesn't feel like you expected it to feel. You don't have that inner joy because we're looking for it in the experiences instead of on the inside. I didn't know that then, but that's what I've learned through the whole process, and that led me down so many paths. Like, for example, um, I have a group of friends that I've been friends with for 20 years, and we had coffee together once a week, and we always talked about, I mean, we obviously had amazing conversation, it lasted for 20 years, and we had a monthly, a monthly card event, and we invited our daughters, and as we went through and introduced each other, every single one of us introduced ourselves by our roles to other people. Oh, Amandria. Um, I'm I'm married to Chris, I have this many kids, I work at this place, and they were everyone there was ranging in age from 25 to 65, and every single one of us introduced ourselves that way. And so I started paying attention to all women. I'm gonna be honest, at this point, I hadn't paid much attention to women or the difference between men and women or how women are conditioned to live in society. I was just on the hamster wheel living, and for whatever reason, maybe to the M Nest, I don't know, but I started to pay attention. Yeah, and that just led me down this path of who are we really? What is our story? And why are we so freaking scared to share it with anyone else?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yeah, so well said, so well said, and you just realized this because you were listening actively and noticing noticing a pattern of everybody is talking about, to your point, their utility in other people's lives, not their own identity. They literally identified as what they did for others, not what they ever did for themselves. Is that a fair statement?

When Roles Become Your Identity

SPEAKER_02 4:42

100%. And then because of that, because your identity, so my identity was in my kids, in being a stay-at-home mom, because that's the only thing I really wanted to be. I was always interested in business, and but what I really wanted was to raise my own kids and not send them to daycare. That was just something that was important to me because my mom had done the same. And once that job was over, I didn't know who I was anymore. And I started to, you know, uh, June and I had this conversation at that event that we met. I started to see myself as just a mom. And I was maybe 48, 50 years old. And I thought, okay, so now and then I started a business. After after kind of coaching my daughter through that, I realized that I needed to enjoy the journey. I needed to follow the the the lessons that I was preaching to her. But when I started a business, and it was really successful because I was just having fun and doing it the way I wanted to do it, and I was helping other people. And when I hit my first roadblock, I had someone say, um, this that's not the way you should do it. This is how you should do it. And everyone kept trying to steer me back onto the right path.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Oh, wow. I hear that too. That's so crazy. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

And I spent two years going, oh, okay, stop trying to inspire everyone. Um, one of my teammates even said, nobody wants that inspiration crap. That had become my whole identity, like inspiring women and telling them, encouraging them, telling them they could do it. And it just it's it was two years of struggle about how women treated each other and how we wanted to follow the rules.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

That were never made for us. That were never made for us. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Yeah. So my whole, I mean, you ask about my day, but my whole life's purpose has gone from shifted. On into something I never imagined it would be.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Interesting though, that you were able to see that pattern and hear it because you weren't alone in those rooms. Other women were there saying the same stories, but they didn't pick up on that. Why do you think you picked up on that and they didn't? And I'm asking that selfishly because I was in a similar room, heard similar stories, and I felt like I was alone. I walked off thinking like, I just heard everybody else talk about their spouses and their kids nonstop. And I kept trying to ask them about them, and they kept talking about their spouses and their kids. And I'm like, but what about you? And I couldn't get through to them. And it was almost like they couldn't hear what I was hearing. Like, am I living in an alternate reality or what? And but you experienced the same thing. Why do you think you heard that?

Naming The Inner Critic Voices

SPEAKER_02 7:59

It sounds weird, but it is almost like living in an alternate reality. When you start to focus on yourself, when you uh it's almost like I think it was Jay Shetty described it as you look at yourself in a mirror and it's covered in dust. So you can see yourself, but you're seeing yourself behind film. And as you get to know yourself, you start to wipe away the dust a little bit. And people like you and I, it's not that we're better than anyone else, it's that further ahead because we've had for whatever reasons, we've had to look at ourselves that way.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Be more scrutinizing or at least self-aware, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Um, self-aware, never scrutinizing because what what happens to me when you say scrutinizing is beating myself up because I'm not this.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

I totally still do that though, in fairness.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

But I'm glad that you called that out. That's it. It's not a good practice.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

So I'm glad that you called that out.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Yeah, it is definitely not a good practice. And it's something so normal, don't even know we're doing it. So here's an example. Um, I decided that I wanted to run a 5K. And I wanted to make it in a now, I'm not a runner, I am not an exerciser. That was like way out there, but for some reason it came into my heart, my head, that that's what I wanted to do. And I was just beating the crap out of myself every day that I would run and saying, Why are you doing this? This is dumb. You, you know, just just really being nasty to myself. And I started I call it, it's really crazy. I I have these voices, right? So this voice over my right shoulder, I call my bad witch. And she is always talking to me. She she used to be loud and obnoxious, and she was the voice that was telling me you can't do it. And then I have Blenda, the good witch, and she would whisper, Why don't you try this? So one day I'm I'm saying, and I know that sounds so crazy if you're listening, you're like, What? I hear that good witch voice say, Can you make it to that yellow mark on the track? I made it to that, and I almost celebrated in my heart just a little bit, like, oh, you did it. And then I I started listening to that voice a little bit more. And I think that's what really started me being able to be self-aware of when I'm being harmful to myself. And boy, that that bad witch talks. I had no idea how many things she was saying to me all day long.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

So it's it's just a process of self-awareness because awareness is the first thing. Once you're aware of doing this myself, then you can start to heal it.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

True. You can't heal what you don't know. No, you can't. But I just I think there's something unique about being able to even know and see and want to do that because it you know that saying, ignorance is bliss. It is so blissful. I sometimes I look and I'm like, man, I wish I didn't have to know these things. But problem is once you know better, you have to do better. You can't unknow something, you truly can't. So you're just kind of would would it if given a magic wand, would you ever go back to not knowing?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Not anymore. I will tell you times when I was learning that felt like, and I talk about this with my clients, it feels like a tunnel. It feels like you're in this type that there's no room, you can't really turn around because if you would turn around, you would see how far you've come. And you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and you know the only way is through. I think why so many women are afraid to try it because the only way through and it does get, I'm gonna be honest, it there comes there are times where you just want to go back and gossip with your friends and talk about your husband and your kids and all the and all the crap and not have to look at yourself because it does get hard sometimes. Yeah, but I wouldn't go back because now that I'm through that those particular tunnels, and we learned a lot of lessons over the last 10 years. Now that I'm through those, it's pure bliss.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Nice. It it can be. You're right. If you work through the muck and you and you find yourself and you build yourself up, you find it's almost like you reintroduce yourself to you. You find the end of it. Remember who you really are. I like your Jay Shetty in the mirror that's dusty because it's being able to see yourself clear again. Um, when I do my talks, I compare it to find a five-year-old picture of yourself and remember who that person was because that person didn't have those labels. That person just was existing and thrilled. And it's just coming back to a remembering of who you are and and the fact that we're all here to do something um or live, just be right. What were you like as a kid?

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Well, I I listened to your podcast, your story about losing your mother and your life changes. And it resonated me with me so much. I saw the I I couldn't see the picture that you were holding up, but when you held up the picture of yourself, I thought of the picture of myself that I sit on my social media several years ago for the same reason. Oh, really? Because what and I can tell you the moment I was in the fourth grade and I had horrible, I had a lot of dental problems, and I had a tooth that didn't come in, and so this male dentist um rebuilt this tooth for me that was this giant square, sharp corner that looked like a thing. Yes, I will never forget the moment I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that and it totally changed who I was for the longest time. And I noticed I started looking at those pictures, and I noticed that the next year I was re I had gained a lot of weight. I had this big big round face, I didn't know that growing up. I didn't notice any of those things, but as an adult, so finally, probably 10 years ago, I finally got my mouth the way I wanted it. And I was looking for a picture to show everybody how horrible it was, and I couldn't find one. Everyone that I would, every picture that I would look at, because I had multiple work done, and every picture I would look at, I would say, oh, it looked worse than that. I know it did. There's a there's a bad picture. And I realized that was all in my head. Yeah, everyone was looking at that, and that went all the way back to that. I don't know how old you are when you're in the fourth grade, eight, something yeah, super young.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

It just, yeah, it's and I would tell her first of all, I would go back to the dentist and say, no, you're not ruining this child's self-esteem. Um but I would let her know that that doesn't matter, like that's not who you are, that physical part. And if we can if we could just talk to ourselves all the way through life and not let society do that to us, we would all be so much stronger.

Outgrowing Friends And Old Circles

SPEAKER_00 16:37

We would. And that's funny because I think that's what you're doing for your life's work now. That's what this podcast serves to do. And what I'm noticing is there's a lot of women that I've come across, and of course, some male allies that want the same thing. We want to ensure in a way and rewrite the narrative so that people don't have that mean girl that sits in the back. We all have that mean girl that sits in the back that yells, that says you're not good enough, that tells you how dare you want more. You're selfish or whatever the case might be. We have a lot of that that sits in the back of our heads. So it's very, it's very cool how those of us that have been able to be self-aware, probably we've all lived through a lot of trauma, can turn around and be like, that's not right. We don't have that's first of all, if that's the meaning of life, that's crazy. I don't think that's the meaning of life to sit right and live like that. Um, it's interesting. And I'm really, I feel my my bucket gets fuller every day because I come in contact with women like you who also sees that, who is also doing that in their own sphere and in their own network. I think that's brilliant. How are you being received in your sphere, in your circle? How do people react when they come across you?

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Um, initially, so people that have been in my life forever, um, initially they were very supportive of what I of my growth and what I was doing and speaking out, using my voice. And then they started to a lot of my friends aren't close friends anymore. Um, and it's part of that circle. It's not that there's it's not that we fell out or anything. When you grow and you start to see things differently, you start to see other people differently, it's a paradigm shift. And they I think they don't feel like they know me. And when I meet people who have done the work and they get it, I have so many deeper connections. Um and that makes me a little bit sad that I feel like I'm leaving the people that I care about the most. I don't like to use the word behind. I I like a circle, right? I describe everything in a circle because nobody's higher than anyone else, they're just ahead in their growth process. Totally agree. Um, it it becomes people don't get it when you've grown. It's sometimes like I talk to my clients about when you first start, you're like in a canoe on the shore of a river, and you have one canoe, you want to go, you want to grow, you want to learn who you are at your core, and you want to leave one one foot on the shore because you want all these people you love to come with you. And then you start down the river and you start seeing different things, looking at the river banks, and it's beautiful, and you're telling them about it, and they're still back on the shore and they have no idea what you're talking about. You must be crazy, yeah. And it's a really difficult process, and sometimes you have people that want to jump in. My husband ended up jumping in, and it's been really fun to watch him grow too.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

That's awesome, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

And it was touch and go for a while because I was growing and I finally knew who I was and wasn't I wasn't going back. No, not yeah, you can't, it's impossible to go back.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

It's impossible. I know, but the thing is, the people that you left on shore, I love that analogy. Those people still have a version of you that they remember that is still on shore. So no matter how much you grow, they don't know you anymore. But but if you go to talk to them, they'll remember Andrea as you were 20 years ago, not who you are today. And how dare you not be who they think you are now, you know?

The Connect Learn Grow Lead Framework

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Yeah. I have this process now. I I call it the four pillars, and we could keep on all day long, but there's there's a there's a growth cycle that I figured out. I have to go back and say, okay, how did you get here? Why are you so different than your sisters, for example? Yeah. And I you you go through a growth cycle. So we have our connect moment. That's think of like a talk. That's at the top where you see someone else and you think, Oh, I want to do that. I want to be her. And I think of all the times that I've had those moments, it was watching a speaker or watching you and June and Lily stage. And like those are my connect moments. That's how I know who I truly am and what I truly want. Most of us go from that connect moment to the grow moment, which is okay, how do I do it? How do I get there? How do I get to do what Dallian's doing? The part that we miss is called the learn. stage. And that's self-exploration and knowing why you want it.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Ooh. Oh, that's a mic drop moment.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Okay, say say that one more time. Yeah. So the the part that we skip, we have the connect moment that says this is what I want. And then we jump right into grow, which is how do I get it? Before you can go into grow, you have to go through the learn stage. And the learn is who am I and why do I want it? Because if you're just going for the goal, which is what my daughter was doing, right? She was just getting the goal and getting there and thinking oh this is what I wanted. The final stage is lead where you show it to other people and that's why so many of us make the goal and we get all the way to lead and we're showing other people but we still don't feel fulfilled by it. Because we never went through the learn stage to ask ourselves why we want it so that we're looking for the reward on the inside instead of in the external circumstance. And I think it's the key to everything.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

That's that is a very powerful statement and I could not agree with you more.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Literally I got chills how do you know that where did you learn that you just have an knowing I feel like I everything I do is from a knowing I just have this I was meeting somebody you're an old soul yeah she's a she's a medium and she's you know you lived in the city of Atlantis in a previous life and I was like whoa didn't know we were going to go there but that's a whole other worms but I do just have this knowing and as I've gotten as I've grown more it almost feels like I'm a by a bystander in the conversations between the bad witch and the good witch and now I'm watching them have the conversation because I know that that bad witch is there to help me and the reason I know that is because I went through the learn process and I learned about myself.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

I did the work you did but but you knew to do the work you pushed yourself to do the work you listened to yourself and you followed it and it sounds like your aha moment was at when your daughter after your daughter went to college. Did you have any other aha moments in your life?

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Oh gosh I feel like a ton of them right a ton of them yes some of them are just like whoa this is who you are like um when I was knew that I was going to marry my husband like I just had this driving from work like you're going to marry him and I realized now that was my good witch um my son when he was born and I was carrying him around and I was like oh gosh you're my mom now like those are things that I call ha aha moments where okay this is it now how are you going to settle in yeah but that growth part those aha moments came more and more um they became more clear the the the dust as the dust goes away those aha moments happen a lot they're a lot less aha yeah it's almost expected it's like when you start to clean it just getting the the rag and getting the right product and doing the first wipe is the hardest move and then once you do that it's like it's exercising a muscle all of a sudden things just keep falling into place a lot quicker and it's a lot easier to clean and it's it's just yeah it's just that way. Yeah I used to use that doing the dishes yeah I would tell my clients you got to do the dishes because if one dish in the sink is just in the sink but if you let them go days they're stacked up and it's such a problem do those dishes one time and get it all clean it's so much easier to keep clean right yep yeah so much easier to keep clean.

Curiosity As The Takeaway And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Well I appreciate that all right in the interest of time we you and I first of all should probably do more of these because we have a lot to talk about but in the interest of time I always end every episode about the same and I I say it every time because every time it's true the whole episode is is advice but what is a piece of advice you could give to the listeners whether it's life or personal or something you're just going through right now that or or a motto you live by that you could share with them that they could take and apply be curious if you can't be curious with yourself be curious about other people because we're constantly learning and if you can learn who you are it helps you to be curious about who other people are or vice versa and it makes your life so much more peaceful that is very true that is very true curiosity they like to say curiosity killed the cat but I don't think that's true. I think it's why the cat has nine lives yes that is true it it makes you so much it helps you see other people for who they are and wonder what their story is because when you know someone else's story it's so much easier to give them praise right yeah well and just being curious like you said even in the first place of wanting to know I think a lot of people meet people and they want to define themselves as other or they want to relate to other people rather than just recognizing we're all humans in this human experience trying to do the very best with what we know. And believe it or not everybody really is doing the very best with the knowledge that they have regardless of how you feel about them. It's it's the truth and it and it's it sometimes can be painful especially if you feel like you've been wronged for whatever reason but to your point be curious. Sit down and understand why you feel that way and understand that people really are they're not out to get you they're just they're not they're doing the best with what they they know.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

100% and I just want to say and I hope you'll keep this in here. Okay I will okay you when so I went to the the event that you and I met at be your best self and I made it a point this summer to go to some in-person events because I was getting really comfortable online and I was struggling to belong in in-person events. So I went I came back of the room and I was just getting ready to find a and I was just getting ready to leave and someone said there's seats up there and I got up to the front and there you were with a smile and I immediately felt welcome at your table. Oh well of course and I talked a lot about welcoming other women to your table and pulling up another chair if there's not enough and you gave me that feeling instantly and then we started talking and you said that you were a speaker and then I was like oh gosh I sat at the speaker's table what was I thinking but I just want to say thank you for that because what you did for me is exactly what I want to do for other women give them a seat at your table and make them feel welcome.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Andrea thank you. This conversation is exactly why I started this podcast because there are women listening right now who needed to hear every single word of what you just shared. If today resonated with you please reach out to Andrea her contact information is in the show notes. Whether you're in the thick of a transition feeling a little lost in your own story or just curious about what's on the other side of doing the work she is someone you want in your corner and the thing I want you to take from this episode is simple. Get curious about yourself, about why you want what you want about the woman you're becoming that's where everything starts. If this episode spoke to you share it pass it along to a woman in your life who's been doing everything for everyone else and might be ready to finally ask what she needs. Leave us a review spread the word every share means this message reaches someone who needs it. Remember your life is your story to tell why not make it extraordinary until next time I'm Dahlia. Thanks for being here