One of my business friends recently admitted she felt lost:
“I’m a bit muddled about who I am these days. What do I call myself? Who am I really?”
She’d been through a lot of change over the last two years.
In order to unmuddle herself, she’d made a list of all the roles/identities that defined her in her business life. She was looking for the next title that best described who she was.
As she reeled off the list, she confessed that some of them didn’t seem to fit so much anymore.
Who am I?
This is one of the biggest questions many of us find ourselves trying to answer at various times throughout our lives. Especially when are transitioning through change…
When we are faced with this challenge, we often look externally for the answer, instead of going inside ourselves and connecting to who we truly are.
You are not your labels
We often define who we are by what we do, and what we have. We’ve been creating these stories throughout our lives.
We take on many roles: employee/business owner, sibling, parent, partner, friend, neighbor… the list is long.
These labels reinforce our identity and are an unconscious source of safety for the protection of our Ego, in addition to being a way to judge ourselves in comparison to others.
For most of us, these labels give us something by which we can define ourselves, and justify who we are. They help us feel safe:
I know who I am – I have meaning.
Identity is not something that is given to you – like a job title.
If you are convinced that this is the real you, you can become entranced by the image you are creating. This image is just a phantom existing in your mind and isn’t who you are. It doesn’t define you.
We can unconsciously link our own value and worth to our job title/role at work. (I know I have done this in the past!) Seeing yourself as a job/role level can limit your thinking, and distorts your ability to make decisions.
The truth is that we are much more than our identities…
Releasing Identity – a personal story…
Ten years ago, I emigrated from England to the USA.
I’d willingly given everything up for the chance of a lifetime to build and lead a business coaching team in the USA for my best friend.
Literally, overnight, my life changed on every level…
Caught up in the excitement of all the new experiences of living and working in a different country, I was unaware I was slowly letting go of all my ties to England.
I closed my own International coaching and consultancy business and settled into life as an employee rather than an entrepreneur.
What I didn’t realize when I left the UK, was I also left behind all the identities that my Ego had relied upon all my life.
For the first 18 months, everything was exciting and different. I was living my own American dream! I loved my job and had great expectations about the possibilities for this role moving forward.
What have I done?!
Then one morning, I woke up gripped by fear…
I felt lost, confused, and scared because had no idea who I was anymore.
It was like my Ego had finally decided to make the journey across the Atlantic to rejoin my physical body (…And it hadn’t traveled light!)
BAM!
The voice in my head was suddenly questioning EVERYTHING…
Concerned for my safety, my Ego had unconsciously been gathering a portfolio of evidence of my professional demise since the moment I’d landed in the USA.
I’d watched as my coaching team continued to grow their own businesses, and found myself wondering what mine would have been like if I’d not closed it down.
I became aware of the times when I’d made a suggestion or been creative and my idea had been ignored or pushed away.
This job was smaller than I’d been used to and there was less autonomy for creativity. I stopped blogging, writing, and creating programs as it wasn’t part of my coaching role.
Egos can be brutal – mine constantly reminded me of my past accomplishments, as it desperately tried to invent new ways to ‘help’ me use my experience and expertise.
I dug in deeper holding onto the shards of my old identities of being a successful business owner and International Learning Consultant.
I felt smaller and insignificant.
The more I looked outward for the answers, the more desperate I became and the more lost I felt.
Uprooting my life, taught me so much.
This experience has been by far my biggest teacher on many levels…
The lessons have ranged from subtle to brutal, as I forced myself to let go of the old and familiar, because it was no longer relevant in my new life, while trying to stay strong to my roots and who I was…
I didn’t realize at the time, just how much I was letting go of…
The concept of identity feels so solid and real, especially when it’s been so deeply woven into your life.
None of my roles nor my Resumé defined who I was.
Who was I without all of this? As I began to explore what was true about my perceptions and identity, things began to shift.
Holding onto identity takes energy and when you let go, energy is released. This can be experienced in many different ways:
- It might be in a gradual shift of perception, over time we realize how we see ourselves and the world has changed.
- Sometimes it can be more dramatic, like waking up one morning and releasing you are no longer the person you thought you used to be!
Either way, you are letting go and releasing the energy, and at the same time you are letting go of old patterns.
As I began to let go, I realized that there was little that remained of Elaine from Shaftesbury, Dorset, England. I had let so much go and felt ready to BE me in this present moment, just as I am.
When something ends it can seem so final… It’s easy to want to cling onto what we once had, or dwell in the story of what we’ve lost or what is no longer available to us. We use our history to justify and explain who we are now.
There are new beginnings hidden in ALL ENDINGS…
This called me to go look inwards and explore the deeper layers of who and what was next for me.
Letting go of Identity:
Begin by exploring how you identify yourself. Write it down. (Note: This is often written with the help of your Ego 🙂 )
Review it – you’ll begin to see that you are so much more than what you’ve written down and identified yourself as – these are just pieces of yourself.
Ways to help you when your Ego shows up:
- Allow your thoughts to come and go and don’t attach meaning or energy to them. Just like clouds drifting through.
- Be with the energy of Ego but don’t engage. (It’s just trying to protect you – It’s okay, you’ve got it from here!)
- Don’t get hooked into believing the stories you keep telling yourself. They aren’t true. Let go of the story of your life.
- Stop defining yourself based on your past. I am not what happened to me. I am not my resumé. I am not the job I used to have. This is just part of my history. It’s not who I am.
- Learn to acknowledge fear, and befriend courage.
- Know deeply that life is lived in this moment – there is no such thing at the past or the future.
- Identify and then let go of any beliefs associated with who I thought I was before.
Identity is not something static – it is fluid and constantly changing shape as you evolve throughout your life.
Shedding identity is so important for our growth…
The falling away of identities can initially feel painful, but as you let go, you release energy, your nervous system relaxes and you’ll feel a sense of freedom and liberation.
The more you let go, the easier it is to find your true self.
Hi Elaine, beautiful description of releasing your identity and a reminder that we get to create who we become, and recreate it again. We forget that we are always evolving. Sometimes it happens over time, and sometimes it’s like “wammo”.
Currently, I’m letting go of many of the materials and binders of training programs I’ve created and delivered over the years. As a result, I’m shedding the identify of who I once was, or once did. It comes with mixed emotions and thoughts. Feelings like what I coulda, shoulda, woulda done; feelings of gratitute for the opportunities I had and the people I got to serve; sadness over what’s been lost, guilt over what’s been spent; and, ultimately, excitement of what’s to come. … and the thrill of space in my office storage area! 🙂
Bottomline, I’ve learned I have to be gentle with this process. Releasing 18 years of physical evidence of my work is challenging. It was easier to release the older stuff. But, now that I’m closer to the core, a few carefully curated training binders purged can feel like overwhelm. It helps when my husband reminds me – “the knowledge is all in you now Lisa. It’s who you are.” Stating that here makes me think, “I am not my identity, my identity is a part of me.” 🙂
Hi Lisa,
Thanks so much for sharing your journey here. It’s easy to forget that we are evolving, especially when we get locked into our unconscious patterns.
It’s a big deal to let go of things, especially work that you’ve created and it brings up so many emotions and memories of our past experiences. This is such a great example of letting go, to create space (emotionally and physically 🙂 ) for your growth.
I know how hard this can be, as I did the same as I was leaving England. I let go of most of my training folders and materials and gave all my books to a friend who was starting her own coaching and training business. It was a combination of emotions and a sense of freedom too.
I LOVE what you say: “I am not my identity, my identity is a part of me.” This is so true.
Thank you for sharing your story , found it so interesting, Courageous , smart lady . Making new starts can be traumatic, but one can surprise there selves , it feels good .
Aww! Thanks so much, Patricia. Life is truly an adventure.