Monday Morning thoughts with your coach: I spent the majority of my adult life from age 22 to 34 married, identifying myself as a wife and subsequently a mother. It was also during that time that I graduated from college and became a social worker and later found my identity wrapped up in being a social worker who worked with children in foster care. When my marriage was failing, I found my “purpose” in being a social worker and in being a mom.
Suffice it to say, when I found myself going through a divorce, living on my own, and impulsively quit my career in social work last year, I had what we will call a mid-life crisis…or better yet an identity crisis.
What now? What do I want to do now? I kept asking myself that question for the first time in a long time. Turns out I hadn’t REALLY thought about it in several years. Instead for years I chose the comfort of the KNOWN, what was easiest. When I lost those things that I thought defined me, I hit rock bottom. I began drinking more, dating the wrong people, and self-medicating to avoid the emptiness I felt because I believed I had lost myself.
But then one day I had an epiphany after I watched a video of Judge Judy talking about how we can reinvent ourselves at any age and that it’s never too late to start again whether in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, 60s, and so on. She talked the painter Grandma Moses who was a painter and how she didn’t start paining until her 80s. That’s when I realized, it wasn’t too late for me, that it’s never too late if I’m still breathing. So I decided I needed to get my mind right and I started looking at my life for what it was: FULL OF SO MUCH BEAUTY and POTENTIAL.
I decided to stop self-medicating, to lean into my feelings and explore my insecurities. I stopped living in fear and I started embracing my true self for the hot mess I was. I decided to bring into the light the things I was afraid to admit and I started being honest with my therapist and my friends. I owned that I was scared about my future and but that I had to see what I am truly capable of by going after it fearlessly. The only thing that I knew for sure was that I wanted to create something for myself that was aligned with who I was and that person was so much more than a wife or a social worker.
I started diving into my feelings and did shadow work and forced myself to be non-judgmental and to show myself some fucking grace because at the end of the day, beating myself up got me in the pit in the first place. To process all of it, I started writing again and bought dozens of self-help books. I also cleaned house on my social media, getting rid of anyone or anything that made me feel less than or sparked self-doubt and self-criticism. I followed authors, artists, and activists who inspired me and who made me feel seen and I began pouring out all of my anger into pages of journals and word documents.
I’ve loved writing since high school, In fact I won a couple writing contests in high school during some of the darkest times of my adolescent life when all I had was a piece of paper and a pen to process the pain I felt during my parents’ divorce. I also journaled during my marriage when my memory was failing me and when my emotions were too much to carry. I’ve found that writing is the one place I’m not afraid to be honest, to be vulnerable, and to say aloud the things I’m feeling without worry of judgment.
So I started writing a book about what I’ve been through and what I’ve learned. Putting those raw feelings down on paper and opening up to trusted people about the shame I was carrying. Because as Brene Brown says: Secrecy fuels shame and the only antidote is empathy. Turns out I’m not alone and so many people feel like I do-empty, sad, unworthy, but like life was too good to you to be allowed to feel that way. Funny enough, as my therapist pointed out, I wasn’t actually allowing myself to feel pain or to acknowledge my trauma because I was too busy shaming myself and buying into toxic positivity.
But when I allowed myself to acknowledge my trauma, to feel the pain, and to uncover my truth, I began to realize that for so many years I’ve been burying my pain and pretending to be okay and pretending to be someone I’m not.
The book I’ve started is called: Shape shifting: the pain we bury. It’s about how we as people change our identity (our looks, likes, desires, dreams, our words) throughout our lives to fit into the mold of others whether: society, our parents, our teachers, our partners, our friends, or our coworkers. We alter, silence, or dismiss our true selves at times just to fit in and be liked or accepted when what we yearn for above all is self-acceptance. We bury our pain and we shape shift never truly embracing our true selves.
That’s when I realized why I had such a hard time answering the question: What do I want? Who am I? What do I want to do with my life? following my divorce and quitting my decade long career. Because so often in my life I abandoned the voice in my head and listened to the voices of others for acceptance. I was trying to be someone that others would approve of, that others would accept, and I realized…how unhappy that made me. I realized that I actually believed deep down that I was good enough just as I am. I mean, I know I’m worthy of good things because I strive every day to be honest, to act kindly, I care for others and seek not to judge them, I want the world to be free of racism, bigotry, and hate and I work daily to rid myself of those things, I strive to be loving and to seek forgiveness when I am not any of the things I above. I really, truly, care about my impact on this world and others and I want to be a good human. So Why shouldn’t I give all the things I freely give to others, to myself? The non-judgment, the forgiveness, the care, the love?
That was my breaking point. My glow up. The day I realized I knew for years I wanted to be a life coach, that I wanted to inspire others, that I wanted to live authentically and unapologetically as myself: my weird, stubborn, goofy, dorky, sometimes messy, loud, over the top emotional self. That’s when I realized I wanted to stop caring what others thought, what they accepted, what they deemed as beautiful or worthy, and start living to break the mold of what beauty is and what it should be: a condition of the heart. That’s how I knew I wanted to help others find that peace too. The peace in finding self-acceptance because they are constantly working on their inner being, how they love themselves and others. I felt a HUGE burden lifted off of my shoulders and I felt free for once. I felt freedom in saying aloud: this is what I want and who I want to be. This feels right for me.
So today as I came across a quote from:
James Clear in Atomic Habits:
“The tighter we cling to an identity the harder it becomes to grow beyond it” and…“when you spend your whole life defining yourself in one way and that disappears, who are you now?”
I thought I needed to share my story with you all. Because the answer to this is: WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT TO BE.
You are allowed to reinvent yourself as many times as you want or need. And truth is life will demand it. Life will suck at times and at other times it will be flow effortlessly. Experiences will shape and mold you and the you you once knew will die and a new you will be reborn and that’s okay. Sometimes it’s necessary… especially when that older version of you is one riddled with trauma.
Because the past is the past, but the future, the future is yours. You can reach your goals if you believe in it (and remind yourself on days you don’t what your working toward-your values, your hopes, your goals), work toward it, and don’t stop until you’ve achieved them. It may take years, but every day if you work on toward a goal, momentum will carry you and you will show yourself you can achieve it. You will show yourself you’re worthy of it. I think you just have to show yourself the love and grace you deserve in the process.
Because it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You already know you can’t be perfect because perfect doesn’t exist and quite frankly you’d do yourself a disservice if you didn’t fall several times so you can learn how to get back up and how to do things better… and most importantly so you can learn what you’re made of.
So who do you want to be? Now prove it to yourself with SMALL WINS every day!-James Clear
Ask yourself this: If you loved yourself truly and deeply, what would you do? What would you say to yourself right now? -Kamal Ravikant Love yourself like your life depends on it.
Don’t ever give up on your dreams. They’re not over until you’re 6 feet under ground. And remember: “If we don’t fail, we aren’t even trying.”- Denzel Washington
It’s not about anyone else, it’s about you. What do you want? You got this. The past, is the past, but the future, that’s yours.
-Stephanie
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