Identity Opportunity
September 25, 2023
The last several months have felt a bit like a crisis.
Not because something is wrong necessarily but because I can feel the turn of a page within. My therapist said it best last week, I am in this season that “almost everything that was previously on the table is nearly off.” It feels like a steady floundering, if that makes any sense. Letting go of what was and becoming something I do not recognize.
As I look back at the last couple months I can’t help but see an unfolding, aided by small helping hands from God along the way that have been encouraging, insightful and revelatory.
I FINALLY finished atomic habits lol it took me literally a solid year and a half. My friends it is so wildly good and clean cut and powerful information. I was scared to read because its like being called to the carpet with books like that. But this one was more like insight than anything. Information to sift through and use or hold on to for later. Not a place to create more guilt. Literally the last chapter talks all about how to find sustainability in habits and how it has so much to do with your Identity.
We so easily trace our identity back to what we do. Right? you think about identity and you think about the roles in your life. We all do it. When we do this, once a role changes or shifts, we feel a huge loss of identity. Because what we “are” changed. Our Identity is brittle, Clear says, when we limit it to roles we play. What we really need to work to do is zoom out. Look at the bigger picture and quantify our identity as what lies underneath the action of the role.
So instead of, I am a Mom, it becomes, I am a loving and nurturing, caring force who is attentive to the needs of others and loves to support peoples growth.
This of course can be MUCH bigger than just those few descriptors. Identity is like the essence that comes forth from the roles you place. Its bigger, almost boundless.
So expanding OUT and beyond, in the realm of possibility!!
Checkpoint #2 came through a fellow yoga teacher’s reel on IG. She shared how she wanted to get a dog and name it Kiki, but discovered that in Japanese, Kiki translates to crisis.
She joked that if you care about your sanity, maybe don’t name your dog crisis!
But then she looked deeper—and found that crisis also translated to opportunity.
That duality blew my mind.
Maybe I’m not in crisis at all.
Maybe— I’m standing in the middle of a grand opportunity.
July 17, 2025
I have been thinking about “finishing” this blog for quite some time. Years actually (apparently lol!)
I remember starting this post after arriving into a season I couldn’t quite find myself.
I was newly postpartum, searching for remnants of myself, but also it being my second go around with PP, I was well aware I wasn’t really looking for something that once existed but working eagerly to let the pieces land to see what was there that I had never discovered.
It wasn’t a returning— it was a realigning.
Here I am, nearly two years later, and I think about the first part of this post often because thinking about what felt like a crisis as an opportunity really catapulted me into a new level of self discovery. A new openness to see and feel it all out without grasping for familiarity.
Its actually really beautiful to pause and remember back to that season. I went back to therapy, I was taking tender care of my body, and soaking in every second I could with my new baby. I am so proud of her for staying the course and trusting in what she couldn’t see, only feel. She was working really really hard to land in a place she had never been.
I sit here today, 6 months pregnant with our third baby. This process has been worlds different from my second and I hope to share soon. Conceiving this baby and preparing for him has felt worlds different. So much so that I haven’t thought twice about what parts of me will have to fall away in the process. I forget how much of ourselves we give in creating and fostering life within as women. It used to scare me I think… and now its just part of the journey that I don’t even really think of. Until the other day.
I was driving home in the evening and I saw a woman walking home alone. In an instant I created a story around where she was going. She just had dinner with girlfriends and she was returning to her home where her people were. I felt a dull ache inside for a second. I thought, oh it will be a hot minute before thats me. When I will leave my baby, and have a moment where I am fully alone again. To see old parts of myself and reconnect with them. It’s not the ache of why did I do this, its the ache of time really. This desire to be in this season of being a mom with young kids, and the ache of knowing you almost can’t see yourself fully because you are spread so thin. Your attention is given to so many things before yourself.
It might sound dramatic and its good— I would choose it again and again, hence having another baby lol. And there is an honoring that comes, for this version of myself I am inhabiting currently. Thank you for your life’s greatest work— you’ll get back to a version where you can see yourself again. This polarizing ache of being present in this season and longing to return to myself.
I remembered this unfinished post when I was creating a story around the woman walking home and grieving. I feel like I knew going into this pregnancy maybe I didn’t think about it as consciously because I have a knowing now around the time investment for this process. You try to have a baby for however many months, then you grow and prepare for baby for 9 months, then it really takes around 2 solid years to feel close to a version of “yourself” where you can land into what might be like a baseline for you. Also breastfeeding etc affects this whole timeline.
I am running a marathon right now, not a sprint. I know that when I pace myself accordingly, leaning into the now, this opportunity to arrive into this season like I haven’t been here many other times.
Who will I find.
What will I discover.
Who will I become simply by opening myself up to it?
What an opportunity to lean into and I trust I will find my way because I always have. <3
