What Brings You Alive?
Letting go of purpose and identity to align with the ever-changing truth of our hearts.
I started my day off this morning by googling “losing your identity.”
And as Google does, it served up a platter of articles and Reddit threads with titles like “6 Signs You Have Lost Your Identity” and “Identity Crisis: Causes, Symptoms, and Ways to Cope.”
I felt a bit of relief seeing that this sense of not knowing who you are anymore is actually a pretty common thing, but that certainly doesn’t make the experience of it any easier.
I try these days not to attach too tightly to anything external proclaiming to know what’s going on internally. I don’t think our society is at a point yet where we see the whole picture of what it is to be human. We are sorely lacking in wisdom in the arena of the soul and what hasn’t yet been studied by science.
Yes, it was reassuring in a sense to read an article about identity loss, however, I think there is much more to it. A divine orchestration that makes something like identity loss not only a good thing, but a required part of the journey.
Looking back, my sense of self started to slip through my fingers alongside what eventually became a 3-year stint of burnout. As my body tired and started to say no, so did my soul. What once felt colourful and alive lost its lustre and life. What once felt easy to carry and create became burdensome and gear-grindingly difficult.
Which, of course, made me only dig my heels in more. Instead of slowing down, listening with radical honesty, and being open to what was trying to happen for me, I tightened my grip. I clasped myself around what felt like a very sure and defined sense of self.
I kept trying to make work what was not working for me. Mostly because I couldn’t imagine myself as someone else doing something else. I had looked into the future and mapped out the entire path. I had turned what was invisible into stone and tied it around my neck.
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