Who You Become After Everything Breaks Open | Bonus
This episode is part of The Things We Carry, a solo series shaped by the themes that stay with me after the conversations on The Life Shift.
Today, I am talking about identity and what happens when the life you have been holding together finally cracks open. Identity is not fixed. It shifts and bends. It breaks down and rebuilds. It grows through fear and through honesty. And most of us do not realize how much we have been holding until something inside us asks for change.
In this reflection, I talk about the messy work of letting old selves fall away, the long, slow unwinding of perfection, and the courage it takes to face the parts of you that have been hiding for years. Growing into yourself is not clean or linear. Some days you feel brave. Some days you fall back into old patterns. The important part is noticing the opening. Noticing the small truth that something old is no longer working.
If you are standing in that breaking open, I hope this episode meets you gently. You do not have to rush toward clarity. You do not need to fix everything at once. You can sit with the crack for a moment. You can let the rawness be real. Because inside that openness is the beginning of who you are becoming.
This is the mini solo series, The Things We Carry. Small moments and themes that keep me thinking way after the conversations on the Life Shift podcast. Hey there, it's another one of those solo episodes that I'm putting together with some themes from the conversations that I get to have on the Life Shift podcast. And this one will be about identity. I think it's so human and so necessary to talk about. It's those moments where everything falls apart inside us or around us and What happens to us after we break open? So I think of James, who told me about his journey from this corporate life into something more whole and real. He described this moment sitting at his desk, realizing that the life he had built wasn't quite his own. And when his old world crumbled, he said it was terrifying, but also freeing. He talked about how vulnerability became this kind of doorway to community, to service, to a deeper connection with himself and others. And that humbling mix of fear and hope in his words, I kind of imagine what it means to watch her old self dissolve and then really lean into the rawness of what's left. Uncertain, but open. And then there's Lydia again, whose story carried kind of the long dance with grief and identity. She shared how she hid behind perfection, pushing down those messy feelings that she thought she couldn't carry. But over time, through therapy and radical honesty with herself, she began to unwind those layers. wasn't a straight path. Definitely moments of falling back, moments of breakthrough. The loop of trying to be someone else's idea of okay. Only to realize that okay is a moving target. Her journey reminded me that growth is so messy sometimes. It's more like this river carving through rock, which is sometimes slow, sometimes rushing. but always changing the shape. And Isabel's story was about surrendering control and sitting with fear and making peace with the parts of her that have been running and hiding for years. Her voice was soft but firm about the work of letting go, of facing what we think protects us but really holds us back. It's this brave acceptance, this radical acceptance that doesn't mean giving up, but something more like making room for what is. What threads these stories together for me is the idea that identity is not fixed, it's fluid. Breaking open, breaking down, building anew, and over and over again, and messy, just so messy. And that's cool. There's no deep checklist or this blueprint of who we become after our life shift moments. It's just the step by step, the daily practice of showing up as ourselves. Sometimes we trip, and sometimes we are shiny. I'm still in that process, still learning how to be with the parts of me that want to run back to these old patterns or hide behind the masks. I know there's no finish line. I just have to be curious and gentle with myself. So if you're listening and you feel that breaking open inside yourself, whether it's grief, a shift in your career, a change in your relationships or beliefs, let's notice it. The crack that appeared, the space that opened, the part of you that says something old is no longer working. you don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to rush to fix it. Just sit with the breaking open for a moment. Let it be real. It's yours. Because in that openness, there is the truest part of who you're waiting to grow. Thanks for being a part of the LifeShift Podcast.
