Who Am I Now?

In today’s episode of Your Personal Power Pod, we look at how you define yourself, and what happens to your self-image if circumstances change so you can no longer fill that role and be who you think you are. When you’re clear about where your self-image comes from, you’re then able to claim your personal power, and live life the way you want it to be, even when things change.


We want to hear from you, whether it’s your stories about how self-esteem and personal power affect your life, or topics you’d like us to address in future episodes. We’d love for you to review our podcast. Do this on your streaming service or visit www.yourpersonalpowerpod.com , click Contact and drop us an email. You can also find us on Instagram at Your Personal Power Pod.

Also, if you’d like to make changes in your personal or business life, spending time with a coach can make all the difference.  Sandy is offering a free consultation, so contact her at sandy@insidejobscoach.com and put COACHING in the subject line to schedule a free call.

Thank you for listening to Your Personal Power Pod.  We look forward to hearing from you.

And, until next time, find your power and change your life!

Transcript

Episode 75 Who Am I Now
[00:00:00] Shannon: Welcome to Your Personal Power Pod, a podcast about aligning yourself with the life you want. And here are your hosts, Sandy Abel and Shannon Young.
[00:00:20] Sandy: Shannon, can you believe we're on episode 75? Isn't this exciting? And we've got a great topic today. 
[00:00:27] Shannon: I can believe it. And yes, it is exciting and we do, I really like today's topic. I know a lot of people, including you and me Yes. Who are in this very weird place right now where our definition of self doesn't apply so much anymore, and we're trying to figure that out.
[00:00:46] Sandy: Isn't it fascinating when you're 25, you think you know who you are? Hopefully by then you figured it out and you think you're gonna be that person forever and doing what you do and hanging with the people you hang out with, and then you get [00:01:00] older and things change. Today we're talking about who am I 
[00:01:03] Shannon: now?
[00:01:04] Shannon: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about why this topic came to you. There 
[00:01:09] Sandy: were several things. First, I was talking to a woman who had raised five kids, so she's been parenting mothering for 25 years, and her youngest. Just graduated from high school. Oh, wow. She looked kind of in shock and she said, you know, my daughter's going across the country to college.
[00:01:27] Sandy: We've got all these bedrooms in this big house and a car designed to haul a bunch of people. I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself. I don't know who I am anymore because mm-hmm. I've been a mother ever since I've been an adult. I got married, had babies, and that was it. Yeah. And that. Stopped me for a minute and I said, yeah, that's a huge life shift.
[00:01:47] Sandy: And then I was talking to a good friend who is a very talented professional, works with his hands, creative, all that kinda stuff. In the last six months, he's gotten some kind of. [00:02:00] Disease that's made it so he can't do that anymore. His brain is still sharp and he knows what he wants to do, but his identity is tied up in woodworking or building things or designing things.
[00:02:12] Sandy: He can't do that. He cannot. Draw or run a saw. He's trying to figure out, okay, so I've spent most of my life being this other person and who am I now? Wow. That happens to people all the time as life changes. So I thought maybe we should talk about that, cuz maybe our listeners will be able to relate. Two.
[00:02:33] Sandy: I think 
[00:02:33] Shannon: so. So what do we use when we're drawing up our definition of self? Where do we get that information from? And then how do we 
[00:02:41] Sandy: apply it? Right. Well, when you're little brand new, you learn to define yourself from the people around you. You're a kid and that's a label and a role you play. You're the daughter or the son, they hang that label on you.
[00:02:53] Sandy: Mm-hmm. Until they figure out who you are. You're either charming and sweet and fun, or you're a pain in the neck [00:03:00] and annoying, and you should just go away. And depending on who the people around you are and how they treat you, you learn to define yourself as a good person or a bad person is a capable person or is a.
[00:03:12] Sandy: Incapable person. Mm-hmm. Incompetent person. And it comes from the people around you. And then when you're older and you become a teenager, then you do this thing they called separation and individuation, which is a fancy psychology term about where you look at how everybody defined you up until then and step away from that and say, well, I don't know if that's me anymore.
[00:03:34] Sandy: I don't know if I'm really a brilliant student or not. Am I a straight A student? Do I wanna be a straight A student? That kind of thing. So you redefine who you think you are and what you think you can do and your roles that you 
[00:03:46] Shannon: play. And this is why teenagers are so attached to their friends. Because they're looking to those people 
[00:03:53] Sandy: now.
[00:03:54] Sandy: Right, for identity. Exactly, yes. Which is very scary. Or they're looking at people they don't even know. The [00:04:00] influencers on the internet nowadays. To define who they are or who they're supposed to be, which really terrifies me because that may not be who they are at all, and if they think that's what they're supposed to be, it can cause a whole lot of emotional trauma.
[00:04:15] Sandy: Mm-hmm. If you're not with size two, which is unhealthy, by the way for most of us, but the people on the internet are. Or if you're not beautiful with long flowing hair or a guy with macho muscles and stuff, then you think there must be something wrong with you and it's not at all. Mm-hmm. Being a teenager, you're trying to figure it out again.
[00:04:34] Shannon: And then when we hit adulthood, which can vary greatly when it comes to age, are we still looking to other people or are we looking. Inside ourselves or some 
[00:04:43] Sandy: combination of the two. Ideally, you would look inside yourself, but most young adults and even middle aged adults, you define yourselves by your roles, by your labels, am I a waitress or an architect, or a doctor, or a [00:05:00] gardener?
[00:05:00] Sandy: What am I, what do I do? A lot of adults get so hung up on the label and the role, like the young woman I was talking about, who has been a mother, that was her label and her role for so long. When that goes away, or my friend who is a designer of some kind of stuff, or a woodworker, those are labels and roles that they played and they did them well, and they liked them.
[00:05:25] Sandy: So that's how I, they identified themselves. Mm-hmm. But when those go away, Then you have a challenge. What about you, Shannon? What do you think about all this? 
[00:05:33] Shannon: Intellectually, it makes perfect sense. It's interesting that you chose this topic. I think today because I am just this week going through, not really a crisis, but a questioning of the definition of me that I've had for a very long time.
[00:05:47] Shannon: Oh wow. My husband and I finally got our act together and cleaned out our garage, which is amazing and a huge undertaking. Yay. Yeah, it was great. And part of my inspiration for doing [00:06:00] that was that I drive an ancient Jeep Wrangler. The top comes off that has been a huge part of my summers over the past 20, 30 years.
[00:06:09] Shannon: Yes. Is taking the top off and being that. Summer person and so I haven't been able to do that for the past few years. Our garage has just accumulated stuff and there hasn't been a place to put the top much less like back the Jeep up in there and get it off. So I thought, I'm gonna do this, and I was super excited to experience that version of me again.
[00:06:29] Shannon: I got the top off and yes, spent a day for the first time in years. In the vehicle without the top on, and was really struck by things that I've never noticed before. How loud it is, how exhausting it can be, being out in the sun and the wind. It really shook me because those were not things that had ever occurred to me on any real significant level before, and there was this tiny little nagging doubt, right, that maybe I'm not this person anymore.
[00:06:57] Shannon: Maybe I don't get the joy from this that I [00:07:00] used to. And what does that mean for me? And it's so minor, but it's so major at the same time. Wow. Yeah, it's a really interesting topic. It's big. It's huge. It's huge. So you are going through this too. Yeah. What with your newly repaired wrist and your definition of yourself as being a person who's really confident, 
[00:07:17] Sandy: right?
[00:07:18] Sandy: Yeah. I'm used to being able to do just about anything. There are things I choose not to do, like climb mountains or jump outta airplanes, but that's just cuz I don't want to. Mm-hmm. But my joke is I can carry a case of nails. I didn't know how heavy a case of nails is. We were doing some construction around the house and we had this case of nails.
[00:07:35] Sandy: It's a relatively small box. My husband said, I need to go get the nails. And I said, oh, I'll get them. And I picked it up and oh my gosh, a case of nails is really heavy. I could carry it. And that's sort of my thing now is I can do that, but I can't right now because of my wrist and hopefully I'll get the strength back in it.
[00:07:55] Sandy: Well that hand anyway. Yeah. Well it takes two hands and two arms to carry a case of [00:08:00] nails, I'll tell you. Yeah. The identity just of, oh, I can do it. I've got it. Don't worry. Maybe not so much. And that shakes you a little bit. Mm-hmm. That makes you stop and think, and I'm wondering about our listeners, what are they dealing with?
[00:08:14] Sandy: How has their life shifted or changed? I know with the pandemic, a lot of people identified with their job and they went to work every day, and they did what they did. Then they either completely lost their job or had to work from home. All of a sudden they were not part of a team anymore, and they weren't who they thought they were.
[00:08:32] Sandy: They couldn't hang that label or that role on themselves. Then you get stuck. Going, oh, whoa. Well, if I'm not that, then who am I? Yeah, it's a scary shift. 
[00:08:43] Shannon: So should we be using those things, what we do, what we wear, the activities we enjoy to define ourselves? Or should we be looking deeper to find our true 
[00:08:55] Sandy: identity?
[00:08:56] Sandy: You're very wise. If you define yourself by labels or [00:09:00] roles, they will change if you define yourself by qualities and talents. Ah, like the woman who was the mom, if she just says, well, I'm not a mom any, well, of course she's still a mom, but they're all grown up now. She's lost her role, but she hasn't lost herself, and she hasn't lost all the amazing things that made her a great mom.
[00:09:22] Sandy: She's loving, kind, smart, caring, intuitive, able to foresee what's going on, and an educator, you, you teach your kids lots of things and there's so many qualities that she has as a human being. Our friend who's lost the ability to use his hands like he had before, he's still incredibly creative and he's resilient and he's really smart.
[00:09:46] Sandy: There are all kinds of things he can do. And they're fun-loving and generous and kind, and all those qualities that we're not usually taught to identify ourselves by, but those are the [00:10:00] things that define who we are. Mm-hmm. Like 
[00:10:03] Shannon: the Buddhist philosophy, that all suffering is caused by attachment. If you're attached to things that can go away, then you put yourself at their 
[00:10:11] Sandy: mercy.
[00:10:12] Sandy: Oh wow. Buto obviously was very profound, and that is true. But that's the role if you're attached to the role. Mm-hmm. Like you were attached to your role of being the free spirit with your hair, blowing in the wind as you drove down the freeway, and then you matured and got smart and realized, you know, I'm sunburning the heck outta myself.
[00:10:30] Sandy: This isn't as fun as I thought it was, and maybe I've matured and moved on. For 
[00:10:36] Shannon: me, I think there's a little bit of a sadness. But I've learned that giving myself grace to just feel whatever's happening with that shift will give me the opportunity to also recognize the new as it comes. So instead of just being right, sad, or trying to force that feeling, That I used [00:11:00] to have.
[00:11:00] Shannon: I mean, I'm not running out and buying a new car just so I can feel more like me. The acceptance of the change gives me the opportunity to explore new opportunities for joy instead of just being stuck in the exactly the sadness and the grief and the well. But I should feel a certain way in this moment because I've always felt 
[00:11:19] Sandy: this way in this moment.
[00:11:20] Sandy: Yeah, don't shit on yourself. That's a good idea. And that's absolutely right. What you're doing is grieving that part of you that has left, and we've talked about grief a lot before in other episodes. And when anything ends even so that you can move on to more positive things, you grieve the end. You're grieving, letting go of those old experiences that you loved, but for some reason now you don't love them quite so much.
[00:11:47] Sandy: So you're gonna do the grief process probably relatively short. It's not gonna take years acknowledging that there's a change and a shift, and that now you're a slightly different person that you hadn't expected to be, [00:12:00] but maybe it's even better. And the good thing is you look at your qualities and you're resilient, and you're smart, and you're wise.
[00:12:07] Sandy: You use those qualities to create the next step, and that's what hopefully we all do. When there's a change or a shift when something happens. Sure. Be aware you're gonna grieve. I mentioned to both of the people I've shared about that you might be doing some grief process here. You might be a little depressed or you might be feeling lost and confused and your brain might be fuzzy, and that's a normal place to be.
[00:12:31] Sandy: For a short time. And then as you access your qualities, your resilience, and your strength and your creativity, and look at all the qualities you have that are who you are, who you are is not your roles. Who you are is your qualities. And you access those and you can move on. So smart. I just want our listeners to know you always have the power to access your special qualities and define who you are now and [00:13:00] who you will be as you move ahead.
[00:13:02] Sandy: Yes. So it's okay to let go of what was and not cling to that appreciated value It. But then look at the amazing person you are. The roles you play are because of the amazing person you are. So you wanna know, who am I now? Look at the qualities that make you who you are and you will do 
[00:13:23] Shannon: fine. Awesome. You wanna wrap us up?
[00:13:26] Shannon: Okay. So when 
[00:13:27] Sandy: we're young, We learn who we are or who we're supposed to be from the people around us. As you grow, it's important to look at those labels and see how you define yourself. Identify which parts still fit the adult you are now, and which don't get clear on the qualities that make you who you are, not what your roles and labels are, and give yourself permission to change.
[00:13:51] Sandy: Whatever does not resonate with who you want to be. When things change, if you're clear on the person you are, instead of your labels, you'll be [00:14:00] able to weather the change and build on that to create a new vision of who you are now and who you will move ahead as you will love and appreciate the person you are and claim your personal power as you create the life you want to have.
[00:14:13] Sandy: And as 
[00:14:14] Shannon: always, be gentle with yourself through this process. 
[00:14:18] Sandy: Always. Always, always and understand that feeling lost when there is a change is normal. When you access your qualities of resilience, all those other amazing things that make up who you are, you will do fine and move ahead to an even. Better life.
[00:14:37] Sandy: Thank you, Sandy. Thank you Shannon. And thank you to our listeners for taking this amazing podcast journey with us. It is so fun to do this with you all. It is 
[00:14:46] Shannon: fun and we love hearing from you, especially when you tell us about the role that personal power and self-esteem have played in your life. And we love it when you suggest topics for us to cover, because then we know we're talking about things that you actually wanna learn about and hear about.
[00:14:59] Shannon: And [00:15:00] then we also love it if you review our podcast. So thank you so much for doing so. Wherever you stream or wherever you. Listen, you can check us out at your personal power pod.com. If you don't have a streaming service, you can click contact and drop us an email if you wanna chat with us one-on-one.
[00:15:16] Shannon: And then you can also find us on Instagram at your Personal Power Pod. And if you wanna learn about how coaching can change your life, contact Sandy directly. Sandy inside jobs coach.com. Thank you so much for listening. We look so forward to hearing from you, and until next time, find your power and change your life.