19. Becoming Who God Created You to Be: 4 Identity Shifts That Change Everything

What if the very thing holding you back isn’t your circumstances, but the outdated identity you’ve been carrying, and the thoughts that have gone with it?

In this solo episode, I’m diving into the powerful topic of identity: how it’s formed, how it shapes your future, and how to intentionally upgrade it with God.

As Christians, our first and truest identity is as beloved sons and daughters in Christ. But along the way, we often adopt “I am” statements and beliefs that no longer serve the person God is calling us to become.

Inspired by a quote from St. Teresa of Avila — “Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things pass away. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. He who has God finds he lacks nothing. God alone suffices," this episode will help you examine the beliefs, environments, postures, and focus that is shaping your life and renew them with heaven’s perspective.

If you’re:

• Stepping into a new season or identity
• Starting a new venture that God placed on your heart and it feels scary
• Letting go of old labels and ways of being to better serve God
• Or simply desiring deeper alignment with Christ

This episode will give you practical Catholic coaching tools and reflection questions to expand your identity with faith.

In This Episode you will discover:

✨ The true foundation of identity in Christ
 ✨ How your “I am” statements and beliefs about your life shape your future
 ✨ The role of mindset and renewing your mind (Romans 12:2)
 ✨ Why growth feels uncomfortable and how to navigate it with grace and faith
 ✨ The 4 identity shifts that change everything:

• Your words
• The way you carry yourself
• Your environment
• Your focus

We also reflect on Hebrews 11:1 and Matthew 17:20 and why faith is the key to every identity upgrade.

I encourage you to spend time this week asking the Holy Spirit in prayer or adoration the following:

What old identity am I ready to release? 

How do my current words shape my identity? What does the next version of myself need to believe to shape my identity in Christ?

How do I carry myself? What needs to shift for others to feel Christ's presence through me?

Do my environments and those surrounding me support the next version God is creating me to be?

Where is my focus? Is it on the gap or the gain? The gratitude or the lack?

Resources mentioned:

The Radiating Christ Prayer

The Gap and The Gain, by Dan Sullivan

Connect with Carrie on Instagram @livingwholeandholy

If you are interested in being a guest on The Living Whole and Holy Podcast, contact Carrie at livingwholeandholy@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to the Living Whole and Holy podcast, where the Catholic faith and intentional living come together. I'm your host, Carrie Jane, a recent Catholic convert and Catholic coach, here to guide you toward a life that's rooted in Christ, centered in his love, and aligned with God's call. Whether you're a convert, revert, cradle Catholic, or simply exploring the faith, you're in the right place. Join me each week to hear inspiring conversations, including conversion and reversion stories, timeless wisdom from the church, and practical Catholic coaching tools that help you deepen your faith and intimacy with Christ, cultivate Christ-centered habits, and be transformed through the renewing of your mind. If you're ready to discover and align to the beauty and richness of a fully integrated Catholic life, you've found your home. I'm so excited you're here. Let's get started. And I am back for a solo episode. I haven't been with you in a few weeks, and I've really had such a great time with the guests that have been on the show, especially my guests from a CC, these last couple episodes. And I wanted to come back on and talk to you guys today about something that has come up for me a lot in the last year, actually since becoming a Christian, and what's been coming up a lot for my current coaching clients that I'm working with. And it's the topic of identity and becoming who God created you to be in the four identity shifts that change everything. And when I was in prayer this morning, I was reminded of a quote from St. Teresa of Avila that I thought really goes well with identity and I wanted to share it with you. And it is, let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things pass away. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. He who has God finds he lacks nothing. God alone suffices. And I really liked this quote because what stuck out to me was God never changes. So we have things in our lives that change. We have identities that change, but God never changes. Patience obtains all things. I also like that part of this quote because when we are upgrading our identity, it is not comfortable and it requires a lot of patience and it requires a lot of trust in God and knowing that God alone suffices. So this quote was just so perfect for me this morning to hear in my prayer. And I wanted to kick it off in this episode about identity. So I'm just going to first talk about identity. And then I wanted to share the factors that shape your identity when doing the things that God has put into your heart, going after those dreams, those upgrades, and then just some reflection questions for you to spend some time in prayer with, with the Holy Spirit, to go to adoration with, for you to really dive deep into these concepts. So, first of all, what is identity? Your identity is the way that you see and think about yourself and also how God sees you. First and foremost, our identities as Christians are in Christ, in being his beloved sons and his beloved daughters. That's number one. But we have a lot of different identities as we go through life. And identity also often shows up in I am statements. And I think about Jesus actually, when I think of the I am statements, and he had some pretty powerful ones, like I am the light of the world, I am the bread of life. So anything that comes after the I am really shapes and forms our identity. And that's why it's important as you're upgrading, as you are changing and evolving and becoming the highest version that God created you to be, to upgrade your thinking. Because a lot of our thinking can be unconscious. And if it's negative, it's not serving us. And when we think about identity, sometimes we get so stuck in these thoughts. We might think, this is just how I am. This is what I do. This is how I've always been. And these beliefs, these beliefs about ourselves can become very solidified in, like I said, both positive or negative ways. A lot of identity beliefs were formed when we were children before we even were aware of them. We're not fully consciously aware of them. But as adults, we have the cognitive ability to question the identities and beliefs that don't serve the next versions of ourselves and to decide on purpose to hold on to old identities or upgrade them in Christ. And these beliefs that come up that aren't serving us, they are lies. We don't need them. And we can question them now that we are adults and we have dominion over our thinking. So in this episode, I wanted to share four ways to upgrade and expand your identity when God calls you to be who He desires you to be in the world. You may be at a crossroads in your life, maybe taking on the identity as a Christian. I know that that was an identity I took on. And you may be becoming an entrepreneur, you may be starting a new venture. Maybe you are starting a new job. Maybe you're becoming a parent. You're doing something God has called you to do. And you want to have authority over what you're thinking about that thing. When God calls you to a higher level, there are old identities that need to be shed that no are that are no longer aligned with who you are becoming.

unknown 6:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

So there's four factors that shape our identity and define the changes that need to be made in order to be the highest version of who God created us to be. So the first is our words. And this is what thoughts and beliefs we are practicing. How are we talking to ourselves? What are we telling ourselves? Who are we telling ourselves we are? What things do we feel are possible or impossible? And you know, what you repeat, you practice, and what you repeat, you become, and you act as if. So your words literally shape your identity. So I want you to take an inventory and get very curious without judgment about how you're spending your time thinking about yourself. I like to think about a computer that needs a software update or needs files to be removed because it's becoming very slow and weighed down. And computer, the computer is not going to change if you don't take old files off, if you don't run that software upgrade. There's something that you have to do to clean out those files and upgrade it. And the same thing goes for our thinking. When we're stepping out of our comfort zones, it is not comfortable. And our brains will try to do everything to protect us. And oftentimes that will be with untrue and unhelpful thoughts. And it's because our brain, our primitive part of our brain, when it we're doing something new, it gets very scared. So it tries to protect you with thoughts that this is a bad idea. What are people going to think of you? You're going to fail. You're not good enough. These are all thoughts that just are not true and they try to detract us. And these also can also be coming from Satan. Satan does not want people to go after things that God has put into their heart to expand the kingdom. So we have thinking from ourselves and then we have negative thoughts from Satan as well. But in Romans 12, too, we are called not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed through the renewing of our minds. We learn to think from heaven's perspective rather than a fear-based mindset or a lack mentality. The second factor that shapes our identity, the way we carry ourselves. So this is your posture, how you show up. Are you hiding or are you standing tall with confidence? Is your appearance and clothing reflective of who you are becoming? Now you don't have to go out and buy a new wardrobe, but how we show up and what we're wearing, how we're standing, that all impacts the way that we carry ourselves when we're going forward in life. And this is how your body feels your identity. A few episodes ago, I mentioned having a backbone in the Lord, that holy alignment and truly knowing that He's supporting you. And this kind of goes back to letting go of the things that are weighing you down, the things that are not in your alignment anymore with this next version of who God's creating you to be. And when you know you have God by your side, challenges seem much more doable and you can show up with what I call confidence, which is confidence in knowing that God is with you. Number three is our environment. So your surroundings, where you are, the people you choose to surround yourself with, what you consume, what are you putting into your body? What are you putting into your eyes? What are you listening to? What do you normalize? My coach always says, what you normalize, you magnetize. So it's really good to become aware of what you're normalizing and maybe some things that are not normal, but you've made normal for a really long time. I've mentioned this before, and I'll mention it again. The people you surround yourself with matters. We are a reflection and get influenced by the habits, the attitudes, beliefs, and values of those we spend a majority of time with. We're also influenced by the work environments we're in, the groups we choose to be a part of in our free time. All of these make a huge difference. I know for me, when I was becoming Christian, I surrounded myself with other Christians. I wanted to know what kind of habits did they have, what things they did they consume? What were they not consuming? What were they not normalizing? So it's really important that we remember that we are a reflection of the people around us. I saw this video last week of there was like a three lemons, and there was a rotten lemon, and then there were two lemons right next to it. And they put the lemons inside of a box, and the lemons that were touching the rotten lemon eventually ended up rotting as well. And that's just an analogy for you know, what we surround ourselves with definitely influences us. Um, and I know also for me, too, that I am building my coaching business. I'm building this podcast. And I I have surrounded myself with a mastermind of other women who are doing the same thing. And we come together and we talk about the things that are going well, our wins, the things that we're struggling with. And we are all committed to God first and foremost, and we're also committed to working on our mindset. We're also improving our prayer lives, we're spending time with God in the sacraments. And we're all going after goals with the same goal in mind, which is to put God first. So who we spend time with truly, truly matters. And number four is focus. So this one is huge today. With all the things we can choose to be distracted with in our world, focus is really a precious currency. Where we've directed our focus in the past is exactly how we got to our current state of life. And where we're going with God is dependent on what we are focusing on now. And focus is like fertilizer. What you focus on grows. Are you focused on lack and all the things that are not working? Or are you focused on gratitude for God's blessings and even challenges and setbacks that have ultimately brought you into greater union with Him? Have you gotten rejected? Have you gotten no's? Those no's will eventually lead to yeses. And when you focus on what God is calling you to focus on, you do have to say no to things, but you are saying yes to what he's guiding you to. Do you focus on your celebrations, on your wins, on solutions, or do you focus on fear, problems, lack, lack of provision, worry, what could go wrong? All of this impacts how you identify yourself and the identity in Christ that you hold. In my own walk with Christ and walking others through coaching and stepping more into the person God is calling us to be, I have used these practices in upgrading my identity and things like optimizing my health, sharing my testimony and creating a more intimate relationship with God, and ultimately becoming a podcaster and a Catholic coach. So I invite you to call on the Holy Spirit for guidance right now. I want you to ask him to pinpoint an area of your life that you want to upgrade with God where you are ready to expand. What do you want to let go of? What's an old identity that is just creating unnecessary stress and struggle for you? I invite you to think about and pray into how to implement these strategies. You get to do this on purpose and you get to choose the identity you want and to practice it until it feels more like you. Okay, so number one, your words, your I am statements. What are you saying right now that is not aligned with who you're becoming? I want you to question it. It may feel like fact, but it is not, it can be changed if you question it. I'm gonna give you an example from my own life. So in wanting to start a podcast, I had to work on a couple of beliefs. And the main one was I am not a leader and I have nothing good to say. And I remember as a child, I was very shy. And I did not feel like a leader. And if someone had told me that you're going to have a podcast one day, I probably would not have believed them because I wouldn't, I would be like, I can't do that. I can't talk in front of people. And I really had to work through that in order to start this podcast. And lo and behold, I don't have those beliefs anymore because I am a podcaster. And I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't questioned my identities. And I'm really glad I did because God had put it into my heart to do this and to share about the Lord. So I'm glad I questioned it. So I invite you to do the same. Are you ready to stop telling yourself these things that just don't serve you anymore? How do you want to start talking to yourself? What would God say to you? What would you want to think? And how does the next version of yourself think? Number two. How do you carry yourself? Think about your future self who's already there. You can ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into that process of really visualizing that next version of you, doing whatever it is that God has placed into your heart. What's your posture like? Your confidence, your presence? Are you asking God's light to shine through you? I love that radiance prayer. I've shared it before. I'll put it in the show notes. It's just really beautiful. It's it's a prayer that I do in the morning too, is just asking God's light to come through me. Do people feel the presence of Christ in you? That is something that I strive for and that I truly ask God when He puts me before people that they feel the presence of Christ. That's all in how you carry yourself. Number three, the environment. What do you consume? What do you watch? What do you listen to? What do you put into your body? Is this aligned with the person that God is calling you to be? Is this aligned with your new identity? Is your environment conducive to choosing and growing your relationship with God, or is it more conducive to distraction? Are you scrolling more than praying or reading your Bible? Are you people pleasing? Do you need to set boundaries with love? Do the people you surround yourself with reflect your values, beliefs, and sincere desire to grow in intimacy with God? Also, the saints are heavenly helpers. I feel like I talk about them in every episode. They are the best examples of holiness and can be called upon to support your identity upgrades. And remember, the saints were not perfect, but they really show us how to live aligned with God. Number four, what are you focused on? I've been reading a really great book called The Gap in the Gain. It is a secular book, but I have found tremendous value in it when it comes to focusing on the good, focusing on gratitude. So we can either be in the gap or at the gain. And basically, when you're in the gap, that's when you're comparing your current situation to your ideal situation. And that's a really horrible way to compare yourself because you're always going to feel lack in that space. You're not going to feel God, you're not going to feel God's provision, you're not going to feel grateful. Whereas if you are in the gain, you are where you are now and you are looking at where you have been. So for example, if you look at who you are now versus who you were six months ago, a year ago, five years ago, if you measure all the gains you have, you will focus on gratitude. You'll focus on God's blessings, you'll focus on the wins and how far you've come versus measuring yourself on how far you still have to go in reaching your goal. When you focus on the obstacles, the fear, the problems, and what could go wrong, that dictates your identity and that will dictate how you feel. But practicing, intentionally focusing on the growth, the wins, the celebrations, and gratitude, when you look for them, you will find them. Your focus trains your identity. And lastly, faith is the key in all of this. You cannot do any of this without faith. Hebrews 11:1 reminds us that faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. If you do not feel like your faith muscle is strong, ask God to increase your faith. I know I still have to do that every single day. In Matthew 17, 20, Jesus said, Amen. I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. I encourage you to spend some time in prayer asking the Holy Spirit where your identity needs to be upgraded so that you can co-create with God these dreams He's placed in your heart. The dreams he can't wait to get out into this world with you as his instrument. Practicing new ways of thinking and carrying yourself as that next version as you would, upgrading your environment to reflect the person you're becoming and focusing on the good, focusing on the faith are the keys and the strategies that you can use to get you there. So whether you are stepping into a new reality, stepping into a new role, a new job, maybe you're just becoming Christian for the first time and this is a whole new identity, and you've had to let go of old identities that are not serving you anymore. I just encourage you this week to spend some time with our Lord and pray about anything that comes forward and just know that he is by your side. I am by your side, and I'm wishing you a great rest of your lent. I hope this episode inspired you and leaves you feeling more hopeful and going after the dreams God has placed in your heart. If you have not yet, could you please write a review of this podcast? I really love and appreciate your kind reviews. The more reviews this podcast has, the more people it reaches. And the more people it reaches, the more people know and hear about ways that Jesus can work in their lives. So thank you so much. Much. God bless you, and I will see you next time. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Living Whole and Holy podcast. If you're ready to dive deeper into life coaching from a Catholic perspective, I have a few spots available for one-on-one coaching. This is an amazing opportunity for you to work with someone who will empower you and support you to dream again with God, find more alignment, peace, and confidence in your life, and be the greatest version of who God is calling you to be. I would be so honored to support you on this journey. Send me a DM on Instagram at Living Whole and Holy for a free one on one call to learn more. If this episode blessed you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend. And remember, instead of doing what makes you happy, do what makes you holy. Until next time, God bless.