024: Who Are You Without the Roles? Reinventing Yourself in Your Next Chapter

This episode explores the identity shifts that happen during major life transitions-especially after motherhood, relationships, or caregiving roles evolve or end. Fredricka shares personal stories and insights to help you navigate the uncomfortable space between who you were and who you’re becoming.

Key Insights:

•  Roles can shape identity, but shouldn’t define it
•  Losing a role can feel like losing yourself
•  Many women tie their value to being needed
•  Reinvention begins when identity shifts inward

Reflection Question:

If I wasn’t defined by what I do for others… who would I choose to become?

Invitation:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome back to the Limitless Living Podcast. I'm your host, Frederica Davis, wellness expert, entrepreneur, and creator of the Limitless Reset Method. And today is Reinvention Saturday, where we talk about purpose, alignment, and the courage that it takes to create the next chapter of your life. So if you have ever had a moment where you thought, who am I now? Who am I going to be without being what I was? Or without this role I've had for so long. This episode is for you. Because there comes a point in life where the roles that once define you, they can start to shift. And if you're not prepared for it, oof, it can feel like you didn't just lose something in your life. It can feel like you have completely lost yourself in the process. So maybe this sounds familiar. You've spent years being the one people depend on, or the one that shows up, the one who gives, the one who holds everything together, the one who teaches, the one who makes the decisions. You get the picture. Maybe that role was as the mom or wife or partner, the caregiver, the business owner, or the one who always had the answers. And then all of a sudden something changes. Maybe the kids grow up, maybe your relationship shifts or ends for whatever reason. Maybe your career evolves and you're in a new role, or maybe it no longer fits, or you're sudden, you suddenly find yourself retired and without a plan for what's next. And then there's this space. Instead of that space feeling freeing, it starts to feel very unfamiliar, almost quiet, and sometimes even a little empty. And that's the part most of us are not talking about enough. And, you know, I've lived this. I've lived this more than once in many ways, actually. But years ago, I was in a relationship that I truly believed was going to be my forever. And in that season of my life, I wasn't just in a relationship. I was part of a family. I became part of a family because I was raising three stepsons. I had a foster son. I had stepped fully into this role of being a mother figure, a partner, a stabilizing force in that home, willingly, joyfully, and exuberantly. This was my passion and my purpose, or so I thought. This just wasn't something I just did. It became part of who I was. It was really truly my identity. And then all of a sudden it fell apart. He decided he wanted to end it. And then I was left without. I didn't just lose a relationship at that point. I didn't lost a family. And it was, it was really, quite frankly, the breakup that might have nearly killed me. I lost an entire version of my life, and I lost the structure of a family. I lost the day-to-day role that I played. I lost the identity I had built around being that person. And I just remember thinking, now what? How who am I without all of this? What, you know, now what? I've worked for all of this and now what? I kept asking myself kind of the same thing over and over. Can you relate? And here's the honest truth. If anyone had asked me back then if I would have chosen that outcome, oh my, of course, my my answer would have been absolutely not. But what I couldn't see at the time was that losing that relationship, losing that family, I believe, as especially as I look, especially as I look backwards, was all part of the grander plan. But I was losing that identity, and I needed to lose that identity. I needed to go through that. Don't get me wrong, I still would never have chosen it. But that was exactly what happened that actually made space for the life I have now. And that means for my daughter, I wouldn't have my daughter. For the version of me that exists today, I had to go through that. And I can say that now with perspective. But in the moment, it felt like everything had been taken from me. It was a long time for me to process, to feel, to get moved past, to work through that. But it was one foot in front of the other, step by step. And so I did until I reinvented again. And then, you know, there's another version of this that I can share. And that's that's kind of a quieter version, but boy, just as real. My daughter is 20 now. She's in college, her third year, so smart, capable, and independent, and exactly how I raised her to be. And I'm proud of that. So very proud of her. But here's something a lot of us don't talk about, I think, enough as moms. When you raise independent kids, they don't need you in the same way anymore. And I really believe my job was to raise her to be independent. I know that if something, God forbid, happened to me tomorrow, that she at the age of 20 would be able to stand on her two own two feet, figure things out. And isn't that my job? Wasn't that my job as a parent? So I'm proud of that fact. However, I'm gonna say it, she doesn't call me nearly as often as I wish she would. Not because we're disconnected, but because she's busy. She's living her life, going to school and working and doing everything that she's doing for her independence and for the beginning of her life. But you know, and yeah, years ago, if you moved out, I remember calling my mom asking her how long to cook a pot roast or how to get a steam out of something. You'd you'd have to, you'd likely have to call your mom for some advice on something, even if it was just those things. But nowadays, we have AI, we have Chat GPT, we have Google, you know. My daughter can figure it out in a nanosecond much faster than if she had to call me and or leave me a message or text me, even to get the answer. So of course she's going to do that. I get it. We all do that. But she doesn't need my input on every decision like she once did. And while that's exactly what we want as mothers, it's also a quiet shift that happens. It's where you go from being needed every day to being needed differently. Doesn't mean you're not needed, but it's less frequently. And if you're not careful, you can start to interpret that as meaning that you don't matter about as much anymore. Now, that's likely not the case, but we can feel like that. Now, I've had to be honest about that. I've even said to her, I know you don't always need me, but sometimes, just sometimes, let me feel like you do. Call me anyway. Ask me something, even if you know the answer to it, and throw me a bone. Ask me anyway. And she just rolls her eyes and laughs at me, of course, you know. But it's not because she's doing anything wrong, you know, that I feel like that. It's not anything at all. She's doing exactly what she should be doing. But I I, as the mom, feeling like I want to be needed a little bit more, am experiencing my identity shift. And I'm navigating that. So can you relate to this? Do you feel like you're navigating an identity shift because your kids have grown? You know, you go from being everything, I mean, everything, every second of the day, and all of a sudden, you go to something different where you're not needed and you're not everything every single second of the day. It's exactly as it should be. However, it evokes these feelings. So there are four truths about identity and major life changes that I would say. Number one, roles give us structure, but they are not the whole of who we are. Being a mom, a partner, a leader, those roles all matter. They shape us, but they were never meant to be the only thing that defines you. Because when they change, and they will, if that's all you had, you will feel like you have nothing. Number two, the fear of letting go is often the fear inside us that we have of losing our value. This is really the deeper layer. We don't just hold on to roles because we love them, we hold on to them because that's where we feel needed or important or wanted, valuable, significant. So, of course, when those roles shift, it doesn't just feel like it's a change. It can feel like it's a threat to your identity. So, number three, if your identity is built around or only on who you are to others, it will always be unstable. It will always feel unstable. This one actually really might hit if your identity, again, is the one who always helps, the one who is always needed, and this can be if you're caregiver, mom, whatever, or the one who always holds everything together, and then all of a sudden, the people who needed you stop needing you the same way. Maybe this is the loss of a parent, and you were caretaking, and all of a sudden you have nobody to caretake, and there's this sense of guilt and this sense of relief and this sense of loss, and then you're lost because what do you do now? Now you've got the identity element in it. It's a lot to navigate, right? It's not just parenting at this stage that we are all often going through. But that's why all of this can feel so unsettling because the foundation was external. Number four, reinvention requires space. And space often feels really uncomfortable before it starts to feel freeing. Now, that means that emptiness that you might feel, or the quiet, it just feels too quiet. Or that what now feeling. And that's not something that you should rush past. This is we often want to just kind of push through and rush to the next season or the next thing or make snap decisions, or we get frozen in time, we don't know how to make a decision. But this is where instead what we should be doing is asking new questions. That's where you should start discovering who you are outside of the rules. So let's make this real. And I want you, one, to acknowledge what you've lost, even if it was supposed to happen. Like my daughter, growing up, becoming independent. If you have a child who's done that, that's supposed to happen. But it's okay for you to grieve the loss of that role or that season of your life or that version of you or your life. And it doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but it is okay. And that grief should be allowed to be felt and worked through without judging yourself for it, too. Lose the judgment. We judge ourselves far too much. And then I want you to redefine what value means for you now. Instead of asking, where am I needed? Where am I wanted? Start your start asking, where do I feel aligned? Because here's the thing: your next chapter is not going to be about being needed, at least not as much, more than likely. It's going to be about being fulfilled. And then I want you to start building identity from within, not from the roles. Ask yourself, what do I enjoy? What do I want to do more of? What feels meaningful to me now? Not 10 years ago, but now, not when life looked different either, but starting from the here and the now. So here's what I want you to sit with this week. We're gonna, I'm gonna leave you with this question. If I wasn't defined by what I do for others, who would I choose to become? Now, if this conversation resonates with you, please come join us in the Limitless Living community because this is where we walk through these transitions together, honestly, openly, and with love and support. So if this episode has hit home for you and you know somebody you might need to hear it, be sure to share it. And if you haven't yet, leave us a review. It helps more women find these conversations. So, in closing, sometimes the hardest part of growth is not becoming someone new, it's letting go of who you had to be to get where you are right now. And when you can do that, oh, it's amazing. You don't actually lose yourself. I know it might feel like that, and it might you might be afraid of that, but what will actually happen is you finally get to meet yourself until next time.