When I became a mum everything changed. My routines, my social calendar, my body, my friendships, my expectations, my energy, my goals but most significantly my IDENTITY.
It’s such a strange thing, you try so hard to have your babies and complete your family and you are left incomplete and searching for an answer to the age old question. ‘Who am I?’
Boy have I asked that question hundreds of times in my head, in my journal, in my sleep no doubt too. I’m here to shed some light on this topic as its something that comes up in conversation so often, I cannot ignore it anymore.
So this might be you… you’re a mum now and you love it, you wouldn’t change it for the world and you’re super grateful for all the blessing you have. Or you’re in the midst of your fertility/ conception journey and you’re in LIMBO. Cool… but why is this not the end of the story? Why don’t I feel whole? Why I do I feel like a part is missing ?
This is not easy to answer but here is my opinion.
There has been a MASSIVE shift/ upgrade and change that has occurred to you internally and the Universe is inviting you to evolve.
There comes a point when you can’t stop thinking about where you’re headed and where you want to be.
Essentially what’s happened is that your beliefs around self worth change when you become a mum or you want to become a mum. You have a new set of beliefs, responsibilities and identities and the old ones become redundant. Most of the time we don’t realise this is actually happening to us until we feel lost, confused and perhaps alone.
A lot of changes occur when you become a parent or are trying to become one and our nervous system literally gets the shock of its life and needs time to catch up to this enormous change.
Our mind, body and soul are literally out of alignment and because we’re so preoccupied with our appointments or newborn baby or toddler, we don’t STOP, BREATHE, CONNECT AND RE- CALIBRATE.
You are just reactive to what’s happening in your life and eventually it’s like you’ve gotten off at the wrong bus stop and you’re bewildered about who the hell you’re meant to be. ?
Ok so what do we do when we get to this confusing point and are having a full blown IDENTITY CRISIS?
SIT IN SILENCE
BE STILL
BE WITH YOURSELF
FEEL YOUR ESSENCE IN THE SILENCE
LISTEN
BREATHE
DO LESS
JUST BE…
It’s really quite simple…When you DO (actions) less and BE(feeling) more, your energy transforms. It allows you to open up a gateway to your heart & soul and connect to that inner wisdom and guidance system. Yes you have a system inside of you that guides you… it’s called your intuition, inner self… a gut feeling.
I invite you to FEEL all the limitations in your life. Also Feel the horizon of possibilities that are at your feet. When you sit in silence and connect with your inner self, you essentially cut out the noise and are brought faster to the clarification you seek.
When you have a child or children, its noisy, busy, go, go, go. There has to be parts of your day where you have some quiet time so that you can navigate the next step.
Unfortunately going away for a weekend on your own will not bring you closer to fixing your identity crisis. Its a lovely start but it’s something you must do daily and will be on going in your life.
Start with 1 minute… I mean it, if you don’t have regular ‘you’ time or a meditation practice, then try to fit in a minute here, 2 minutes there. Soon you’ll MAKE the time or FIND the time to prioritise this -lets call it a ‘DATE’ with yourself. It really is an act of true love when you spend quality time with yourself.
You will LOVE this time so much because no one can work out your identity but yourself. Journalling without thinking is great, because you just start writing and all of a sudden you find you’ve written 2 pages and within them you can highlight the nuggets of gold you’ve perhaps uncovered that are like pieces of puzzle.
The transformation, loss of identity is a gift… it truly is and I invite you to see it as a rebirth. A time of renewal and conscious evolution. To be co- creating your future while analysing how and why things are changing is extremely powerful.
So let me give you a personal example. After I had my first miscarriage, I was brought to my knees. I felt grief and pure fear.
Absolutely normal, yes, however it stirred something inside of me- I started to look for the answer … but there was none in the medical world. I asked the questions, why did this baby not stay? Why couldn’t I be it’s mother? What am I possibly meant to learn from this sad situation?…. yes heavy right? Well it was a case of who do I ask these philosophical, mystical questions to?
That led me down a path… I call it the yellow brick road …. So here I am Dorothy… taking each step trying to search for answers… I’ll cut it short and not take you on the 10 month journey this time but in the end I wound up where I began… sitting in stillness with myself and asking those questions to my inner voice/self/soul/ gut.
I’ll save you time and energy… you have the answers you seek. They are either stored in your subconscious mind or your soul and are reachable any time you like. I say these 2 places in particular because some answers/knowings are stuck in beliefs we made when we were young and we can’t remember them or we don’t know what beliefs we actually made (subconscious). Then the soul is the part of us that has a divine knowing because it is our our authentic self.The one that you were when you were born before your environment moulded your belief system.
So to access your subconscious you can do self hypnosis which is simple or work with a hypnotherapist to access the subconscious mind. Please contact me if you’d like to know more about self hypnosis or hypnotherapy… however this is a topic I will be covering extensively in the VERY new future with some EXCITING news for 2020.
To access your inner self, you can do a lot of different things, mainly be in meditation or just stillness and listen…wait….listen….wait… keep that going until you feel a shift or hear a whisper or receive a message that can come in a form of an idea, word, image, feeling or sensation.
Ok so you maybe thinking… really Tanja, just sit and listen to myself. LOL… YES… But you can do other things to help kickstart this identity search.
So in essence you are peeling back the layers of yourself and trying to access the TRUE / REAL YOU- the you without the labels, the responsibilities the judgments.
The layers are limiting beliefs, judgments, external validation and comparison, jealousy, others opinions & influence.
Again I can save you a lot of time and peel the layers back and just tell you who you are right now….
You’re probably thinking… NO YOU CAN’T! … well yes I can… YOU ARE LOVE.
L O V E
Start there gorgeous… every person is born pure, perfect and divine. Love is your essence. You don’t have a bad bone in your body, you are pure love.
Then we learn, watch, attach and create beliefs about a lot of things in life that are not of our choice but circumstantial and environmental.
So because your are L O V E you can start by acknowledging all the things, people, places YOU deep down LOVE… write them down, no one will read these so be real and uncensored… go for it.
Write what you love of the following:
People in your life
Places in the world
Topics to read about
Topics to talk about
Social activities
Hobbies
Music
Self care rituals
Work/ career
Movies
Now write down what you would do with your life or what you would want to experience (like workshops or memberships…) and have if money and circumstances weren’t an issue… let your self dream now.
Now write down how you want to feel everyday? List them like, calm, rested, excited about my job, creative… etc
Ok now take some time to close your eyes and visualise your ideal, most perfect day. Imagine how and where you wake up, who’s around you, what you do in your day, how you feel and the interactions you have with others. Allow yourself to really visualise without judgement, force or an agenda. Sometimes when we try to control our thoughts in our visualisations, they don’t seem to flow or have meaning. Just release control and allow your mind to go where ever it decides to go. Do it for as long or little as you like (i promise you’ll love it so much, you’ll want to do t again and again- and you should!)
When you come out of that beautiful visualisation, write down the details of what you saw and how you felt thought it. It’s important to note down as much detail as you can because its in the insignificant detail we find the nuggets of gold.
So now it’s time to write down you’re non-negotiables… what is it that you cannot live without or want to compromise in your life… List everything from ‘my mascara’ to quality time with my kids…
Now list what makes you happy, smile and what you find fun.
LASTLY... Complete these sentence starters
1) Who am I NOT?
2) Who do I desire to be?
3) How can I get closer to my desired persona? What needs to change?
4) Who in the world (celebrity or a regular person in your life) has some part the life I wish to have? ... showing yourself that what you want does exist is very powerful because then it shows your mid that it is possible and not unattainable.
5) What areas of your life are you most confused about? career? relationships? health ? family?...
This series of questions are a great starting place to try and uncover parts of you that you may not have thought about or articulated on paper. The act of writing it down is very powerful because you physically see patterns, connections and perhaps even a theme coming up.
Pick up a highlighter now..yes it’s like school… sorry that’s the teacher in me… highlight words that connect to one another… they should have some sort of relationship, relevance and connection to one another. You should start to see some themes. You may need a couple of coloured highlighters because you have multiple themes come up. Draw the connections however it feels right for you.
It’s really important to understand that life is meant to be fun and enjoyable. Yes we are adults who have responsibilities but that doesn’t mean life has to be dull, boring or stressful. Everyday you wake up and choose how you want to feel, what you want to wear, what you want to eat, how you decide to show up and interact in the world… etc the list is endless because guess what…
You get to choose what you want in your life/day
You get to choose what you don’t want in your life/day
Now look at your life today and list all the things you dislike or want to change and/ or remove… go for it. Be ruthless… what doesn’t light you up or get you excited? What or who is no longer serving your best interest?
YOU GET TO CHOOSE…
You have the control, power and decision… so be conscious what you choose to do and who you choose to be everyday.
Be conscious how you show up in the world, choose wisely and choose from a place of love.
So finding your identity is not simple nor will be have it all figured out by the time you finish reading this blog post… BUT… you have a starting point, You deserve to be happy, so make yourself a priority. To find yourself and your identity you need to BE with yourself and show yourself LOVE. We must remember that our life and future are just as important as our children’s and in fact we have a responsibility to ourselves to live out OUR PURPOSE. Our kids will have our guidance to find their purpose, but don’t forget as parents WE LEAD by example. So if you’re unhappy and not your best self then what messages are our kids being shown?
Its a vicious cycle… so be the conscious adult/ parent and turn your focus on your own needs, your desires, your passion. If we want our children to be fulfilled and whole and successful then we must lead the way.
Your identity is something that is always changing and evolving, because we are not stagnant beings. So enjoy the journey and don’t take it too seriously and think you have to have it all perfect, printed and framed…it’s about the journey not the destination, so be adventurous, take a leap of faith and step outside your comfort zone to truly connect with the unlevelled version of yourself.
So when I started doing things that lit me up (genuinely) like dancing classes, a coffee with a friend, date night with my husband, exercising, painting my nails, listening to upbeat music studying, reading… the universe started to reveal the next part of the ‘yellow brick road’ bit by bit and I had to TRUST that it would lead me to finding my identity once again and can I tell you, it did and I haven’t doubted the process since.
Now I organise my life so that I don’t get overwhelmed as much, so that I have ‘me’ time (using a creche and babysitter), I don’t have family help so I have created my own support network to not only support my kids, but to nurture my well being, my marriage and our life as a busy, but happy family of 4.
I truly hope this resonates with you and that there is something that has been ignited in you. My process is not taken from others, its all from my own journey.
Well until next time!
Love Tanja x
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