Releasing Old Identities

A soft place to rest while you change

If you’re here, there’s a good chance something in you already knows: you’re not the same person you were before. Not because something went wrong, but because something worked.

Releasing old identities doesn’t usually arrive with fireworks or certainty. More often, it comes quietly. As a gentle tiredness. As a sense that you’re holding yourself together in ways that no longer feel honest. As the realization that you’ve been playing a role long after the curtain should have closed.

There are identities we adopt to belong, to be loved, to stay safe. The “strong one” who doesn’t ask for help. The “easy one” who keeps the peace. The “responsible one” who carries more than her share. These versions of us weren’t mistakes.

They were intelligent, loving responses to the world we were navigating at the time.

But there comes a season when the weight of these identities becomes heavier than the fear of letting them go.

What no one really tells you is that release can feel like grief. Even when you’re choosing it. Even when it’s right. You might miss the certainty of who you were. You might wonder who you’ll be without the armor, without the labels, without the familiar story.

That doesn’t mean you’re regressing. It means you’re human.

If you’re feeling tender or unsteady, I want you to know this: you don’t need to rush yourself into a new identity. You don’t need to announce your transformation or have language for it yet.

Becoming is not a performance. It’s an internal rearranging.

Think of how water moves, never forcing itself, never clinging to a single form. It adapts, not because it is weak, but because it is deeply wise. You are allowed that same wisdom. You are allowed to soften your grip on who you’ve been without immediately knowing who you’re becoming.

Sometimes releasing an identity looks like resting instead of pushing. Saying no without explaining. Letting yourself be seen in ways that feel new and slightly uncomfortable. Allowing joy without earning it first. These moments may feel small, but they are sacred.

Please be gentle with yourself here. Speak to yourself the way someone who truly loves you would. With patience, trust, and the understanding that nothing essential about you is being lost, only what has grown too tight around your spirit.

What’s waiting on the other side of release isn’t emptiness. It’s room to breathe. It’s space to move more freely. It’s a quieter, truer version of you that doesn’t need to prove or protect herself so fiercely anymore.

You don’t have to let everything go at once. You don’t have to be brave all the time. You only have to be honest with yourself, and move at your own pace.

If you need permission, let this be it:You are allowed to change.

You are allowed to outgrow what once made sense. You are allowed to rest in the unfolding.

Journal prompt:Which version of me is ready to be thanked and what would it feel like to gently loosen my grip on her?

Take your time. You’re doing this beautifully, even on the days it doesn’t feel like it. 🤍