Focus II

Changed Identity:
Who Am I Now?


Exploring & lovingly embracing the ‘changed self’

What this is about

Key questions in coaching

  • Who was I before the loss and who have I become?
  • What has newly emerged in me or grown stronger?
  • How do I feel about my ‘new self’?
  • How can I accept this new identity and grow into it?

Maybe some of these thoughts sound familiar?

  • “I used to be Susan’s husband / the head of the development department / a talented athlete – and now I’m… what exactly? I’ve lost track of who I am.”
  • “I feel like a stranger in my own life. The person I used to be doesn’t exist anymore, but I don’t yet understand who I’m supposed to be now.”
  • “I don’t even know anymore who I am or how I should tell my story. It feels like everything has been shattered.”

Core goals of coaching

  • You know again who you are – now without your loved one beside you, without that familiar job, or without whatever important thing you’ve lost.
  • The uncertainty, perhaps even the panic of not recognizing yourself anymore, has been replaced by a calm knowing: You are still fundamentally the same person at your core, yet also transformed.
  • You’re aware that in a certain way, you may have unwillingly even become ‘richer’ and deeper through what you’ve experienced.
  • You can get up in the morning and know what the day holds for you, because you have a sense again of who you want to be in this new chapter of life.

“You will be whole again but you will never be the same.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross