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.”

If these thoughts feel familiar, this might be a good place to begin as we start working together.

Step by step, we can gently explore what still feels true at your core, what has shifted, and what may be emerging. In my experience, this often helps you feel solid ground under your feet again after a loss and find your own way forward – authentically and with deeper self-awareness.

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  • The uncertainty, perhaps even the panic of not recognizing yourself anymore, has been replaced by a calm knowing: You are still fundamentally the same person at your core, yet also transformed.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