Hey, everybody, welcome back to the old-fashioned on purpose podcast. So today we're talking about

identity. This is something I have been ruminating on a lot for the last probably about a year

or more. And I've talked a bunch this season about how I've gotten into my

40s. I turned 40 last year. It's the shift. I'm so surprised, although I probably shouldn't have

been because people have warned me, but I didn't believe them that like things just start shifting.

And whether it's hormones or just the awakening, I refuse to call it a crisis. I do not think

it's a midlife crisis. I think it's a

midlife awakening and examination. And everything just feels different. So I've been really sitting in this a lot. I am fascinated by it, just by how I'm changing and how my views are shifting. And so I know a lot of you are in the same boat. When I mentioned it over on Substack or Instagram, you guys get really excited about this topic.

So let's dive into it today,

primarily this idea of how identities that we once loved or really

were a part of us can sometimes end up becoming cages unintentionally. And we can get stuck in those

identities. And that doesn't feel good. So I've realized as I was journaling a

couple weeks ago, I've been through this, I didn't realize it till then, I've been through this

experience many times in my life as I have latched on hard to a certain identity and then I

have let it go later on. And every single time it's weird and it is unmooring and it's like just this shaky feeling of like, what is happening? What am I doing? I've done it when I was in my early 20s when I stopped riding horses for a living and I could no longer call myself a professional horse person. That was weird. I did it again in my late 20s when I started.

I know the sport is loaded. I'm just using it because I don't know what else to call it.

Deconstructing from the traditional Christian complex. That was a huge identity shift. It was

scary and I had to grieve it and I had, it was, that was a big one. I did it again a couple years ago.

I talked about when I stopped homeschooling and I no longer was the homeschool mom. That was a big shift. It felt weird. And then I'm doing it kind of now in how I am shifting out of the identity as a homesteader. And I'm still doing parts of it, but not like I was. And I'm like, who am I? What do I do now? Where do I fit? So I have some experience here. And today I want to talk about my own thoughts. And this is not a place of I'm coaching you through this because I am still in the mud, guys. I am in the thick of this right now. I do not have it all figured out. But I'm hoping that some of the thoughts I've had will be helpful for you if you are in the same boat of shifting an identity, letting go of an identity, and figuring out why it may

have such a grip on you. So let's type in. I don't have any other intros. Let's just get to the

point. So the first piece of this that I think we need to acknowledge is that identities are useful and they can be a

very good thing. And that can also be why it can be tricky to let them go because we see them

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