In the busy-ness of our everyday lives it can be very easy to lose track of who we are at our very core. Over time we become the roles we have assumed, Manager, Boss, Employee, Wife, Mother, Daughter, and we run around focused on the all the “doing” and we forget about the “being”.
Identity crisis
Traditionally we talk about men having their identity tied up in their work, and the challenges they face when they lose that through redundancy or retirement or ill health and yet I believe that this is increasingly true for women who have strived for career success, and then once they start a family they find that their identity is lost. As a new mother you enter a kind of limbo, where you are expected by society to fill the role of mother, which is supposed to be valued and yet no longer have the social status or the same degree of financial independence which you had previously.
I found this enormously challenging in my own career because I felt my priorities change deep in my heart the moment I had a child and yet I still yearned to have the visibility, the financial freedom and the opportunities which I had been attached to my senior role. I felt overwhelming love for my baby and at the same time great frustration that I had to clock watch to make it to child care at the end of the day, and that I knew I wasn’t giving my best to my job. I would dissolve in tears because I knew I was doing both things, motherhood and the corporate role, so poorly.
Enough with “lean in”!
I was brought up by an amazing mum, who was herself brought up in a time and place where career options for a woman were severely limited, and so she strongly encouraged me to see the world as my oyster and to strive for financial independence. She gave great advice about leaning in, long before Sheryl Sandberg wrote her book, but there seemed to be nothing to help me once I had a career and a child. I no longer wanted to “lean in” because I wanted to spend time with my children but I did still want to keep some kind of foothold on the corporate ladder and not throw away all my past experience and qualifications, so where had my feminism got me?
Liberated to be our fathers
Earlier this year I heard author Anne-Marie Slaughter speak and she used a wonderful phrase which has stayed with me: “We were liberated to be our fathers”, and that rang so true. Our mothers, the generation of feminists before us, were fighting to give us all the opportunities our fathers had which our mothers never had, but they didn’t realise what that would mean in terms of juggling motherhood and a career. After all, our fathers could focus on work because they had a wife to look after the children and domestic life. And maybe where we went wrong was that we started to believe we “should” have it all rather than we “could” have it all or that we could have it all, just at different times in our lives. We placed new expectations on ourselves as to how we should manage our lives and found ourselves lacking.
Doing everything for everyone else
As I ran around trying to do and be everything to everyone, trying to please my boss, my husband, my children, I was running further from myself. I knew I was unhappy but I couldn’t figure out how to change anything, and I felt locked in to a job I increasingly hated because of the drive for financial independence. I did dance classes for some “me” time, which I loved but looking back I realise I used that as a distraction from what was really bothering me.
Where is my gut instinct?
It was when I went away on a yoga retreat and a morning of silence was hell that I finally realised I was in trouble. I couldn’t bear what was going on in my head and when I was asked what was my gut instinct about what was next in my life I screamed “I have no idea, I have no gut instinct!”.
So that was when it became abundantly clear that I had completely lost touch with what I wanted – not what someone else thought I wanted or what I thought I should do but what was in my heart and my gut.
It is so easy to lose your sense of identity, to no longer know what you want, to become so busy looking after other people, and doing all the things which you are supposed to be doing that it is absolutely crucial that you find the time and space to tap into your own heart space. Taking time to connect with your values, learn about your strengths and reflect on what provides meaning to you is fundamental to finding your own way forward, to re-discovering yourself.
It took time and energy but I realised that I was worth that investment in myself and that my life is much happier and more fulfilled because I made the effort. And it’s not selfish, because the impact on my family is all positive, as I become the role model I want to be for my daughters.
I am now absolutely passionate about helping people to discover and clarify their goals and ambitions and working with them to align their life with their values and strengths.
If you would like support in re-discovering who you are and finding a way forward which aligns with your values please contact me at [email protected]
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