What Part of Yourself Are You Trying to Get Back To?

​Prefer to listen? Listen to Episode 384 of The Confident Woman Podcast.

I’ve been thinking about the identity crisis that can happen when you realize you’re no longer fully who you were, but you don’t completely know who you’re becoming yet either. It’s a strange place to find yourself because the old patterns and ways of living are starting to lose their grip, while the new rhythms still feel unfamiliar. You know something within you has changed, but you can’t quite figure out what your life is supposed to look like now that it has.

From the outside, nothing may appear to be wrong. You’re still fulfilling your responsibilities, honoring your commitments, showing up with integrity, and doing what you’ve always done. You may even look consistent, strong, disciplined, and dependable to everyone around you, while quietly knowing that the version of you who’s holding everything together no longer feels like the woman you’re meant to keep being.

The familiar version of you knows what to do

That familiar version of you has a track record, which is why returning to her can feel safer than trusting the woman you’re becoming. She knows how to perform, please, push, produce, perfect, and make herself useful. She knows how to meet expectations, carry responsibility, solve problems, and survive whatever life places in front of her.

Even when she’s exhausted, she still feels familiar, and familiarity can feel like solid ground when everything else in your life feels uncertain.

There may also be fear underneath the consistency. You may be afraid of disappointing the people who only know how to relate to the old version of you, or worried that changing too much will affect the relationships and roles you’ve built your life around. You may wonder what will happen if you stop carrying everything the way you always have, especially when other people have come to expect that version of you.

That’s why staying stuck can sometimes feel easier than becoming. Becoming requires honesty before it gives you clarity, and most of us would much rather know where we’re going before we release the identity that already knows how to function where we are.

When the present feels uncertain, the past can look like the answer

For a long time, I thought the question was, “How do I get back to myself?” Now I think the better question is, “What part of myself am I trying to get back to, and does she actually belong in this next season?”

There may be parts of yourself you genuinely miss and want to reclaim. Maybe you miss the woman who trusted herself, made room for joy, moved her body because it made her feel alive, created because she loved creating, or believed in possibility before everything became something she had to prove.

Those parts may still feel like home because they’re connected to who you were underneath the pressure, responsibility, grief, survival, and all the ways you learned to measure your worth through what you could produce, carry, create, or achieve. Returning to those parts of yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you’re moving backward. It may mean you’re reconnecting with something true that was buried but never completely lost.

There may also be parts of yourself that you don’t need to resurrect. Maybe it’s the woman who thought rest had to be earned, confused being needed with being loved, or measured her value by how much she could fix and hold together for everyone else. That version of you may have helped you survive a difficult season, but survival skills don’t always become healthy ways of living once the season has changed.

You can honor who you were without asking her to lead what comes next

Becoming doesn’t require you to reject your history or decide that every past version of yourself was wrong. There are gifts, strengths, passions, lessons, and parts of your identity that are still real and worth carrying forward.

At the same time, you have to be honest about the patterns that already exhausted you. The past can begin to look safer and more whole than it actually was when your present feels raw and uncertain, and nostalgia can cause you to forget what it cost you to keep being that woman.

So when you say you want yourself back, it’s worth asking what you’re actually reaching for. Are you reaching for the parts of yourself that were rooted in faith, freedom, creativity, truth, joy, and alignment, or are you reaching for the version of yourself who was fueled by fear, pressure, exhaustion, control, and the need to prove she could handle it all?

Some of what you built is worth reclaiming, while other parts may have already completed their purpose. You can appreciate the woman who carried you through one season without continuing to let her make every decision in the next one.

Scripture for the Soul

Philippians 3:13–14 says: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal.”

I don’t read that as permission to dismiss everything behind us or pretend it didn’t shape us. I hear it as permission to keep moving forward without continuing to obey identities, patterns, and expectations we’ve already outgrown.

You may not know exactly who you’re becoming yet, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep living from a version of yourself you already know can’t lead you where God is taking you.

Points to Ponder

• When you say you want yourself back, which version of yourself are you actually reaching for?
• What has staying loyal to that version already cost you?
• What might another year look like if she keeps making the decisions?

Don’t let this become another realization you forget

You may already recognize which version of yourself is exhausted, and you may even know which patterns no longer belong in your life. The challenge is that insight can feel clear while you’re sitting with it and then disappear once you return to your responsibilities, routines, relationships, and everything else demanding your attention.

The old version of you has years of practice behind her. She knows how to step back in, take control, and make the decisions when life feels uncertain. Unless you create somewhere to slow down, tell yourself the truth, and keep returning to the woman you’ve said you’re becoming, it’s easy to carry the same identity into another season while convincing yourself that changing the goals will somehow change the life.

That’s why I created The Becoming… Identity Planner & Journal.

I needed a place to do this work honestly, and I knew other women would too. The planner helps you name the season you’re actually in, recognize what you’re still carrying, and see which version of you is making the decisions across your identity, faith, calling, work, body, relationships, joy, and money.

It then gives you twelve months to continue that conversation with yourself, so this doesn’t become another moment of clarity you forget when life gets busy again. You keep returning to what you said mattered, what you recognized needed to change, and who you believe God is calling you to become.

Because the cost of doing nothing isn’t simply staying where you are. It’s allowing the same exhausted identity to keep making decisions, building new goals around old patterns, and looking up another year from now wondering why the life you’re creating still doesn’t feel like yours.

​Start with The Becoming… Identity Planner & Journal.

I’d love to know what came up for you as you read this. What part of yourself are you ready to reclaim, and what part are you finally ready to release?

XO,

P.S. When you know something needs to change but you’re still unsure which season you’re in or where to begin, start with the free Becoming Quiz. It’ll help you name where you are and understand which next step makes the most sense for you

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