The Midlife Revolution
Going back to the core, identity and r-evolution
January 8, 2023
Firstly, I’d like to start by saying HUGE THANK YOU for all the messages, voice notes and phone calls I received since I published Lemonade. It really does mean the world to me that you take the time to read what I write and take extra time to share your feedback with me 🙏.
Secondly, some of your comments about my levels of empathy and compassion and ability to forgive made me reflect on my journey and r-evolution. This is also linked to what I shared about our identities and the ‘morph suits’ we all develop over time.
In the past, as part of my previous identities, I never considered myself compassionate and I thought that I seriously lacked empathy. For years I was also convinced that I didn’t have intuition (in fact, I remember telling my boss one day: ‘I don’t think I have such ‘function’ in me) and I was unforgiving.
I know I’m no longer the person I described above, but your ‘Lemonade’ feedback and expressions of surprise when I shared that for a long time, I considered myself heartless, made me reflect on the journey between who I was then, who I am now and who I am working on becoming.
- Did I really not have all those qualities before?
- What did I do to learn them?
- Or was my perception of self simply very far off what everyone else thought?
Reflecting on this and going back right to the beginning of my life journey so far made me realise that this particular part of my r-evolution wasn’t about learning.
It was the opposite.
It was about unlearning and going back to what was really deep within me, what was there at the start and what was at the core of who I was before I put on the morph suit/identity I thought I was expected to wear.
The culture and environment I grew up in expected me to be tough, to be able to move on from anything with a straight face and to be to be able to deal with anything myself, e.g. at the age of 16 when I lost some very special people who mattered a lot – I was told via phone call and was told ‘call yourself lucky you weren’t in car with them’. I was expected to move on so I did, but all I really wished for back then was that I was in the car with them. I wished that for years.
Like from everything else that happened before and after the one example I shared, I moved on.
I moved on quickly, ‘painlessly’ and with no fuss. Never talked about it. Never dwelt on it. Never shared my real feelings (to be clear: I am not blaming anyone or anything, I believe they did the best that they could or knew how to do).
I became so good at taking on and moving on from everything and anything thrown at me, my morph suit became a morph suit made of steel – my shiny armour. In fact, my nickname for some years was ‘Nina the knife’ (friendly, huh?😂). It was a running joke, you would never see me shed a tear, and lots of people were doing their best to get me to show any emotions (you know who you are 😂).
I had no empathy or compassion for myself and of course… the same applied to everyone else. If I could deal with any challenges in such an efficient way, with zero fuss – why couldn’t everyone else?!
Of course, over the years and with my increasing awareness of my issues with lack of compassion, empathy, intuition and inability to forgive, I spent a lot of time on learning everything I could about different personality types and how other people operate so I could improve and at least learn that there are other ways of ‘being’.
Over time, with a lot more time invested in working on myself and as I started to dig really deep to find out what I was really made of and what really mattered, I started to discover that what was within me didn’t really match the steel armour I was wearing.
What would people think if they suddenly started to see me in a different morph suit though? I was ‘Nina the knife’ who always got shit done in no time and with no unnecessary sentiments after all.
Fear of changing my identity made me question whether I actually discovered the qualities in me, or if I was in fact just trying to convince myself that I was a better human than I really was? Was I really like this? Or was I simply training myself to become an imposter of a good person??
I decided that I had to dig deeper to find the truth and get clarity. I went back to my childhood and started to analyse:
- Who was I in the few carefree moments I remembered from my childhood?
- What was I doing when I felt safe to just be the kid that I really was in those years?
- How did I behave?
- What was in my head – what did I think?
My main memories were all based around:
Making countless gifts for people and spending any money I ever had on the best presents I could buy for others
Sharing and giving away anything I had
Cooking and baking cakes to make people happy – ironically, I was way better at it then than I am now
Was this an image of an uncompassionate human who lacked empathy??
Feeling happier and more confident with knowing what was within me from the start; acknowledging the fact that my perception of self (and beliefs, behaviours and actions aligned with it over the years) was based on who I thought I was expected to be, and knowing what was at the core of my heart and what really mattered made me remove my shiny armour.
It didn’t happen overnight. It took time, but with every action that felt more aligned with who I now knew I was – made me more confident about removing another piece, and another, and another. Until it was gone.
Until I started to finally feel ok with showing my ‘new’ identity. Until I felt happy to take actions aligned with who I was and not who I thought I was expected to be.
I didn’t realise it at the start, but this work was the start of my journey to freedom. Freedom to become who I wanted to become.
May you know the true power of your ❤️ & 🧠
Love, Nina x
💫 Get better, not bitter
💫 Choose courage over fear
💫 Choose wisdom over wounds
💫 Lead with love and kindness