Identity Isn’t Who We Become — It’s Who We’ve Always Been

This is part 5 of 5. Read Part one here  |  Read Part two here | Read Part three here | Read Part four here

This year taught me something I wish I had understood much earlier:

Identity isn’t who we build, it’s who we already are.

It’s the stories we tell ourselves… until we finally learn to hear the truth beneath them.

For decades, I shaped my identity around what the world reflected to me:
Titles.
Roles.
Achievements.
The circles I kept.
The validation that came from being dependable, capable, and strong.

And yet, I was often misunderstood.

People saw me as intense, direct, and even intimidating at times.
But underneath all of that was something softer:

A deeply sensitive, empathetic woman who feels the world more acutely than most.

That sensitivity has always been my gift,  the way I see patterns, truth, and possibility long before they fully emerge.

But for most of my life, I was told I was too sensitive. It became an insecurity instead of the strength it truly was.

So I tried to mold myself into something easier for others to digest. Something quieter. Smaller. More accommodating. More “appropriate.”

And then the fire came and burned all those stories to the ground.

What I learned standing in the ashes is that identity isn’t what we build; it's what we are. It isn’t what we perform. It isn’t who people insist we are.

Identity is what remains when everything else disappears.

A few years before the fire, a dear friend gifted me a trip to Guerrero Negro to play among the gray whales.

Every morning, the water was calm, the whales gentle and curious.
Every afternoon, the winds picked up, and the waves turned wild.

One afternoon, we were tossed around so fiercely that even the boat operator laughed at how tightly I clutched my camera, and probably my dignity.
But what I was actually afraid of had nothing to do with the whales.

I was afraid of surrender.
Of not being in control.
Of letting something bigger than me take the lead.

Later, lying on my cot, wrapped in a sweater, I watched the ocean outside my tent flap, and something inside me went quiet.

And I finally heard the truth I’d avoided my whole life:

Let go. Trust. Alignment is already here.

Seventeen days later, the world shut down.  And I was the calm one.

It reminded me of something Mitch’s Grandpa Hymie, a Holocaust survivor with the sweetest smile and the deepest wisdom, used to say in Yiddish:

“Der mentsh trakht un got lakht.”
Man plans, and God laughs.

This year, nothing has felt more accurate.

Identity Isn’t Earned. It’s Remembered.

Losing everything, the home, the history, the illusions of who I thought I was supposed to be, revealed something simple and profound:

I have always been who I am.

Not the version my sibling insists I am.
Not my mother’s punching bag.
Not the titles, roles, or places I attached myself to.
And not the woman who had to hold everything together for everyone else.

I am, in so many ways, my father’s twin; sensitive, perceptive, intuitive, steady.

I am a woman who survived the unthinkable.

I am someone who turns devastation into a blueprint.

I am someone who feels deeply and loves fiercely.

I am someone who chooses alignment over approval.

I am someone who finally understands that identity isn’t something to chase…

It’s something to uncover.

And when I stopped forcing, stopped performing, stopped trying to shape my life into something it wasn’t, the real me, the one who had been here all along, finally had space to speak.

The greatest truth of this year:

Identity isn’t created.
Identity is returned to.

And once we return to ourselves:
the right people appear,
the right opportunities align.
The path unfolds without pushing.

Because the soul, the neshama, always knew the way.

I feel that now.
Clear.
Grounded.
Whole.
And ready for whatever the next chapter brings.

With honesty and humility,

Susan

P.S. This is part 5 of 5. Read Part one here

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