When identity and role become interwoven
When your identity has, for many years, been deeply aligned with a leadership role in child health, when the path ahead feels clear and purposeful, stepping away from that direction is a true game changer. Nothing fully prepares you for it. I thought I might have some idea of what it would be like, but it wasn’t until I stepped away that the impact was fully felt.
It wasn’t necessarily hard… just different.
Learning to live in the space
Suddenly, there were spaces in my life where previously there had been none. I’ve had to learn how to sit with that discomfort, to live without every aspect of my life running at full speed. That adjustment is ongoing. I remind myself to simply “go with the flow.” I don’t yet know where I will land… and, for now, that feels okay.
An analogy that comes to mind is that of an elastic band, once stretched to its fullest and then released. it never quite returns to its original taut shape. It softens, losing some of its stretch. It is no longer the same. And yet remains identifiable and continues to have a purpose.
Stepping away from my role, my husband and I travelled through the UK and Europe for two months. It was, in many ways, the perfect transition.
There were important reasons for this. Firstly, it gave us precious time together, time that previously David would have shared with my work, work that often extended far beyond a standard role.
Secondly, it removed me entirely from the familiar. I was taken out of the environments my mind would naturally return to, and instead placed into new experiences, navigating flights, trains, and cruise boats, all requiring a different kind of energy and attention.
Rediscovering the present moment
Even so, my mind would drift back to work, to strategy, to what had been. When it came to my attention, I would bring myself back to the present moment, to the beauty around me, or to the unfamiliarity of not quite knowing where I was or where I was going. That, too, was a practice. The uncertainty of travel became a metaphor for the transition itself.
It took time, about a month of travelling through the UK, before I could consistently return myself to the present.
There was also grief, as I had expected. I loved the work deeply. While it was my choice, to leave before I felt fully ready, it brought waves of emotion: missing, longing, and a deep sense of disconnection from what had been so familiar and a strong pillar in my life. I had stepped back from something that had been so embedded and interwoven into the fabric of my being… becoming a significant part of who I was.
Braving the wilderness of identity
I chose to step away with a clear rationale. However, just because it is right, did not necessarily mean it was comfortable. As I grow and evolve in this space, it is messy at times. Where my identity was previously clear, I am purposefully reflecting on what it is that truly matters to me. While there is the obvious… much of that is aligned with others… family, friends and community. The challenge is to ‘brave the wilderness’ as Bene Brown so aptly writes and find the courage in my authenticity to understand where I truly belong ‘to be who I am’.
This is the space beyond the transition.
Uncertain, at times uncomfortable and messy… but also open, expansive, and quietly full of possibility.
Titiro Whakamuri kokiri whakamua – look back and reflect so that you can look forward
