Abbie Schiller on Identity Grief: What It Is and How To Move Through It

This episode is brought to you by Amazon. I love this time of year. There's a certain magic to the season, the music, the traditions, the gathering over incredible food. But when it comes to gift giving, I am very intentional. It's never about excess or extravagance. It's about thoughtfulness. I want to give things that carry genuine meaning and feel personal. And because of that, I have to start planning early, like right now, early. Thankfully, Amazon is here for the early shoppers with a huge range of gifts for every passion and price point. Get a head start on holiday gifting with Amazon's low prices. Shop now at amazon.com slash holiday. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football watching food. And nothing hits like a Boar's Head sandwich when I'm watching a game. Really, any game day sandwich better with Boar's Head. Philly cheesesteak, layer up buttery slider rolls with Boar's Head, London broiled roast beef, American white cheese, and picante provolone. Delicious. Then add roasted onions, peppers, and Boar's Head pub-style horseradish sauce. I love horseradish. And you've got the ultimate game day cheesesteak. You've also got a whole lineup of premium meats, cheeses, hummus, and dips, condiments, and more to serve up on game day. Head to your local Boar's Head deli counter to shop now. For game day sandwich inspiration and more, visit boar'shead.com. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905. When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture. You get criticized. You do? Yeah, did you hear about that? I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected, and we made it the one. In a sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive, on the one hand. On the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that. Nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is The Goop Podcast. Bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers, and seekers. Here to start conversations. Because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. Today, we're joined again by goal coach, author, speaker, and my very old friend, Abby Schiller. This is Abby's fourth time on the podcast. And in each of her conversations with us, she's explored different ways we move through change. Whether it's processing emotions around loss, setting meaningful goals to create a life we like, or figuring out what's next at the end of a hard year. In this episode, she introduces the idea of identity grief. Something that many of us experience, but don't always have language for. It's the kind of grief that can show up when a role ends, when a chapter closes, or when the version of ourselves we've known for a long time disappears. And this time of year, graduations, transitions, the art of something new, can bring that feeling into sharper focus. Abby walks us through why identity grief can feel so destabilizing, how our lives can change, how our identity and our roles can become deeply intertwined, and what it looks like to move forward in a way that honors both what we've lost and what's still possible. - Today, I wanna talk about identity grief. What it is, why it happens, and how to move through it in a way that actually leads you somewhere meaningful. If you've been feeling a little unmoored lately, this episode is for you. Somewhere in the last few years, maybe after your last kid became a senior in high school or when they just left for college, or after you quietly quit the marriage or went through the divorce, or after you got bored in your job or laid off, or perhaps after a diagnosis, or after your mother or partner died, you looked around and thought, I don't know who I am anymore. This is not what I thought. This is not what I thought it would be like. What happened? Who am I? How do I move forward? And it felt like the floor shifted out from under you. You cannot find your footing anymore. And there's a name for that. It's called identity grief. In this episode, I wanna help you understand why change is so hard in the first place. We'll look at how identity grief shows up across an entire lifetime, not just midlife. You'll understand why it hits some of us harder than others. And I'll give you a real framework for moving through it, not around it, but through it. And when you're ready, I'll give you a few tips on how to lean toward what's next. Hi, I'm Abbey Schiller. For the past decade, as a goal coach, I've been helping women walk through the gap between who they've always been and who they want to become. Last year, I also became a certified death doula because of my own experiences around loss ever since I was young, and also to help my clients process all the grief that is inherent to change that they are wanting. I've sat with people at the end of life, and I've watched what happens when we all finally let go of who we thought we were. And I've seen and experienced what happens when we choose to honor this emotional rite of passage and learn how to face forward. In case you're driving or walking or listening while doing a thousand other things, everything you need, all the tips and resources I'm gonna offer are listed in the show notes. So let go of the need to hold tight to this and just listen knowing you'll click there at the end. If you felt unmoored after a major life change, if you've wondered why you just can't move on, if you've told yourself I should be fine while something enormous feels lost, let's take that feeling seriously. Culturally, we are getting more comfortable talking about grief when someone dies, but we don't yet talk about grief when a version of ourselves dies. And that's what today is about. One of the most disorienting things about identity grief is that nobody calls it grief. You walk around feeling gutted, disconnected, crazy even, wondering what's wrong with you, telling yourself to pull it together. And you don't realize you're in a genuine mourning process. Identity grief is very real. It's the experience of loss that follows the end of a role or a life chapter or a version of yourself that you were deeply invested in. Maybe the role is shifting or completely gone. And with it goes a large part of how you've understood yourself, sometimes for decades. So allow me to share some light research. In 1969, psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychologists, have been working on a new framework to address grief and depression. And it's not just a one size fits all form of grief. It is a one size fits all form of grief. And it's not just one size fits all form of grief. It's a one size fits all form of grief. form of grieving, but I share this as a framework for you to see what connects with your experience, and then I'll build on it. So let me quickly walk through each step applied to identity loss. Denial. You might be thinking, this isn't really that big of a deal. I'm fine. I just need to stay busy. Or you might be putting off thinking or processing the reality that is encroaching. Like I'll feel all the feelings after I dropped the kid off at college, but not now. this is a protective coping skill anger anger at the role for consuming so much at culture for demanding it at yourself for not seeing it sooner you may find yourself distancing from people you might be fighting more anger and grief is information it's also one of the most suppressed emotions in women so let that be data one of my most common personal symptoms of grief is grumpiness. It took me years to figure this out. I'm usually a very positive person, but when I get really grumpy, I have to ask myself if I feel like my agency feels like it's been taken away. Like, do I have control over what's happening? And if no, and I'm grumpy about it, I am likely grieving something. So chronic complaining can be sometimes a signal that we feel a lack of agency or don't yet see a way forward and I remember years ago after my dad died saying I don't want to go to his funeral I don't want any of this I don't want this day to even happen at all and I know now that that was grief showing up as anger and grumpiness and completely understandably for identity grief it might show up as resentment annoyance frustration which of course are all different forms of pain. Bargaining. This stage might sound like, if I keep volunteering at the school, I can hold onto the mom identity. If I network harder, I'm still a professional. This is the mind's attempt to negotiate with a reality that it hasn't accepted yet. Depression, the flat, heavy, dark, and purposeless feeling when the loss feels fully present. This is not clinical depression, though it can tip there. This is the grief doing its work. The weight is proportional to the investment. And acceptance. This is the most commonly misunderstood stage. It's not happiness and it's definitely not getting over it. It's the acknowledgement that this happened or is happening. Two grief experts that I admire have added something essential on top of this. In January, 2025, I was evacuated from my home during the Palisades fires. In the middle of all of that, as someone who turns to service in crisis, I recorded my first Goop podcast with my friend Claire Bidwell-Smith, a grief therapist and author of " The Missing Stage of Grief." Claire proposes that anxiety can function like a stage of grief. The hypervigilance, the something is wrong but I can't name it, the nervousness about the future. That's what unnamed loss looks like in the nervous system. For identity grief, where so many women haven't been able to call it grief at all, anxiety is often the first symptom. And David Kessler, who co-authored "On Grief and Grieving" with Kubler-Ross and later wrote "Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief," added a stage beyond acceptance, meaning. Moving through grief isn't just about surviving it. It's about eventually making sense of it, in a way that lets you carry it forward. Meaning is a pivotal part of my work as a coach as well. And we'll come back to that. But I just wanna emphasize that these stages are not a checklist. They are not linear. You will not move through them in order and come out finished on the other side. You may hit depression and then circle back to anger and then briefly touch acceptance before bargaining shows up again. Grief is messy, it's human, it's brutal, and sometimes it's beautiful and it's a process. What's also important to say for women in midlife, we have that added complication of figuring out which symptoms are from identity grief and which are from perimenopause, which by the way can also trigger its form of identity grief. It's a lot. The two can look nearly identical from the inside. Here's what I know. When we can't name what we're feeling, we can't grieve it. And when we can't grieve it, we stay stuck. We skip it, rush through it, push it aside, distract ourselves, minimize it, numb ourselves, shame ourselves to avoid just feeling it. You might recognize this as I should be fine or other people have it so much worse. When we do that, the grief follows us into everything we do, lurking under the surface. Creating a dull unsettling feeling of unhappiness. People come to me when they're so deep in it. Often they've avoided processing a form of loss. They've developed numbing or avoiding habits like overworking or over helping or over anything to cope with the discomfort of the initial loss. They're unhappy with a life that looks great on paper, but feels like it's not. They feel like they've lost the plot. So before we go deeper into identity grief, I wanna talk about change because identity grief lives inside change. And change itself is hard in ways that have nothing to do with weakness or being stuck. It's actually just neurological. The human brain is wired for familiarity. Our brains are designed to scan for threat, to prefer the known, to stay within what feels safe. Uncertainty registers as risk. Change, even chosen change, even good change, activates the same stress response as danger because to the nervous system, the unknown and the unsafe feel identical. This brain design kept our ancestors alive, but it also means that every major life transition, regardless of whether you wanted it, will produce a version of resistance, fear, and grief. This is your brain doing exactly what it was built to do. Some change is chosen and some change is thrust upon us. Chosen change is when you want to change your habits, grow your business, start a family, start a new chapter. The hardest change is the one that's thrown at you that removes your agency. When the layoff comes, when the diagnosis arrives, when the relationship ends, when the kid leaves, you didn't choose this. You choose these things. That loss of agency is its own grief layered on top of the identity grief. When we don't get to choose what ends or when, we also lose the assumption that life unfolds in a predictable order if we do things right. It's disorienting to say the least. All change, whether we choose it or not, contains loss and gain. I'll tell you a personal story. When my daughter was a senior in high school, I spent the entire year anticipating the grief of her being gone. I lived the entire year noticing all of the lasts, her last first day of school, her last birthday at home, her last soccer game, her last dinner with us at the kitchen table. I was in a kind of nostalgia for the moment I was currently living. And loss was all I could see, and it was so heavy. When she was getting ready to move across the country for college, I could not see what I was also about to gain because my brain had narrowed its entire focus to what I was losing. But four years later, I can see that what I gained was an adult relationship with my daughter that is completely different from what we had and it's extraordinary. I got back time, time for my work and for my friends and for myself. Time I hadn't even had when she was home. We even got a rescue dog, which I did not see coming and which has been one of the unexpected joys of this chapter. My brain had focused solely on the loss, but so much has been gained. So if you're deep in it, you might not be able to see it yet, but please know that gains are a-comin'. When you're ready, start to notice what's also arriving, alongside the loss. Your brain won't do it automatically, but it's there. I call it my practice of looking for the good. Look for the good. Identity grief can happen every time we fundamentally change. Every time we go through the gap of who we've been and who we're becoming at every stage of life, scan back and see if you can pinpoint all the times it's happened for you. Think about when you graduated elementary school or high school and certainly college. Maybe you felt that panic of, "Oh God, now I'm an adult." My daughter is certainly going through that and so many others are about to experience it. When you close out those four years, you're not just leaving a school, you're formally ending your identity as a student, often for the first time completely. You're not just leaving a school, you're not just leaving a job. and sense of daily purpose, gone. and nobody calls it grief. Everybody calls it exciting. It's so much. If you're sending a kid off to their first job right now or watching them leave their college years behind and land in the formlessness of early adulthood, they may be in this. The disorientation of no longer knowing who you are when you're not in school, that's identity grief. I certainly felt it when I got married. I loved planning the wedding, I wanted to get married, and after our wedding I found myself awkwardly adjusting to thinking of myself in a new role as a wife. What kind of wife was I supposed to be? Who was I within this new title? I kept trying to rationalize that it was just a piece of paper, a legal commitment, but it was much deeper than I'd anticipated. There was a real adjustment in my head, in our relationship, and I noticed it in how society saw me, and that all went unnamed. So I felt identity grief even with the change I'd chosen. I was changed. The former version of me was gone. And then there it was again when I became a mother. I remember "who even am I anymore outside of keeping this baby alive? What body is this? where am I within this new role? I felt like for at least six months, I was an onion whose every layer had been laid bare and I had to physically and mentally put each layer back and they never quite fit right again. Eventually I grew into it, but it was so scary and raw and I was wholly unprepared for that experience and nobody talked about it. Midlife is when identity grief often hits loudest because there are more roles ending simultaneously and because by that point we've been enmeshed in them for longer and of course our sense of our own mortality starts to get our attention. Every major life transition, student to adult, single to partnered, childless to parent, employed to unemployed, married to divorced, mother of young kids to empty nester, employed to retired, as well as major life milestones that don't meet expectations or getting a diagnosis, leaving a home or hometown, or any time we've been grappling with a seismic shift of who we are or who we thought we would be contain the potential for an identity death and an identity birth. Often at the same time, usually without a ceremony, usually without anyone naming or acknowledging what's actually happening and no one bringing you a casserole. This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. Black Friday is happening now at The Home Depot and they've got just a tree for you. Make the holidays merry and bright with artificial trees starting at $49. Then make it your own with ornaments and trimmings for every holiday style. Find your perfect tree at the number one Christmas tree retailer and get low prices guaranteed on all your festive favorites at The Home Depot. Exclusions apply. Visit homedepot.com slash price match for details. Here are a few more subtle examples. examples. When a goal has been achieved and we lose the pursuit of that goal, we can enter what's been called an identity crisis or a now what phase. When we've lost or moved on from a group of friends or community, a neighborhood, workplace in which we felt belonging. A dream that we realize won't happen, a book that isn't written, a career success level that didn't unfold, a relationship that didn't materialize, a child that didn't come. You are grieving the life you had hoped for. Retirement can be rife with identity grief because you are suddenly wondering if how you spend your time matters, which is one of the most crucial elements of a good life. A body identity shift, menopause, a health diagnosis, an injury, gender transition for both the person transitioning and the parent. All this to say that it's not just a matter of time. It's a matter of time. It's a matter of grief. Grief is real even when you choose the transition, even when you wanted the divorce, even when you raised your kid to leave. Choice and loss coexist. I hope with this episode you now know what it's called and that you feel comforted by its normalcy. Also, I hope you buy yourself the flowers, just buy the flowers and remind yourself of your own self-love for navigating all this. So why such differences? Why does this profoundly affect you? Why does this profoundly affect some people and barely touch others? Why can one woman move through the empty nest with relative ease while another is unmoored by it? Part of it comes down to how we think about ourselves and our roles, people, or things that we're losing. The external circumstances, the layoff, the divorce, the diagnosis, those are major life moments, no doubt, but how we understand ourselves in relation to what we've lost is a very important part of our life. The meaning we make of it, that is where we have agency and power. So looking at the research, one of the biggest factors in how deeply identity grief hits is something called enmeshment. Enmeshment is when our sense of self becomes overly entwined with a person or a role or a relationship and the boundaries between them become blurred. When we think we are the role versus being in the role, our identities become enmeshed. There's a real difference between being a mother and being the mother, between having a career and being your career, between being a wife and organizing your entire identity around being a wife. Research indicates a strong correlation between identity enmeshment in a role and intense identity grief when that role is lost, which makes sense because when the role is lost, the identity is lost. When the role is lost, the identity is lost. When the role shifts or goes away, people experience a loss of self, severe identity confusion and anxiety. Their external source of validation and meaning is gone. Now, this is not to blame a caring parent who has devoted her life to her children. This is to explain why it's so painful and disorienting. Women are socialized to build identity through relational roles, caregiver, partner, mother, supporter, fixer, helper. The culture praises this merger. We hear she lives for her work or she's so devoted. We are often not taught to maintain a separate self, to protect a core self beneath the role to find worth by just existing as humans, rather than in relation to what we're giving away. So many of us don't build that sense of belonging to ourselves, that identity separate from what we're giving away. So, when the role ends, the self that was beneath it turns out to have gone very quiet. One more thing about enmeshment to mention. When a long role ends, work, human, whatever, we don't just grieve the loss of the other person, role, or work that we lost. We grieve ourselves, the version of ourselves that we lost inside it. A woman who's been in a 20-year marriage, a woman who's been in a 20-year marriage, didn't just lose a partner. She lost the person she used to be before that partnership. Her opinions, habits, preferences, sense of what she wants, all of it shaped within that relationship over years. When it ends, the work is not just to mourn the split, it's to find her way back to herself. The irony, the very quality that made you extraordinary in those roles, your total commitment to yourself, your total commitment, your capacity to give, to love, to sacrifice, is exactly what makes the ending feel like annihilation. The more you gave, the more you cared, the more you lost yourself in it, the harder it lands. So, what do we do with all of this? How do we move forward? Beyond just validating the grief and feeling it, and I do walk you through that process step by step in my first podcast for Goop called Processing the Emotions of Loss, and we'll link it in the show notes. People always want to know what to do. How do we navigate the challenges of building back to ourselves? Here's what I've learned from years of coaching women through major transitions and from sitting with people at the end of life. Grief is not a phase to get through. It's a practice to move through. A phase implies an end point. A process of practice implies something you return to, tend to, and eventually get stronger at or more familiar with. And here's the framing to think about. Moving forward from identity grief requires a shift in thinking and feeling, from loss-oriented coping, where you're focused on the pain and the past, to restoration-oriented coping, where you're building a new sense of self. Both modes are necessary, but eventually, when you're ready, you will move from what was and start being more comfortable with what is, and then building what's next. I'll walk you through this with the acknowledgement that when a role has been so central to who you are, sometimes losing it feels like an amputation of the self. You don't just move on from an amputation. You learn how to navigate it differently. You might, in time, discover new strengths. you get to surprise yourself. Here's how. Tool one, give yourself a full understanding of it. Everything starts with awareness. And because this type of grief is often invisible to others and because perhaps it was to you too, start by acknowledging it. You wanna center yourself. I always like to put my hand on my chest and take a few deep breaths, be still, start there. It might be helpful for you to say it out loud or in a journal or to a friend or a therapist or a coach. Say something like, I am grieving the version of myself who was a mother as I knew it. I am grieving my career identity. I am grieving the relationship I thought I had. Say it without any shame. The same way you'd name a word on a page. Name it without justifying it, without minimizing it, without, I should get over it or but I know I'm so lucky. Just, this is loss. I am feeling it. This is a form of grief. Then acknowledge the loss and normalize your lost feeling. Process all the pieces of the grief, the confusion, the anger, the relief, the shame. Let it be messy. Whatever is bubbling up for you. Each feeling is like a different vibration in your body. And each is likely tied to a thought in your head. See if you can identify those thoughts. What do I do next is the thought that leads to the feeling of confusion. How did I not see this coming and prepare more is the thought that might lead to shame. That job was not what I wanted anyway and I never would have left it myself might lead to the feeling of relief. Thought to feeling. If you want to feel better, you have to, at some point give yourself explicit permission to mourn the version of yourself that's gone. Not just the job or the marriage, but the version of you that existed within it. And you can do this by ritual, by thought work, by somatic practices, meditation, in conversation with somebody supportive, whatever works and feels meaningful. I always like to give people new helpful thoughts to help them mourn, process. Thoughts help us change. So here are a few examples. Here are a few that you might consider. This is hard and that's okay. It won't always feel this way. I'm capable of feeling this. You might want to ask, what do I need right now? You could say, this feeling means that I care deeply. You could ask, what can I do? And what is outside of my control? Or am I ready to move on from this? That last one is a question worth sitting with. Curiosity is the power of a good question. If the answer starts to feel like, yes, you're ready to move on, you're ready for the next step. So tool number two, set new goals. One of the first actions I want you to consider when you're ready for change is to set new goals. I'm a goal coach. So of course, goal setting is going to be part of my answer for how to move forward. But also, goals are how we think about what's possible in the future. They provide hope and a roadmap of possibility for our lives. It may be hard to imagine what's next when you're deep in loss, but I promise you many things are possible and holding hope for them is brave and important. Start small if you want. I want to make a new friend by summer. I want to run a 5K by the holidays. I want to travel somewhere new by myself. I want to get my job done. I want to get my resume up to speed. I want to plant flowers and strawberries. Or go big, write that book, start that company, check off that bucket list item. But brainstorm things you want in your life. Knowing what you want and writing it down is always the starting place for what's next. It orients you forward and renews your sense of purpose. If you want a step-by-step framework for exactly this, I have a free resource on my site at abbeyshiller.com, which will be linked in the show notes, including a teaching that walks you through the goal-setting process I use with every single client. I also teach a free live webinar a few times a year called "Figure Out What's Next," which might be useful for you. - This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Telling someone you love them, it isn't always easy. But showing them through food, sometimes that's better than words, especially when that food's wok-cooked at Panda Express, a Joe House favorite. Pick from delicious classics like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, kung pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Perfect for when you're watching the team you love or eating with the person you love. Have you eaten yet? Click or tap the banner to order or visit a Panda Express near you. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. - Breaking news out of the North Pole. Santa and his elves are swamped with requests for vehicle floor liners. And although elves are terrific toy makers, their little hammers and chisels don't come close to the laser-measured fit of a WeatherTech floor liner, cargo liner, or truck bed impact liner. Even Santa uses them. Cookie crumbs, glitter, a reindeer hitching a ride home? He just hoses them off. Visit WeatherTech.com for all your holiday shopping today. It's all Santa approved. And don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don't miss out on any of our latest content. - Tool three, reframe your story. One of the most important shifts in healing identity grief is this. Instead of trying to let go of the past entirely, work on integrating the change into your story. You don't have to erase your former self. She's a part of how you got here. The goal is integration. Three ways to do this. One, identify your core values. What values did you, as Santa, get? Express in your previous role. Leadership, nurturing, creativity, problem solving, integrity, connection. Those values belong to you, not the role. They can be expressed in entirely new ways. The role was just one container for them. Two, separate your identity from the role. Practice the thought, I was a manager, I was a full-time mother, and I am a person who values connection, challenges, and growth. The "and" is the work. Not instead of, but in addition to. And then lastly, write a future self-statement. One paragraph or one sentence. Write a description of the person you are becoming. Focus on the attributes, not the achievements. For instance, I am a person who tries new things. I am someone who connects deeply with others. I am a person who does what she says. It has to feel true. You have to believe it. But this will start to shift your identity in meaningful, subtle ways. This is one of the first exercises I do with every client, and the statements that come out of it almost always surprise people. There's something that happens when you put into words who you're becoming, because it starts to become real. Here are some helpful thoughts to carry alongside this work. I am here for a purpose which can build upon what I've lived so far. Oof, so powerful. I can't wait to see what happens next. Again, you have to believe this. I'm here to serve, and I'm open to all the ways of what that means. All of the experiences I've gathered in my life can carry me into what's next. Or I don't know what's next yet, and that's okay for now. Try one of those, see which works. And then tool number four, diversify your self portfolio. To start building the new self now, learn new things. Begin by adding small, low stakes component to your life that have nothing to do with your previous role. Think of this as building a self portfolio. The more diversified it is, the more resilient you are when any one piece of it shifts. And these don't have to cost money or take much time, even a 20 minute walk with someone new or free, online community counts. But pursue micro interests. Say yes to something that sparks you. Take a class, read a new genre of book, pursue first steps into learning AI. Sign up for a volunteer shift. Brave a trail you've never hiked. Curiosity and learning is the first language of the new self forming. Follow it and take new action. Build new social anchors. Seek out communities where you're not known by your old title. A pottery class where nobody knows you're a former VP. A running group where nobody knows you're an empty nester. Let yourself and others discover who you are. And resist overcompensating. When the void arrives, and it will, because grief is a process, there's a pull to immediately fill it by pouring all your energy into another existing role. The woman who loses her career and then becomes hyper-focused on her kids. The empty nester who throws herself completely into her kitchen remodel. This is grief masked as productivity. It leads to a pattern of overgiving and burnout and delays the real work. Just notice the urge to fill. Again, awareness and new intentional action. So you've done the work of processing, of naming, and starting to rebuild. Now let's talk about the part that starts to feel like possibility. As we close this out, I want to remind you that grief and hope coexist. Kessler's sixth stage, meaning, doesn't come after grief ends. It begins to emerge while grief is still thick around you. When you start to notice the question shifting from why did this happen? To what do I do with it? You might be ready for what's next. Answer three questions to begin to face forward on your next chapter. Again, they'll be in the show notes. One, what is still true about me? What remains true about your values, your curiosity, your character, across every version of yourself you've ever been? I find this to be a helpful exercise for self-awareness and comfort. Two, what are all the things that could be next? Curiosity is my favorite, and this question really gets you thinking. Come up with several prototypes of your next chapter. If I weren't doing this, I could see myself writing books, living in Europe for a few years, or maybe being an interior designer, or reinventing elder and memory care. I'm really giving you a peek inside my brain, but let yourself dream without judgment. Stay curious. Three, what actionable steps can you take to see which idea is right? I call this dating your future. If you think you might want to start a catering business, see if you can start with a dinner party you get paid for, and then another one, and see what you learn. If you want to run off to a silent retreat in Tibet for a year, maybe start with a silent retreat in Tibet for a year. If you want to run off to a silent retreat in Tibet for a year, maybe start with a silent retreat in Tibet for a year, maybe start with a silent retreat here for a week, and then build. The impulse to cut bangs after a breakup, it applies here too. Bangs take a long time to grow out, so date the future you're considering before you commit. And lastly, see if you can make meaning in the becoming of what's next. We are always in a state of becoming. Our lives are spent in process. Rather than wait to enjoy the destination, let's focus more on the future. more on the journey let's cheer for our efforts let's acknowledge our struggles let's have faith that we can figure this out making meaning by creating rituals or being fully present in a moment and savoring it or by writing in a journal and then revisiting regularly to check on progress these will all help you enjoy and find purpose in the becoming your next chapter doesn't need to be all figured out right now you just want to eventually get yourself on the right trajectory your ideas for your next chapter also don't need to make sense to anyone else your next chapter doesn't need to be as big or impressive as what came before unless that's what you want whatever might be right for you it's helpful to acknowledge that post-identity grief you've been through something and you're a different person now and your goals and next chapter and your goals and next chapter and your goals and next chapter can reflect that can reflect that can reflect that so just to pull this together what we've so just to pull this together what we've so just to pull this together what we've talked about today talked about today talked about today identity grief is real it has a name and identity grief is real it has a name and identity grief is real it has a name and you are not alone in feeling it you are not alone in feeling it you are not alone in feeling it we talked about why change is so hard we talked about why change is so hard we talked about why change is so hard largely because your brain is doing largely because your brain is doing largely because your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do exactly what it was designed to do exactly what it was designed to do and now you have some tools to transform and now you have some tools to transform and now you have some tools to transform that resistance that resistance that resistance we looked at how identity grief shows up we looked at how identity grief shows up we looked at how identity grief shows up across every stage of life from across every stage of life from across every stage of life from graduation to midlife and beyond graduation to midlife and beyond graduation to midlife and beyond as well as across many different life as well as across many different life as well as across many different life experiences experiences experiences we explored how enmeshment deepens the we explored how enmeshment deepens the we explored how enmeshment deepens the grief grief grief and how the very thing that made you and how the very thing that made you and how the very thing that made you extraordinary in your roles is what extraordinary in your roles is what extraordinary in your roles is what makes their ending feel makes their ending feel makes their ending feel so profound we walked through the grief so profound we walked through the grief so profound we walked through the grief stages so that you have a map stages so that you have a map stages so that you have a map but not a schedule and we worked through but not a schedule and we worked through but not a schedule and we worked through the tools for naming it the tools for naming it the tools for naming it processing it reframing your story processing it reframing your story processing it reframing your story diversifying your sense of self diversifying your sense of self diversifying your sense of self and beginning to face what's next and beginning to face what's next and beginning to face what's next and make meaning in the meantime grief and make meaning in the meantime grief and make meaning in the meantime grief and hope coexist you don't have to be and hope coexist you don't have to be and hope coexist you don't have to be finished grieving finished grieving finished grieving to start becoming both can happen to start becoming both can happen to start becoming both can happen both are happening let them i hope both are happening let them i hope both are happening let them i hope after hearing this you have faith that after hearing this you have faith that after hearing this you have faith that you'll find your lost meaning and you'll find your lost meaning and you'll find your lost meaning and purpose purpose purpose that you'll find what's next that you'll that you'll find what's next that you'll that you'll find what's next that you'll feel less alone in this experience feel less alone in this experience feel less alone in this experience that you feel empowered with these new that you feel empowered with these new that you feel empowered with these new tools in your toolbox tools in your toolbox tools in your toolbox and that you expect this to be a little and that you expect this to be a little and that you expect this to be a little bit of a process bit of a process bit of a process and that you show yourself all the love and that you show yourself all the love and that you show yourself all the love you deserve you deserve you deserve i'd love to hear what this brought up for i'd love to hear what this brought up for i'd love to hear what this brought up for you you you please reach out i read every dm and please reach out i read every dm and please reach out i read every dm and email email email and if you want to deepen this work pick and if you want to deepen this work pick and if you want to deepen this work pick up one of my helpful free resources on up one of my helpful free resources on up one of my helpful free resources on my site my site my site at abby schiller.com that's a b b i e at abby schiller.com that's a b b i e at abby schiller.com that's a b b i e s c h i l l e r dot com or in the show s c h i l l e r dot com or in the show s c h i l l e r dot com or in the show notes notes notes if you have someone in your life who if you have someone in your life who if you have someone in your life who would benefit from hearing this episode would benefit from hearing this episode would benefit from hearing this episode please share it my mission is to help as please share it my mission is to help as please share it my mission is to help as many people as possible many people as possible many people as possible so thanks in advance for posting or so thanks in advance for posting or so thanks in advance for posting or sharing this sharing this sharing this i'm sending you so much love and good i'm sending you so much love and good i'm sending you so much love and good mojo mojo mojo for all that you're going through i know for all that you're going through i know for all that you're going through i know how hard it can be how hard it can be how hard it can be and i'm here to support thanks for and i'm here to support thanks for and i'm here to support thanks for listening listening listening have a beautiful week have a beautiful week i hope you'll listen follow rate and i hope you'll listen follow rate and i hope you'll listen follow rate and review all of our episodes which are review all of our episodes which are review all of our episodes which are available for free on apple podcasts available for free on apple podcasts available for free on apple podcasts spotify odyssey or wherever you get your spotify odyssey or wherever you get your spotify odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts podcasts podcasts the goop holiday gift guides are our the goop holiday gift guides are our the goop holiday gift guides are our calling card we scour the earth for the calling card we scour the earth for the calling card we scour the earth for the best options in every category to make best options in every category to make best options in every category to make it easy for you to find the right gifts it easy for you to find the right gifts it easy for you to find the right gifts for everyone on your list for everyone on your list for everyone on your list think beautiful jewelry thoughtful think beautiful jewelry thoughtful think beautiful jewelry thoughtful wellness tools wellness tools wellness tools smart kitchenware clean beauty and more smart kitchenware clean beauty and more smart kitchenware clean beauty and more unexpected finds unexpected finds unexpected finds whether you're looking for a little whether you're looking for a little whether you're looking for a little luxury or a big splurge you'll find luxury or a big splurge you'll find luxury or a big splurge you'll find something that feels personal in our something that feels personal in our something that feels personal in our curation curation curation explore the gift guide at goop.com and as explore the gift guide at goop.com and as explore the gift guide at goop.com and as our gift to you take 15 off your first our gift to you take 15 off your first our gift to you take 15 off your first purchase with code purchase with code purchase with code pod gift exclusion supply