Losing a Part of Myself- And Finding What’s Left
- Merve Kan
- Jun 5
- 9 min read
Updated: Jun 23
Part 1 of the 'Working Selves' Series
“You are not the work you do; you are the person you are." – Toni Morrison
There’s a quiet reckoning many of us face — often privately, and without a clear name: The moment when a role that once gave us meaning no longer fits or comes to an end.
After more than a decade in humanitarian work, I began to feel that shift three years ago. Outwardly, everything looked the same. But inwardly, something was changing. I realised I no longer wanted to be only a humanitarian.
There were other parts of me — creative, playful, embodied — that had long been waiting in the wings. I wanted to bring in art, movement, and play, not as side interests, but as essential parts of how I show up in the world. I wanted to rediscover the artist in me — the one who creates, expresses, and even performs. That part of me had been alive since childhood, but never fully welcomed into my professional life.
I also felt called to work with ordinary people — not just those in moments of acute crisis, but those navigating the slower, quieter transitions that shape a life. I longed for work that felt more spacious and more aligned with the whole of who I am.
But with that realisation came disorientation. If I wasn’t ‘the humanitarian’, then who was I?
And I know I’m not alone in that. This question arises across many purpose-led professions — teachers, healers, campaigners, founders, carers, artists — anyone whose work is more than a job. When those roles shift or end, the loss can feel not just professional, but personal.
At the end of the day, humanitarian work — like many forms of care and crisis response — can be soul-wrenching. Without space for intentional rest and reflection, it’s easy to slip into burnout or desensitisation. And now, many in the sector are facing these transitions not by choice, but by force — as global funding cuts and large-scale restructuring reshape the aid landscape.
What I’ve been navigating over the past three years — this slow and sometimes painful reweaving of identity — might speak to those now moving through something similar.
And while this reflection is rooted in my own experience, it’s not only for humanitarians. It’s for anyone experiencing a change in their working self — anyone asking what remains when the title fades, and the old story no longer fits.
Because these moments aren’t just about what’s ending. They’re an invitation to ask something deeper:
When the role fades, what part of me remains?
A Role Is Not Just a Role
Career transitions are often framed in terms of pivoting, burnout, or upskilling. But what about identity loss?
What happens when the version of yourself that once found joy or purpose in a role no longer feels present or enough?
It’s not just: What do I do now? It’s: Who am I, now that I no longer do what used to define me?
Psychologist Colin Wayne Leach offers a useful distinction:
Identity centrality — how deeply a role is embedded in your self-concept
Identity satisfaction — how much that role still brings meaning or joy
You can feel tightly bound to a role even after it stops being fulfilling. That inner tension often signals a deeper shift underway.
Writer and cultural theorist Gloria Anzaldúa captured this liminal space in Borderlands/La Frontera:
“I am a wind-swayed bridge, a crossroads inhabited by whirlwinds.”
When our roles change, we often become that bridge—holding together what was and what could be.
What Psychology (and Lived Experience) Tells Us
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”– Carl Rogers
Transitions in identity aren’t collapse—they’re continuity in motion.
Psychologists like Erik Erikson and Karen Horney remind us that identity evolves over time, through inner realignments and outer dislocations. And Henri Tajfel and John Turner show that identity is never purely personal—it’s social. It connects us to shared language, values, and belonging.
When a role ends, it can feel like a disconnection not just from work, but from a community.
This is especially true in values-based fields, where burnout or role loss is often the result of external forces: limited funding, structural injustice, or system fatigue. Even when the shift is not of our choosing, it can still become a site for integration — if we allow ourselves the time to reflect, grieve, and reorient.
Other psychological frameworks help make this process more visible:
Hazel Markus invites us to explore possible selves — versions of who we might become when familiar roles dissolve.
Claude Steele shows how self-affirmation — reconnecting with core values like creativity or compassion — can help anchor us.
Karen Horney cautions against clinging to the idealised self, shaped for others’ approval.
Fritz Perls encourages us to reclaim disowned parts of ourselves as invitations, not errors.
And Carl Rogers defines authenticity as congruence — the alignment between inner truth and outer life.
Taken together, these perspectives offer a shared insight:
Identity change is not about abandoning who we were- but about integrating more of who we are and expanding who we are allowed to be.
Identity as a Multilayered Concept
Scaling down humanitarian work for me wasn’t about losing my work self. It was about opening space for a fuller, more integrated self to emerge.
Over time, I began to notice what still energised me — creativity, expression, human connection — and what no longer did. I started to see that identity isn’t something we lose or find; it’s something we carry differently over time.
As poet Walt Whitman famously wrote:
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.”
We are not defined by one role or version of ourselves. Our identities are layered, evolving, and often contradictory. That’s not a flaw — it’s a feature of being human. We can hold multiple truths at once: to be helper and artist, thinker and feeler, rational and intuitive.
Psychologist Dan McAdams describes identity as an internalised life story — a narrative we create to make meaning of our past, navigate the present, and imagine the future. Letting go of a role doesn’t erase a chapter; it opens space for a new one.
Philosopher Paul Ricoeur deepens this by saying identity is shaped through the act of (re)narrating our lives. We become ourselves not by clinging to a fixed image, but by telling and retelling the story of who we are, especially as life reshapes us. He distinguishes between sameness (idem identity) and selfhood through change (ipse identity). What brings coherence is not constancy, but the ability to integrate change into a meaningful whole.
This is the heart of identity integration: the practice of holding past, present, and emerging selves in relationship — not choosing between them, but allowing them to coexist in a more honest and expansive self-concept.
Storytelling — to ourselves and others — is how we make sense of transitions. It’s not about having answers, but staying in conversation with our own becoming.
It’s tempting to leap into reinvention. But often the deeper work is slower: not discarding who you were, but integrating who you've been with who you are becoming.
As Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön writes:
“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
Such disorientation isn’t failure. It’s the beginning of realignment — and of integration.
Tools for Rebuilding: Keeper Skills
When a professional identity fades, it can feel like stepping into fog. But as psychologist Tessa West suggests in Job Therapy, we don’t have to reinvent ourselves from scratch.
Instead, we can focus on what she calls “keeper skills”—the values, capacities, and practices that still feel alive and transferable. Her Three Things Exercise is a great place to start:
What is a task you used to do?
What skill did it require?
In what context did you apply it?
Rather than centring roles or job titles, this process draws attention to core practices — the ways of working that feel most aligned with who you are, regardless of sector.
When we shift from the language of performance to the language of resonance, a more nuanced picture of our work emerges.
It also helps reframe so-called “hard” or “technical” skills in more soft, human terms:
‘Strategic communication’ becomes bridging worldviews or easing difficult conversations
Project management’ becomes creating a sense of structure and stability
‘Research and analysis’ become making meaning across patterns and systems
This kind of reframing echoes Daniel Pink’s Drive, which shows that motivation deepens when autonomy, mastery, and purpose are aligned. Reframing skills through these values brings clarity—not only for resumes, but for conversations.
Many of us have spent years helping others through transitions — whether in crisis settings, classrooms, communities, or teams. Much of humanitarian and community-based work involves supporting people through transition—through forced migration, loss, or dislocation.
Perhaps now is the moment to apply the same approach inward. What if this is not a dismantling—but an expansion?
Practical Ways to Practise Identity Integration
While identity integration may feel abstract, it can be nurtured through intentional, everyday practices. These practices are not about fixing or finishing your identity. They’re about gently tending to the self — creating space for exploration, coherence, and wholeness over time.
Name What’s Still Alive
When an identity tied to work, status, or role dissolves, it’s easy to feel like you’ve lost yourself. But part of you always remains — values, energies, instincts that still feel true.
Ask yourself:
“What part of that role felt most like me — and still does?”
“What deeper value or quality was I expressing through that identity?”
This shift in focus — from what ended to what persists — is called cognitive reappraisal, and it’s a powerful way to reframe disorientation as an invitation to grow.
Create a Living Identity Map
Think of this as a visual snapshot of your evolving self. Divide a page into three sections:
Who I’ve Been– Past roles, strengths, values, identities
Who I Am Now- What feels most present and alive
Who I’m Becoming- Hints of what’s emerging or calling you
Add images, quotes, memories, or moments that represent each stage. Don’t worry about neatness or chronology. The point is to see your identity as a continuum, rather than a before-and-after story.
What to look for: Patterns that reappear across time. Traits that have stayed with you. Desires that have only recently found permission to surface.
Reclaim Discarded Selves
Over time, we exile parts of ourselves to survive or succeed — the artist, the dreamer, the rebel, the sensual one. But those parts don’t vanish; they wait to be welcomed back.
Internal Family Systems (Richard C. Schwartz) teaches us that the self contains many "parts" — and growth happens when we meet each part with curiosity, not shame.
Maybe it is time to:
Revisit a childhood passion (even if it feels silly)
Reintroduce a long-silenced hobby, art form, or fantasy career
Ask: “What part of me have I been ignoring — and what does it want to say?”
Practise Embodied Self-Expression
Your body is part of your identity. It remembers what the mind forgets. Movement, voice, and gesture help bring unspoken dimensions of self to light.
Dialogical Self Theory (Hubert Hermans) reminds us that identity includes multiple voices — personal, cultural, historical. Embodied expression helps these inner voices speak without needing language.
Try:
Free writing or stream-of-consciousness journaling
Drawing what your "becoming self" feels like
Dancing without choreography — letting emotion guide movement
Using your voice in new ways: singing, whispering, improvising
Even five minutes of creative flow reconnects you to parts of self beyond roles and rational thought.
Use Micro-Rituals
Micro-rituals create a sense of continuity as you move from one version of yourself to another.
They also help activate your possible selves (Hazel Markus & Paula Nurius) — the imagined futures you're beginning to step into.
Try:
Begin each day with: “Which possible self needs tending today?”
Light a candle when shifting between work and creative practice.
Dress in a way that reflects the version of yourself you're becoming.
Start a short journaling or breathing ritual to mark endings and beginnings.
Stay in Conversation
You are not the only one in transition. Talking with others helps normalise uncertainty and surface insights you can’t always access alone.
Dialogical Self Theory teaches that identity is shaped in dialogue — with other people, but also with other parts of ourselves. And James Marcia’s identity work shows that transitions often place us in “moratorium”: a space of active exploration before clarity arrives.
Try:
Talk with someone else navigating change — compare stories
Name out loud what part of you is shifting (even if it’s messy)
Ask: “What part of me is ready to speak — and what part still feels afraid?"
Integration doesn’t mean having it all figured out. It means choosing to stay in relationship with yourself as you change.
💬 Reflective Prompts: Navigating Identity in Transition
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📚 Further Reading
Tessa West – Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works for You
Colin Wayne Leach – Research on identity centrality and satisfaction
Erik Erikson – Identity: Youth and Crisis
Hazel Markus & Paula Nirius – Possible Selves
Claude Steele – Self-Affirmation Theory
Henri Tajfel & John Turner – Social Identity Theory
Carl Rogers – On Becoming a Person
Karen Horney – Neurosis and Human Growth
Fritz Perls – Gestalt Therapy Verbatim
Daniel Pink – Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Dan P. McAdams – The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self
Paul Ricoeur – Oneself as Another
Pema Chödrön – When Things Fall Apart
Gloria Anzaldúa – Borderlands/La Frontera
Hubert Hermans – Dialogical Self Theory: Positioning and Counter-Positioning in a Globalizing Society
Richard C. Schwartz – No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
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