Midrising Conversations · Episode 02
“I don’t know who I am anymore” doesn’t always signal a crisis. Sometimes it’s the first honest recognition that the person you’ve been is beginning to shift.
Identity rarely disappears in one dramatic moment.
More often, it changes quietly. Through years spent meeting expectations, carrying responsibilities and becoming known through the roles you perform: your work, your relationships, motherhood and the person everybody relies on.
In Episode 2 of Midrising Conversations, Gill Townsend and Barbara Scalzi talk about what loss of identity can actually feel like in midlife—not as a breakdown, but as the slow and sometimes uncomfortable work of transition.
About this episode
Identity is often built around the things we do and the people who need us. We become the professional, the partner, the mother, the organiser or the capable one who knows how to keep everything moving.
When one of those roles changes—or simply stops feeling like the whole truth—it can leave an unfamiliar gap. That gap may feel like loss, freedom or both at once.
In this conversation
- When the feeling of “I don’t know who I am anymore” first appears
- Sudden identity shifts compared with the slow erosion of self
- How identity becomes tied to work, motherhood and relationships
- What happens when familiar roles change or fall away
- The grief and relief that can exist side by side
- Why trying to return to the old you may not be the answer
- Beginning to understand who you are becoming now
It isn’t a crisis. It’s a shift.
A changing identity doesn’t mean the person you were was false or that the life you’ve built was wrong. Those versions of you carried responsibilities, made choices and brought you to where you are now.
The shift begins when you recognise that those roles may no longer describe all of you. You’re not required to erase the past, but you are allowed to become more than the identity it gave you.
This episode is for you if…
- You’ve started wondering who you are outside your familiar roles
- A career, relationship or stage of motherhood is changing
- You feel both sadness and relief as an old identity falls away
- You keep trying to return to a version of yourself that no longer quite fits
- You’re somewhere between who you were and who you’re becoming
The Midrising takeaway
You may not have lost yourself. You may have outgrown the version of you that was built around everybody else’s needs.
The in-between can feel uncertain because the old identity is no longer enough and the new one isn’t fully formed. That doesn’t make the transition a failure. It means you’re paying attention to what’s changing.
One question to take with you
Who am I when I’m not defining myself by what I do for everybody else?
About Midrising Conversations
Midrising Conversations is an honest podcast for women navigating the middle shift: the gradual changes in identity, ambition, relationships, bodies, priorities and what comes next.
Hosted by Gill Townsend in Australia and Barbara Scalzi in Thailand, these are direct conversations for grown-ups. No hype, no hustle and no pressure to become a brand-new person by next Tuesday.
Keep listening
Explore more honest conversations about identity, change, ambition and what it means to move through midlife on your own terms.
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