Identity.

Years ago, I was asked a question that stayed with me:

“How have you changed for the better?”

At first, I thought this would be easy to answer. Of course, I had changed for the better. I could feel it. I knew I was different than I had been before, and I was proud of the person I was becoming.

But when I actually tried to explain how I had changed, I found myself struggling to put it into words.

How do we describe our own growth?

How do we articulate the quiet shifts that happen within us — the ways we begin to trust ourselves more, understand ourselves more deeply, and move through the world differently?

That question stayed with me.

Over time, I found myself returning to it and reflecting on who I had been, who I had become, and the parts of myself that had remained constant throughout all the changes.

At my core, I was still the same person I had been since I was young — filled with life and excitement; generally a glass-half-full girl with a great sense of humour; an introverted-extrovert; someone who was naturally driven to care for others; a lover of cats; a homebody who simultaneously loves to adventure; and someone who can be quiet and reflective, while also possessing a natural inability to stop talking.

Those parts of me had not changed.

The difference was not that I had become someone new.

It was that I had become more connected to the person I had always been.

If I had to summarize the biggest change, I think I would call it confidence.

Confidence in knowing and trusting myself.

Confidence in listening closely to my gut.

Confidence in knowing what was important to me and what I wanted, regardless of how life around me changed.

This confidence allows me to move through life with much less fear. It helped me become clearer about what I did and did not accept from others, while also leaning into developing healthier boundaries and more honest communication.

It allowed me to put myself first in ways I once struggled with and to show up more fully as myself.

This confidence did not appear overnight. It was the result of a lot of self-reflection, vulnerability, bravery, and action.

It came from being willing to look inward.

Over time, this reflection brought me back to something I had not fully recognized before: how much of my identity had become attached to what I did.

For many years, if someone asked me who I was, I likely would have answered that I was a nurse.

And this was true.

Becoming a nurse was a significant part of my life. It represented years of hard work, learning, challenge, and growth. It allowed me to sit with people during some of the most difficult moments of their lives, and it shaped how I see the world and the way I connect with others.

I was proud to be a nurse.

And I still am.

But somewhere along the way, being a nurse became more than something I did.

It became who I was.

I would tell people I was a nurse before I told them about Jen.

Looking back, I wonder if part of the reason was that my career was easier to explain. There was a clear path. There were milestones. There were accomplishments I could point to.

Perhaps there is also something about the world we live in — a tendency to measure ourselves by what we accomplish, what we contribute, and the work we do — that made it easy to believe my profession was the clearest way to describe myself.

I knew the degrees I had earned, the roles I had held, and the things I had achieved.

But I was less certain how to describe the person underneath all of those things.

Looking back, I wonder if I had spent so much time becoming someone I could be proud of that I had forgotten to spend time getting to know the person I already was.

When my work became such a significant part of my identity, I naturally began striving to become the best nurse I could be. I wanted to continue learning, improving, and proving to myself that I was capable.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to grow. In many ways, this drive allowed me to become the person and professional I am today.

But I also began to notice something uncomfortable:

No accomplishment ever seemed to be enough for long.

There was always another goal.

Another thing to work toward.

When I finally returned to school to become a Nurse Practitioner, I remember feeling like I had finally reached the dream I had been working toward for years.

And when I achieved it, I had a moment where I thought:

“Now what?”

It was a strange feeling.

I had spent so much time focused on reaching that point that I had not spent much time imagining what life would feel like once I arrived.

For a while, I wondered if I needed to find the next major goal. The next accomplishment. The next thing that would allow me to feel like I was continuing to move forward.

I was constantly moving toward the next version of myself, without realizing that I was already someone worth knowing.

But slowly, something began to shift.

I became less interested in constantly proving myself and more interested in understanding myself.

I became less focused on what I could achieve and more curious about what felt meaningful.

I began to realize that my work was something I did, but it was not what made me who I was.

My work still mattered deeply to me. But it was never the source of the qualities that allowed me to do it.

The compassion, curiosity, and desire to understand others that guide my work were not created by my career.

They existed long before I had a title.

My work became a place where those parts of myself could be expressed.

It did not create them.

This realization changed the way I approached my career. I became less focused on pursuing opportunities because I felt like I needed to accomplish more, and more interested in following opportunities that genuinely aligned with who I was and what mattered to me.

My life outside of work also opened up. I began pursuing people, places, and activities that brought me joy and sparked more zest for life.

The difference may seem subtle, but it felt significant.

I was no longer asking:

“What will this allow me to achieve?”

I was beginning to ask:

“Does this feel meaningful? Does this align with who I am?”

The truth is, I feel the most fulfilled when I am working from my heart and trusting my gut.

That has become one of the clearest reminders that my identity exists beyond my work.

If you took away my employment, the core elements of who I am would remain.

I would still be someone who cares deeply. Someone who wants to understand people. Someone who seeks connection and meaning. Someone who is curious about the world and the experiences of others.

And perhaps that is the more interesting question:

If you removed the things you use to define yourself — your career, your relationships, your accomplishments, your responsibilities — who would be left?

Would you know how to describe that person?

For many of us, this can be an uncomfortable question.

We become so accustomed to introducing ourselves through our roles:

“I am a parent.”

“I am a partner.”

“I am a nurse.”

“I am a business owner.”

“I am a caregiver.”

These identities are meaningful. They represent important parts of our lives.

But they are still only parts.

There is a whole person underneath them.

“We discover who we are by letting go of who we are not… [be] only interested in your intuitive experience of what it is like to be you. You cannot fail at this because your ‘self’ is what you are at all times and in all places.”

— Michael A. Singer [The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself]

Maybe we do not need to search endlessly for ourselves.

Maybe we do not need to look far for ourselves because we are already here.

Maybe the search itself is sometimes what keeps us from noticing what is already there.

We spend so much of our lives trying to figure out who we are — searching for direction, purpose, identity, and the next version of ourselves. But perhaps finding ourselves is not about discovering something that was missing. Perhaps it is about becoming quiet enough to notice what has been there all along.

Perhaps the work is not creating ourselves, but letting go of the expectations, roles, achievements, and identities we have collected along the way so that we can reconnect with who we have always been.

And perhaps that is why finding ourselves is not something we do just once.

We find ourselves over and over again, through every season and stage of life, as we shed what no longer fits and uncover something more true underneath.

You do not have to look very far.

You are already here.

Around the time that I was learning this for myself, I came across a powerful story of a Lotus Flower, by Tenpa Yeshe.

The lotus grew in a beautiful lake, but each morning it was covered by thick mist. The flower could not see beyond the fog, and because she could not be seen, she began to believe that her beauty was somehow diminished by it. She tried to shine through the mist, longing to be noticed and admired.

The mist gently enveloped her and asked:

“Why are you trying so hard to be seen? Isn’t it enough just to be?”

The lotus flower replied:

“But I’m beautiful, and no one can see it!”

The mist gently enveloped her and said:

“Beauty lies not in the admiration of others, but in pure existence itself. You don’t need to bloom to be seen, but simply to bloom. Your glow comes not from the sun or from the admiration of others, but from your own inner light.”

The lotus was confused, but she listened to the words of the mist. She closed her petals and concentrated on her inner self. She felt the life pulsating inside of her, the energy that made her grow and blossom, and she came to understand that her beauty was not dependent on the outer world — it came from within.

From that day onwards, the lotus no longer aspired to be seen. She simply blossomed, regardless of the mist or the sun, with an inner light that was stronger than ever.

And although the mist still enveloped her, she never again felt isolated or forgotten — for she knew that her true beauty lay in her own being, and no fog or mist could ever hide that.

I think there is something deeply human in that story.

How often do we mistake being seen for being valuable?

How often do we look outside ourselves for evidence that we are doing enough, achieving enough, contributing enough, or becoming enough?

And how often do we become so focused on emerging from the fog that we forget there is something already growing underneath it?

The expectations we carry. The roles we inhabit. The accomplishments we accumulate. The versions of ourselves we think we are supposed to become.

Sometimes these things can feel like the mist.

They can make it difficult to see ourselves clearly.

But perhaps they do not change who we are underneath.

Perhaps they simply make it harder for us to see.

So when I think back to that question — “How have you changed for the better?” — I think the answer is this:

I have learned to know myself more deeply.

I have learned to trust myself more fully.

I have learned that I do not need to become someone else to be enough.

I simply need to continue returning to myself.

There is something incredibly grounding about knowing yourself — about trusting yourself, accepting yourself, and feeling connected to the person you are becoming.

Perhaps the journey is about finding ourselves.

Over and over again.

What a gift it would be to reach the end of life and be able to say that we truly knew ourselves through all the different seasons and stages we experienced.

Finding the version of ourselves that has been there all along — waiting beneath the expectations, roles, and identities we have carried, waiting for us to slow down enough to recognize it.

Perhaps we are not becoming someone new, but continuing to uncover the person we have always been.

Maybe, like the lotus, we do not need to bloom for anyone else to prove that we are beautiful.

Maybe you simply keep blooming,

Jen