Chapter 17: Being in an Identity Crisis
Of course, I had heard about identity crises. Any transition in life or roles we adopt and drop involves change and adjustment. But ‘crisis’? That description always seemed a bit extreme to me. Until I had one. In fact, I had three.
The first one didn’t happen until 2011, when I was 62 years old. I had raised two daughters who had developed into fine women. I loved being a mother and I thought I had made a pretty good job of it. I reckoned that I had not only been a great mother, I had been a near perfect mother. I think I had held on to this idea during the last painful years of my marriage. Well, whatever mess I have made of my marriage, I would think to myself. At least I have done a great job with those girls.
I didn’t only hold on to that idea – it took root in me.
They had both left home and were carving out their own lives. I had never suffered from ‘empty nest’ syndrome. I still had my work and my own life. So, when one of my daughters told me, when she was 28 years old, what a shit mother I had been, it was like being spoken to in another language. And she wasn’t just talking about the last years of my marriage. She gave examples from when she was nine years old. I am not prepared to talk here about the specifics of what she said. That conversation will remain confidential and anyway, those details are not relevant here. What is relevant is the impact the conversation had on me.
We were in Manchester to celebrate my friend Cath’s 60th birthday. She was also my daughter’s godmother. All the family were there, as were about 100 other people. Cath had hired a huge hall with drinks and food laid on. I reconnected with people I hadn’t seen for many years and knew through Cath. It was a great evening of fun, reminiscing and dancing. My daughter asked if we could stay over that night. Therefore, this shattering conversation happened in the lounge of the hotel we stayed in that night. We continued it over brunch in a local eatery the next morning. I was completely unprepared for it. Everything I tried to say sounded like defence or excuse. I had no idea where our relationship would go from here or if we would ever recover from it. She was meeting her sister the next day, so I left both of them in the street. I didn’t look back. Probably because I was crying so much.
I had held onto an illusion about myself which was ridiculous and unsustainable.
When I reflected on everything she had said, of course I could find some truth in it. But what caused the crisis was not just the criticism but the attachment I had had to my identity of being a mother. I hadn’t even realised I was attached to that identity. But it was so rooted in me that when I was stripped of it, it was like part of me had been ripped out of my core without an anaesthetic. It was an identity I had held onto throughout my marriage that had shored me up through a lot of difficult times. Now I had to face a different kind of pain – and a lot of guilt. But over the next two years there was also enormous growth as I was forced to evaluate everything I had done and not done as a mother. My daughter had acknowledged that I had done a lot of good also, but she was working through the impact on her of what she saw as all the bad stuff and I had to reflect on that honestly. We did get our relationship back on track, but it took some years. Now, I thank God for my daughters who face things honestly and courageously. I continue to be inspired by them.
The second identity crisis came when I was winding down my work as a management consultant. I had relocated to Ireland in 2004 but was still continuing to consult on diversity issues. I had also been ordained as an interfaith minister in 1998 and was conducting wedding ceremonies in Ireland, and spiritual exploration workshops from my home. I didn’t ‘retire’ from consultancy, as such. Contracts came to a natural end. I hadn’t done any marketing for many years. People found me – usually through recommendations. The last big contract I worked on was in 2015-2016. I was happier to think of living a quieter life. I wanted to read more and to write and conduct more weddings in Ireland. I decided I was happy not to take on any more contracts and the Universe responded kindly by not sending me any. I was involved in the new spiritual intelligence tool – SQ21 – and in training new facilitators in how to debrief the assessment tool. But if I was ever asked what I did I still said, “I’m a management consultant.” I never said I was a minister.
So, along with my decreasing workload was my increasing realisation of how important my identity as a management consultant was to me.
It became clear that this was how I wanted to be seen in the world. I had a reputation. My work was valued. I was valued. I loved being seen as an expert. I loved flying the world staying in nice hotels. I loved dressing well for my speaking engagements. I loved it when I got great feedback after a session and people told me how great I was. It was all one big ego trip.
So, if I wasn’t a management consultant, then who on earth was I?
Although I was already ordained during my latter years as a consultant, I rarely mentioned this to my clients. I remember once a group of people at a conference asking me what else I was doing. Someone said, “You’re always into something new – what’s the next thing?” I said I was an interfaith minister and the conversation stopped. People were nervous about anything to do with spirituality being anywhere near the workplace. It had been 1996 when I first spoke at a conference on ‘Spirituality at Work – Soft or Strategic?’. No one was biting. It was a taboo subject and nothing had changed in 20 years. As an interfaith minister, I don’t have a church, or a congregation, or a set dogma to follow. It is up to each minister to work out for themselves how they are going to serve their communities. So, my weddings were increasing and I ran a few spiritual exploration workshops. But still, I would introduce myself, if I was asked, as a management consultant.
My head had made the decision to work less and lead a simpler life. But I was unsettled.
My blood pressure wasn’t responding to medication. I didn’t feel well. I had started to have cranio-sacral treatments every month from a wonderful therapist called Karen. She would treat me with a mixture of cranio methods and acupuncture. She always knew what was going on for me by looking at me! One day I started to tell her about my decision to lessen my consultancy work. She knew about the life I had been leading from my need to constantly be rearranging appointments. As I was lying there and starting to speak, I also started to cry.
“What’s the matter with me?” I wailed. “I have decided that I want to do this, so why am I upset about it? What’s going on? This is the second time I have told someone about the new, simpler life I am planning, and I cried when I told them too.” I couldn’t understand it.
Karen still had her hands on me and said gently, “Your head has made this decision but your cells are holding the memory of how you have lived for so many years.”
“What do you mean?” I still didn’t understand.
“Your cells are all on edge. They are waiting to jump into action – get another visa, book that flight, prepare that workshop, get to the airport. This is the memory your cells are holding of how you live. Now your head has decided to stop that. But the message hasn’t got to your cells yet. They are still waiting in readiness for the next spring into action. Just give your cells time to catch up with the decision your head has made. Be easy with yourself. Be gentle with your body. Don’t be so impatient for everything to work so smoothly so quickly after such a big change. It will all be fine.”
That was such great advice. I decided to slow everything down – how I walked, for example, and to stop doing a million things a day and start to enjoy the beautiful place I am living in, surrounded by the sea and the mountains and silence. I have a black leather reclining chair in my office looking out through two huge picture windows at an ever-changing scene of landscape and water and colours. I would sit in the morning and think and read and reflect and meditate. I would often not shower and get dressed until lunchtime and if I had any work to do it would not be started until 2.30pm or 3pm. I began to really enjoy the tranquility of not only where I was living but how I was living.
But then the third crisis came along. I started to think, So, is this it then? I am planning to live for the next 20 years (no reason why I shouldn’t live until I’m 90). So, will my life be sitting looking at the mountains? How is this serving anyone?
My ego was jumping up and down on my shoulder breathing lots of ‘shoulds’ into my ear.
I shared my thoughts and feelings with my peer group minister supervision group and again, I was crying. My thinking now had taken a downward spiral. I wasn’t useful to anyone. Had I ever been useful? All those workshops I had done for women – what did I know really? I was a charlatan. All those women who said they admired me – they didn’t know me at all. This thinking triggered my original crisis with my daughter. I was useless as a mother, I’ve been useless as a consultant and now my life is worthless. How easily the ego can contaminate all our thinking. My confidence had carried me through all of my life and I had never had any doubt about whether I was doing the right thing.
But now, in the last third of my life, I was wondering about my soul purpose.
Have I done what I came here to do? Is there some purpose I have not yet fulfilled? And isn’t it more than sitting in beautiful Connemara looking at the sea and the mountains?
My peer group were immensely helpful. They said that I had not given myself permission to stop. I had worked for 50 years. I deserved to enjoy some quiet time. They suggested that I bought myself a special wrap to use when I sat in my black chair, to remind myself that it was okay to sit and be quiet. My friend Mary in America told me, “Your job is to sit in your black chair, look at the mountains and save the world.”
I bought a beautiful red wrap and started to enjoy my new quiet life, instead of feeling guilty about it. Still, I had this nagging feeling that I wasn’t finished with actually doing something. I brought it up with good friends Mary, from Canada, Helen, from Denmark and Graziella, from Italy. We had all met at a conference over 20 years ago and used to see each other at least once a year – sometimes twice. We were from four different countries so meeting was no mean feat but the friendship was important to all of us. These amazing women knew me very well. This time we were meeting in Graziella’s stunning penthouse overlooking all of Geneva. Graziella was talking about Rwanda and a centre she had founded. Its aim was to help women rebuild their lives after atrocities which had taken their menfolk and used the rape of women as a tool of war. Mary had been to that centre and, like me, had been involved in women’s empowerment work for many years. Graziella said they were always looking for people to come and work with the women.
“Why don’t you come over for a couple of weeks and help to empower the women?” she suggested.
“Come for a week or two and run some workshops and see how you like it.”
The idea was immediately exciting to me. It sounded interesting. I had never been to Rwanda. I could do that. I said it would probably be the following February I would come. Maybe this was what I had been looking for.
When I got back home I started to think about this suggested trip. I realised that I actually didn’t want to go. I had been taken up by the excitement of the idea, of the moment. I realised it would be a long flight, that we would most likely be in very basic accommodation, have to do early starts in the morning and non-stop talking all day long to the women. And wouldn’t it be very hot? And what about insects? Apparently, the temperature is lovely and there are no insects but that didn’t allay all my other fears. I would be exhausted while there and even more exhausted when I got back. My, So, how are you serving? thoughts came back. I called it my dilemma.
I decided to talk with my dear friend Claire about it. She is not only a coach and a consultant, she is also a Zen Buddhist Chaplain and an interfaith minister. And she is very wise. We had dinner in London and I told her about my dilemma and what I was thinking of to solve it.
She stopped me, “Hang on a minute,” she said. “Before you go rushing to solve this dilemma as you are calling it, let’s look at this dilemma itself.”
I took a drink of my wine and looked at her.
She continued, “What beliefs are holding up this dilemma? This idea of serving. Where does it come from?”
I thought for a moment, “Well, I guess it’s firstly from the Christian principle of helping those less fortunate than yourself.”
“What else?” Claire said.
“Well, from the esoteric principle that says ‘there is no spirituality without service’. I see myself as spiritual, so I had better be serving.”
“And you don’t think you are serving now?”
I looked at her blankly and she proceeded to list all the ways in which she knew I served.
“What about how you helped your niece and nephew when their mother died. Wasn’t that serving? What about the visits you do to people who have Alzheimer’s in the community? What about being there for Brid next door? What about responding to your daughters whenever they need something? What about the women you mentor free of charge when they ask you to? What about the support you have given to the homeless women in the halfway house in Galway? And that’s before I start with the beautiful wedding ceremonies you create and the spiritual workshops you run and the online ceremonies… should I go on?”
She looked at me hard.
“What I want to know is why you are not counting any of these as service,” she continued.
“And be careful that your desire to go rushing off to Rwanda in a grand gesture isn’t driven by your ego. You don’t need to serve with a flourish in an extravagant act. Maybe you just need to continue to do what you are doing and serving those who cross your path.”
Oh my God, she was right!
My good friend Brid had already said to me wryly when I mentioned about going to Rwanda, “You don’t need to go all the way to Rwanda. There are plenty of people you can help in Ireland.”
Thank the Lord for good friends who will tell you the truth. I was relieved that I could release the idea of going to Rwanda. I just needed to say yes when things crossed my path.
Then COVID-19 arrived and the lockdown came everywhere. Everyone started living a quiet life! Everyone’s identities were dropped and changed and re-evaluated.
Now, I am reading and reflecting and writing and the identity I show to the world is that of being a minister – it’s enough.
Photo
My black chair and red wrap where I give myself permission to sit and just be.
Questions For Reflection
Which identities/roles have you dropped in the course of your life? Do you miss any of them? Why or why not? What is your primary identity now – how do you describe yourself if people ask who you are and what you do?
A Blessing While You Reflect
“May we have the courage to take the step
Into the unknown that beckons us;
Trust that a richer life awaits us there,
That we will lose nothing
But what has already died;
Feel the deeper knowing in us sure
Of all that is about to be born beyond
The pale frames where we stayed confined,
Not realising how such vacant endurance
Was bleaching our soul’s desire”
From John O’Donohue: Benedictus
