Healing the Matriarch

So much of our personal identity rests on the question – Who am I? We begin exploring that question early in life. A baby explores their surroundings from infancy and uses the information gathered from their own enquiry and interactions with others to form a sense of themselves.

It’s fascinating to watch an infant’s interaction with their self-image in a mirror. Often they are quizzically checking a few times. Turning the mirror or walking behind it to see who is there. Making gestures or facial expressions that they notice are reflected back to them from this magical picture. Usually there is a moment of delighted recognition when they realize they are seeing themselves as a reflection. ‘This is me; I exist, these are features of who I am’ dawns on them. They become aware of a sense of themselves as separate to others. This is an important milestone in developing their independence and social awareness that they are part of a world that does not solely revolve around them. A sense that others can be in the mirror too, and they are also real people separate to me.

Photo by Shot By Ireland on Unsplash

As we develop from infancy to adulthood our self-image is refined by our environment. This includes our interactions with others and the experiences we have. It’s like an ever widening sphere of influence that works both ways. We interact and influence the world around us and in turn our world impacts our beliefs about who we are. Technology and social media have played a big role in widening the sphere of influence on us in the 21^st century.

Changes and disorder events in our lives are common. These transitional times of order, disorder then reordering to something new; often impact our sense of self. We build a strong sense of identity during teenage and young adulthood, creating our own unique style while also being influenced by our peers. This is then met at adulthood by the challenges of fitting into a work team of different personalities, negotiating intimate relationships and friendships and losing our strong hold on our identity in parenting. Fast forward to middle age and we begin to unravel the mastery we have in our careers as we leave our professions behind and detach from active parenting as our children empty nest. Our identity goes through further evolution.

Each of these changes can challenge our core sense of who we are. We’ve invested years, or even decades, in a particular way of viewing ourselves and that belief is then questioned big time. The outer work of building a career, possibly family, and place in the world starts to be replaced with a more inner journey of self-recognition.

Brad Stulberg in his book Master of Change likens this ego shift as one that moves from craving so much external validation from the world – through our work, family responsibilities and roles, to prioritizing internal meaning and fulfillment. Loevinger’s stages of ego development leaves some of the richest life lessons we experience until our later years – developing a deep empathy, self-acceptance and cherishing of the person we are. Not so much the one we’ve previously cultivated and projected into the world.

Which of these mindsets around self are you struggling with at present?

• Who am I if I begin to live in an intimate relationship with someone else – learning to navigate each other’s needs and priorities, sharing resources and spaces. Not always thinking of ourselves first. Also considering the other person. Knowing ourselves well enough to advocate for our needs and create healthy boundaries.
• Who am I if I become a mother or father – a shift that definitely changes our identity and life priorities. An emotional, lifelong and continually evolving journey. Beginning with the ultimate responsibility for a child who relies totally on us and to one who is greatly influenced by us during their development to adulthood.
• Who am I if I am no longer a son/daughter/wife/husband – produces a sense of loss of a part of us whether that person is still living or we are experiencing the grief of their loss in death.
• Who am I if I no longer work in my career – often bringing with it a mixed bag of both relief and emptiness of purpose. Our profession comes with a complex sense of identity and skillset so when we leave a job or career we leave that identity and the attached knowledge and relationships behind. This can leave a noticeable void in our lives.
• Who am I if I am no longer actively parenting – parenting is such an emotional and physical investment of our time and energy. As this phase of life draws to a close it’s difficult to unravel our energies from that of our children as they seek independence.
• Who am I if I am no longer young, energetic and beautiful – we can stumble at identifying with aging as it inevitably occurs. Dealing with limitations, physical changes and our sense of desirability to others. Coping and ultimately accepting physical decline and immortality.

Perhaps rather than limiting our enquiry to concerns about losing our identity, we can ask a more positive question. Who can I be if I am no longer …. Single, childless, a particular family role, working, an active parent or in the prime of my youth? With a more fluid sense of self we can be more complex in our viewpoint and response to these questions.

As a result, when changes happen in our lives we feel less threatened. One part of who we are may be loosening from our identity, yet there is opportunity to embrace or expand into something new. The core parts of ourselves remain central to who we are, yet we can use them as springboards for our next life chapter.

Even when we can no longer contribute to the wider world, we can continue to brighten other’s days. Several years ago I volunteered to visit an elderly woman in a high dependency aged care facility. Even though she had become bedridden due to aging and injury she continued to offer time and conversation to those who visited her room. She dispersed pearls of wisdom and encouragement. She displayed patience and gratitude. She shared stories and memories from her life.

Outwardly her identity seemed to have shrunk, yet she made valuable contributions to others. I saw her adjust over time to her frailty. It wasn’t easy for her to accept. Yet she continually reframed her sense of self until her final days. She was a wonderful inspiration and teacher on living life among her changing circumstances.

Life is a journey from infancy to hopefully living to old age. During that time our sense of self constantly shifts. We take on new identities and loosen our hold on others. With a complex and fluid sense of who we are it is possible to navigate life’s changes with courage rather than trepidation. Asking ourselves who we can be in our next transformation rather than limiting ourselves to mourning our past selves.

January is one of those natural new beginnings. The start of a calendar year and a time to focus on priorities for the coming months. For me, it has been about getting my regular health checks. Thankfully visiting the doctor is a fairly rare occurrence, yet I am moving into an age bracket where more health issues are monitored. As I chatted with my doctor a quick consultation became more lengthy as she ordered routine tests and organised a few referrals. On my return visit, most of the checks proved normal with a few exceptions – a slightly high blood pressure and cholesterol level. The process of tests felt like a full systems check-up for my body.

I am one for taking the preventative life style route so when my doctor had a slightly shocked reaction to my blood pressure levels I knew that my inner motivation to make better choices for my well-being kicked in immediately. The last thing I wanted was to be on an ongoing medication, so making lifestyle changes became important to me. I’d also put on extra weight over the last year. Some slowly creeping on relatively unnoticed, except for the tightness of some of my clothes, and then boosted by a lovely, but indulgent Christmas period.  As a result, exercise felt more difficult and the warm, humid heat of our Australian summer left me drained of energy. I knew this year’s personal focus would turn to my physical health and well-being.

Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash

It is rare for us to be ‘humming along’ in life without eventually facing something that requires us to adjust to a new situation. Research has shown that this happens frequently for us. Changes such as moving from childhood to adulthood, then later adulthood are gradual and may take us by surprise as we suddenly realize we are into a new decade or life stage. As individuals we are on our own trajectory of life changes yet when there are large societal shifts we are impacted as individuals. The Covid pandemic is a prime example of a societal change we have collectively experienced.

Significant life changes include finishing school, starting or leaving a job or study, getting married, getting divorced, having children, losing a loved one, becoming ill, moving to a new home or city, becoming an empty nester, retirement and the list goes on. These changes require readjustment of our lives. Think about your own adult life since leaving school. If you are curious, how many life changes have you gone through. Write some of them down as a list and add to it as you remember more.

‘On average, people experience 36 disorder events in the course of their adulthood – or about one every eighteen months.’

Brad Stulberg – Master of Change

When I wrote my personal list of changes since adulthood I found I had gone passed the average already. I attribute that to a particular period of time in early adulthood when I left home to study at university and lost my mother to Cancer in my final year of my teaching degree. I also had met my life partner and was married eighteen months later. The twenty three year old bride was definitely a different person to the eighteen year old who left her family home.

The second ‘clump’ of significant change for me has occurred during my fifties and into my sixties. The year I turned the age my mother lived to was surreal. I constantly felt the impact of inhabiting the body age of the year of her death. She was too young to go. Yet the silver lining of this experience was the immense appreciation of outliving her lifespan and having the opportunity to experience all those things she didn’t – attending our children’s weddings and greeting the arrival of each of our grandchildren. It also gave me a sense of the privilege it is to be gifted the opportunity to retire, travel and also age into later life.

The years since I have turned sixty have been more of a major evolution in my personal identity. I moved back to my original hometown from late 2018 until early 2021 to spend more time building my personal and financial independence and sense of separate identity. Something that is difficult to do in earlier years as a wife and mother. It was a hard decision at the time but one that with hindsight was the best for me at the time.

Ironically as I lived closer to our children and grandchildren I was able to put my grandparent and teaching skills to work supporting each family during Covid lockdowns. Passionate about psychology, I delved deeper into online learning about motivation, emotional development and navigating change. It led to writing, first in journals, and then the evolution of this blog Healing the Matriarch.

During that time I travelled to India with a beautiful group of women. Previously I had only travelled with family or my husband, so this was definitely outside my comfort zone. I remember having a private and rather teary chat with our tour leader and yoga teacher toward the end of our trip. I shared with her that I had never felt so grounded in who I was and I thanked her for the experience. I knew I was returning home a more confident and authentic version of myself. My personal growth continued beyond this trip but I knew this was a significant moment of acknowledgement.

Brad Stulberg in his book Master of Change talks about the change process being one of order, disorder and then gradual reorder. The change happens both within us and around us in our life. As we begin the reorder process we are not the same person as when a significant change happens. We are gradually creating something new. A new beginning. As we change so does life around us. Our relationships with others, our priorities and identities adjust to a new normal.

My visit to the doctor was a prompt for change. A reminder for me that I needed to switch priorities. For the last five to ten years I had focused on mental and emotional health. Healing from the leftovers of previous change and stepping more confidently into my matriarchy identity. I see evidence of that in the changes I see in myself and my life. Now it’s time to focus on keeping fit and healthy as I age. There is so much more to do and the years of most personal power and choice, wisdom, self-acceptance and legacy are yet to come.