Back in June during my morning meditation a question came to me: “am I coming home to myself or am I becoming a whole new person?”
Every time someone asks me how I am lately, my answer is something along the lines of, “oh, you know, just trying to figure out how to be in the world as a whole new person. It’s exciting but also a bit awkward.” Yeah, I don’t do small talk anymore.
But at the same time, there’s been another experience alongside feeling like someone new.
It’s a deeply familiar feeling.
I think it’s my soul remembering who I was before I learned who I needed to be to survive.
I was curious how other women experienced this, so I decided to take the question off my meditation cushion and onto Substack.
I was surprised when the comments started rolling in. When I came to Substack I had no idea that I’d arrive into a room of incredible women speaking my language who could go deep into the conversations I’d been having alone in my head for years!
But here we are and I’m so grateful!
Nearly 100 of you answered.
Some of you said A, others said B, but most of you shared Shaunna Lee’s perspective: " … I actually see it as both."
Reading through your answers felt like sitting down together in a circle. So I want to share some of what you said, because I think there's medicine in it for all of us.
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Coming home
For some of you, this season feels like a homecoming.
Morgan Vicki Todd answered “A, hands down.” She believes we’re born as the person we’re meant to be and lose sight of it through conditioning. “I truly believe this is a homecoming.”
Flossie Harrington said “Definitely A,” and made me laugh when she said: “Pretending to be someone else to keep everyone happy is a full-time job, and frankly, I’ve retired.”
Becoming someone new
Others feel more like they’re becoming someone new.
Heather Tormey | Well Worth It said, “I’m feeling B. The life I’ve lived so far is shaping me into someone new.”
Al-Semira, Living Transmission chose B too. “Traumatized me never knew joy or peace or boundaries. Likes dislikes. And now that I’m that new person it’s fun finding out these things.”
Ami L Thompson said, “Guess I’m going against the grain as I say b. I feel like I’m evolving and changing. I don’t feel like I did even a day ago. Every day is an adventure.”
A combination of both
What I didn’t expect when I asked this question was how many of you would say, “both”.
Diary of a Lunatic said it simply: “For me it is not either/or, it is both/and.”
Meredith Obst answered mostly A, but also B. “I have changed a lot. I think about life completely differently. I’m making choices from a new place. And at the same time, I’m also coming back to myself.”
My Own Miracle called it “very much a bit of column a, column b.” She is “returning to parts I buried to survive, and simultaneously shedding the skin I had to form. I’m a phoenix, reborn from the ashes. Somehow still me, but completely new.”
Ally replied, "I feel more 'me' than ever. More settled. It feels right. But also like I've never been this version of myself before and only got here because of all the versions of me leading up to this point."
Karina Winen’s answer felt like it came straight out of my own journal: "I'm working out who I really, authentically am (before I became a 'good girl') but I'm also becoming a version of me who has learnt from all the trials and tribulations of life."
Here. Now. Me. has a name for it. “For me, it’s both. Reclaiming my epicness is how I refer to it. Rediscovering who I was, combined with keeping the parts I like and earned since, and exploring what is yet to come.”
Ania ❤️🔥 shared, “I feel as though it is absolutely a remembering, but simultaneously becoming something new, because this version of me that truly gets to live life this freely didn’t ever exist in this lifetime, and not in any previous ones.”
The Missing Peace with Meghan answered “a bit of both and also neither,” and I love the way she described it as a tree growing new limbs over time. “Some of those growth periods are messy, and limbs may even get lost, but the roots are always deepening and the trunk holds the core essence through the entire lifespan.”
For Stefania Dragojlovic, it feels like, "coming home to myself, but the 'myself' that I am at this moment. This includes some parts ignored in the past in favor of who I thought I had to be, and also discovering new and exciting parts that have been rooting over time."
And then there’s Claire Kinton | Ink & Ivy’s answer that I’ve been thinking about ever since:
“A little of both. ❤️ The older I get, the more I feel as though I am uncovering parts of myself that were buried beneath expectation, conditioning and responsibility. Yet I am also being changed by grief, love, loss, motherhood, friendship and all the lessons that come with living.
Perhaps midlife is less about becoming someone new and more about becoming someone true.“
Holding the whole spectrum
When this question first came to me on my cushion, I felt like I was experiencing both/and, but I was having trouble making sense of how that could be.
How could I feel like a new person and also feel like I’m coming home to the true me who was there all along?
It didn’t seem to make sense. But one of the biggest gifts of waking up in my 40s has been a growing capacity to hold more than one thing at once.
Then your answers started rolling in, and I saw that same capacity reflected back to me. So many of you are holding both too, remembering who you’ve always been while becoming someone you’ve never been before.
And I love that so much about you … about us. I love that we can be mirrors for each other by reflecting back our experiences and thoughts and reminding each other that we’re in this together.
That includes every one of you who answered A or B. Your answers mirrored parts of my experience too, the moments that feel like pure homecoming and the moments that feel brand new. Your experience is yours, and it belongs here exactly as it is.
I’m so grateful that we get to be in this space together, pondering our experiences on this wild midlife ride.
Love, Jessie May
Invitation to share
Where are you in your own midlife awakening right now?
Coming home, becoming someone new or somewhere in between? Whatever your answer is, there's room for it here.
Hey , I’m Jessie May!
At 39, perimenopause turned my life upside down and eventually became an awakening I never saw coming. Now I guide women through the whole arc of this initiation, from sitting in the void of not knowing what’s next, to finding our voices as we emerge into who we’re becoming.
I love creating spaces where we can talk about what this time feels like with people who understand. Thanks for being here, I can’t wait to get to know you!
Ways I can help
✨ Substack Coaching - For women who want to turn the experiences they’ve lived through into a meaningful Substack publication that helps others feel less alone.
✨ Perimenopause Initiation Coaching - For women waking up to themselves through the initiation of perimenopause.
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