The 7 Stages of Identity

Perhaps the most frustrating part of the healing journey is that you’re consistently left with yourself. Is it gratifying to realize you’ve grown? Absolutely. But is it frustrating when you see yourself through the harsh lens of awareness? Also yes.

I conceptualize the self-identity healing journey through seven stages. In the beginning you feel discontent with where you are and may be in disbelief as to how you got there. This stage is categorized by frustration, anger and overwhelm. You may be feeling confused and bothered by the current state of your life.

When we begin to be unable to tolerate the confusion, we look to move it into a more usable space. This is stage 2, the state of anger at everyone and everything. In this stage, we often take the anger about our lives and try to pin it to specific people. This stage is categorized by conflict with friends, family and partners. What makes it additionally tricky is that it can be very challenging to decipher whether the blame we place on others is in fact warranted.

The more we try to blame others, the more we become discontent. We begin to see that in fact, our original anger towards them may not be applicable and we begin to turn inwards during stage 3. This stage is particularly difficult because it’s full of self-blame. We take all of our external anger and begin to beat ourselves up about our role in the way our life turned out. We can be inclined to take this self-blame to the extreme and move into a headspace of feeling hopeless about ever moving into a state of healing.

Slowly, our self-blame begins to lessen. The initial anger and rage we felt towards ourself mellows to a simmer and we can move into stage 4 where we realize that both ourselves and others are accountable for how our lives ended up. But in this stage, we no longer hold anger towards ourselves or others. Instead we move towards tepid acceptance. It’s not exactly open-arm welcoming into who we are. It’s more a resigned sigh of recognition that this is in fact where you are at present and you can begin to see a brighter future.

When you begin to see your brighter future, you begin to have hope. That hope you gain in stage 4 is challenged in stage 5, what I term “the reckoning.” This happens to be my favorite stage because it is truly the time of the most growth. During the reckoning, you face yourself. You begin to hold awareness for the parts of yourself that you want to grow, let go of and change. This stage is difficult to navigate emotionally because there are plenty of wins where you celebrate who you’re becoming but there are also plenty of stressful moments where you experience pain about who you were. This stage often includes the process of grieving your past self and yearning to become someone new.

The reckoning can take awhile but I promise it is a worthy stage to move through because it gives you the tools for stage 6, building your inner peace. In this stage, the dust begins to settle and you see with clarity who you currently are and who you want to become. This stage often has very close knit relationships that you cherish. You may also begin to shed friends and dynamics that no longer serve you. It's a stage that is very peaceful, tranquil and comes with a quiet sense of contentment. This is the stage where you become most yourself because you’ve shed everything that you no longer need in stage 5.

Once you feel stable in stage 6 and you’ve built a foundation of peace, you navigate into stage 7 Testing the Waters. This stage is tricky. It’s where you take your new self out and test it in the world to see how you hold up around all of your original external conditions. I always found it interesting that despite how much healing you do, you still exist with your current world so stage 7 is really the testing of your own growth. You’re seeing if you can protect your peace as you begin to re-navigate daily life.

The self-identity healing journey starts and ends with you. It also starts and ends with others. So pay attention to how you interact. Your external conditions that shaped you in stage 2 lose the power to do so by stage 7. It’s a wonderfully freeing experience and I hope it’s one everyone gets to experience.