How identity shifts during divorce, retirement, illness, caregiving, and loss - and practical identity work for rebuilding a self that fits your life now.
Major transitions do not only change your circumstances, they change who you understand yourself to be. Divorce, retirement, a diagnosis, caregiving, or the death of someone central to your life can remove the roles you built your sense of self around.
This piece looks at why that disorientation is normal rather than a failure to cope, and what identity work actually involves: naming what was lost, separating your values from the roles that carried them, and slowly building a self that fits the life you are in now.