Holding on to bland and blah?

fade or flourish

“I’m ok, yup fine - all good thanks”

This auto response reflects the settled ‘blahness’ I can feel when I’ve trundled along, not upsetting the apple cart of day to day life on a long term basis. It’s a slow signal to me that I might be checking out, going through the motions and not checking in with myself. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t expect constant endless thrills and dizzy heights of highs, but there is a particular kind of settled suffering that doesn't come from what happened to you - it comes from who you think you're supposed to be and you forgot it in the humdrum of just getting on.

So many of us are walking around blindly, loyal to a version of ourselves that may no longer exists and forgetting who we are becoming. It’s so easy to carry old identities like obligations or badges, as though changing our minds is the same as breaking a promise and so we cling to outdated beliefs about who we are, what we want, and what we deserve, not because they still fit, but because letting go of them feels like a kind of death. The shedding of old skin seems too much to bear. And in a way, it is. But it is also the only doorway to what comes next.

The identity trap

We build our sense of self over years, often on shaky external things that have no underpinning on the internal knowing of who we are and so this gives us a temporary structure - something to hold onto. But sometimes we forget to check in on it, and we're on autopilot, too scared to take it into manual and change direction.

We're not static beings. Nor are we finished projects. The person I was ten years ago had different needs, different wounds, and different dreams than the person I am now. That’s not failure. It's simply being alive.

The problem arises when we refuse to update the belief and instead keep forcing ourselves into a shape we have outgrown because the alternative feels too uncertain, too disloyal, or too frightening. We end up living in a museum of our own making, preserving a self that no longer needs preserving.

Vitality is not betrayal

One of the most common things I see in my work with people navigating their next phase in life is this quiet, almost imperceptible guilt that surfaces when something good happens. Instead of letting the new energy land, there is this reflexive pulling back. As though joy somehow invalidates the journey or even the person that came before it. It doesn't.

Your ambition, your drive, and your longing are not an insult to your history. Feeling good now does not mean the hard years were wasted or that the effort was not real. It means you survived it. It means something in you kept moving forward even when you did not have a plan for what came next.

Letting some of the old self go is staying true to who you are

It’s really not about erasing your past or pretending it didn't shape you. It absolutely did. But there is a difference between honouring where you have been and holding yourself hostage to it. One is wisdom. The other is a cage.

Dreams shift and truths evolve. The things you once wanted with absolute certainty may no longer be the things that make your heartbeat faster. That’s OK. You’re allowed to change your mind, and you are allowed to want different things. You are allowed to feel joy without needing to justify it.

The invitation is simple - even if it doesn't feel easy - Stop living for the person you used to be and start showing up for the one you are now. Not the idealised future version. Not the nostalgic past version. The one sitting here, reading this, wondering if it is okay to finally let go.

It is.