What Stays When the Roles Change

From Shared Moments with Michelle · 7:08

Show by Michelle L. Potter

Welcome back. This is Day 3 of our ten days on purpose and meaning. If you’re just joining us, you can start with Day 1, The Frustration That Keeps Returning. If you listened to the audio, thank you. This post is the written side of the conversation.Yesterday, we looked at the roles we learned to play and how easily they become part of who we believe we have to be. Today I want to talk about what’s left when a role loosens its grip, and what stays the same even as our lives change.When a role loosens its gripWhen we begin to see a role clearly, a quiet worry often shows up behind it. If I’m not the strong one, or the dependable one, or the one with the answers, then who am I? It’s a fair thing to wonder. Sometimes it helps to look at what has been consistent all along, underneath every role we’ve ever had.A dream I wrote aboutI want to tell you about something I wrote in Awakening: Truth Be Told, because it speaks to this. In the book, I described a dream. In it, I saw a woman in complete surrender with the most beautiful white wings. I asked who she was, and the answer I was given was, that is you.I wrote that I was being shown who I had always been beneath fear, illness, and survival. She was me, and not the me who had learned to survive by shrinking and shape-shifting for everyone else. I wrote that what I was witnessing was not a character or an archetype, but my own essence, uncovered.What I noticed about her was not what she did. She had a warm, comforting presence that made other people feel at ease. She was compassionate and deeply empathetic, and she understood what others were feeling without a word being spoken.I also wrote that the dream became a metaphor for the abilities and passions inside me that I had buried beneath guilt, shame, and survival. It pulled me inward and asked me to pay attention to what felt true, not just what looked acceptable.What stayed with me about that dream was the recognition of something familiar, something that had remained present through all the changes in my life. The illness, the years of rebuilding, and everything I’ve experienced have shaped who I am today. Those experiences have become part of my story, but they haven’t erased the qualities that have always been mine. I could recognize those qualities in the woman I saw.A thread through the seasonsWhen I look at my own life, I can see a thread running through the different seasons. I’ve taught, written, coached, and now I’m creating a magazine and this podcast. The forms keep changing. What I notice underneath is that I keep being drawn to people’s stories, to honest conversation, and to making room for people to be heard before anyone tries to help them.Even the name of this podcast is part of that. I came up with Shared Moments with Michelle more than five years ago, when I first thought about starting a podcast, and I’m only now bringing it into the world. The idea stayed with me while almost everything else around it changed.What staysYou may have your own version of this: something that has been true of you in every job, in every season, and in every version of your life, even when the circumstances looked completely different. It might be the way you notice the person standing alone at the edge of the room. It might be how you make a plain space feel beautiful, or how you stay steady when everything around you is loud. Those qualities rarely show up on a resume, and they’re often the last thing we think to mention about ourselves.Sometimes those qualities are easiest to recognize in the things we’ve continued doing simply because they matter to us, even when nobody was asking or expecting anything. They aren’t the role or the title. They’re quiet and a little ordinary, which is exactly why they’re easy to overlook.We keep learning, and what we’ve lived becomes part of us. When a role changes, we don’t start from nothing. Something comes with us.A question to carryI’ll leave you with one question for today.What has stayed true about you through every role you’ve had?It may take a while to put a name on it. Sometimes it shows up in the way other people describe you, or in what you find yourself doing without thinking about it.I’d love to hear in the comments what came to mind.Tomorrow, I want to explore the stories we carry about ourselves, and how something we’ve believed for years can begin to feel like the truth, even when we’ve never stopped to question where it came from.Thank you for being here.-MichelleP.S. There are seven more conversations in this series. Subscribe so you don’t miss them. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michellelpotter.substack.com/subscribe

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