Not long ago, I watched a coaching interview where the coach asked a woman a question that left her visibly uncomfortable.He said, “Who are you?”
Without hesitation, she answered:
“I’m a mom. A wife. A daughter. A nurse. I’m Anna. I’m 46 years old.”
The coach gently interrupted her and said:
“No, those are just labels. That’s not who you really are. Who are you behind all of that?”
The woman fell silent. Her face turned red. She looked lost and embarrassed.
And I felt that moment deep in my body.
Because I’ve been that woman. Because I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a cook. I’ve carried those labels proudly. I’ve worked hard for them. I’ve loved inside them.
So when someone says, “That’s not who you are,” part of me wants to whisper:
“Then who was I all this time?”
There’s a growing trend in the self-development and spiritual world that urges us to go beyond labels, to strip away the roles, and discover our true identity.
And while I understand the intention behind it, I also think it brings confusion about what “true identity” really means.
I’ve studied it. I’ve explored it. I believe in the deeper self, the one untouched by trauma, age, or story.
But here’s what I’ve come to realize: we don’t discover who we are by abandoning who we’ve been. We discover it by expanding beyond it.
Sometimes, asking someone to drop all their labels, especially when those labels are deeply tied to love and service, doesn’t lead to liberation.
It leads to disorientation. It can even feel like erasure. Like saying, “Being a mother, wife, or nurse isn’t real or important. The real you is something else.”
That might be true in the realm of pure consciousness, yes. But here on Earth, where we tuck in children, care for aging parents, make dinner, build businesses, and cry with our sisters, our labels hold meaning. Our identities are not cages. They are expressions. They are holy too.
Even Jesus chose to walk the Earth in human identity, known as the son of Mary and Joseph, to show us that the divine can live within the ordinary. He didn’t deny his humanity; he entered it fully to reveal that love can transform even the simplest life into something holy. He didn’t say, “I’m just pure light.” He said, “I’m the son of man.” He entered identity so he could transcend it with love, not shame.
And so I believe:
You can be a mother and a mystery.
You can be a wife and a wild soul.
You can be a nurse and a vessel of divine love.
You can be a wife and a wild soul.
You can be a nurse and a vessel of divine love.
Your roles are not the limit of who you are, but they are not lies either. They’re just not the whole story.
So how do we remember who we are? Not by rejecting our human names, ages, and roles, but by getting quiet enough to feel what’s still present when we’re not performing any of them.
By asking: who am I when no one needs me to be anything?
Who am I when I’m not giving, fixing, explaining, or achieving?
Maybe we don’t answer that question with words right away.
Maybe we feel into it slowly, softly.
Like this:
I am stillness.
I am awareness.
I am the one who sees.
I am breath, presence, light.
I am the love that lives beneath every label.
I am stillness.
I am awareness.
I am the one who sees.
I am breath, presence, light.
I am the love that lives beneath every label.
But those aren’t new spiritual labels to replace the old ones. They are reminders of what’s always been here. Even when we forgot. Even when we were busy being everything for everyone else.
So maybe the question isn’t just, “Who are you?”
Maybe it’s, “Who are you becoming now that you know you’re more than just your roles?”
Who are you when the doing stops and your being begins? What part of you stays the same in every season, in every label, in every silence?
Let that question be an invitation, not an interrogation.
Let it honor all you’ve carried before asking you to lay anything down.
Let it be a doorway, not a demand.
Because the woman who says, “I am a mom, a wife, a healer,” is not wrong.
She’s just remembering that she is also the space behind those words, the light beneath the names, the soul behind the smile.
You don’t have to lose who you’ve been to remember who you are.
Your labels are not cages; they are expressions of the love you came here to live.
Your labels are not cages; they are expressions of the love you came here to live.
Xoxo 
Urszula
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