You’ve healed. You’ve survived. You’ve released the demons (well, some of them) and done the work. Your life is finally peaceful. So why does it feel like something died?
Let me invite you into my 3am musings, but first let me share how this arose.
I was watching something on Netflix about ice skating, the TV said it would switch off in 60 seconds I let it. Grabbing my art journal, I scribble the question If I knew the answer, what would I know?. Then proceeded to scribble in a neurographic style and coloured it in – not perfectly but mindfully. When I went to bed, I wrote the question in my journal and went to sleep.
3am arrived, and so did the call of the bladder – the eternal curse, it seems, of the older woman. While there, what came to me was – You need to grieve who you were.
And you’ve guessed it – no sleep, but rather a deep journaling session, which was super revealing.
It wasn’t about trauma, pain, toxic relationships, the fractured spine or the years of proving myself that came up. Yes, I needed to grieve that, and writing my book Words From The Wild helped me to get that out, and I realised why I couldn’t market it – I needed to grieve the woman who wrote it.
She was the woman who rode her Ducati, even when terrified. The one with fire in her belly and purpose in her bones. The one who knew what she wanted, even if she rarely felt good enough to claim it.
This isn’t about wanting the chaos back. It’s about missing the woman who thrived in it – and not knowing who I am without the fight.
Sound like you? If yes, you are not alone.
The Inconvenient Truth About Healing
I’m realising that what nobody tells you about transformation is that when the survival motor stops, the silence sounds suspiciously like an ending.
Like me, you will have spent years navigating crises. Healing trauma. Proving things. Building things. Becoming things. Your identity was forged in the fire of overcoming.
And now? The fire’s out. The peace you worked so hard for feels like… nothing. Like the pilot light went out and you’re standing in a cold, quiet house, wondering where everyone went. Where you went.
The qualities I once had – spontaneity, intensity, that wild “fuck it, let’s drive two hours to meet a man in a reformed chapel with a dog named Hector” energy – feel like they belonged to someone else. Someone who could dance without her spine screaming. Someone who had art classes and pottery wheels and projects that made her eyes light up.
I miss this wild child. I wonder who you miss?
Three signs you’re grieving who you were:
This is based on my musings.
- You feel purposeless, but not lost – like you’re waiting in an empty room, but you’re not sure what you’re waiting for.
- You miss qualities about yourself that seem tied to the trauma – the fire, the fight, the ability to pivot on a sixpence when crisis demanded it.
- Peace feels suspiciously like giving up – you’ve protected yourself by sinking into stillness, but part of you tells you: There’s more. Don’t stop now.
The Alchemical Truth: You’re Not Dead, You’re Decomposing
In alchemy, there’s a stage called nigredo – the blackening. It’s the decomposition, the shedding of the old self. The breaking down of what was so, something new can emerge. Ok, so I get decomposing sounds yukky, but stick with me – there’s no rotting flesh in this story.
You’re sitting in the remains right now. The woman you were wasn’t “wrong.” She was magnificent. Using me as an example again. She drove two hours for spontaneous dinners in converted chapels. She cocked up paintings when the subject bored her and laughed about it. She rode a Ducati even when fear reared up. She did an MBA when people (her husband) told her she was stupid.
That woman (me and you) didn’t die. Her fuel source changed.
When you’re no longer running on trauma, survival, and the need to prove things, the old motor simply stops. What you’re grieving isn’t her – it’s the circumstances that gave her purpose.
Your wild heart is still there. It just doesn’t need to be a flamethrower anymore.
This realisation for me has been incredibly powerful.
What You Miss Reveals What You’re Becoming
I invite you to try something. Take a piece of paper – hell, do a neurographic scribble (here’s mine – not beautiful – I did tell you) if that’s your language – and finish this sentence:
“I miss the person who…”
Write everything. The spontaneous road trips. The yoga body. The woman who defended others, experimented, felt alive in her bones. The one who jumped in the car for blind dates and laughed when art class went sideways. The one who and name your fun…
Now look at what you’ve written.
These are invitations.
The qualities you miss are still here – they’re just untethered from trauma.
- The spontaneity that got you through crises? It becomes a creative whim – the ability to follow joy without needing a reason.
- The intensity that pushed through exhaustion? It becomes depth – the capacity to sit with profound conversations or lose yourself in creating something.
- The fire that defended and protected? It becomes discernment –a quiet, effortless knowing of what belongs in your space.
You don’t need to get back to who you were, and why would you? I got myself into some messes, I can tell you, and now I can laugh because I did love being the wild child, but I don’t want to be that in the way I was. You need to reclaim her essence without the weight of what she was carrying.
The Woman on the Roof: Your Wild Heart’s Next Chapter
If you’re around 30-50 or beyond, you’re likely in what Human Design calls the “on the roof” phase – this refers to the second phase of life (roughly ages 30–50. This phase is the preparation for the “Role Model” stage (around age 50), where you step off the roof to live as your embodied, wise self. At 65, it seems I am ready to be a role model – possibly, maybe.
BTW, I am a 3/6 emotional projector – this will make sense to similar people.
So the lack of direction isn’t a failure – you didn’t fail your Earthly assignment. It’s the necessary pause before the next becoming – no matter how old you are.
If you’ve spent years being driven by survival. Now you have space to ask: What do I want to explore just because it’s delicious? What lights me up for no practical reason at all?
Back to me again.
The art class where I cocked up paintings? That wasn’t about the painting. It was about my refusal to be contained by someone else’s expectations. That’s still available to me.
The pottery, the life drawing, the spontaneous adventures? My spine might set new boundaries, but my spirit doesn’t need permission to be irreverent.
Whatever your things were and are, your wildness has changed frequency, not disappeared.
It’s no longer a searchlight cutting through darkness. It’s ambient light – softer, steadier, showing you only the room you’re standing in right now. And maybe that’s exactly what you need to see. Yeah, even if it feels like crap.
The Body Keeps The Score
Somewhere in your body, you will be feeling this. It may not be obvious. To me, it wasn’t initially. For a few weeks, the balls of my feet have been hurting. I put this down to a new pair of walking shoes that have harder soles. But one evening, while massaging them, it struck me – doh!
I looked up the foot in reflexology, and there it was as plain as plain could be – the lungs. What I hear you cry, does this mean? Well, in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), lungs equal grief and sadness. The lung energy is responsible for releasing what no longer serves us. Oh, goody, my feet have been speaking to me quite loudly, and it’s taken me some time to realise. Now I have to admit I feel like a plonker. Having said that, I shall continue with my daily foot massages and be kind to myself.
Wild Heart Reflection
Sit with these questions. Don’t rush to answer them. Let them simmer.
When you think about the qualities you miss, which one feels most alive – even in whisper form?
Is it the spontaneity? The creative mess-making? The fierce protectiveness? The ability to laugh at your own beautiful disasters?
How might that quality express itself now – not as survival, but as delight?
What if you went to that art class with the deliberate intention of “cocking it up” if it bores you? What if you found a pottery wheel and let yourself make glorious, lopsided failures? What if you curated “unlikely explorations” – strange museums, odd workshops, local eccentrics who might be the next friend you didn’t know you needed?
The woman you were didn’t die. She’s on the roof, observing and waiting for you to remember that she doesn’t need the chaos to be wild.
The 3am Invitation: Next time you are awake in the quiet hours, don’t ask “What should I do with my life?” Instead, ask your 3am self: “What is the smallest, most irreverent thing I could do tomorrow that would make me feel like I’ve reclaimed a piece of my fire?”
Your Wild Heart Knows This
Grieving who you were is sacred work. It’s not about dragging her back – it’s about thanking her for getting you here, then turning to face what’s next. You don’t need to have a purpose or direction right now. You need to trust that this quiet, peaceful space is preparation, not some weird form of punishment – even if it feels like it.
The light hasn’t gone out. The glare from your uncontrolled wildness has softened (ah, that’s quite lovely). And in that softer light, you might finally see what your wild heart has been saying all along:
You’re not ending or turning into a decomposing mess. You’re becoming.
The qualities you miss? They’re raw materials that have finally been purified. The fire, the spontaneity, the uncontainability (I’m not sure that’s a word, but it is now) – they’re all still yours. They’re just waiting for you to use them for joy instead of survival.
So grieve her. Write about her. Thank her for the roads she drove, the classes she took, the boundaries she set, the dancing and the falling and the getting back up.
Then ask her: What do we want to explore now, just because it sounds delicious?
Your wild heart doesn’t need permission. It needs you to listen. And that listening? It starts with the grieving.
If this resonates, you’re not alone. I’m Dale, and I work with women who are grieving who they were while discovering who they’re becoming. If you’d like to explore your own self-betrayal patterns and reclaim your wild heart, take the Self-Betrayal Archetype Quiz or join me in The Alchemy Of Becoming, where we navigate the messy middle together.
FAQ: Grieving Who You Were in Midlife
Q: Is it normal to grieve the person you were, even if your life is better now?
A: Absolutely. Grief isn’t always about loss of something good – it’s about honouring what was. The woman you were carried you through impossible things. She deserves to be acknowledged, even if her fuel source (trauma, survival, physical pain, proving) no longer serves you. This is transformation, and transformation always involves letting go.
Q: How do I know the difference between grieving who I was and being stuck in the past?
A: Grieving honours the past while remaining curious about the future. Being stuck denies the present. If you can say, “I miss that spontaneous woman, AND I’m curious what spontaneity looks like now with my current boundaries,” you’re grieving healthily. If you’re saying, “I’ll never be that woman again, so what’s the point,” you’re stuck – and that’s where deeper work begins.
Q: What if I feel like I’ve lost my purpose along with my old self?
A: You haven’t lost purpose – you’ve lost the fuel that powered your old purpose. When you’re no longer running on survival, the silence can feel like emptiness. But this is the space where your true “Heart Project” emerges – the thing you do because it delights you, not because it proves anything. Your next purpose is forming in the quiet.
Q: I’m in my 50s (or 60s)and feel like I’m starting over. Is it too late?
A: You’re not starting over – you’re starting new. You have decades of wisdom, healed trauma, and purified qualities that no longer need to be weaponised for survival. This is your observations phase – where you observe, integrate, and become the role model. The richest, most embodied work of your life is often created in this phase. You’re not too late. You’re right on time.
A Write From The Wild – Grieving Who You Were – writing process is available to members of The Alchemy Of Becoming Community.
