You're Not Having an Identity Crisis… You're Having an Honesty Breakthrough

**Matthew Gottesman** (0:02)
Welcome to The Niche Is You. My name is Matt Gottesman, at Matt Gottesman on Instagram, and this is my daily podcast, where I create short, quick hitting episodes to help you uncomplicate life, creativity, and the pursuit of your highest self. There's only main character energy here. Now let's get into it.
Welcome to episode 822, You're Not Having An Identity Crisis. Maybe you're having an honesty breakthrough. You're not having an identity crisis. Maybe you're having an identity breakthrough. Yes, sometimes what feels like falling apart is really just you getting very, very real about what you really want, who you really are, what isn't working anymore. And I once heard somebody say, it's not a midlife crisis, it's a midlife pivot. Or it's not a quarter life crisis, it's a quarter life pivot. Listen, life is a pivot. Life is constantly evolving. And it's very natural that we attach our identity to the job that we do, or a season of our life, or the relationships, or sometimes the external world, which is what often happens, right? But who we really are, who we really are at a core is what we arrive at through deep, deep honesty. We're always evolving. So we're always in change, and we're always managing uncertainty, and we're always, you know, faith walk, and we're always moving forward. And I find that it's not so much an identity crisis. It's a honesty breakthrough. You are just simply reaching a new season and saying, hey, you know what?
Maybe this isn't for me. And that's okay. And I think we're witnessing now more than we've ever seen before. A lot, a lot of people just saying, you know what? Everything I've been told, not going to work for me anymore. I got to figure that out on my own. You know what? Everything that we've been sold as, you know, this is what's really going on and this is how the world works. You know what? I think I want to do it differently. You know what? I think my nervous system has had enough. I think we're finally at a point where people are taking their autonomy back and saying, I got to figure this out. I don't know necessarily where it's going to go. And you know what? I'm okay with that because of how I was previously feeling with my nervous system. That's just not going to work for me. I'm here for it because I have always wanted that for people to just step into what they're for and what they're here to do more so than, you know, what we've been told since we were kids, right? And the best part is you're watching all ages go through this.
It's just that time, right? So in this episode, I want to talk about why, what we call an identity crisis is almost always something else entirely. How honesty feels like collapse when you've spent years performing. Listen, listen, it's hard. It can be hard because maybe you've been operating for a very long time in a different direction, and now you're just trying to be honest. And when you're honest, it feels like a collapse, but it's also because it's a complete rearrangement of all the things that you've been holding together. That could be environments, people, jobs, roles, tasks, like a life that you had formed in a completely different path that never really was an alignment. And now suddenly you want to go do the aligned thing. Well, clearance, clearing things, clearing out is a big part of that process. I also want to talk about the difference between losing yourself and losing the version of you that was never really you. You're not losing yourself. You are gaining your soul's path. You're gaining your evolution. You're not losing yourself. You are losing a version of you that maybe you were just trying to hold together for a long time that either you've outgrown or was never really you. I also want to talk about why God uses these moments to reorient your entire life. Yeah, that's always fun, right? It is and it isn't. I mean, sometimes it isn't, but it also is because you feel like you're in a whole new discovery mode where anything is possible and like it's like you woke up out of a haze. And I want to talk about what to do when honesty starts arriving in waves that you can't ask for.
Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's like, why is this all happening at once? Like, well, you prayed the prayer or, oh, well, you know, this is the direction that you now are realizing that is more important to your soul. And guess what comes with that, right? The truth. And then finally, I want to talk about what becomes possible on the other side of the breakthrough you've been resisting. So let's jump into it. Maybe you think you're having an identity crisis. I like to propose the fact that maybe you're not. You are just having honesty coming through and maybe a lot of it. Right? And an identity crisis and an honesty breakthrough may feel very identical. And from the inside, they may feel very identical. But they're very different. So basically, here's what I wrote. A crisis says something is wrong, right? Something is wrong. There's nothing wrong with you. You are evolving. A breakthrough says something is finally right and shifting.