There are moments in life that split everything into before and after.
For me, one of those moments was watching my brother get struck by a car. I can still hear the sound of screeching tires, the unbearable silence that followed, and the way my own body felt frozen between wanting to help and knowing nothing would ever be the same.
Another came years later, when I lost my wife to cancer. For months after she passed, I would wake up expecting to hear her laugh or smell her coffee brewing. Instead, I was left with a quiet house, a quiet heart, and a question I didn’t know how to answer:
Who am I now?
🌱 When the Roles Fall Away
Grief has a way of stripping us bare. When I was a husband, I knew my role. I knew my place. But when those roles were torn from me, I didn’t know who I was beneath them.
That’s when I began to realize something profound: identity isn’t the roles we play. They matter, yes, but they change. Jobs end. Relationships shift. People we love leave this world.
What remains—the part of us that doesn’t shatter, even when everything else does—is our core. Our deepest values. Our inner strengths. The essence of who we are, no matter the season.
🌸 Planting a New Garden
The Identity Flower framework was born out of this search. I needed a way to see myself again—beyond grief, beyond roles, beyond the chaos of change.
I began to picture myself as a flower:
- At the center, my core—unchanging values like compassion, curiosity, and integrity.
- In the petals, my strengths—creativity, resilience, humor.
- Around me, the garden—situations, relationships, and environments that shift with time.
When I mapped it out, I saw something I had missed for years: even though my garden was in ruins, my flower still had roots.
🌿 Crossing the Threshold
In the Identity Flower Workshop, we invite participants into a symbolic ritual: to release something they no longer want to carry, and embrace a core strength they want to live more fully.
When I first did this myself, I wrote:
- “I release the role of being defined only by loss.”
- “I embrace the value of love—not as grief, but as a force that continues in me.”
It didn’t erase the pain. But it gave me a path forward. It gave me a way to become myself again—not the person I was before, but someone new, rooted in the same core.
🌼 Why I Share This
I don’t share these stories because they’re easy to tell. I share them because they’re true. And because I know I’m not alone.
Loss comes in many forms—death, divorce, career shifts, identity changes. But in every loss, there’s also the possibility of renewal. Of finding the flower that’s been there all along.
That’s what this workshop is about. Not about “fixing” yourself, but about remembering yourself.
💻 Join Me for the Identity Flower Workshop
If you’ve been asking “Who am I now?”—this workshop is for you.
📅 Tuesday, September 9, 2025
🕖 7:00–8:30 PM EST
📍 Online via Zoom
🎟 Reserve Your Spot Here
🌸 Bring your story. Bring your questions. Bring your garden as it is. Together, we’ll rediscover what never changes—your core—and begin to plant for your next season.
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