THE COURAGEOUS AND UNCOMFORTABLE PRACTICE OF ALLOWING YOUR ROLES TO DIE

A PRACTICE OF THE NORTH

One of the most uncomfortable practices I’ve encountered on the Medicine Wheel belongs to the North. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like much of a practice at all. Do nothing. Breathe. Wait. Trust. It sounds simple until life quietly begins removing the identities you’ve depended on.

Lately I’ve been asking myself a question that has become impossible to ignore: Who am I without my roles? At first it felt philosophical, almost interesting. But the longer I sat with it, the more personal it became. I realized I have spent much of my life introducing myself through what I do. I have been a daughter, a student, a teacher, a yoga instructor, a child protection investigator, a finance manager, a mother, a writer, a leader. Every one of those roles has been meaningful. Every one has shaped me. But somewhere along the way, I confused the roles with who I was.

When one of those identities begins to loosen its grip, something remarkable happens. The mind doesn’t celebrate growth. It panics. It begins searching desperately for another identity to replace the one that’s fading. We don’t like empty space. We want a new plan, a new purpose, a new title, something that tells us who we are again. The North asks us not to do that. Instead, it asks us to remain in the space between.

If you’ve ever stood there, you know how uncomfortable it is. There is nothing to accomplish. Nothing to fix. Nothing to become. The old identity no longer fits, but the next chapter hasn’t arrived. The mind interprets that silence as danger. It whispers that you’ve lost your way. Perhaps you haven’t. Perhaps you’ve simply stopped clinging to a version of yourself that has completed its work.

I’ve begun to notice that this is how nature transforms. A tree does not force new leaves before winter has finished. An eagle doesn’t hatch already knowing how to ride the wind. There is always a season that looks quiet from the outside, but underneath the surface, life is reorganizing itself. Why should we be any different?

I think one of the greatest fears we carry as human beings is not the death of our bodies but the death of the identities we’ve built. We wonder, If I’m no longer the successful one... the caregiver... the achiever... the strong one... who am I? The North doesn’t answer the question. It simply invites us to breathe while the question remains unanswered. That may be one of the greatest acts of faith a person can practice. Not faith that everything will work out exactly as we imagine, but faith that something deeper than our roles has been present all along.

When I find myself wanting to grasp for another identity, I have been practicing something different. I sit. I breathe. I resist the urge to solve my life. I let the discomfort rise instead of outrunning it. I trust that the silence is not empty but alive with possibility.

Little by little, something begins to soften. I realize I don’t have to know who I’m becoming today. I don’t have to manufacture certainty. I don’t have to earn my worth through another title. I only have to stay present long enough for the next true thing to reveal itself. That is the medicine of the North. Its wisdom isn’t found through striving but through stillness. Its power isn’t certainty. It is faith.

Its invitation isn’t to become someone new as quickly as possible. It is to become intimate with the spaciousness that exists when you no longer need a role to tell you who you are.

I’ve come to believe that this is one of the deepest expressions of being human. We are not here to cling to the identities that have served us. We are here to let them mature, to let our attachment to them dissolve, and to discover that beneath every role there has always been something quieter, steadier, and far more enduring.

Sometimes the most courageous thing we can do isn’t to take the next step. Last night, in meditation, I presented my discomfort to the Jaguar, guardian of the West, so she could devour them and help me turn them into gifts of power. And I took he strands of time and asked the Eagle to carry them to creator, for they are not mine to hold.

I do not know the next step, but I know, it is a step away from the nest of certainty into the unknown. Sometimes the bravest thing is to stand in the unknown, breathe deeply, and trust that Great Spirit is already carrying us toward the life we cannot yet see.