Do You Know Who You Are? 10 Powerful Steps to Find Yourself
So you’re over 50, and you think you’ve got it all together, but do you really? Do you know who you are? Well, me neither. I’m making progress on my self discovery journey, but I’m still learning. I had to dig deep inside to check the negative thoughts I had about myself in order to uncover the positives buried deep within. The ones I never noticed. The ones so obscured by self-hatred and disgust that I forgot they even existed.
Looking Back
Looking back at memories of who I was as a child, I remembered that walking the streets in my community everyone called me “Smiling Face.” If I saw a child walking down the road crying, I would stop them to find out what was wrong and do what I could to help, even though I was a child myself. I made friends easily wherever I went. I played the lead role of Mary in the Christmas play at church and would be called upon to present bouquets to the Prime Minister when he visited the area.
I was a very happy child, until the trauma started.
I was inappropriately handled by an adult male family member. I was bullied by my three cousins and one sister. I was beaten mercilessly by my mom for things I did and didn’t do. And that caused me to change in ways that would impact me not only in childhood but straight into adulthood.
My siblings would all gang up on me and mercilessly tickle me until I peed myself. They found it funny. Whenever I expressed a thought or an opinion, it was shot down, laughed at, or ridiculed. My mom would not only beat me for everything under the sun, dropping or chipping a mug, breaking a glass, spilling something, she constantly compared me to my sister. “Why can’t you be more like her?” was the refrain I heard at school, at church, and at home.
(For more on my experience with my male family member, join me on Patreon where I can speak freely about subjects frowned upon on YouTube. Link in description.)
Losing Myself
As a result, I moved from being a smiling, happy-faced child to one filled with anger and resentment, fighting at home, school, and church. To take away my siblings’ pleasure in making me laugh, I taught myself not to laugh. That worked. So I figured maybe I could also stop my mother’s constant beatings if I trained myself not to cry. That didn’t work, it only made the punishments worse. But by then, I was numb.
By age ten, I no longer laughed nor cried. The constant comparison and rejection wore me down so much that I made a drastic shift in who I was. I no longer recognized myself.
Adulthood Without Direction
After high school, my dreams were brutally dismissed. I wanted to go to Edna Manley College to study drama. My mother ridiculed me: “A wha yu a go do with that when you leave?”
So I pivoted and said I would become a nurse. The ridicule got worse: “You can’t even stand the sight of blood.”
I tried teaching. That lasted less than a year. I became a public health inspector, but my supervisor, the office drunk, told me plainly that unless I gave in to him, I’d be fired. I quit after two years.
From then on, I drifted from job to job with no direction or purpose. I entered adulthood broken and lost.
During that time, I went through several traumatic experiences (which I share in detail on Patreon). One of the biggest was a car accident where I suffered a skull fracture, was unconscious for seven days, and lived with amnesia for a while. But that’s another story.
The Road Back To You
As a child my expectations were that by the age of 50 I would own my home, have a fully functional, happy family, and a healthy retirement plan while I looked forward to retiring. But guess what? The only thing I can check off that list is the wonderful children I have. Outside of that, I’m technically homeless, with a couple of empty bank accounts, almost no friends to speak of, and very happily single.
But in this period of isolation and solitude, I had to face myself, and this started my self discovery journey of figuring out who the heck I am. For all intents and purposes, society dictates that by the time we’ve made it to this point, we should have this in the bag. We should be able to answer the question of do you know who you are with confidence. But how many of us are able to?
Reinventing Yourself
For me, many of the years leading up to now were framed by my childhood traumas, and yes, there were several, followed by the ones I experienced in adulthood. I was sensitive to criticism. I thought that if people stopped or started talking when I entered or left a space, they were talking about me.
Disapproval terrified me, to the point I became a people pleaser on one hand, but some of the rebellion and disregard for authority from my childhood still remained.
I carried the values of a religious upbringing, but I also adopted habits that clashed with them: cursing like a truck driver, drinking heavily, smoking a pack a day, and using intimacy as a tool of control. The two sides of me battled constantly, leaving me feeling like multiple people lived inside one body.
This is what it felt like to lose myself. And this is why I needed to walk the road back to me, to the self I had long forgotten. This is where my self discovery journey started.
Starting Over in Life After 50
As I approached my 60s, after having survived all these catastrophic events and traumas, I cut myself off from relationships and retreated inward. And it was there I met me.
At my IDGAF juncture, I began to care less about what people thought of me and whether they liked me or not. I learned it was okay to distance myself from people who disrupted my peace. I discovered self-awareness and began to practice self-love.
Instead of groaning with disgust when I looked in the mirror, I began to compliment myself. I practiced smiling again. I forgave myself for youthful mistakes and stopped blaming myself for what I couldn’t control. That shift changed my whole outlook.
This was the beginning of reinventing myself, not becoming someone else, but embracing the person I had always been.
Who Am I ?
- I am a very resilient woman.
After having been knocked down in life so many times, I’ve always found a way to get back up. - I am a positive person.
Somewhere along the line, I picked up the phrase every cloud has a silver lining. It kind of became my mantra. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel disappointed, but I don’t let it get me down for too long. I try to look for the silver lining of every situation. I ask: Is there something that I need to learn through this experience? How can I make this benefit me? After years of doing that, it has become ingrained in the fiber of my being. - I’m still a caregiver.
That’s one thing they never stole from me. I care about people, even though I may not necessarily like them, and I try to help wherever I can. - I am kind.
I have been known to give away the last of what I have, even if I have no idea of how I’m going to replace it. - I am resourceful.
I look for ways to solve problems. This has always helped me rise, even after being knocked over and stomped into the ground. - IDGAF.
This is one of the best things that has happened to me. It took a long time, but I am now at the point where people’s opinions of me no longer matter. I am me, take it or leave it. - What do I see when I look in the mirror?
When I look in the mirror, I see a beautiful human being who now recognizes her worth as well as her faults and accepts them. I see strength in the wrinkles, wisdom in the scars, and a spirit that refuses to stay broken. While I now appreciate the person I have grown into, I also recognize there’s still room to grow, and that’s okay. Growth is a lifelong process. - I am a hard worker.
I’ve never been afraid to roll up my sleeves and do what needs to be done. Even when life knocked me down, I kept pushing, kept building, and kept finding a way forward. Work has always been my anchor. It gives me purpose, strength, and a reason to keep going, no matter how rough the road has been. - I don’t believe in giving up.
Life has tested me more times than I can count, but giving up was never an option. I may pause, stumble, or even break for a while, but I always get back up. To me, you’ve only failed when you’ve stopped trying, and I’m still here, still standing, still grinding, still fighting. - I accept myself.
I am comfortable with who I am, where I’m at, and where I need to be. I don’t measure my success by my bank balance. It is measured by the hurdles I’ve overcome, my resilience and hard work, my core strength, and the values I still hold dear.
So Do You Know Who you Are?
Many of us don’t realize how closely our self discovery journey is tied to our mental health. When you don’t know who you are, it’s easy to get lost in anxiety, people-pleasing, or even depression. This is because you’re constantly chasing approval instead of finding peace within yourself. But the more you begin to accept who you are, the strengths, the flaws, the whole picture, the lighter the mental load becomes.
If you’re over 50, or at any stage or age, don’t worry if you don’t know who you are yet. It’s never too late for starting over in life. That’s what starting over in life really means, acknowledging your past, embracing your present, reinventing yourself and courageously stepping into your future.
A self discovery journey doesn’t erase life’s problems, but it gives you the tools to face them with resilience, clarity, and balance. For me, learning to embrace myself has been just as important for my mental well-being as any other form of healing. I’m still a work in progress, and so are you. As long as we’re alive, we’re still learning.
Start Your Own Self Discovery Journey
So here I am at 63. Do I know who I am? Yes and no. I know enough to love myself, forgive myself, and trust my resilience. But I also know my self discovery journey isn’t over. And that’s the beauty of it, this journey never truly ends.
Self discovery doesn’t happen overnight, but step by step, we get closer to who we really are. If you’re ready to keep going, subscribe to the blog, join the conversation in the comments, and share this with someone who needs the reminder that reinventing yourself is always possible. You can also watch the video and join the conversation on YouTube or TikTok.
Together, we can keep starting over in life with courage and hope. And if you’d like to go deeper, join me on Patreon for exclusive content, raw discussions, and intimate conversations about the self discovery journey.