In this final episode of the April grief series, Jessica explores identity grief — the grief that comes not from death, but from losing a version of yourself. Whether it's a milestone birthday, a career shift, a diagnosis, or a life that looks nothing like the one you imagined, identity grief is real, clinically significant, and rarely given the space it deserves.

Jessica shares a deeply personal reflection on turning 47 and the quiet spiral that followed — and then walks listeners through the Three Layer Model she uses in clinical practice to help clients process identity grief. This is a Healing Lab episode, which means Jessica didn't just teach the framework — she tested three strategies herself and reports back honestly on what happened.

What You'll Hear in This Episode:

1. Jessica introduces the Three Layer Model of Identity Grief
2. Layer One: The Self That Was Lost — Honoring who you were, what she carried, what she protected, and what she was working toward. This layer asks us to slow down before rushing toward transformation.
3. Layer Two: The Self in Transition — The uncomfortable in-between where the old identity is gone but the new one hasn't formed. This is where many people get stuck, and where the real work of sitting with uncertainty lives.
4. Layer Three: The Emerging Self — Not a shortcut, but an arrival. The new self forms only in the ground of the first two layers.

Healing Lab — Three Strategies Jessica Tried:

1. Strategy 1: Write a letter to the self you thought you'd be. Jessica wrote to the version of herself she imagined at 25 — and to the 47-year-old she never became. She thanked her, honored her, and said goodbye. She cried. She invites you to try it too.
2. Strategy 2: The inventory. Rather than cataloging what's missing, Jessica split the page — what she thought she'd have by now on one side, and what she actually has that she never could have anticipated on the other. Not toxic positivity, just a fuller picture.
3. Strategy 3: Return to one thing that is only yours. Jessica realized she had stopped doing things that existed outside of her roles. She went back to something she used to love — just for herself, no output required — and something loosened.
4. The episode closes with a final reflection prompt and a look ahead to May's theme: shame and self-worth.

Reflection Questions From This Episode:

1. Who is a version of yourself you haven't fully grieved?
2. What do you want her to know before you say goodbye?
3. What is one thing that used to be yours — with no purpose attached?

Resources & Links:

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Well, we've made it to the final week of our grief series, and I saved this one for last on purpose. Because I think this is the grief that catches people the most off guard. The grief that has no event, no date, no obvious loss to point to. I'm talking about identity grief. The grief of losing a version of yourself.

the grief of the life you were building in your imagination, and the gap between that and the life you're actually living. This is not dramatic. This is not self-pity. This is a real and clinically significant form of loss that doesn't get nearly enough space. Let's talk about

Hello and welcome to Healing is My Hobby. I'm Jessica Colarco a licensed clinical social worker and welcome to our Healing Lab segment where each month I test real life practices to see what actually supports emotional healing.

I remember sitting there and thinking, I'm not the main character anymore. Like somewhere between my 30s and now, I had shifted from being the protagonist of my own life to being a supportive character in everyone else's. And then it got even darker. I started doing the math in my head, thinking of the average life expectancy, my age, and the math you really don't want to do. And I thought, I'm more than halfway done.

I'm closer to the end than I am to the beginning, And I'm basically done. I know. Dramatic. But here's what I want you to understand. That spiral, that is identity grief. That is the gap between the life I thought I would have at 47, the version of me I imagined when I was 25, and the woman I actually am. Not because my life isn't good, it is.

but because the imagined future self is also a loss and nobody told me I was allowed to grieve her. So this month, I've been doing some actual work on this. And today, I want to walk you through the framework I use in session and then tell you about three strategies I went out and tried myself because that's the healing lab. We don't just talk about it, we do the work. Let's look at the three layer model.

Identity grief happens when a significant life change, chosen or unchosen, requires you to leave behind a version of yourself. It happens when you become a mother and the person you were before feels very far away. When a diagnosis changes what your body can do and you're mourning the physical self you used to have. When a career ends through burnout, layoff, or pivot, and you realize how much of your identity was wrapped up in what you did.

When you go through a divorce and the future you were building dissolves. When your kids grow up and a whole season of life closes and nobody told you to grieve it. When you a milestone birthday and the life you thought you'd have by now looks nothing like what actually happened. These are all identity grief and they are all real. Here's a framework I use in session when we're working through this. I call it

the three layer model of identity grief. Layer one, the self that was lost. This is about honoring who you were, not just in the highlight real sense, but what that version of you actually carried. What did she protect? What did she value? What was she working toward? We tend to rush past this layer, especially in a culture that celebrates transformation.

Everyone wants to talk about who you're becoming. Not enough people stop to acknowledge who you had to leave behind. And here's the thing about the self that was lost. She was doing the best she could. She was holding something. She deserves to be seen before she's let go.

Layer two, the self and transition. This is the in-between, and it is deeply uncomfortable. You've left the old identity behind or it was taken from you, but the new one hasn't fully formed yet. You feel untethered, like you don't quite know who you are right now or what you're for. This layer is where a lot of people get stuck because sitting in the in-between is hard. There's no solid ground, and the instinct is to rush forward.

to figure out the next identity as quickly as possible because the limbo feels unbearable. But this layer has its own work, the work of sitting with uncertainty, the work of not knowing yet, the work of letting the new self form at its own pace.

Layer three, the emerging self. This is the part that therapy and culture tend to jump to immediately. Who are you becoming? What's next? What does this chapter hold? And yes, this is meaningful. This is where integration happens, where you take what you've been through and build something from it. But I want to be clear, you cannot rush to this layer. The emerging self forms in the ground of the first two.

you have to honor the self you lost. You have to sit in the transition. And then, not on anyone else's timeline, the new self starts to take shape.

So let's get into the healing lab of what I actually tried. Okay, so after my very dignified 47 year old mortality spiral, I decided to practice what I preach and I tried three things. I'm going to tell you exactly what happened. The first strategy was writing a letter to the self I thought I'd be. This is a grief ritual I sometimes use in session and I had never actually done it for myself around this.

Well, I guess it's a little embarrassing, but here we are. So I sat down and I wrote a letter, not to my current self, to the version of Jessica I imagined at 25, the one who thought she had a very clear picture of what 47 would look like. I wrote to her about what she got right and what she couldn't have known, and I told her that some of the things she was so sure about, the timeline, the milestones, the way she thought life was supposed to be sequenced,

Those weren't failures. They were just stories. ones she was allowed to let go of. And then I wrote to the imagined 47 year old she never became. I thanked her. I told her she served a purpose. She kept me moving forward for a long time. And I said goodbye. It sounds a little strange when I describe it out loud, but I want to be honest with you, I cried. Real tears.

for a version of myself that never existed. And that told me everything I needed to know about how much unprocessed grief I had been carrying around, a life I had never actually lived. What I invite you to try is to write a letter. It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be neat. Who was the version of you that you imagined? What did she look like? What did her life hold? Tell her what you want her to know. And when you're ready,

Let her know it's okay to go.

The second strategy I tried, the one I actually have inventory. This one sounds simple, but I don't think it really is. After the latter, I was sitting in that particular kind of grief fog, the one that comes after you've done real emotional work. And my brain, being the threat detection machine it is, started cataloging everything I hadn't done, everything I thought I'd have by now, every gap between expectation and reality.

So I did something a little different. Instead of fighting that instinct, I redirected it. I made a list, but not of what I was missing or what I actually have that the 25-year-old version of me could not have imagined. The things I know now that I didn't know then, the relationships that surprised me, the work I do now that I didn't even know existed when I was mapping out my future, the version of myself that showed up through hard things, not the one I planned for.

Here's what was interesting. Some of those things were better than anything I had imagined. The 25 year old version of me had a plan, but she didn't have context. She couldn't have known. And this isn't toxic positivity. It's not everything happens for a reason. It's more like the life that actually happened is also worth seeing clearly, not just the gap, the whole picture. What I'd invite you to try.

Grab a piece of paper, split it into columns. On one side, what you thought you'd have by now. On the other, what you actually have that you couldn't have anticipated. Don't rush either column. Let both be true at the same time.

Finally, strategy number three, returning to one thing that is only mine. This came out of a realization I had in the middle of all of this. Part of why I felt like a side character was because so much of my daily life is lived in service of other people. My kids, my clients, my husband, my work, which is meaningful and I want all of those things. But somewhere in there I had stopped doing things that were just mine, just for me, with no productivity attached.

So I went back to something I used to love. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, because I don't think specifics really matter, but what matters is that it was something where I wasn't anyone's mother or therapist or wife. I was just a person doing a thing I enjoyed with no output required. And it was uncomfortable at first because I had to override the voice that said this was a waste of time, that I should be doing something meaningful, that I had too much on my plate for this. But I sat with it.

And about 20 minutes in, something loosened. That feeling of being a person outside your roles is part of how the emerging self starts to form. You can't find out who you're becoming if you only ever exist in relation to other people. So what I invite you to try is asking yourself, what is one thing that used to be yours that didn't have a purpose attached to it? Not a workout, not a chore dressed up as self care.

Something that used to make you feel like yourself. Give it 20 minutes this week just to see.

Before I close this segment, I want to bring it back to the framework. Where are you in the three layer model right now? Are you still holding on to a version of yourself? You never let yourself grieve. Are you stuck in the in-between and wondering why you feel so lost? Or are you in the emergence, building something new, but still carrying the weight of what came before? Wherever you are, that is exactly where you're supposed to be. There is no wrong place in this process.

There is only the place you're in and the next small step. Before I close this episode, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that we've covered a lot of ground this month. We've talked about what grief actually is, beyond death, beyond the socially acceptable forms. We talked about disenfranchised grief, the losses that never got witnessed, and what happens to us when they don't. We talked about grieving someone who is still alive, ambiguous loss, estrangement,

the grief that has no clean ending. And today we talked about identity grief, losing a version of yourself, the three layer model for honoring her, and three things I actually tried to work through it. This work is not light. And if you've been sitting with some of this, if something has been surfacing this month that you hadn't let yourself look at before, that's not a problem. That's the work working.

Let's look at this week's final reflection. Who is a version of yourself that you haven't fully grieved? And what do you want her to know before you say goodbye? You can write it, you can say it out loud, you can sit with it quietly, but give her something. She earned it. Thank you so much for spending April with me. Next month, we're going into shame and self-worth, and I have a feeling it's going to be a powerful one. I'll see you then.

And if you'd like to read my blog or stay up to date, you can sign up for the newsletter at healingismyhobby.com. You can follow me on Instagram at healingismyhobby or on YouTube at healingismyhobby. If you wanna know more about my clinical practice, you can visit jessicacolarcolcsw.com or follow me on Instagram at jessicacolarcolcsw. Thank you, I'll see you next week.