The “God Scale”

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People lose their identity every day. I am not talking about identity theft here. I am talking about losing yourself or losing a part of yourself and no longer knowing who you are.

When this happens, handling it can be extremely challenging. We tend to wrap our identity up in our jobs, so when we leave our jobs, we lose something. We do not know who we are anymore.

When identity loss occurs, we feel empty and worthless for a while. We feel insecure and irrelevant, and we need to rebuild the part of ourselves we have lost. We need to find self-esteem from within and not from a job, a title, or a certain social position.

When you meet someone, you never ask them who they are; you ask them what they do. When I quit my executive job to start writing this book, I did not tell anyone about what I was doing for a long time, not even my parents.

During that time, I had a major identity crisis. Although this turned out to be extremely beneficial in the long-term for my personal development, at the time it was painful. I no longer knew who I was because I was no longer the powerful executive.

When people asked me what I did, I told them that I did nothing. I felt like a real loser and a slacker, and it took me some time to adapt to my new situation and feel worthy again, even though I did not have a regular job. I found it very hard to deal with my family, as well, as they were so used to my being extremely successful. They did not quite understand my lack of a job or my lack of success.

When someone retires, the new retiree needs to deal with losing the identity she gained through her job and career. I talked to many people who told me that it took them at least six months to adapt and find a new identity after retirement, and they all said they found this process challenging and sometimes depressing.

When grownup children leave the family nest, the mother often goes through an identity loss. She no longer feels needed; she has lost her identity as a full-time mother.

Identity loss may lead to anxiety, depression, and poor self-esteem. It is something we do not welcome and we try to avoid if all possible. It may take a person months or years to recover from this loss when leaving a job or a certain social position behind.

Now imagine the degree of identity loss you will have to deal with when you lose weight if you have been fat all your life, and fat has been an important part of who you are. How long might this take? A change in a job you held for only a few years or less can be traumatic.

How much more traumatic can a change be in a situation that has lasted a long time? Tenfold? A hundredfold? Do not underestimate how the fear of identity loss may block your weight loss.

Have you been overweight all your life? Do you believe that there is no other way for you to be, that this is the only option for you? Do you believe that the real you is overweight? This is a belief I had.

A part of me could just not picture myself in a small size. It was not even a consideration. I believed that I would lose my identity if I became thin. I would be another person. I would not be me. I would lose myself if I lost that much weight. If you have this belief, it doesn’t matter how many diets you try. If you subconsciously believe that if you lose weight, you will lose yourself and your identity, how can you lose weight? It’s not possible. It is like trying to hike up a snowy hill into an avalanche.