The Identity Shift That Changed My Relationships and My Relationship With Money
For years, I thought I was terrible at romatic relationships.
Looking back, I wasn't, I was just trying to prove I was worthy of love.
For most of my adult life, I unknowingly carried the identity of the little girl who had been made to feel small through physical, emotional, and verbal abuse. Although my circumstances had changed, my identity hadn't and that identity shaped everything.
I became the over-giver, the perfectionist, the woman who worked tirelessly to earn love and approval and the woman who crumbled when she was criticized.
How Childhood Trauma Can Shape Adult Relationships
Whenever a man I loved criticized me, I didn't simply hear his words, my nervous system heard every criticism that had come before. I would argue, defend myself, try to prove him wrong, or desperately try to change how he saw me.
Even after relationships ended, I couldn’t let go. I focused on healing so they would eventually see what they had lost. I wanted them to regret leaving. I wanted an apology and ironically, many of them did come back and many apologized. And for a moment, it felt validating.
But I eventually realized that even when they were gone, my life was still revolving around them - I wasn't choosing myself, I was still trying to earn love and win them back.
One day I had a realization that life wasn't punishing me, it was giving me repeated opportunities to choose a different version of myself.
The question wasn't:
"How do I get people to love me differently?"
The question became:
"Who do I want to become?"
Healing Begins With an Identity Shift
I knew I couldn't create a different outcome by repeating the same patterns, just as I had sought help to heal my relationship with money, I sought support to heal my relationship patterns.
I worked with a relationship coach because I knew I couldn't see what I couldn't see. The transformation wasn't instant, in fact it took three years. It happened one choice at a time. I became intentional about the woman I wanted to grow into in relationships and we worked on my nervous system response to familiar patterns.
I focused on becoming a woman who embodied:
Rest instead of proving.
Receiving instead of overgiving.
Honesty instead of people-pleasing.
Vulnerability instead of perfection.
Softness instead of survival.
Joy instead of constant striving.
Love that was mutual rather than earned.
As I healed, I stopped chasing unavailable love and accepted people where they were. I stopped seeing men who could only give me crumbs as a challenge that only I could fix and I retrained my nervous system to feel safe with emotionally available men. And because I moved differently, I was able to honor myself and my emotional needs differently and when my husband asked me out, I focused on my nervous system response to his presence before anything else.
Identity Change Affects Every Area of Your Life
What surprised me most was that this wasn't only true in relationships, it was the same process I had used to transform my finances.
By healing ancestral money trauma, changing my identity, and teaching my nervous system that it was safe to receive, I was able to pay off more than US$60,000 in debt, build a business generating over US$100,000 a year, and create the freedom to live and work in more than 12 countries.
The external results were different but the inner work was similar.
Who Are You Becoming?
Most of us spend our lives asking:
"How do I change my relationships?"
"How do I make more money?"
"How do I become more confident?"
A better question is:
Who am I becoming?
Every decision you make is strengthening an identity.
Every boundary.
Every "yes."
Every "no."
Every act of self-respect.
You're already becoming someone, the only question is whether you're becoming that person consciously.
So I'll leave you with three questions:
What identity are you ready to release?
What identity are you choosing to embody instead?
How might your relationships, finances, and life change if you allowed yourself to become her?
These aren't questions to answer in your head and then move on from. They're questions to sit with, journal on, and return to as you grow. Identity isn't transformed through a single insight—it changes through the conversations you're willing to have with yourself, one page at a time.
That's one of the reasons I created the Next Level You Womb and Money Journal. It's designed to help you gently release old identities, reconnect with your inner wisdom, and consciously embody the woman you're becoming. Through reflective prompts, womb practices, and money journaling exercises, you'll begin to uncover the beliefs you've inherited, the stories you're ready to let go of, and the new identity you're ready to step into.
Click here to get the journal.
