This Might Be a Trauma Response: Identity Disruption and the Path to Integration

The Healing Lab: Auditing Your Labels

Are the stories you tell about yourself actually true — or are they ones you inherited, adapted, or took on to survive? This month's Healing Lab experiment is deceptively simple: spend seven days noticing every fixed label you use to describe yourself, and ask one question — is this true, or is this adapted? In this episode, Jessica walks you through the clinical framework behind this experiment (narrative therapy and the research of psychologist Dan McAdams), explains how repeated self-stories literally become the self we inhabit, and guides you through a small but powerful practice: catching the story, holding it up to the light, and trying a gentle rewrite when you're ready. This isn't about tearing yourself down. It's about getting intentional — keeping what's genuinely yours and loosening your grip on what was never really yours to begin with. This week's experiment: For the next seven days, notice every time you use a fixed label to describe yourself — out loud or in your head. Pause and ask: is this actually who I am, or is this who I learned to be? If the answer is adapted or inherited, try one small rewrite. Not a declaration — just something a little more honest and a little more spacious than the original. Want to stay in the know? Subscribe to our newsletter here. Contact Jessica here. Let's connect: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/ [https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/] | YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby [https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby] | Would you like to learn more about Jessica's clinical practice? Click here. [https://jessicacolarcolcsw.com/] Resources & Links: Narrative therapy and the self-narrative research of Dan McAdams identity therapy, narrative therapy, fixed labels, self-concept, adapted roles, who am I, identity healing, inner narrative, self-limiting beliefs, IFS, parts work, emotional healing podcast, mental health podcast, anxiety therapy, LCSW podcast, healing podcast for women, self-awareness, internalized beliefs, identity work, Jessica Colarco LCSW

This Might Be a Trauma Response: Identity Disruption and the Path to Integration

You've been going through your life and somewhere along the way, you stopped recognizing yourself. Maybe you feel like you're watching from the outside. Maybe you wake up and wonder if this is actually your life. If that resonates, this episode is for you. In this final episode of June's Identity series, Jessica puts a clinical name to an experience so many people are quietly living: identity disruption. She breaks down what's actually happening in the brain and nervous system when trauma, chronic stress, or major life transitions crack your sense of self open, and she makes a distinction that matters deeply: identity collapse versus identity evolution. This episode is a reminder that the disorientation you're feeling isn't a breakdown. It's a becoming. What You'll Hear: * What identity disruption is and why it's a recognized psychological phenomenon, not a personal failing * How the brain disconnects you from a felt sense of self as a protective response to trauma and chronic stress * The spectrum of depersonalization and derealization, including the subtle, low-grade versions most people have learned to live with * Why major life transitions (divorce, loss, parenthood, career changes, ending defining relationships) can destabilize identity at the root * The difference between identity collapse and identity evolution, and why they can feel identical from the inside * What integration actually means, and why it's not about going back to who you were before * Why the distortion isn't the problem; it's the passage Connect With Jessica: * Sign up for the newsletter at healingismyhobby.com [ healingismyhobby.com] * Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/ [https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/] * Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby [https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby] * Learn about Jessica's clinical practice at jessicacolarcolcsw.com [jessicacolarcolcsw.com] | @jessicacolarcolcsw identity disruption, trauma response, identity crisis, depersonalization, derealization, identity collapse, identity evolution, core self, adapted self, IFS therapy, chronic stress, nervous system, life transitions, grief and identity, divorce recovery, major life change, who am I, PTSD and identity, trauma and self, integration and healing, midlife identity, self-concept, psychological healing, trauma-informed therapy, anxiety and identity, healing is my hobby, Jessica Colarco LCSW

Therapy Is My Cardio — Who Are You Without Your Roles?

A guided identity workout to help you sort the roles you've chosen from the ones you've just been carrying. Episode Overview This episode is part of the June identity series and follows Episode 1's exploration of where identity comes from. In this Therapy Is My Cardio segment, Jessica guides listeners through a structured, journal-based workout to surface their roles — and honestly assess which ones were chosen, which were inherited, and which were born out of survival. Just like a real workout, this episode has a warm-up, a hard middle, and a cool-down. Listeners are invited to grab a journal or simply move through the exercise in their heads — but either way, show up ready to be honest. What You'll Explore in This Episode * How to identify all the roles you currently hold — including the invisible ones * A three-category sorting framework: Chosen, Inherited, and Survival roles * Why high-achieving, high-functioning people often find their most defining roles in the Inherited and Survival categories * How survival roles quietly become personality — and what it costs us when we stop questioning them * A closing reflection question to sit with through the week The Role-Sorting Exercise Step 1 — List Your Roles Write down every role you currently hold. Include the obvious ones (mom, partner, employee, friend) and the invisible ones — the peacemaker, the one who holds it together, the responsible one, the helper, the one who's always fine. Step 2 — Sort Into Three Categories Chosen — Roles you actively want. They feel like you. You'd choose them again. Inherited — Roles given to you by your family, culture, birth order, gender, or social expectations — already in place before you had a say. Survival — Roles you took on because you had to. They kept you safe, kept the peace, helped you belong or avoid conflict or earn love. They were never consciously chosen — they were adaptive. Step 3 — Look at the Whole Picture Where did most of your roles land? If the bulk of your most defining roles are in Inherited or Survival — that's not a weakness. It's what happens when we grow up in systems that had needs, and we were the ones who met them. This Week's Reflection Question "If you removed every role that was assigned to you, every role you took on to survive, to belong, to keep the peace — who would be left?" You don't have to answer it today. Let it sit. The blank space you feel when you try — that's not emptiness. That's possibility. That's the beginning of choosing yourself on purpose. Coming Up Next Week In Episode 3 — the Healing Lab — Jessica builds directly on this exercise. She'll try a personal practice around identity and roles and report back on what she discovered. If this episode stirred something in you, next week takes it further. Connect & Stay in the Loop Sign up for the newsletter at healingismyhobby.com Follow on Instagram: @healingismyhobby Watch on YouTube: @healingismyhobby Learn about Jessica's clinical practice: jessicacolarcolcsw.com Follow Jessica on Instagram: @jessicacolarcolcsw identity, who am I, roles and identity, survival roles, inherited roles, chosen identity, IFS parts, people pleasing, overachiever, healing your identity, therapy is my cardio, identity work, self-discovery, role sorting, anxiety and identity, PTSD and identity, trauma and self-concept, high-functioning anxiety, identity healing, personal growth podcast, mental health podcast, women and identity, healing is my hobby, Jessica Colarco LCSW Good to go, or would you like to adjust anything — episode number, title, description copy, or the keywords?

Your Identity Was Never Just Yours

Have you ever done the work — named the trauma, grieved the losses, started releasing the shame — and then looked up and thought… who am I? That disorientation isn't a problem. It's actually the beginning of something important. In this episode, Jessica opens the June identity theme by introducing one of the most foundational questions in healing: where did your sense of self actually come from? Drawing on attachment theory and her clinical experience, she walks through the difference between your core self — the parts of you that were always there — and your adapted self — the version of you that learned how to survive. Most of us have spent so long living from the adapted self that we've lost touch with the core entirely. This episode is your invitation to start noticing the difference. In This Episode * Why identity doesn't form in a vacuum — and who was shaping yours before you had any say * What attachment theory tells us about how we learned to see (or not see) ourselves * The clinical distinction between your core self and your adapted self * Jessica's personal story of performing the "Pinterest mom" identity — and what it cost her * Why every major life transition is both disorienting and an invitation * What's coming next in the June series Resources & Links 🌿 Free worksheet — Core Self vs. Adapted Self: healingismyhobby.com/newsletter [https://healingismyhobby.com/newsletter] 📬 Newsletter: healingismyhobby.com/newsletter [https://healingismyhobby.com/newsletter] 📩 Contact Jessica: healingismyhobby.com [https://healingismyhobby.com/] 📸 Instagram: @healingismyhobby [https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/] ▶️ YouTube: @healingismyhobby [https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby] 🛋️ Clinical practice: jessicacolarcolcsw.com [https://jessicacolarcolcsw.com/] | @jessicacolarcolcsw [https://www.instagram.com/jessicacolarcolcsw/] identity healing, who am I, core self vs adapted self, attachment theory, identity development, trauma and identity, adapted self, healing journey, self-worth, identity after trauma, childhood roles, people pleasing, performing identity, inner child work, IFS therapy, self-discovery, anxiety and identity, LCSW podcast, mental health podcast, therapy podcast for women, healing is my hobby, Jessica Colarco

The Shame That Lives in Your Body

We close out May with the deepest layer of shame work yet. In this final episode of our shame and self-worth series, Jessica reframes shame not as a character flaw or a belief system — but as a trauma response. One that lives in the body, wires itself into the nervous system, and follows us long past the environments that first created it. This episode unpacks the neurobiology of shame, the connection between early attachment wounds and the shame we carry into adulthood, and what it actually looks like to begin healing at the level where the wound lives. If you've been listening all month, this is where it all comes together. What We Cover in This Episode * Why shame is one of the most overlooked trauma responses in clinical practice — and why naming it changes everything * The developmental picture: how early environments teach the nervous system that being fully yourself is dangerous * The dorsal vagal response (freeze and collapse) and why it shows up in shame — the heat in the face, the heaviness in the chest, the urge to disappear * Why you cannot think your way out of a shame response, and why the body has to be part of healing * Attachment theory and shame: how early relational wounds travel into adult relationships and show up in patterns like over-apologizing, difficulty receiving, and interpreting neutral interactions as rejection * Dan Siegel's window of tolerance and what it means for trauma-informed shame work * Four somatic regulation practices you can use in the moment when shame gets activated Somatic Practices Mentioned * Orient to your environment — slowly look around and name five things you can see to activate the social engagement system * Slow your exhale — inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 6–8 to activate the parasympathetic nervous system * Find a point of contact — feel your feet on the floor or your body in the chair to ground yourself when shame pulls you out of the present * Name what's happening without judgment — neutral observation of physical sensation creates space between you and the response Key Concepts Referenced * Dorsal vagal response / freeze and collapse * Window of tolerance (Dan Siegel) * Attachment theory (John Bowlby) * Polyvagal theory * Somatic regulation * Trauma-informed shame work Closing Reflection Healing shame doesn't happen all at once. It happens in layers — in moments of being witnessed and not rejected, in the slow practice of treating yourself as worthy even when part of you doesn't believe it yet. The shame that feels like the truest thing about you is not the truest thing about you. It is a wound. And wounds, when they receive the right care, do heal. Connect + Resources * 📩 Subscribe to the newsletter at healingismyhobby.com [https://healingismyhobby.com/] * 💬 Contact Jessica [https://healingismyhobby.com/contact] * 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/ [https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/] * ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby [https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby] * 🩺 Learn more about Jessica's clinical practice at jessicacolarcolcsw.com [https://jessicacolarcolcsw.com/] shame and trauma, shame as a trauma response, dorsal vagal response, freeze and collapse, nervous system and shame, window of tolerance, attachment theory and shame, John Bowlby attachment, somatic practices for shame, trauma-informed therapy, shame in the body, healing shame, self-worth, PTSD and shame, polyvagal theory, anxiety and shame, high-functioning trauma, insecure attachment, early childhood trauma, nervous system regulation, body-based healing, self-compassion, trauma response, inner child healing, Healing Is My Hobby podcast, Jessica Colarco LCSW