Shannon's Corner

  You are not your job title.  You are not your productivity.  You are not only the caretaker, the leader, the helper, the strong one.   Those may be things you  do —beautifully, even sacrificially—but they are not the  whole story  of who you are.   Your worth is not defined by your output.  Your identity is not limited to your roles.   Coaching begins when we ask: What would it look like to live from that truer self, even just a little more today?

  SHANNON’S CORNER Connect. Nurture. Grow. We did it!  We reached our goal of raising $45,000 for 2025.  Thank you all for your generous giving and support as we continue providing care to ministry workers and their families around the world. Three Women.  Three Journeys.  One Safe Space to Be Seen.   This month, I had the privilege of walking alongside three courageous women in online debriefing sessions.  Though their paths were different, each came to the process carrying layers of heartache, unanswered questions, and the quiet ache of grief.  One woman had just completed her time on the field.  After years of pouring herself out in teaching in a cross-cultural school, she is now re-entering life in the U.S.—familiar yet foreign.  She spoke of feeling untethered, as her identity and confidence as a teacher got shipwrecked and questioning if teaching still her purpose.  In debriefing, s...

  Sometimes, the discomfort we feel in transition isn’t just from what’s changing—but from what we’re being asked to  release .   Old roles. Outdated identities. Patterns that once protected us.   Letting go doesn’t mean those parts of us weren’t valuable. It means we’re being invited to grow beyond them.   Who might you become if you loosen your grip on who you’ve  had  to be? I had spent decades as a nurse—always the steady one, the caregiver, the one others relied on in times of need. My days were full of tending, fixing, responding. But when I stepped away from that role, I didn’t just feel relief—I felt untethered. My identity had been so deeply wrapped up in taking care of others that I had to ask myself:  Who am I if I’m not doing that anymore?   In the quiet that followed, I started to uncover pieces of myself that had been waiting patiently in the background—my love for reflection, learning, and walking alongside others in a dee...

  Rediscovering who we are beyond our roles takes courage—and kindness toward ourselves.   After years of  doing , performing, caring, leading, or showing up in ways others needed—we may suddenly find ourselves asking:  What’s left when I’m no longer fulfilling that role?   This is where identity work begins. It’s not about reinventing yourself with a new label or achievement. It’s about uncovering what’s already been there all along—your essence, your values, your “being.”  This is the space where inner alignment grows.   After five years serving as a missionary nurse, I found myself in a season of burnout and transition. My sense of identity had become wrapped up in caring for the kids, fulfilling ministry responsibilities, and constantly pushing myself to meet everyone’s expectations. As the weight of that role grew too heavy to carry, a quiet and unsettling question rose to the surface:  Who am I if I’m not the nurse?  It took time—and a ...

  When life shifts and change sweeps in, it can feel like we’re untethered—like we’re free-falling without a clear sense of who we are. In the midst of transition, many of us begin to ask the age-old question:  Who am I?   It’s not uncommon to realize how much of our identity can be entangled in  what we do  like our job, our roles, and how we show up for others .  But when those external anchors shift or disappear, it can leave us feeling lost.   If you are looking for a quick fix or solution, there isn’t one.    It’s a journey.    It takes time to peel off and strip away from the entanglements of our “doing” and from our “roles in relationships” to get to who we are – our being. One question that can begin the journey is this, “Why was I created, (being not doing)?”   Give yourself permission to sit with that. The unfolding is worth it.