Rewrite Your Identity

There are parts of you that were shaped by what you lived through, but shaped is not the same as defined. Today, we’re looking at how trauma shows up in identity, why receiving help can feel threatening, and how to begin collecting proof that you are more than the roles your past assigned you.

Today’s Quick Overview:

🔬 Science Spotlight: Infrasound and unexplained unease…
🛠️ Tool of The Week: Collect counter-evidence to old beliefs…
📰 Therapist Corner: Trauma shapes identity, not destiny…
🙏 Daily Practice: You are still becoming…

Let's check in on how you receive help when it's offered:

When someone offers help, do you minimize it, redirect it, or actually let it in? What makes receiving support so hard? If you can't receive help, you'll always be carrying more than you need to. Learning to let support in is its own skill.

Trauma's impact isn't always visible. Where does yours show up?

Reframe to Strength Guide

The things people criticized you for when you were younger often turn out to be strengths that got mislabeled. This free Reframe to Strength one-page guide helps you take one old message that stuck and translate it into something you can actually use, on your own terms, in your own life.

Answered by: Amber Ensign, LPC

Whether it is from something that happened, or something that didn't happen but should have, childhood trauma has an impact on development and can have lasting effects on how we view ourselves.

A perception of self and identity develops over time and is influenced by external factors and messages we receive as we grow. We often think of identity as something we do, for example, a teacher, a parent, a partner, a caregiver, a doctor, etc.

However, our identity is not limited to the vocation we have chosen, but it is the sum of our experiences and choices. Individuals have many places in which they find a sense of identity.

Some of those identities are chosen, some are placed upon them and accepted. Some we take on from life experiences without even realizing we have done so, but it comes through in how we live and interact with others.

How Trauma Shows Up in Identity

Identifying with childhood trauma isn't simply saying, "I'm a victim," or even, "I'm a survivor." It can be less obvious, like engaging in unhealthy relationships, despite the desire for something better. Or perhaps staying in a job, or even being jobless, because you don't believe you are qualified "enough" for the job you really want.

Childhood trauma changed you, but it does not have to define you. There are strengths you developed, characteristics formed, that have helped you survive, and perhaps even thrive. It is these aspects that are where your identity can be reshaped.

Reframing Negative Messages as Strengths

Identifying personal strengths can often be challenging and requires practice to be effective. You can start by taking negative statements or comments that have stuck with you and turn them into strengths. "You're annoying, stop being a pest" can become "I am persistent."

Seeking to reclaim your identity apart from childhood trauma does not mean those experiences are to be ignored or treated as if they never happened. No, it is simply a means of saying, to yourself and others, that these are things that happened to you, but they do not control you, your life, or your decisions.

There is a sense of empowerment that comes when you choose to acknowledge the hurts you have experienced without letting those experiences take control.

Moving Forward

Recognizing that you made it this far in life, despite difficult experiences, is a great step in that direction. You are strong, brave, capable, and worthy of living as who you are now, not your past.

Finding the right therapist can help with a deeper exploration of how past experiences have affected how you see yourself, but there are some things you can begin to do on your own. You can find supportive and affirming environments where safe and trusted individuals can help you identify current strengths and characteristics.

Acknowledge that all emotions are part of the human experience, and practice validating your own emotions. Identify and act in alignment with your values, both with yourself and others. Remind yourself often that you can handle challenges, and that challenges help you continue to strengthen your character. Cultivate compassion and kindness, beginning with yourself.

Amber Ensign, LPC, is a trauma-informed and trauma-trained therapist who specializes in helping children and adults resolve and repair traumatic events. She is certified in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), trained in EMDR, and CCPT. Connect with Amber on LinkedIn.

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What's Also True

What it is: A running list in your phone where you collect small, concrete moments that challenge old, painful beliefs about yourself.

When a negative belief has been repeated long enough, your brain automatically looks for proof that confirms it while dismissing anything that contradicts it.

This tool interrupts that by deliberately collecting moments that complicate the old story: times you asked for help, handled something better than expected, spoke up, or got through a hard day without abandoning yourself.

Why it works: Your brain pays more attention to information that feels familiar, especially about identity. That means you notice and remember evidence that reinforces existing beliefs while moments that contradict them pass by unregistered.

This trains your attention to catch those moments before they disappear. You're not forcing positivity. You're rebalancing what you notice. Over time, small pieces of counter-evidence accumulate, and the old story starts to loosen.

How to practice it: Create a note in your phone called "What's Also True." Pick one belief that tends to follow you. Then, whenever you notice something that challenges it, add it to the list.

Keep entries small and concrete: "I rested without apologizing." "I followed through." You're not looking for a dramatic transformation, just evidence that you're more than the role your past assigned you.

When to use it:

Inaudible Sound Waves May Be Making You Inexplicably Uneasy

Read the Study

The Research: Researchers had 36 participants sit alone listening to music, with hidden subwoofers generating infrasound at 18 Hz for half the group. Infrasound operates below the threshold of human hearing, so nobody could consciously detect it.

Despite that, participants exposed to it showed higher cortisol levels, reported feeling more irritable and less engaged, and were more likely to perceive the music as sad.

Why It Matters: Your body is responding to something your conscious mind has no access to, which creates that specific feeling of unease with no identifiable source. This is likely what's happening when you walk into an old basement and feel immediately off for no reason you can name.

The participants in this study couldn't tell whether infrasound was playing, which means the cortisol spike was happening entirely below conscious awareness. That gap between what your body is doing and what you're consciously perceiving is exactly what people describe when certain spaces just feel off.

Try It Today: If you consistently feel uneasy or irritable in specific locations, particularly basements, older buildings, or spaces near large machinery, the environment itself may be part of what's driving it.

Your body may be responding to something real and physical rather than something you're imagining. If you can identify and distance yourself from the source, that may help more than trying to talk yourself out of the feeling.

I can hold what I know about myself today without letting it become a ceiling. Who I am right now is real and worth honoring, and it is also not the final word on what I'm capable of becoming.

Think of one quality or capacity in yourself that surprised you, something you didn't know you had until life asked it of you and you found it there waiting.

It's okay to not have yourself fully figured out yet. The parts of you that are still unknown are not a problem to be solved. They are possibility you haven't met yet.

Write down one thing you know with certainty about who you are right now. Then write one thing you suspect might be true about who you could become that you haven't fully allowed yourself to believe yet. Sit with both. Notice how much space exists between what you know and what you might still be.

Evening Reset: Notice, Write, Settle

Picture a seed that doesn't yet know it's an oak. It knows only what it is right now, small, enclosed, waiting in the dark. It has no way of seeing what it carries inside it or how much ground it will eventually cover. But the potential was always there, written into its nature long before it had any evidence of it. Tonight, let yourself rest in the quiet truth that what you may yet become is already somewhere inside you, waiting for the right conditions.

Spend three minutes writing: What version of myself am I just beginning to sense is possible, and what has been keeping me from letting that version have a little more room?

Close your notebook and ask yourself: Where did I stay inside the boundaries of what I already know about myself today when something in me wanted to stretch past them? What surprised me about myself recently that I haven't fully sat with yet? What might I be, if I gave myself genuine permission to find out?

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be." — William Shakespeare

You are not only what you already know yourself to be. The rest is still arriving.

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Coming Tuesday: What to say when you need to ask family for help but usually handle everything yourself, acknowledging the role shift from being the capable one everyone turns to, while making specific asks before you're completely overwhelmed.

Researched and edited by Natasha. Designed with love by Kaye.

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*The Daily Wellness shares educational content only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice and diagnosis. Please consult a licensed provider for personalized care.