Who are you today? Who were you a year ago? Who are you becoming?
As women, as creatives, as leaders, as human beings, we are always evolving. We move through life’s great archetypes: the Maiden, the Mother, the Wise Woman, the Crone. But beyond these grand cycles, we shift in subtle ways every single day. The way we see ourselves changes with our relationships, our work, our creative expressions, even the cycle of the moon or the rhythm of our own bodies.
And yet, with all this movement, there is something within us that remains. A thread that weaves through every version of us. A knowing, a presence, an essence that is unmistakably us.
So how do we hold both? How do we honour the fluid, ever-changing nature of our identity while also anchoring into the core of who we are? And when it comes to something like personal branding, how do we express this wide, multifaceted spectrum of experience, our depth, our evolution, our truth, while still offering something that people can connect with and understand?
That is what we are exploring today: the dance between constancy and transformation. The artistry of identity. The way we shape and reshape ourselves, and how we can bring that nuance into the way we show up in the world.
Identity is not static. It is not a single, fixed point but a river, always moving, always reshaping itself. We are not just one thing, but many, layered and intertwined. At any given moment, we are a collection of who we have been, who we are becoming, and the ways we respond to the world around us.
Life Cycle Archetypes: The Shifting Feminine
One of the most ancient ways to understand our evolving identity is through the lens of archetypes, especially those that map the life cycle of women.
The Maiden, full of curiosity, untamed potential, and self-discovery.
The Mother, whether in the literal or symbolic sense, creating, nurturing, and holding space.
The Wise Woman, the one who sees deeper patterns, who moves with intuition and inner knowing.
The Crone, the elder, the keeper of wisdom, the one who has lived fully and holds the stories of all her past selves.
We do not move through these archetypes in a strict, linear way. There are moments when we return to our Maiden energy, craving adventure and possibility. There are times when we embody the Wise Woman long before our hair turns silver. We cycle through these identities, sometimes in a single day, carrying their echoes within us.
Roles and Relationships: Who We Are to Others
Beyond the internal shifts, our identity is shaped by the roles we play in the world. We are daughters, lovers, mothers, mentors, friends. We are entrepreneurs, artists, healers, visionaries. Each relationship and each title adds another layer to who we are.
Sometimes, these roles feel like an expansion, pulling us into new expressions of self. Other times, they can feel like a constraint, as if we are being asked to shrink or define ourselves too narrowly. But the truth is, we are always more than any single role. We are the whole of our experiences, not just the labels we carry.
The Menstrual Cycle and Emotions: The Inner Seasons of Identity
Even on a physiological level, we are beings of constant change. Our menstrual cycle moves us through different internal landscapes, times of high energy and social ease, followed by times of introspection and retreat.
During the follicular phase, we may feel like the Maiden: bold, fresh, expansive.
During ovulation, we step into the Mother: nurturing, expressive, magnetic.
The luteal phase draws us toward the Wise Woman’s discernment, seeing things with sharp clarity.
Menstruation takes us into the Crone’s realm, where deep rest and reflection guide us inward.
Our modern world often demands that we be the same every day, but when we honour these shifts, when we allow our identity to breathe and change with them, we find a deeper sense of harmony within ourselves.
The Constant Self: What Remains?
With all this shifting, evolving, and cycling through different aspects of our identity, it can be easy to feel untethered, as if we are always in flux, never fully arriving. But beneath the layers and the changing seasons of our lives, there is something within us that remains.
A core self. A through-line. A deep, resonant hum of who we are that exists beyond the titles, the roles, the external identities we carry.
So what is it that stays the same?
For some, it is a feeling, an essence that has been with them since childhood. A particular way of seeing the world, of making sense of things, of moving through life.
For others, it is their values, the things they return to again and again, no matter what changes around them: integrity, freedom, connection, truth.
When we can root into that deeper, unshakable self, we find a sense of home within us, no matter how much life shifts around us.
Identity and Personal Branding: The Art of Expressing the Fluid Self
This is where personal branding, storytelling, and creative self-expression become powerful tools. Because when we understand what remains, the essence of who we are, we can let the outer layers evolve without losing coherence.
So the question is:
What is the thread that runs through every version of you?
What are the words, the themes, the energies that have been with you your whole life?
How can you let that be the foundation while still allowing yourself the full freedom to evolve?
Because when you know what remains, you do not have to cling to the past to feel stable. You do not have to fear change. You can let yourself expand, explore, shift, and evolve, because you are always, at your core, you.
One of the ways I have been actively exploring identity, the push and pull between who I have been, who I am, and who I am becoming, is through the creation of my Psychedelic Feminine Oracle Deck.
Each card represents an aspect of the feminine as inherently psychedelic: wild, fluid, mystical, transformative. And through the process of creating them, I have found myself inhabiting these energies, allowing them to shift and shape me.
Archetypes give us permission to stretch into new versions of ourselves without feeling like we are abandoning who we were before. They remind us that our identity is not one fixed point but a constellation of energies that we can move between as we grow, shift, and change.
Living in the Paradox: Rooted Yet Evolving
We live in a world that often demands clarity, certainty, and a neatly packaged definition of who we are. But the truth is, identity is not a fixed point.
We are both rooted and evolving.
We are both constant and changing.
We are both singular and multifaceted.
So here is my invitation to you:
How do you honour both the evolving and the unchanging aspects of yourself?
Where do you feel the pull of transformation right now?
What if your identity did not have to be something fixed, but something alive, something you could explore, expand, and express in all its depth?
Because you are not meant to stay the same. You are meant to evolve, expand, shapeshift, and return home to yourself again and again.
The following poem I didn’t include in the podcast as I wrote it after I recorded the episode and marinated in the shapeshifter energy.
The Shapeshifter
I have had a hundred names, none my own. They called me witch, wild one, whore, but I was only wind, slipping through bone, tongue-tied to the pulse of before. I have danced in the dark of the forest’s mouth, a flicker of hips where the firelight licks, I have been beast, been bloom, been blade, a shadow that bends where the boundary splits. Tell me to stay and I’ll vanish, smoke in the lungs of a dying star, the space between breath and hunger, the heat where your hand almost was. Once, I was Lilith, slipping the leash, lips dripping ripe with the garden’s fruit. Once, I was Hecate, crossroads queen, three-faced, moon-fed, singing to wolves. I am the scent of earth after thunder, wet moss, blood-bright pomegranates split, I am a whisper in the roots of your mother, a ghost in the ache of your hips. You want me to soften, to settle, to stay, but I was never made for the still. I am the woman who walks in between, who shapeshifts and shimmers at will. I do not belong, so I belong to it all: flesh and flame, feather and flood, a dream half-formed on the lips of the gods, the dark-wombed mother of mud.
The Shapeshifter is the untamed one, the woman who refuses to be pinned down, the force that moves between worlds. She is the wild undercurrent beneath the surface, the transformation we cannot name but feel in our bones.
We all have a part of her within us.
So tell me, where are you shapeshifting right now?
Are you stepping into something new? Shedding an old skin? Reclaiming a part of yourself that was once lost?
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. What does the Shapeshifter mean to you?
In creativity and connection,
Rosie
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