The Myth of the Whole Woman

On identity, transition, and the holiness of feeling lost

The other day, I was flowing through a yoga sequence I’ve probably done a hundred times. Warrior II, Triangle, Half Moon. My body knew the shapes. My mind, honestly, was elsewhere—wondering if I could have handled that conversation differently. Kicking myself for forgetting to schedule that vet appointment. Wishing I had worn the better leggings.

And then my teacher said something that cut straight through the noise.

“Don’t rush the transitions. They matter just as much as the poses.”

I actually paused in the middle of my flow.
Because I’d never heard it said quite like that.

Yoga has been a grounding practice for me for a long time. But that line? That moment? It landed somewhere deeper. It wasn’t just about yoga. It was about everything.

Because I’m in a transition right now.
And maybe you are too.

Not a dramatic one, not something you can post about. Just that quiet, disorienting season where you realize you don’t really know who you are anymore. You’re still doing all the things—making meals, showing up for work, checking in on your people—but some essential part of you feels… paused. Out of focus. Missing.

And yet you see everyone else on Instagram looking confident and radiant and certain. They’re drinking green juice and doing breathwork and finding themselves. Meanwhile, you’re just trying to find your keys and remember what you used to enjoy.

It’s so easy, in that space, to feel embarrassed.
Like you failed some unspoken test.
Like you’re the only woman who’s lost her sense of self.

But here’s what I’m learning: this isn’t failure. This is transition.
And we live in a culture that has forgotten how to honor transitions.

We glorify clarity. We idolize certainty. We celebrate the “after” photo, the clean transformation, the woman who has found herself. But we rarely speak of the slow in-between—the holy fog of not knowing. The part where your old self is slipping off your shoulders and the new one hasn’t yet arrived.

That’s where so many women in their 30s and 40s live.
In the thick of child-rearing.
In the throes of caretaking.
In the swirl of holding up a whole household with a weary, beautiful nervous system.

It makes perfect sense that you feel unmoored.
You’re in the middle of pouring yourself out.

And the more we give—of our time, our bodies, our presence—the easier it is to forget that we are someone apart from what we give. Our sense of identity gets braided into the needs of others. We become a function, a role, a background hum of reliability. And in that process, we start to wonder quietly:

Where did I go?

But let me go back to that moment on the mat.

The poses aren’t the whole point.
How we move between them matters just as much.
That’s where the strength builds.
That’s where the balance lives.
That’s where we learn how to carry ourselves.

So if you’re in between right now—between roles, between stages, between versions of yourself—you are not failing. You are practicing. Breathing. Becoming.

The woman you’re becoming won’t be built in a day.
She will arrive slowly.
And she will be yours.