✅ You're Not Broken...
You're Just unfinished
Emily Dickinson died convinced she had failed.
The world now calls her a creative genius.
Emily Dickinson wrote obsessively—on envelopes, scraps, whatever she could find.
Nearly 1,800 poems, hidden in drawers.
After her death, her sister Lavinia found them all.
And ignored Emily’s request.
She published the work.
And Emily became one of the most influential poets in American history.
But Emily never saw her brilliance—because she never felt finished.
She rewrote endlessly.
She doubted deeply.
She hid her truth.
What we now call executive dysfunction had her in its grip—
Perfection. Paralysis. Overwhelm. Loss of identity. Self-doubt.
Her letters read like a creative war zone—confusion, moments of clarity, all soaked in neurotic chaos.
And that fear?
It kept her cowering in the creative shadows.
“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” — Emily Dickinson
When we don’t finish, we don’t share.
And when we don’t share, we can’t see clearly.
Only the distortion. Only the fear. Only the unfulfilled potential — and never our creative truth.
When our projects pile up—half-done, half-forgotten—it becomes our identity.
When not finishing projects becomes our identity, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
One that guarantees the quiet sorrow of lifelong untapped potential.
It’s quiet grief. Louder shame—the loop we know too well:
Start → Overthink → Procrastinate → Shame → Repeat
When we start but don’t finish, we are the architects of our insecurities.
It’s the false self loop: where insecurities repeat so often, they harden into identity.
Multi-talented misfits forget their genius.
Because we’re too busy judging ourselves against societal standards that were never made for us.
We’re multi-talented.
Full of curiosity.
But we become ghosts in our creativity.
And we don’t have a single identity as a result.
It’s fluid, and built—project by project, moment by moment, in the sacred ceremony of showing up.
You’re not broken. You’re just unfinished.
If you’re lost right now, it’s not because you’re lazy.
You’re just unfinished.
You’re chaotic.
You’re complex.
That means your story isn’t over.
It just hasn’t been shared yet.
To remember who you are, immerse yourself in what makes you feel most creatively alive.
For me, that’s writing.
For you, it might be something else.
Most of us think we’re broken, not because we lack talent, but because our process looks nothing like what society conditioned us to believe was normal.
I used to think that, too.
But I discovered it by exploring the gaping cracks in my identity.
I spent years trying to fix myself from the outside in—seeking answers, reading books I never finished, watching endless YouTube videos that never landed.
It was barren.
Whatever you’re looking for, you will not find it by consuming other people’s content, but by creating your own.
You will find clues in consuming, but never the solutions.
"The Soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience." — Emily Dickinson
Creative expression is how you remember who you are.
Creative rebirth is not about fixing yourself.
It’s about being yourself.
You can’t be an authentic creator and hide from yourself.
True creativity is the mirror of your soul.
I started writing to make sense of my identity crisis.
I was 49. I never had a desire to write before —none!
Writing gave me the answers I sought. It became part of who I am.
Identity shifts aren’t failures. They’re invitations.
Life changes fast.
There’s a good chance you’re going through an identity shift:
Becoming a parent or losing one
Empty nesting
Starting or losing a business
Menopause
Quarter- or midlife crisis
Beginning or ending a creative pursuit
A late neurodivergent diagnosis
Redundancy
Experiencing the AI revolution
These shifts create fear.
That uncertainty brings anxiety, but it’s necessary.
Change doesn’t ask permission. The more we resist it, the harder it bites.
Instead of looking for what could go wrong with change, look for the opportunities hiding within it.
If you’re experiencing a loss of identity, create.
It’s scary AF.
But doing the hard thing—the thing that makes you anxious—is how you reinvent yourself.
And that reinvention?
It’s yours to own or fritter away.
Start small.
Scribble in a notebook. Start a messy Substack. Write the book you need and no one asked for.
A loss of identity is a huge opportunity to shape the self, to reaffirm what matters.
An existential spring clean.
Identity reinvention is an opportunity— a scary but necessary one.
If you don’t shape it, it will be shaped for you.
“Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.” — Emily Dickinson
And the two most important shifts?
Go from consuming to creating.
Go from someone who starts… to someone who finishes.
And remember:
You’re not broken. You’re not behind. You’re just unfinished.
And that’s where the next chapter of your identity begins.