Another Somersault: On Becoming, Part III

Editor’s Note: Personal growth and change rarely arrive in clean, linear ways. More often, we find ourselves mid-somersault, releasing old identities while trying to understand who we are becoming. This is a reflection on the courage it takes to keep evolving, to let others evolve too, and to trust that the in-between may be where we become most whole.

I have been a thousand different women.

The achiever.
The rescuer.
The exhausted one.
The hyper-capable one.
The woman who could hold everything together.
The woman who finally admitted she couldn’t.

The one who performed certainty.
The one who disappeared into responsibility.
The one who learned how to lead.
The one now learning how to become….to more fully be herself.

And somehow, I am none of them, and I am ALL of them. All at once. 

Integrated.
Re-membered.
Both stronger and more tender.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about individual emergence. About how we are constantly changing inside our bodies, minds, spirits, relationships, and work. Cells regenerating. Beliefs unraveling. Identities shifting. Grief shaping us. Joy reshaping us. Life, forming us one brutally beautiful experience at a time.

And yet, we often expect ourselves, and each other, to stay the same.

At home.
At work.
In leadership.
In relationship.
In friendship.

We want people to evolve, of course, but preferably in ways that keep us comfortable and that don’t disrupt the ways we’ve come to depend on them or them on us.

We say we value growth, but growth is disruptive.

We say we value growth, but growth is disruptive. Real becoming changes things, and many times it changes more than we expected. It rearranges dynamics. It asks more truth from us. Often it requires disappointing people who benefited from older versions of us.

Maybe that’s part of what makes becoming feel so lonely. It makes us question whether it is worth it. Yet somehow, it is worth it every time, because mid somersault just means we are ‘losing’ ourselves to more fully (re)gain who we are. In the consummate somersault, we consciously embrace the liminal space between ‘no longer’ and ‘not yet’ because we know that on the other side, we always emerge stronger, more ourselves, more whole. 

There is a particular kind of courage required to live honestly inside that in-between. To resist the urge to rush into certainty. To stop over-explaining our evolution so that others feel comfortable. To accept our own becoming and, in parallel, the becoming of all of those around us. My daughters are amazing examples of this; we never expect our little ones to be who they were as infants or toddlers or kindergartners. What if, instead of expecting ourselves and those around us to stay the same so we feel safe, we embraced our own emergence in the same way we embrace the development of the littles? It may just be that simple. No one stays the same.

I’m beginning to wonder if maturity is building the capacity to stay in relationship with our own emergence and has nothing to do with becoming our fully realized self.

To let ourselves keep changing.
To let other people change too.
To grieve who we’ve been without needing to resist our inevitable evolution.

I have been a thousand different women.

I hope I get to be a thousand more. Tell me about your somersault? What are you letting go of in order to become who you truly are?

About the Author

Meghan Clarke specializes in cultural transformation, strategic visioning, and leadership development. For more than 15 years, she has partnered with leaders and organizations to navigate complexity, strengthen culture, and move from conflict or uncertainty toward clarity, possibility, and meaningful change. Her work is grounded in strategy, human dynamics, and a deep belief in the transformative potential of people and teams. Read more about Meghan