Am I Disappearing?

3 Truths About Losing Yourself in the Darkness

There's a terror that comes with not knowing who you are anymore - when the version of yourself you've been performing for years dissolves and you can't find anything solid underneath. You look in the mirror and don't recognize the person staring back. You move through your days like a ghost, going through the motions but feeling like you're fading, like the you that used to exist has vanished and nothing has replaced it yet. This isn't madness. This is what happens when your old identity dies and the new one hasn't formed - and you're caught in the space between, wondering if you'll ever feel real again.

Here are 3 Soul Sparks for understanding why you feel like you're disappearing, how to stay grounded when everything you knew about yourself is falling apart, and how to reconnect when everything familiar has fallen away.

SOUL SPARK #1

Why does it feel like I'm disappearing in the dark space between identities?

Your sense of self was built on stories, roles, relationships, achievements - all the external markers that told you who you were and how to be in the world. When those structures fall away, when the roles don't fit anymore and the stories stop being true, it can feel like you're vanishing because there's nothing left to define you, nothing left to anchor to. The disappearing feeling is your ego dying, your conditioning dissolving, all the false layers of identity peeling away to reveal what's underneath - and your system panics because it doesn't know how to exist without those familiar coordinates. You're not actually disappearing. You're becoming more real, more true, more yourself than you've ever been - but it feels like death because everything you thought you were is falling away and you haven't learned yet how to hold the vastness of who you actually are.

SOUL SPARK #2

How do I stay grounded when everything I knew about myself is falling apart?

You ground by coming back to your body, to your breath, to the simple undeniable truth that you're here, you're alive, you're breathing in this moment. When your identity is dissolving, your body is the only thing that's real - it's the anchor that remains when all the stories collapse. Grounding doesn't mean holding onto who you were or trying to force clarity about who you're becoming. Grounding means feeling your feet on the floor, feeling the air moving in and out of your lungs, feeling the aliveness that exists underneath all the labels and roles and identities. You stay grounded by being present with the not-knowing, by letting yourself be undefined for a while, by trusting that you don't need to have yourself figured out to be worthy of existing. The falling apart isn't happening to you - it's happening for you, clearing space for something truer to emerge.

SOUL SPARK #3

How do I reconnect to myself when everything familiar has fallen away?

You reconnect by listening to what's true right now instead of what used to be true or what you think should be true. When everything familiar is gone, what remains is your actual self - the desires, the knowing, the truth that exists underneath all the conditioning and performance. Reconnecting might look like asking yourself what you actually want for breakfast instead of what you're supposed to want, or noticing what brings you alive instead of what you think should bring you alive, or letting yourself feel what you feel without immediately trying to fix it or understand it. The reconnection happens in the space between thoughts, in the moments when you're not trying to be anyone or prove anything or figure yourself out. You find yourself again by stopping the search, by being still enough to hear the quiet voice that's been there all along, waiting for you to stop performing and just be.

This is the space THE ABYSS holds - when everything is dissolving and you need support to stay with yourself, to let the old fall away, to trust that you're not disappearing, you're becoming real. It's here for when the familiar has fallen away and you need help remembering who you are underneath it all.

Xx, Shaia

Soul Sparks is part of RITUALS by Shaia - a multidimensional series of healing programs for times of change, grief, and sacred rebuilding when you are walking through transformation, rupture, and the process of becoming who you truly are.

Ready to begin? Explore RITUALS here.