The Roles We Carry, and the Ones We Outgrow

We all live inside roles. Some are chosen with joy, others are inherited, expected, or handed to us before we ever had the chance to ask if they felt true. We become partners, mothers, leaders, caregivers, achievers, peacekeepers, nurturers, performers. And somewhere in the midst of all of it, our quieter self waits to be asked: Is this still mine?

In my recent conversation with Sara Slattery, she spoke beautifully about her work as a coach and mentor to ambitious women, guiding them to lead with energy and impact in their professional worlds. I found myself sitting with a different question afterwards:

How do we lead in our own lives, not just in our careers?

Leadership in this context is not about titles or influence. It is about integrity with the self. It is the ability to recognise when a role is nourishing us and when it is exhausting us. It is noticing when a role has become a costume we’ve outgrown. It is choosing to honour the changing cycles of our lives instead of questioning ourselves for evolving.

For women, these cycles can be felt viscerally. The Maiden - curious, open, wild with possibility. The Mother - whether through children, creativity, or vocation - the archetype that nurtures, builds, and sustains. And then the Wise Sage - the one who steps into her own authority, no longer willing to contort herself to fit expectations that were never hers to begin with.

The difficulty is that society rewards us for staying in one cycle far past its natural season. Many women feel the pressure to remain endlessly productive, endlessly available, endlessly agreeable. The private truth is that many are deeply tired. Tired from holding up worlds that no longer feed them. Tired from smiling through roles they never consciously chose. Tired from living a life of expectation while secretly hungering for something else.

But here is the quiet revolution: we are allowed to imagine our lives differently. We are allowed to consider what it would feel like to lead ourselves, not just perform the roles assigned to us. We are allowed to ask:

What role is mine?
What role never was?
And what role is calling me toward my next chapter?

And perhaps the most important question of all:

What if I took one step toward it?

The step does not have to be dramatic. It may be as gentle as telling the truth to yourself. Listening to your body. Admitting that a chapter has ended. Claiming a desire you’ve buried under responsibility. Or simply whispering out loud - there is more for me.

To lead in our own lives is to trust that our identity is not fixed. That we are not just one role for all time. That we are allowed to reshape ourselves as the inner seasons change.

The Maiden becomes the Mother becomes the Sage - not through force, but through listening. And perhaps the deepest wisdom is knowing that each stage deserves reverence. Each has something sacred to teach us.

When women begin to imagine what life could feel like if aligned with desire, vitality, and purpose rather than expectation, something remarkable happens. Not all at once, but slowly, quietly, steadily. Life reorganises around truth.

And that, perhaps, is the highest form of leadership - the leadership of the self.

Listen to the Podcast Episode with Sara Slattery

If these reflections resonate with you, I invite you to listen to my conversation with Sara Slattery, where we explore energy, ambition, impact, and the importance of claiming our own inner authority.

🎧 Listen here: The Sharon Fitzmaurice Podcast

Author Bio

Sharon Fitzmaurice is a Holistic Wellness Coach, Reiki Master Teacher & Practitioner, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, and Advocate for Mental Health Awareness and survivors of childhood abuse. Founder of the Soulful Journeys Online Community, Sharon supports others to reconnect with purpose, awaken their wellbeing, and live with compassion and curiosity.

Living with Loss and Finding Meaning

This may be a hard conversation to listen to but one that I feel is necessary to speak openly and honestly about.  My recent episode with Andy Campbell on The Sharon Fitzmaurice Podcast was one of those. A deeply soulful, open-hearted dialogue that was less of an interview and more of a communion between two souls who understand the raw, often silent language of pain.

Andy’s story is unimaginable. As a young boy, he experienced sexual abuse. He watched his mother bravely battle cancer for 11 years before she passed away far too young. Estranged from his father, and now navigating his own journey through stage four pancreatic cancer, Andy has known suffering at depths that could easily consume even the strongest of spirits. But nothing could prepare him - or any parent - for the devastating loss of his son, Heston, who died by suicide at just 18 years old.

As we spoke, Andy shared how they knew from when Heston was only nine that the world felt too overwhelming for him. Despite the love, the support, the daily effort to help him choose life, the decision was ultimately out of their hands. There was pain, yes—deep, soul-aching pain - but also anger, helplessness, and a hollow sense of having to keep moving forward in a world where their son no longer existed physically.

In his grief, Andy speaks to Heston. He asks him for help in easing the despair, in somehow mending the heartbreak that now lives in him, his wife, and their three other sons. His new book Overcoming Life’s Toughest Setbacks is both a legacy of healing and a lifeline to others who may find themselves at the edge of their own despair.

As Andy shared, I felt a familiar echo in my heart.

I, too, am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. And for a long time, I carried the belief that I was only meant to know pain. That somehow, love, joy, and peace were not mine to claim. There were times I truly believed the pain would only end if I did. And there was a moment - one that many will never speak of -where choosing to stay felt like the most painful decision of all.

But I stayed.

And staying meant I had to learn to walk alongside the pain, not run from it. It meant holding space for the wounded parts of me, not burying them under smiles and silence. It meant breathing through the nights I thought I wouldn’t make it. And, slowly, one step at a time, I began to believe that healing was not only possible—it was sacred.

In my conversation with Andy, there was a deep resonance between our stories. Two people shaped by trauma, carrying invisible scars, yet still choosing to show up for life, for love, for others. Still choosing to believe that healing is not a betrayal of our pain, but a devotion to our spirit.

We cannot always change what happens to us. But we can transform how we move through it. We can speak, we can share, we can write, we can walk hand in hand with others who are just beginning to find their way through the darkness.

If you are reading this and your heart feels heavy, please know - you are not alone. Your pain is real, your story matters, and even if it feels impossible right now, there is a path forward. Maybe not a painless one, but a path nonetheless. One where meaning can be made from the broken pieces. One where love lives on. One where peace, slowly but surely, returns.

From Andy’s story and my own, I offer this: stay if you can. And if you do, know you are loved.

Sharon Fitzmaurice

Author, Speaker, Holistic Wellness Coach & Podcast Host