Celebrating Your Strengths and Passions: Rediscovering Identity Beyond Roles
By Seoka Salstrom, PhD
This month, I had the privilege of facilitating our mini-workshop, “Celebrating Your Strengths and Passions: Rediscover Your Identity Beyond Your Roles and Responsibilities.”
The conversation was both thoughtful and inspiring, and I want to share some of the key insights we explored together.
We began with a brief check-in, grounding ourselves in the present moment and acknowledging how we were arriving. This simple practice highlighted that each of us carries different emotions and states of being into the space—and that all of them are valid and welcome.
To the Heart of the Matter: What is Identity?
In many Western contexts, identity is often understood as fixed: our gender, labels, roles, or personality traits. In contrast, I invited participants to consider identity as fluid, flexible, and continuously evolving. In ACT, identity isn’t a fixed noun or role. It’s more like a verb—something you rediscover and live out through your choices. Rather than being defined by our roles, we might view identity as a dynamic process shaped by our values and the choices we make in each moment.
To deepen this perspective, I guided the group through an observer self exercise. We practiced noticing our thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and then shifted awareness to the You who was observing all of these things. This “observer self” is the steady witness that remains constant even as our external circumstances and internal states change. Recognizing this helps us understand that we are more than our roles, emotions, or even our thoughts—This is the “I Am.”
A significant theme that emerged was how we relate to emotions and physical sensations. So often we try to “manage” them. Yet, emotions are not problems to solve; they are messengers that want to be acknowledged. By pausing to ask, “What do you need?”, we open space for compassion, insight, and choice. This approach allows us to move forward with greater clarity, rather than staying locked in coping mode.
While we briefly touched on the subject of strengths and passions, we did not explore it fully. What became clear, however, is that identifying strengths and passions flows most naturally from the perspective of the observer self. From this grounded place, we can more easily discern what energizes us and how our values show up in daily life. We will return to this topic in a future session for a deeper exploration.
What stood out most to me in this workshop was the honesty and courage participants showed in sharing their experiences—including the challenges of connecting with the observer perspective or of staying present with body sensations. These moments remind me that personal growth is not about “getting it right,” but about practicing with curiosity and compassion.
