How Defending Your Identity Might Be Exhausting You (audio essay)How Defending Your Identity Might Be Exhausting You (audio essay)
Eggshell Transformations with Imi Lo
Imi Lo reads and expands on her essay about identity, Jungian midlife, and Buddhist emptiness, questioning whether defending a fixed self is a source of suffering. The episode contrasts clinical emptiness with a more fluid, interconnected sense of self and invites reflection on how tightly we hold our personal stories.
12:36•6 Oct 2026
How a Rigid Identity Can Drain You: Emptiness, Self and Midlife Shifts
Episode Overview
- Building and defending a fixed identity can become a major source of psychological exhaustion.
- Jung’s view suggests midlife struggles may signal that an old persona no longer fits rather than simple breakdown.
- Buddhist dependent origination frames all experiences, including the self, as arising from countless interconnected conditions.
- Buddhist emptiness refers to the lack of fixed, permanent essence, contrasting with the clinical feeling of hollowness.
- Loosening the grip on a rigid self-image can open space for a fuller, more interconnected experience of life.
“A great deal of human suffering comes not from having a self, but from over-identifying with a particular version of a self.”
What drives someone to seek a life that feels lighter than constant self-defence? This audio essay from *Eggshell Transformations with Imi Lo* speaks directly to anyone who feels exhausted by holding their identity together, especially if you’re intense, sensitive or prone to overthinking.
Imi reads and reflects on her essay "The self that isn’t here", sharing how we spend "the better parts of our lives constructing our self" from roles, achievements, relationships and stories, then pouring huge energy into defending that version of ourselves. Drawing on Carl Jung, she talks about how a solid identity can be helpful early in life, yet become a trap in midlife when clinging to it stops us growing.
What looks like a "midlife crisis" is framed instead as a signal that the old identity no longer fits. You’ll hear a gentle introduction to Buddhist ideas such as dependent origination and emptiness, explained in everyday language. Imi uses simple images like a seed becoming a tree and a morning cup of coffee to show how "nothing exists in a vacuum" and how every moment relies on countless unseen conditions.
From there, she contrasts the Buddhist sense of emptiness with the clinical feeling of being hollow or numb, noting how hustle culture treats emptiness as something to be fixed rather than a space with "transformative potentials". For people in recovery, or anyone questioning who they are beyond their history and labels, this episode offers a different way to see selfhood: less like a rigid object to protect, more like something fluid, interconnected and ever-changing.
If you’ve ever felt tired of defending your story, could loosening your grip on a fixed identity be the relief you’re looking for?
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