Shedding One's Identity

Returned from L.A. this evening, where I used to have a practice, and where I lived for 17 years. Leaving behind a well-established life was difficult, but a step worth taking in the service of further growth and transformation. In L.A. I was strictly a psychotherapist - - divorcing myself completely from the almost twenty years of experience I had as an advertising executive.  DC has enabled me to see the link in my two career worlds, and I am now a life consultant (a psychotherapist, a career counselor, and a life coach rolled into one). The lesson here -  an evolution in who you are virtually REQUIRES an ultimate shedding of an earlier identity and many of its components: geographic, social, behavioral, perhaps spiritual.  The evolution is painful in that it involves huge losses, but like evolution moves you to a higher plane of existence with many attendant rewards.