How to Rebuild Your Identity & Accept Your "Shadow" Self
- Sitara Marin
- Mar 5
- 1 min read
In episode 5 of the Wellbeing4Me Podcast, host Renee McDonald sits down with Sitara Marin, a licensed mental health therapist based in Seattle, Washington. Sitara specializes in deep psychodynamic work focused on identity, helping clients realign or completely rewrite who they are during major life transitions.
Sitara dives into the complex journey of self-acceptance, explaining why we must learn to embrace our "shadow" traits such as impatience, frustration, and anger—rather than keeping them locked away out of shame. They discuss how the heavy, post-COVID global climate affects our personal shadows, and why it is sometimes necessary to "sit in the darkness together" instead of just putting on a chipper mask.
Sitara also introduces her original "TEAR-IC" psychological model, which uses the stages of grief to help people navigate massive identity shifts, like becoming a parent.
