You Have the Right to Reinvent Yourself

When you’re through changing, you’re through. — Martha Stewart

The Martha Effect

I recently watched the new Netflix documentary about Martha Stewart. When I was in my 20s, I was obsessed with Martha. I watched her television shows, I subscribed to her magazine, I made her recipes and her craft projects.

I admired how she had constantly reinvented herself throughout her life: from a teen model to a stock broker to a caterer to, eventually, creating the first “lifestyle brand.”

Say what you will about her (and people have plenty to say), but she transformed the act of homemaking — often devalued and derided — into a multi-billion dollar enterprise.

When she hit snags along the way, she reinvented herself again. In recent years, she’s become a TikTok influencer, graced the cover of the infamous Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and has attracted a new cult following among the younger generation.

The Shame of Reinvention

Somehow, despite admiring Martha for her skill at constant reinvention, I internalized a different message. The message that stuck with me was that reinventing yourself is “bad”: it’s “flighty,” it is evidence of lack of commitment, it means you don’t know who you are or are undecided about who to be.

Like many women with ADHD, I faced shaming every time I discovered a new hobby or interest.

Let’s see how long this lasts was a constant refrain.

I internalized that shame, trying to stifle my urge to reinvent myself, or trying to find ways that my reinvention was consistent with previous iterations of myself. With every new endeavor I looked for the through-line, a way to explain to people that I’m really doing the same thing, just in a different way.

Perhaps I was trying to placate others, or maybe I was trying to console myself — to remind myself that I’m the same person underneath, to soften the grief of who I was letting go in order to reinvent myself.

The Grief of Reinvention

Any reinvention will likely trigger some grief, as we let go of a piece of who we were to emerge as someone new.

Other people don’t like when we change because it forces them to confront their grief as the part of us that they knew dies. And perhaps also because it forces them to confront the parts of themselves that they have been unwilling to let go.

Our capacity to transform and evolve — to reinvent ourselves — is dependent on our capacity to hold grief for the person we are letting go. Consider it a form of “growing pains.”

Related Reading: What You Choose to Leave Behind

The Scorpion’s Lesson

Scorpio season invites us to consider our relationship with change and reinvention. To grow, the Scorpion, like other crustaceans, goes through a process of molting. It literally crawls out of its shell that was getting too small and forms a larger shell to house it. In so doing, it leaves behind a piece of itself to grow into something new.

Beneath the surface of that outer layer, it’s still the same scorpion.

At heart, Martha Stewart is a teacher. She strives to educate us about how to maintain a home, grow a garden, cook wholesome meals, do home-related tasks for ourselves, and make life around us more beautiful. Whether she is wearing an apron, overalls, or an evening gown, she is still the same Martha.

Permission to Reinvent Yourself

Finding a through-line can be useful. It can help us see how a part of us stays constant even amidst changing roles and and job descriptions.

But as I’ve explored the concept of transformation more deeply this Scorpio season, I’ve realized that finding a through-line isn’t necessary.

We have the right to transform and reinvent ourselves without being shamed for it. In fact, it’s human nature. At our core, we remain the same people with the same values, even as our expression of those values changes.

In fact, life’s twists and turns demand that we reinvent ourselves periodically. As we learn from the scorpion, stepping into a new “skin” is necessary for growth.

As Martha succinctly puts it, when you’re through changing, you’re through.