Change Your Life with Dr. Amen Kaur

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What does it mean when you say "I don't know who I am anymore"?
It means you lost the things that were telling you who you were. A job, a marriage, a home, a parent, a version of your life you expected to keep. Your sense of self was resting on those, so when enough of them go, it goes with them. It is not a sign that something is wrong with you, and it is not a weakness. It is what happens when the labels come off.
In this episode, Dr. Amen Kaur explains why losing your identity and losing your motivation are the same thing, why they arrive in that order, and what brings both of them back.
Why don't I want anything anymore?
Because wanting something you believe you can no longer have is painful, so the mind withdraws it. A 2015 meta-analysis of 90 studies by Colin Leach and Atilla Cidam found that shame leads people to act when a failure feels repairable, and to withdraw when it does not. A marriage that ended cannot be unended. A job that let you go cannot be undone. So the system stops reaching. Your desire did not die. It was pulled back to protect you.
Why does losing a job or a marriage feel like shame rather than disappointment?
Because the standard you fell short of was probably never yours. Research on the self finds that shame tracks the gap between who you are and a standard you have taken in, and the standards that bite hardest are the ones that came from other people. Married by thirty. Successful by forty. The one who made it out. Disappointment is what you feel when your own plan fails. Shame is what you feel when you fall short of someone else's.
Why can I still enjoy things but not want anything?
Because enjoying and wanting run on different brain systems. Kent Berridge at the University of Michigan spent thirty years showing that wanting (the pull toward something) and liking (the pleasure once it is here) are separate. One can go quiet while the other is intact. That is why you can have a lovely afternoon with a friend and feel no pull toward anything afterward, and it is not evidence that you are broken.
Would getting the job or the relationship back fix it?
No, and most people already know this because they have had the thing before and it did not settle them then. Jennifer Crocker's research on contingencies of self-worth found that staking your worth on achievement produces the volatility without the payoff. In one study, students who based their self-esteem on grades reported studying more and did not get better grades.
So what actually helps?
Self-compassion, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Juliana Breines and Serena Chen ran four experiments in 2012. People given a self-compassionate response to their own failure were more motivated to fix the weakness, and spent longer studying after failing a test, than people given a self-esteem boost. Easing up on yourself does not cost you your edge.
Who this episode is for
Professional women some months on from a layoff, a divorce, a bereavement, a home lost, an inheritance, children leaving, or an ending they did not choose. People who have done the work, know roughly what they want next, and still cannot make themselves move.
Chapters
00:00 "I don't know who I am anymore" and what it actually means 00:00 Why the labels were never yours to begin with 00:00 Why your wanting went quiet 00:00 Wanting and liking are different systems 00:00 Why getting it back would not settle it 00:00 The question underneath all of it 00:00 A short practice you can do right now
Research referenced
Colin Leach and Atilla Cidam (2015), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, meta-analysis of 90 samples on when shame leads to constructive action
Kent Berridge, University of Michigan, on wanting and liking as separate systems
Jennifer Crocker and Connie Wolfe (2001) and Jennifer Crocker and Lora Park (2004), on contingencies of self-worth and the cost of pursuing self-esteem
George Bonanno and Charles Burton (2013), Columbia University, on the fallacy of uniform efficacy in coping
Juliana Breines and Serena Chen (2012), on self-compassion and motivation to improve
Rupert Spira, on the awareness of being
Come and talk to me. I am offering a twenty minute coffee and a chat this week. You tell me where you are, and we look at the pattern underneath it. Click this Link
Dr. Amen Kaur is a trauma-informed somatic coach and the host of Change Your Life. She spent over twenty years in recruitment and career development, latterly as a partner at a FTSE 250 company, and holds a PhD. She works with professional women rebuilding a sense of self after a major loss.

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Change Your Life with Dr. Amen Kaur
If you lost your job, were laid off or made redundant, or came out of a divorce, and you know what you want next but cannot make yourself move, the problem is not discipline. In this episode, Dr. Amen Kaur explains the science of why working harder stops working after you have been devalued, why you have no motivation even though you know what to do, and what actually switches motivation back on.
In this episode you'll learn
The four words that reveal where your energy is going: should, have to, need and want, and why only one of them moves you forward
Why shame keeps you repeating the exact behavior you are trying to change
What the still-face experiment reveals about attention, motivation and feeling stuck
The difference between being seen and being validated, and why praise never fixes it
The real cause of burnout according to burnout research, and why rest alone does not fix it
The two ways people cope with feeling unwanted, and why both keep you stuck
A simple one-week experiment to find your motivation again

Why do I have no motivation after losing my job?
Because a layoff, a redundancy or being managed out is an experience of being unwanted, and the human system goes still when attention and value are withdrawn. That is not laziness and it is not a flaw. It is the same response the still-face experiment shows in infants. Rest and pressure do not fix it, because neither one is the missing input.
Why can't I make myself do what I want?
Wanting is not willpower. Effort runs on wanting, and wanting runs on being seen. When something cuts the third one, the other two fail behind it. Motivation returns when you are seen for who you actually are, not when you push harder.
The four words
Should looks at what is missing. Have to looks at obligation. Need looks at lack. Want looks at the thing itself. Want is the only one that pulls you toward your goal.
Research mentioned
The still-face experiment, Tronick and colleagues, 1978
Donald Winnicott on the mirror role of the mother and the false self
Carl Rogers, 1957, on the core conditions of therapeutic change
Norcross and Lambert on the therapeutic relationship as the strongest predictor of outcome
Maslach and Leiter, the six mismatches that drive burnout
Hebbian learning, neurons that fire together wire together
Joe Hudson on shame, wants and the 10 percent more enjoyment experiment

Try this week
Pick one thing you keep telling yourself you should do. Drop the should. Ask how you could enjoy it 10 percent more, without changing it or buying anything for it. Then notice which of the four words you are using.
Coffee and a chat?
If you are capable and still feel stuck, grab a coffee and let's talk it through. Twenty minutes, no pitch, nothing to prepare. We will look at what might be keeping you stuck and what could help. Book here: Coffee & chat
About Dr. Amen Kaur
Dr. Amen Kaur is a trauma-informed somatic coach and former FTSE 250 partner with over 20 years in recruitment and career development. She helps professional women rebuild confidence and get what they actually want after major life and career transitions. Learn more at amenkaur.com.
Topics: no motivation after layoff, no motivation after redundancy, lost my job and feel stuck, can't motivate myself after losing my job, how to find motivation again, identity after redundancy, lost sense of self after job loss, feeling unwanted at work, managed out of a job, burnout recovery, career transition, feeling stuck after divorce, self-compassion, being seen, should vs want, still-face experiment, science of motivation

Click here for the quiz: amenkaur.com/quiz
A difficult boss, a toxic relationship, or people who never saw your worth can leave you doubting yourself, even when you know you're good at what you do.
So when someone finally praises you, you brush it off. Or it makes you want to cry. The problem isn't that you can't take a compliment. It's that difficult people chipped away at your sense of your own value, and your brain is still predicting from that old map.
In this episode, I share five lessons to help you know your value again and take back your confidence:
Why deflecting praise is a signal, not a flaw
How judgment and shame keep good things out, and why the people who can't see you may not have the capacity to
Why comparing your weaknesses to other people's strengths hides your real value
How self-compassion gets your problem-solving brain back (the one most people get backwards)
Why your value grows as you express it

Along the way, we look at the brain as a prediction machine, a famous experiment with kittens, and what the research says about judgment, stress and self-doubt.
Know your value. Express your value. Receive your value.
Take the three-minute quiz to see what's holding you back and where to start:
amenkaur.com/quiz
Want to work with me? Book a career diagnostic: https://amenkaur.typeform.com/diagnostic
Research mentioned:
Baumeister et al. (2001), Bad is stronger than good
Tangney, shame and guilt
Blakemore and Cooper (1970), visual development in kittens
Festinger, cognitive dissonance and social comparison
Dickerson and Kemeny (2004), stress and social evaluation
Gerber, Wheeler and Suls (2018), social comparison meta-analysis
Vazire (2010), self-other knowledge
Arch et al. (2014), self-compassion and stress
Crocker and Wolfe (2001), contingencies of self-worth
Vallerand, harmonious and obsessive passion
Arnsten, stress and the prefrontal cortex
David Linden, Johns Hopkins, and Lisa Feldman Barrett on the predictive brain

Find out where you are being held back. The quiz takes three minutes: amenkaur.com/quiz
You have been trying harder than you have ever tried, and it is not working. This episode looks at what actually happens to your sense of worth when you lose the thing you had been proving it with, why affirmations can make it worse, and two things that genuinely help.
Underneath most people-pleasing there is one thing going on. We are trying to prove we are worth something.
But proving your worth and feeling your worth are two different things, and one does not lead to the other.
In this episode I look at what actually happens when the thing you had been proving yourself through is taken away. Why effort stops working at exactly the point you need it most. Why the advice you have been given, including affirmations, can make it worse rather than better. And two things you can do this week that actually restore something.
I also share what happened in my own working life, a client of mine who went from being made to feel less than to thriving in a different environment, and a wasp at my daughter's window.
In this episode:
Why losing a role can feel like losing yourself
What the pursuit of self-esteem actually costs you
Rigid persistence, and why trying harder is not the same as trying well
What stress does to the part of your brain that makes decisions
Why affirmations backfire for the people who need them most
The open tab, and why unfinished things drain you
Two things that give you your capacity back

The research referenced:
Jennifer Crocker and Connie Wolfe, Contingencies of Self-Worth, Psychological Review, 2001
Jennifer Crocker and Lora Park, The Costly Pursuit of Self-Esteem, Psychological Bulletin, 2004
Robert Vallerand and colleagues, on harmonious and obsessive passion, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003
Amy Arnsten, Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2009
Joanne Wood, Elaine Perunovic and John Lee, Positive self-statements: power for some, peril for others, Psychological Science, 2009
Kitty Klein and Adriel Boals, Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2001
Gabriel Radvansky and David Copeland, Walking through doorways causes forgetting, Memory and Cognition, 2006
Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz, Give your ideas some legs, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2014

Find out where you are being held back. The quiz takes three minutes: amenkaur.com/quiz
If this episode landed, rating the show is the single most useful thing you can do to help someone else find it.

Take the Quiz : https://www.amenkaur.com/quiz
You get close to the thing you want. The promotion, the business, the conversation you've been meaning to have. And something in you pulls back.
That's not weakness, and it's not a mindset problem. It's an old map doing its job.
In this episode I walk you through the exact five-beat loop your self-sabotage runs on, so you can catch it happening in real time. Then I show you how to break it, working backwards, starting in the one place most people refuse to start.
I also run my own through it. The boardroom, the seizing up, the boss who'd put his neck out for me, and the rule underneath it that I didn't know I was following.
What you'll take away:
The map you were handed early in life, and why self-sabotage is what happens at its edges
The five beats: want more, trigger, the body reacts, escape, relief, shame, and why the relief is what makes it sticky
Step one: start at the shame, and why love is the only thing that stops it fueling the next round
Step two: go back to the trigger and listen, with a short practice you can do while you listen
Step three: give your body one new experience, and the trick I stumbled into when I couldn't do it for myself
The deeper layer: what the Bhagavad Gita, the first letter of John, and the Guru Granth Sahib were pointing to long before the neuroscience caught up

Your next step: You now have the method. What you don't know yet is which of your five systems is holding the edge. Take the three-minute quiz at amenkaur.com/quiz and find out what to focus on first.
If this episode did something for you: Rate the show wherever you're listening. Share it with the one person who came to mind. And if you have a minute, a few words in the reviews about what shifted. I read every one.
Research mentioned:
Neff, K. (2003). Self-compassion: an alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity.
Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind. Constable.
Kirschner, H. et al. (2019). Soothing your heart and feeling connected: a new experimental paradigm to study the benefits of self-compassion. Clinical Psychological Science.

Texts mentioned:
Bhagavad Gita 6:5 to 6:6
1 John 4:18
Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 441

This episode is for reflection and education. It isn't therapy or medical advice.