Making mint ice cream!

My daughter and I made mint ice cream this weekend...

Four ingredients, a little patience, and a Cuisinart ice cream maker gave us delicious ice cream in time for a special after-dinner dessert.

I used to eat ice cream often, sometimes even every day when I was younger. 🍨 In fact, "Sarah loves ice cream" defined a key piece of my identity, according to many of my childhood, college, and grad school friends.

But sometime in my 40s lactose intolerance reared its head, not to mention an increasing intolerance to large amounts of processed sugar. 😬

And a funny thing happened - I felt stressed about eating fewer sweets, as if toning down my sweet tooth would somehow diminish my identity. 😎

Am I really still Sarah B. if I'm not eating ice cream, cookies, and baked goods all the time?

If you're reading this, you're probably thinking, "Of course you're still Sarah B., that's ridiculous!" And you're right. 😁
Not eating ice cream (or eating it rarely), doesn't change who I am.

But this experience has opened my eyes to how hard it can feel to separate our sense of self from our activities or preferences, even if those activities don't serve us anymore.

If I'm not doing X, am I still Y?
If I'm not running every day, am I still a runner?
If I'm not working 60-hour weeks, am I still ambitious?
If I'm not performing on stage regularly, am I still a musician?
If I'm not working around the clock, am I still an entrepreneur?

It might sound silly, but these moments of making ice cream with my kiddo have actually left me thinking about my identity in a different way:

What activities have I *stopped* doing because they no longer serve me?
And how might changing those activities actually reaffirm my identity, rather than change it?

What about you? What have you stopped doing recently that no longer serves you?

P.S. let's be clear - I still find plenty of joy in a bit of ice cream. I ate a small taste of our creation this weekend, and it was delicious. 🍨