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The identity Mortgage
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 5 2026
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.36 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
What if the life you built still works-but no longer feels like yours?
You did what you were supposed to do.
You became responsible. Capable. Strong. Successful. Helpful. Needed.
You learned how to be the person other people could rely on.
And somewhere along the way, that identity may have become a contract.
The Identity Mortgage explores the hidden psychological cost of continuing to live as someone you once needed to become.
Maria Phelps introduces a powerful original framework for understanding why people stay inside outdated roles, relationships, goals, beliefs, and versions of themselves long after those identities stop fitting.
You'll explore:
- why childhood roles can quietly become adult identities
- how approval, achievement, caregiving, and being strong can turn into psychological debt
- the difference between a useful identity and one that has become compulsory
- why sunk cost keeps people committed to lives they would not choose today
- how old assumptions can shape attention, interpretation, behavior, and repetition
- what happens when life takes an identity away through divorce, retirement, loss, aging, or change
- how to keep the wisdom and strengths you gained without remaining trapped by the role
- how to revise your self-concept without denying your past
- how to build a life that feels true from the inside instead of merely looking right from the outside
Drawing from psychology, philosophy, contemplative traditions, and New Thought, The Identity Mortgage examines one central question:
What are you still paying to remain who you once decided you had to be?
This is not a book about becoming a completely different person.
It is about recognizing where your identity has become too expensive to maintain.
It is about keeping the equity.
Releasing the debt.
Changing the terms.
And giving yourself permission to choose again.
You aren't living the life anymore. You're servicing the identity.
Maybe it's time to stop paying.
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