Many of us quietly build our entire identity on things that can be taken away—career, ministry, marriage, health, influence, even our trauma. In this honest conversation, J. Warner Wallace shares how retiring from decades as a detective exposed just how deeply he had rooted his identity in his work, and why that identity shift felt so traumatic. He explains the powerful connection between identity and trauma: trauma reshapes how we see ourselves, but identity shifts themselves are also traumatic.
To see more training videos with J. Warner Wallace, visit the YouTube playlist.
For more information about how to flourish based on secular research and the ancient wisdom of the bible, please read The Truth in True Crime; What Investigating Death Teaches Us About the Meaning of Life. This book teaches readers 15 rues for life, recognized in murder investigations. It also makes a case for the reliability of the Bible from Biblical anthropology. The book is accompanied by a sixteen-session Truth in True Crime Video Series (and Participant’s Guide) to help individuals or small groups examine the evidence and make the case.
Ron Richter
September 10, 2026 at 8:47 am
I get the “identity” concept but not so much the trauma. Several years after I retired from 40 years in Silicon Valley high-tech, I realized this career was more like a “drug addiction”. So when it ended, I was in withdrawal looking for another “drug” to replace it with the same addictive “experience”. I developed the website “www.christiandecisions.com” which kept me busy for a while, but I continue to try and “listen” for signs of what God’s wants me to do, even though I understand God does not “need” anything from me.