It’s probably true for a lot of celebrities that their public personas are not accurate reflections of their private lives. One striking example is actress Megan Fox, who’s famous for being a sex goddess. But the fact is, she told Harper’s Bazaar magazine, she has only slept with two men in her life, and it makes her ill to even contemplate having sex with someone she doesn’t love. While it may not bother her to have a reputation that’s so different from her inner world, I wouldn’t say the same about you — especially now. I urge you to do what you can to create more harmony between the version of yourself that you project outward and the version of yourself you actually live in.
I’ve been contemplating just this subject of late. Go figure.
I am very clear that I’m in the middle of a mid-life crisis something or other. My self-esteem is a bit damaged on the work front and the love front and the where the hell who the hell am I front? My coven teacher, who I am so very grateful for, encourages me not to use negative language like “crisis.” I know he is right. We had a really great conversation today and it helped me fine tune some of the thoughts that have been bubbling around in my brain pan.
Much of it has to to do with living in fear, the desire to tap into all of the various diverse parts of me and finding ways to express those parts in healthy ways. And much of it has to do with the deeper processing of my father issues. After years of being in denial and stuffing my feelings from childhood and walking around blissfully talking about how lucky I am regarding my family the glasses are losing their rosey tint and starting to show some gray and some cracks. All this combined with my fathers Alzheimers, diabetes, and the slow decline that we are now in towards his inevitable death from the two diseases have made it very clear that my heavy work with the Goddess (mother / creatrix and birth) is on the wane and my heavy work with the God (father /death and resurrection) is on the wax. Mom and I have done a lot of work, and continue to do it, surrounding our relationship. It feels really good. Time to start finding my way to do with my Dad. Because Dad is tough right now. He doesn’t want me in the house. His ill feelings towards me are very barely hidden. He is darned good at wearing the mask of Everything Is Fine, Just Fine but there is no more denying that it is a lie. Everything isn’t really fine. The other day I commented that I though the dishwasher was louder than I remember it. His reply was to say that I seem to have difficulty with the concept of aging and thinking there was something wrong with old things. Whoa. Heavy duty Dad and not true at all. Passive aggressive? or just aggressive? I learned how to use masks from an expert and my tongue is well acquainted with the sharpening stone.
It hurts to know that your father doesn’t want you in his home, that you are a thorn in his side, that he is having a great deal of difficulty containing his Mean. Because my father, amongst his other qualities, is mean. Mom can’t see it, she sees him always as very loving but she is an expert at denial, I learned that from an expert too. He can be loving, and I love him back. But the rest is also true and it is a lot of the reason behind why I struggle so much with my identity. My entire being is filled with fighting my own denial and my own masks and is all about recovering my self, my truth, and my goodness.
All of that is good news and part of the process. It is natural. It is not necessarily fun but it is rewarding. I need to start thinking about the language I use to describe my life and my process. Crisis? Meh. Buh bye. How about Learning to Fly…
It is my goal that this year, as part of the early Honey Years, will be a good time to give myself permission to feel all my feelings honestly, to love despite those feelings, to free myself from the bondage of self and of fear. To keep true to my goal of flying.
I was given a new name a couple years ago. As I started to type it I hesitated because I think it might be a magical name that I’m now seeing will have an active use for me soon. Suffice it to say that it is one of those “witchy” names that we love to hate. Like Rainbow Moonshadow or hey, Silver Ravenwolf. This name fits me well and contains a totem of mine and includes my dark and light sides.
It’s time for me to really embrace her, Her, myself as Goddess. Today is a good day.
P.S. I forgot the most important part. Daddy G said, and I agree, that self-actualization is a myth. We are always trying to discover ourselves and digging deeper (well, those of us on this kind of path are anyway). And that who wants to figure it out, then we’d be living in a box. Yes!