Merry Magical Greetings!
Today let's talk about overcoming what you think people will say about you stepping into your magic. Whether you're dreaming of publicizing your magical path or not, we all long to live our most authentic lives with those who we hold dear. However, those we hold dear may not full understand our desire to live the way we choose, sometimes to the point of directly insulting our decision. This can leave us feeling we've made the wrong choice or done something 'bad' simply because it confused or even angered someone we care(d) about, (which really means it triggered something inside them, but more on that later).
Firstly, darling, I assure you that you have done NOTHING wrong by deciding for yourself how you want to live your own life. Notice how no one else came into that statement. I didn't say, "I'm sorry they didn't understand", or "I'm sorry that they hurt you and made you feel bad". The reason I didn't say it either of those ways is (1) I chose to put you at the forefront of this situation because, frankly, that's exactly who this concerns, YOU, and (11) because how you feel to their reaction is a direct correlation to how you feel about trusting yourself, more on this later. Whether or not you're wanting to post about your lifestyle on social media, like I wanted to, in order to reach others and let them know there are those out there like them, or you're wanting to live more magically in private, the decision is always yours to make and to stand by. You owe it only to yourself to stand by and trust yourself with your desires coming to fruition.
First, let's talk about them
The reason I want to talk about them first is simply because I want to get it over with as quickly as possible so we can get to the real important part of this topic, YOU.
If you're not new to inner healing work, aka shadow work, or direct trauma healing whether assisted or self helped, you understand the concept that peoples reaction to anything is directly stemmed from their past. Their unhealed trauma, their hardships and the takeaways they have from the experiences that they've endured, encountered or had.
If you're new to this idea, allow me to elaborate with the example of someone you care about not understanding where you're going with your expression of life, to the point of anger and insults.
**It's important to state, this is not an attack on them, it's meant to be as an insight for you in order to control what you can which is you and your reactions and responses alone. They are in no way the enemy to you. If anything they are the enemy to themselves because it's them who have to continue living with the limiting beliefs until they choose to find healing.**
So, say you want to dress up in fantasy costume and have photographs taken and edited to look like you are casting magical streams of light, dragons and/or fairies flying around you, and/or you want to start posting publicly about your practice of witchcraft. And while you're expressing this desire to a loved one, friend or family, even though they may already know you're 'magical' in this sense, that person gets really upset that now you want to publicize it. They say things like, "Why do you want to call attention to yourself?", or "That sounds really weird, people are going to make fun of you." Both of these, on the surface have the same theme: protection and self preservation. These speak to the persons fears of being seen as they're real, unedited selves and as someone society ostracizes and labels nerd or abnormal. These then stem even further into how society has communicated to that person about their desires: "Nerds are alone", "People who believe in fantasy worlds had a horrible upbringing that caused them to find an escape, and I didn't have that so why would I portray myself as that?" (even though they actually love fantasy and magic). These go even deeper, but I think you get the idea.
So, when someone is doing the thing they couldn't dream of allowing themselves to do because of the fear of being embarrassed, thought of as different, or distancing themselves from "normal society", they will attempt to discourage you from it, in an effort to save themselves from feeling second hand embarrassment and backlash they think you'll receive.
With that being said, let's move on to you and how you can control the responses to their judgments in a healthy manner for yourself and your relationship with them.
Now onto the Important Part: You
Just as they have responses influenced by their wounds, so do you. That's why their simple 3 word opinion cut like a sword to the throat.
"That's so weird" is about the rudest feedback (if it can so be called) one can receive when one starting anything new for themselves. Magical or not. If not firm in your decision making abilities you can be left feeling you've done something wrong, you could gain a sense of insecurity and self consciousness about wanting to feel accepted, or it can leave you feeling like something is wrong with you.
There is NOTHING wrong with you my dear, we simply need to address our inner selves in order to arm ourselves better against those whom have not done their shadow work. And there are a LOT of people out there who are too scared to go within, so they lash out.
Addressing Your Inner-Self
Who told you to play small and why?
This message could have come across a number of ways such as, "Who's going to listen/look/pay attention to you?", "Well, you'll never be a big deal/make money doing that.", or any number of statements that leave you feeling so small that you're just about to give up on whatever it is you found joy in doing.
~
*Disclaimer* Opinions are rooted in preference, something that is not based on truth or fact. Racism, xenophobia and prejudice are rooted in hatred and lies.
This method requires you understand that racism and xenophobic
remarks are NOT an opinion.
If someone says, "Oh you look pretty, but fantasy characters aren't of color", that is not an opinion or fact, it's just hurtful and racist and needs to be called out as such and is NOT up for debate.
If someone says, "Oh you look pretty, but I would have chosen the purple top better than the blue", that is an opinion that the blue top would have looked better than the purple top. This is debatable based on the persons preference. It also doesn't cause personal damage.
~
Once you hone in on the experience(s) that you can recall and the person(s) who said them, then you can put things into perspective. You can start seeing through the false, limiting beliefs your subconscious grasped onto simply because they may have come from someone of authority or someone you looked up to.
~ First, look at the person who said that and think about what you know about them and their story. You don't need the entire story, just enough to humanize them in your mind and help your subconscious take them off the pedestal that you may have placed them on over the years. This helps to not take their word as fact and helps you admit that they may not be an authority on what you like/love/find purpose or passion with. For example, when I was first doing trauma healing from my childhood, it helped to remind myself that while my parents were "Mom" and "Dad", they were also "First Name, Maiden Name" and "First Name, Last Name". It also helped me to think of my mom in her maiden name because that's where the majority of her life experiences came from, instead of who she was after she got married. Doing this helped me take them out of the parental context and place them into a relatable context, in my case their ages because they had been my age when they already had 3 kids (early 30s).
~ Second, after taking into consideration the person and their experiences that may explain why they reacted the way they did, ask yourself these questions:
If I didn't love them/wasn't related to them would their opinion matter/impact me as much?
Does my love for them automatically make their opinion decision swaying?
*Notice how I didn't say that a loved ones opinion didn't matter at all. That's a foolish sentiment to say, when I myself have people in my life that I love dearly and that I respect, who have vastly different belief systems than I do. On some level, our loved ones opinions will affect us, but it is our job to work on how deeply we allow them to.*
~ Thirdly, the answers to the previous questions is where your healing will begin. Answers will be different for everyone and will lead you down a path of discovering more about yourself and how you categorize, sometimes idolize, certain people and relationships in your life. Be prepared to ask and answer serious questions along the lines of:
"Why don't I trust my own judgment more than I trust theirs?"
"Why do I not trust myself to go ahead with something and trust that I can pick up the pieces should said thing fall apart?"
"Do I trust myself, with myself or am I still looking to others for validation, applause for making a 'good' decision or permission to make a life changing decision?"
I can't tell you how this healing should be carried out, that again is up to you. It could be in a journaling session, where you allow your subconscious to just flow onto the page and get out everything that has been pushed down for so long. Or it could come up in a therapy session, and if so I highly recommend bringing this exercise to your therapist and talking it out. They may ask amazing, deep discovery questions you never thought to ask yourself. Lastly, you could meditate on it and discuss the questions with your spirit team, ancestors and/or deities, which is a great way to grow closer to them and learn more from those who know more.
What I can tell you is the outcome you're wanting to get to, is after this exercise.
The End Goal
Working from a place of, "I'll show them they're wrong about me, just you wait", with a vengeful energy is not the goal. That is a firecracker response with a quick burnout that will just leave you feeling that the only thing you proved was their opinion.
The goal with the exercise above is to reach a point where you trust yourself, your decision making abilities and your ability to care for yourself if it indeed goes wrong, MORE than you trust their words of discouragement.
Your attitude, when presented with statements of discouragement should naturally be,
"Okay."
Whether you're saying it to their face or over a message on a platform, saying a simple "Okay", (if you feel the need to respond at all), gives their stance no credence, no strong hold or footing to be argued. You're adding no fuel to the fire, nor are you admitting or omitting anything.
"Okay", is a full sentence in that it conveys the message that not only do I not agree with you, but I recognize that you also don't agree with me and that's alright, I'm not here to debate my decision. It expresses that you recognize and take no issue with not being everyones 'cup of tea' and just because of that, you're not going to waver on what you have chosen. It also instills with your inner-self a sense of trust.
Your healed natural response will be an indicator to your inner-self that you are an authority to be trusted with the direction of you life, with the care of yourself and that it is no longer someone else you need to look to for approval and/or validation.
Comments