Been thinking about this anger/fear issue and wondering what it is that I'm truly angry at. In replaying the post-writing events, one aspect came up over and over again, so I focused on this.
One person read what I had written a couple days ago (before I edited it) and went in a direction that literally never crossed my mind. At the time, I did not know that. When she was talking to me about it and mentioned some aspect of what she thought I was talking about, she assumed my 'I'm upset, but on that point you completely lost me' expression was an 'I'm not listening to you anymore' expression. I later on figured out what she thought I was talking about, and I must admit I was stunned.
This was the opening to digging into the source of my anger. This scene replayed itself over and over in my mind's eye. Because I was stuck on this moment, I knew something was there. After replaying it for about an hour of quiet time, it finally hit me: what pisses me off in an instant is a perceived abuse of the Story.
In order to make sense of this particular statement, I have to be within the archetypal mindset. I have the StoryTeller in the Third House, the house of self-expression. I express and understand myself through the medium of Stories. My StoryTeller is tied to my ShapeShifter sitting in the 9th House of spirituality. Both of these areas of my life are extremely active, and tied together. The Story becomes the medium for not only self but also spiritual expression. It becomes something Sacred, and I intuitively understand the tremendous power that it wields.
What I didn't realize was just how strongly I felt about the Story, until I started to unravel all of this. In the last post, I confessed a rage at organized religion. I can see now that everything I've ever said or thought about that topic is tied to what I viewed as an abuse of the Story. A story can be used to inspire, uplift, motivate, and support a person or people as they move through life. At its best, it can empower and energize and comfort. This is the positive side of the story, the power that the storyteller wields. The negative side is when that story is used to degrade, suppress, beat down and weaken a person or people so that they can't move through life with grace. At its worst, it can disempower and deflate and shame.
I quite honestly do not give a crap about religious *expressions* or self-*expressions*. Wear or don't wear whatever you want. Shave your head or never even trim your hair. Beared or beardless. Neon yellow robes or tattered rags. Pray kneeling or standing, 5 times a day or never. Jeans or skirt or mumu. I do NOT care. What I care about it whether those choices are made because the Story that supports the religion or the person or the culture is empowering the individual, or disempowering the individual. (See? A third-chakra statement right there!!) What I'm finally starting to see is that the relationship to the Story is actually as individual as it is cultural or societal or familial. (Moving out of a first- or second-chakra understanding!) One person will make expression choice A because they are ashamed of something, and another person will make the exact same expression choice because they are proud of something. What I care about is the source of that decision, NOT the decision. It's a subtle distinction, and can be easily lost, especially when I make the assumption that everyone else sees this and so mistakenly think it's not necessary to point it out. Anyway, the source of that decision is usually related to the individual's or family's or society's relationship to the Story which supports their way of life.
I've been looking solely at the societal/cultural (first-chakra) relationship to the story and completely missed the individual (third-chakra) relationship. As a result, I completely missed that they are not necessarily the same relationship. This realization is like a hammer to the head: wake up! So then if I want something to change, the choices simply in my mind to 'either change the story, or change the relationship to the story'. My next-to-last post was all kinds of 'change the story!' (pre-edit) when what I really need to do is just change my relationship to the story.
I've been listening and reading to a lot of stuff on working with our Jungian Shadows, the disowned parts of ourselves, and the statement which has come up over and over again as flagged in my mind's eye is basically: any area of my life which has a strong charge to it is an area of myself that I am projecting onto others. I've been looking for those areas which are highly charged for me, and literally never considered this one. Suddenly now seeing it a bit more clearly, the question that immediately followed the revelation is: "If I'm so charged up over the perception of the abuse of a beautiful and powerful Story to disempower others, where I am doing this in my own life that I'm not recognizing?" In other words, since I'm projecting this outside of myself, where I am doing inside of myself?
Since my StoryTeller is in the house of self-expression, I take this question in the direction of "what story am I telling myself in order to keep me small and weak? Where am I abusing the Story in order to justify being disempowered?" Where am I victimizing myself based on the story that I'm using to guide my world view?
I wonder now if the entire point of this Lioness blog is for me to find for myself another Story, or rather change my relationship to the Story so that I give myself permission to be the empowered me.
In order to test whether or not this observation of myself is true, I'm now revisiting all those private thoughts over the years in which I raged against religion. Since I haven't yet identified my own Story, there's still some charge here, ie more to discover, but I'm delighted to also discover that the level of emotional heat has dropped considerably. I'm excited by this breakthrough! I also know it will require a great deal more work to realize, but I figured I'd share with you the process of self-discovery. Maybe there are other Lionesses who can find the hidden source of what angers them so that they too can own all of themselves and empowered.
- Lioness (in training)
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