Soul-Making
... or on being and becoming your self
‘… I belong. Everywhere. And I don’t have to earn it.'
“Just be yourself”, often we hear our friends say, “there is no way he won’t love you”, or “they would be crazy not to hire you.” But when are we really ourselves? And are we ever ourselves, or are we just switching through a variety of our social personas depending on the circumstances and situations? There is nothing wrong with wearing different social personas in different situations - as a mater of fact, it is preferred to do so if you want to appear an adult and sane person - but we need to be aware and conscious when we are wearing them and for what reason.
So, what does being yourself actually mean, and how do we “become” that self?
Most of us think that if we are going to be fully ourselves, the moment others really see us - with all our needs, desires, fears, angers, insecurities, wounds, crazy thoughts in our head, and our flaws - they won’t love us and accept us, and, eventually, we won’t have anyone around us. If our lover (or Instagram, for that matter) sees us without a make up on, without a flat belly and a perky posture, when we are maybe tired or sad or without a perfect clothes or hairstyle - they will judge us. And we’ll end up all alone. Of course, none of this we are consciously thinking as we are going throughout our day; however, we regularly act out of these and many similar (unconscious) core beliefs.
So much of the new age philosophy speaks about being your true self, your authentic self, about self-expression and voicing your thoughts, wishes and dreams. This, naturally, requires us to always be happy, cheerful, positive and blissful, and never worried, sad, afraid or depressed, and it is very well coupled with the messages such as “keep calm and carry on” as well as the “no drama” notes on peoples’ profiles on Tinder. If that would be so simple (and an ultimate truth), and if people would actually know how to make this happen, most of us would be healthier happier individuals, and most of the therapists and coaches would be out of work. Besides, being your true self does not mean being always calm, happy, and with “no drama.”
Deeply inside, all of us want to be free, we want to be our true selves, and in the attempts to accomplish that, we desperately want (and need) change. In order to be free, however, we first need to know that we are in bondage; bondage to our unconscious beliefs, to our jobs, relationships; bondage to our knowledge about who we are and how others see us. Knowing that we are in bondage to people, places, things and situations will help us (if not, make us) go about the change. If this bondage is so painful (and we all know that it almost always is), why are we, then, so afraid of change when it starts happening? Why do we get so complacent?
Usually, those of us who are self-confident and recognize our own value with or without others to acknowledge that, we don’t have a problem moving through this transformation. Majority of people, however, fear criticism and judgment of others, fear hurting and disappointing others (although this is very common in people-pleasing and codependency, and not a very healthy way to live and be), and therefore give up faith in their own personal journey of becoming the true (unapologetic) self, remaining in bondage to society.
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are” ~ Carl Jung
If you’re the lucky (and courageous enough) one, there comes that moment in your life when you are no longer able to remain the old, same self, and when the birth of a new reality begins. Your work no longer is fulfilling, a relationship in which you are in is no longer nourishing you, a friendship doesn’t offer deep connection and intimacy anymore, maybe you are going through a significant life transition, your kids are grown and leaving the home, or you are considering if you are going to have any children at all, and so on. These life transitions are crucial catalysts for inner change; opportunities for major shifts in understanding ourselves. As Marion Woodman writes in The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation, “Birth is the death of the life we have known; death is the birth of the life we have yet to live”. This process can involve both being glad and relieved for leaving the past behind but also feeling scared and frozen with a thought of what is coming; an unknown future. If in this moment we attempt to stay fixed and afraid, and avoid this natural change, we are rejecting life, since change is the law of life. What is going to happen is that we’ll become confused, lost, frozen and horrified, and we’ll face pain one way or another. We might “treat” the pain with extra work, pain killers, alcohol, shopping - but it won’t go away completely.
“A life that is being truly lived is constantly burning away the veils of illusion, gradually revealing the essence of the individual,” Marion Woodman says. This process is often called “middle age crisis” - I personally prefer Carl Jung’s term “individuation.” Individuation is the process that can be as slow or speedy as it needs to be. It can take many forms; we may be in agony if we can’t accept our personal maturing process, and we may also be happy to enter our little cocoon. Some of us will enter this process disregarding the lack of understanding and sensitivity from the society and our loved ones, and others will depend on its influence more. Unfortunately, most people will never enter and experience this phase of life.
I agree with Jung that going into the cocoon and entering the process of transformation is essential for finding our true selves. Very little in our “modern” society supports and encourages this process - where we withdraw and go inwards - and we need to find time, energy, “selfishness”, faith and trust in order to make it happen for ourselves. This process may involve a lot of silent reflecting, contemplating, meditating, journaling, crying, being alone and away from family and dear ones (physically, but also certainly psychologically and spiritually), being in therapy, moving through all kinds of emotions and feelings, and so on. It might seem to others that we are doing nothing, but that is the whole point of this process; just being and curiously getting to know our self. Question “Who am I?” - is the center of this process. Without knowing who I am, I can’t possibly love myself and with that, I cannot truly honestly love others either. So, the importance of knowing who I am is needed prior to fully accepting that “I,” and being myself without any conditions and limitations.
Personally, I have recognized that the process of individuation began in my own life about a year ago (it usually happens around mid forties); and it’s not completed yet. It was my personal quest for meaning that guided me to find my own inner story. I was living in Bali at the time, and despite all the beauty and nature around me, I have been experiencing a series of breakdowns, that would end with me sobbing, raging or being frozen and confused. I have felt this excruciating pain, discontent and doubt about my life, relationships, the work I do, and the way I show up in the world. Things turned very dark almost instantly. More and more it became obvious to me that so many things in my life I am choosing to do for wrong reasons; more precisely, for reasons that are not close to my heart, but rather are the conditioning from my parents, society, peers. I went on questioning and reflecting on my life choices - to be single (for the better part of my adult life), to live alone (whenever I can afford it), to live far away from my parents (not as an escape strategy, but simply as following my own intuition and needs rather than satisfying theirs), to be separated from loved ones by oceans and continents, to not have children, to not marry (again) and/or live in a partnership, to rethink my work, to keep on seeking, and searching, and moving places, and, most importantly, to continue this intimate self-knowing and seeking journey. During this time of reflection, my being in this world showed up as heavy depression, confusion, irritability, doubt, and lack of excitement about almost anything, and I knew that big shift is happening; the biggest shift in my life. The one that will discover (or, rather, uncover) my self; self that can exist freely, without borders and conditions.
“More than often, we need to leave the old without any promise of the new, need to spend time as forest dwellers, just surviving.” ~ Marion Woodman
Many of my close friends and family (out of pure love and care, I know) were advising me to go and see a doctor and get help, to try a different job, to move to a different place, to find love (in a man), even to get pregnant and have a baby (because I needed to be less self-centered and find an unconditional love in a child). All of these suggestions involved “doing something about it” (often doing things that they would have done if this was their life), whereas I felt I mostly needed to just feel it, sit in it, allow breakthroughs to happen, and, things, realizations, will come to me. I had a knowing deep inside that this is nothing else but my personal cocooning phase, and that I need to let it be, grow and mature, and become whatever it needs to become. I am still in this phase of my life, but with a several breakthroughs behind me, and probably a few more ahead of me.
I am certain, however, that none of this would have happened if I was still drinking and using. Mind altering substances were, for me, a way to hide from myself - because I did not like her - and become someone else. I thought she was weird and strange, almost always too much, but never just good enough. Drugs and booze masked that experience, making it all more acceptable and fun and uninhibited when with others, but then, when I am all alone, I would face that unlikeable self again. I heard someone said once “Self knowledge is not necessarily good news.” This is true (for me, at least) in a sense that the process of getting to know yourself most probably won’t be the most comfortable and pleasant experience you go through. And the things we learn about ourselves might not be what we expected or hoped for (and certainly “cool” aspects of ourselves); I have learnt that I often experience anxiety in large groups, that I am very uncomfortable with (polite) small talk, that I am a highly sensitive person who needs a lot of alone time, that I tend to fall into depression even when my life looks good from the outside, and that I am (almost obsessively) tidy, opinionated and judgmental. This time, though, I am not disliking these traits, and I am also not apologizing for them; I am simply witnessing my self.
This might be the one absolutely essential process if you are going to be(come) your true self, without apologies, and without having a need to earn it, deserve it. There is no greater purpose in this life but to be you. You don’t have to be anyone or anything special.
There are no limitations to your realness.
You are just to be. And that is enough.
“What is essential … is not embedded in buildings, is not embedded in clothing, is not necessarily embedded even in a rule. It is somewhere along the line of something deeper than a rule. It is concerned with this business of total inner transformation.”
~ Thomas Merton
In her book The Pregnant Virgin, Marion Woodman speaks about the process of “psychological pregnancy”, as she calls it - forever open to possibilities, forever the struggle to become conscious, forever search for personal identity. In this process, there are different phases, and one them is “chrysalis”; the period in our life when the life as we know it is over and we are alone. “No longer who we were, we know not who we may become”.
One way or another, most of us have been through situations in life when we felt this way. We were given many opportunities to begin our own chrysalis experience. Either we chose to continue with this process (or, rather, through it), or we ignored it or denied it, that is our choice. But, you know what they say “change happens when the pain (and fear) of remaining the same is greater than the pain (and fear) of change.”
From the bottom of my heart I wish you to allow and feel that discomfort that is necessary for the change you wish to make. It’s worth it.
Voices from the Chrysalis
It’s hard for me to trust life. I like to take hold of it, grab it by the neck and put my teeth into it, just to be sure it doesn’t get away on me.
I try to see how far I’ve come, rather than how far I have to go.
Now that I’m contacting my own inner clock, I am so slow. My life is on top of me. The collision of values overwhelms me. Am I wasting my time? I don’t know … I don’t know … this terrible aloneness.
I’ve always identified with what I’m not. But who am I? My guilt and shame and fear are making me human.
I was always waiting until all the responsibilities were completed, then there would be time for me. How? I never thought about that. I’ve been so busy doing, I’ve missed something very important to me. I don’t think I was ever a child. I have no recollection at all of being a very young child with any sense of being ME.
I wonder if it takes a holocaust, outer or inner, to help us to realize what is really essential in life.
I lived a smile-and-grin, smile-and-grin existence. I was dying.
I rage for life. I want so much to be free.
I’m trying to have faith - faith that I will be born.
I’m so off balance. I pray for daily guidance to avoid tripping over things. I can go to sleep when I orient myself to the stars.
The spirit is in the volcano inside. My relationships aren’t very good right now, so I go back to work. I’m safe there. But even that isn’t perfect.
I’ll explode if I have to react to one more thing. I’m pulling back. I’m overwhelmed by the pressures of the outside world and the mounting pressures of the interior world are making me feel actually sick.
Used to feel capable, used to speak and write well. Now I never feel secure because I can’t find words.
Am I fighting my destiny or does my destiny require I take a stand?
When I touch into that essence and recognize myself as what I’ve been running away from, I am humbled.
I’m Miss Compassion, Miss Humanity. I’m a missing piece. I’m also a child of God.
To get rid of one’s past one has to forgive - confront and forgive - and move into the present. Forgive oneself too, and God.
I hated my father. Imitated him so I knew I hated myself.
~ Marion Woodman, The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation
