There was a time when I was so disconnected from who I was at my core, so out of balance in my third energy, that I had to be spiritually bankrupt before I could finally discover my identity and worthiness.
For most of my life, and for many reasons I did not understand until much later in life, I was raised to deny my authentic self. As a result I was a chameleon, shifting according to the environment I was in and what I thought those around me expected from me.
The instruction to hide my true identity was hammered into me. My mom always used to tell me, “Never talk about the family. Never talk about yourself.” I had to look and behave a certain way to fit into her idea of what was acceptable— she even picked my clothes! I wasn’t allowed to wear blue jeans — and this was the 70s when EVERYONE was wearing jeans. And my straight hair, well she made me curl it before I left the house to look more like her, conservative and not reflective of my taste or nature. You can imagine how her attempts to make me fit in actually made me stand out like a pigeon in a yard of peacocks.
Inherited Beliefs Can Take Control of Your Life
At the time, I didn’t understand that my mother was dealing with her own self-identity issues and she was doing her best to protect me. She was trying to keep me safe in the only way she knew how.
She kept a secret too when she came to Canada and only revealed it when I was 25 after a family tragedy. She was a hidden child adopted by a Christian family but she was actually Jewish. I can imagine how painful it was to keep the secret of surviving the Holocost, the memory of her father picked up by the SS in front of her and killed in a concentration camp. So, she had her own beliefs and stories about the danger associated with owning your real identity. In her experience, it could literally be life-threatening, and she wanted to save me from that.
All I knew growing up, though, was this: Who I naturally was, and the things I was naturally attracted to, were wrong and bad. Talk about a load of shame!
These years upon years of conditioning had a direct effect on my third energy, which is the seat of personal power, will, vitality, and individuation. As a result, I believed the story that I couldn’t be myself, that I had to conform, that who I was wasn’t acceptable. And when you don’t accept and value yourself, it’s impossible to see your worth and expect others to accept you as you really are.
My story at the time was that I had to fit in to be accepted and safe, and that being unique and being different was not good. So my whole life, I struggled with feeling like I was too much of everything and not enough of anything right. I was created to be different, unique, colorful, and vibrant… AND I was told that I needed to blend in so I could stay safe.
Identifying the Truth About Self-Worth
This disconnect between who I was on the inside, and what I had to pretend to be on the outside, left me way out of alignment. Drugs and alcohol became part of the way I tried to deal with that disconnect, until I got to the point in my 20s where I was so numbed out that I couldn’t have told you who I really was if you’d asked!
After I hit bottom and as I got sober, though, I learned to stop hiding and stop hurting myself. It didn’t happen all at once, and it was knee-shaking scary. But I knew my survival was dependent on being willing to go to the hidden places and embrace what I found there. This was a complete rewriting of my wiring. Suddenly, I was learning that hiding myself was what was making me hurt. I needed to emerge from the shell I’d constructed in order to truly be safe.
During recovery, I met this old lady, Margarete, who sponsored me and took me under her wing. She told me that I was meant to be me and no one else. She literally said, “You be who you are. You just be who you are and we are going to clean up your past, clean up the messes that you made.”
She saw who I was underneath the layers of pretending, underneath the fear and shields I’d erected to keep myself safe, and she told me I was okay, accepted, loved.
She affirmed who I was, and she made me feel like that was enough, and at the same time, I wasn’t TOO much. I was an exotic bird, she told me, and all I had to do was be who I was created to be.
Stripping Away the Past
So step by step, I stripped away the pretense and the lies about who I was, and I found myself underneath. It was like stripping layers of old paint off the wall in order to get to the beautiful bare wood underneath!
It took a lot of work and sweat and elbow grease, and I sometimes wondered if it was really worth it. But then I’d see a glimpse of what lay underneath the grit and muck, and I’d resolve to keep going.
Some days, all I could do was repeat my mantra, which was, “It’s safe to be me.” Just over and over again, “It’s safe to be me. It’s safe to be who I am.” And gradually, my self-acceptance grew and I trusted in who I’d been created to be.
The more I shared my inner truth, the more confident I became. And over time, the facets of my personality and soul that I feared would lead to my rejection — like my intuitive work and my singing — actually became some of my most cherished traits and skills that brought me and the world around me so much joy.
Moving on from Loneliness and Rejection
If you’ve been in this situation where you’ve believed you have to hide your inner self, maybe you dealt with it by learning to be a really great actor and pretending for everyone. Or by being the chameleon who blends into your surroundings. Or by numbing the pain of alienation like I did, or by just telling yourself that you’re never enough and you’ll never be enough and accepting a role as “less than.” Chances are, you felt lonely and excluded like I did.
I invite you to see those feelings as invitations to take a look at the stories you’re believing regarding acceptance and self-identity, in order to move to a higher-level belief of personal power and self-determination!
Developing an Unshakable Sense of Worthiness
If you’re wondering how to have self-worth, it starts with the stories you are believing about your identity. The truth is that you were created with inherent worthiness, a spark of the Divine that is manifested only through your existence.
In order to believe that new, empowering truth, you can explore your creative self-expression through dance, music, art, and words.
What is unique about yourself?
What do you try to hide away from view?
What if you brought those elements into the sunshine for all to see and appreciate?
The very things you may be ashamed of are often the very reason you were created!
You create yourself every day through the choices you make and the stories you tell. It’s time to assume your role as Storyteller and Divine co-creator. Spirit lives in you and is supporting you. You are uniquely and wonderfully made. There is only one of you in all creation. Let your inner brilliance shine!
P.S. Energy 3 is represented by fire. It is the seat of vitality, joy and anger, will, and more. When our third energy is in alignment, it can move us to achieve our goals and undergo needed transformations, as the fire contains so much potential to change us and fuel our action.
On social media this week, I invited my community to take a poll, telling me what key concept of Energy 3 you’d like to focus on for the rest of 2021. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this transformative energy!
Take the Energy 3 poll here.