Are You Ready To Receive?
I’m reading The Goddesses in Everywoman again after many years. It’s a comforting reminder that powerful archetypes — unconscious inner forces — play out in our lives to greater degrees at different times. I’m not stuck in this role of patterns and habits. The goddess Athena, logical and self-assured, has not left me. It’s just that now Demeter, the great mother driven to nurture and sustain, dominates my psyche after supporting my daughter’s four year fight with chronic illness.
When you’re defined by what you give, there’s not much incentive to receive. The edges of your desires, needs, and goals disappear in doing for others. You lose the sense of your true self. Do you remember who she is?
As a mother and caregiver, I often dilute my energy and thus my sense of self because I’m empathic and highly intuitive. Sensitivity is a curse when it leads to over-giving, but a powerful gift when you discover its potential to create a life you love.
I’ve consciously cultivated this power for over 30 years, and still I stumble. I wound up on the ground often in recent years, but each time intuitive grace urged me to find my edges to feel empowered and alive again.
It takes time to find your edges after giving so much for so long. When you do, they are frayed and tattered, appearing beyond repair. But pulling back the folds to examine them closer, it’s clear what needs to be cut; what can be mended, reinforced, and extended — adorned even — so some parts shine brighter than before. The inner Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty who compels women to create, just might take center stage!
You may find grief arises for what could have been if only you’d stayed close to yourself all along. You grieve wasted time, energy, and emotions. All the things left undone. But grief is the necessary darkness that makes the light that much brighter. Honor the abandoned parts of yourself and devote time now to giving them what they need first before others.
Finding the edge of your aura is a good start to reclaiming your true self. Why not take a few moments now to start with the following reflection:
Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine your vibrant energy flowing back to your body from people and places in the past, the present, and the future. With your hand on your heart say aloud: I am here, I am here, I am here.
Say hello to yourself and start the deeper conversation by asking what you need right now to start feeling and living like your true self.
The first answer might be sarcastic, angry — even vengeful. Be patient. Ask again.
Ask until a ring of truth ripples through your body. You’ll know it when you hear it. Then act on it as best you can. Prove to intuition you are ready to receive. Once acknowledged, intuition continues to guide you away from over-giving toward balance and self-esteem. Back to your sense of divinity within.
