I’m a Sagittarius. And an ESTJ. If you know anything about both astrology and Meyer’s Briggs, you probably know what a contradiction that is. And those who know me might just think I *like* being complicated and difficult. Well, friends, you might be right. Because as monster mother says, I was born this way.
Of course, I realize what a contradiction that is. Sagittarians are notoriously free-spirits, and ESTJ’s are known for being anal-retentive. I used to define myself in oxymorons. I would say I was rigid about being a free-spirit, intolerant of intolerance, and things like that, but the truth is that people usually see me as one way or the other. Or they want to see me as sitting smack in the middle, as a person who has no extremes (because extremes as we all know, are baaaaad–*wink*). And that has been a huge struggle for me for my adult life, thus far. I’ve grown painfully distant from many dear friends over the course of my life because I was decidedly not the wild-woman, or the skeptic, or the fence-sitter that they thought I was. No. I was (and am) all of those things. Separately and at once. And I’m sorry to say, that once the shine has worn off of a new relationship, we all will at one time or another reveal exactly who we really are to the people we spent a great deal of time with. Sometimes we love these discoveries. And sometimes, we don’t. And sometimes we’re on the hurtful side of things wondering what we did wrong. Well, I’m here to say that the republican and the democrat both exist inside me at the same time, and I guess that can be taken to mean I’m kind of moderate, but I’m not really. I’m me. And the me I am doesn’t fit inside political party lines. I’m a republican and a democrat and a green and an independent, and even sometimes a crazy libertarian. (And I’m not capitalizing those on purpose. Because I’m convinced they are important here–this post is really about embracing authenticity.)
Another oxymoron that I embrace inside myself: I’m a self-proclaimed pagan, yet people are usually surprised to learn I do, in fact, believe in God. I just don’t believe the exact same way most Christians do. I reserve the right to think of God as the same thing as Spirit or Source or Guidance or Love. (God is love, let heaven adore him. I like hymns. Is that weird? I don’t think it’s weird, but maybe you do.) If I have a Spirit inside of me that God created, then there is God inside of me. And if you have a Spirit inside of you, then there is God inside of you. And if God created the rocks and the trees and the mountains and my black kitty with the white patch of fur on her chest, then Spirit is inside of them, too. Spirit has many names. She is a man, he is a woman, it is a little brown spider that I will probably kill with my flip flop if I spot it in my house, but if that amazing thing stays just outside the window where I write, I’ll probably watch it for months. I try to see God everywhere. I see it easily in my kids faces every morning. I see it in the beautiful coffee table I put my feet on when I watch television. I feel it when I step inside of a beautiful cathedral or when I climb a mountain. I believe that God’s will is that he wants us to choose our own Spirit. And the only hell I think I believe in is the hell that people put themselves and each other through here on Earth when they don’t see the Spirit–the Love–inside themselves and their neighbors. Does that even make sense? I think pagans and christians have much more in common than they think, but religion is one of those labels that many people want to file away neatly, never to be discussed, except with those who see it exactly the same.
When I was a little girl, I obviously didn’t think in terms of such things. I didn’t question why some people thought I was shy and serious, while others might have the impression that I was outgoing and silly. I knew instinctively that they were all right, and it was okay to be everything I knew I was. But somewhere along the line, the same thing happens to me that happens to everyone else…it became noticeable that people like to categorize others in order to make themselves feel comfortable (and I was guilty of this, too–I did it to others, and I did it to myself, still do at times). In junior high, there were the smart kids and the popular kids, and the bad kids (and more, so many ways we build walls between us in mislead pursuit of what we truly want=connection). We had all labelled ourselves and each other, and in labelling, we began to live in tiny spaces that didn’t allow us to be our full selves. It’s a social filing system. And you can be refiled, with some serious effort, but you can’t inhabit two folders and do it well. Even if you think you can do it, others might stop you. So this was when I started seeing other people as obstacles to my Me-ness. I was a smart kid (I don’t think anyone who went to grade school with me would argue with this, but some people who know me now might!!), and by the eighth grade, I was really resisting that. I remember actually talking to my mother about it. Because I purposely let my grades slip. I purposely wrote wrong answers on tests that year. Not because I didn’t enjoy my smartness, but because I wanted to explore other aspects of myself, and I knew my Smart-ness was getting in the way of that. During eighth grade and high school, I set out to explore all the folders in this curious social filing system. I was convinced I could fit in more than one. (And although my thinking sounds very linear like an ESTJ, I can promise you it was more of a random testing situation, and I could not have told you all this at the time).
Labels that worked well for me those years: writer, poet, first soprano, hiker, mountain climber, girl scout, actress
Labels that were epic-failures (but please note: I had fun trying!): basketball player, cellist, vegan, actress (yes, I know actress was on both lists)
So while all this exploring sounds very new-agey and self-confident of me, I probably don’t need to tell you that by the time I reached college, I was kind of a mess from all the compartmentalizing I was doing. I was wearing a million different masks with a million different people. I had a ton of people I called friends, and at the end of the day, I went to sleep feeling very lonely and terrified that no one would ever know the real me. It was my biggest fear, and I thought I was doing it right, honoring all the parts of myself to the point of exhaustion, but never really forcing the issue at hand–that I needed to find people who loved all of me. I had my outdoorsy personality–but couldn’t find anyone who really liked to take their time, enjoy the views. I had to race to the peak to keep those friends, you know? I had my music friends, and in order to fit in there, I had to be at rehearsal 5 or more hours a week, which was tiring and meant I couldn’t do other things I like to do. I joined a sorority because it reminded me of Girl Scouts, and I used my leadership skills to solve problems, but in order to be respected, I couldn’t let my hair down and be real. When you are a leader, every time you make a mistake, even a mistake from the heart, someone calls you on it and often in a very loud and hurtful way. Everywhere I went, only a small piece of me was accepted and loved, and that made me wonder if I was ANY OF IT. If I really was all these things, then why did it hurt so much to be them? I knew so many cool people, and yet I didn’t feel as if I could really connect with any of them because once they learned about the other sides of me, they didn’t love those other sides as much as the side they initially connected with. Don’t get me wrong, I was doing a GREAT job of exploring all the facets of ME. I knew more about my strengths and limitations than a lot of young people do. I pushed myself beyond my comfort zone every single day, because being uncomfortable and exploring things–that had become my comfort zone, you know?
It has taken me a very long time to realize that the issue I struggle most with isn’t labels or authenticity. It’s integration. It’s that place where you live 100% of your truth every day. Not 5% percent here and 10% there. It’s that place where you realize that it’s okay to be a pagan who believes in God. It’s okay to not pick a political party not because you have no feelings on politics, but perhaps because you have too many feelings on the subject. It’s that place where you laugh because you ARE an anal-retentive free-spirit. Every label you own–mother, daughter, wife, sister–is simultaneously a piece of you. While it may be easier to hide pieces of yourself from others to avoid conflict and fear of rejection, it doesn’t usually serve you in the long run. Hiding important pieces of yourself hurts and can make you feel depressed. And spreading yourself into sixteen different directions to make sure you get all your needs met is too exhausting. You have to integrate the pieces. You have to pull them together into a nice little collection and label the entire thing: ME. And you have to present it to everyone that matters in your life. You also have to realize that just because someone doesn’t like all of your offerings doesn’t mean they don’t like you, or that they aren’t good for you, it simply means that friendship is limited, and it is best not to base your self-esteem on how it’s playing out. YOU are not necessarily limited, and neither are they. Just your relationship is. To continue with my little file system analogy, you do not belong in a file folder; a file folder belongs in you. Isn’t it nicer to think of yourself as a container for your own values and skills and interests, rather than suffocating inside of someone else’s expectations?
So this is where I try hard to come full circle to wrap this up. I’ve been trying really hard for a long time to figure out how to be my whole self every day. This has meant shoring myself up, so that when someone rejects my ideas or my thoughts, that I can truly brush it off. It means practicing forgiveness for others, but more importantly for myself. A lot of people can’t understand why you would need to forgive yourself for others not accepting you–if you’re interested, I can recommend some good books on shadow work. Shadow work can help you identify your greatest weaknesses by examining what bugs you about others. We can’t integrate or “own” stuff that we don’t acknowledge, so it takes a lot of brutal honesty and discomfort sometimes. As recently as a few months ago, I was still telling myself that I could honor both my ESTJ and my Sagittarian sides separately. I didn’t like my serious, orderly side as much as my fun-loving side. I thought it was freakish that I could have such stubborn, rigid tendencies when I had my astrological chart done years ago, and learned I had absolutely NO earth signs in my pattern. I always assumed that my attraction to my earth-sign husband was due to the fact that he filled a lack for me, or that I needed to learn to be more grounded. I have in fact been splitting myself down the middle for many, many years now. My fun side and my serious side. My life is quite polarized as a result. So much that most of the people I work and play with would probably never choose to be in the same room together. I have found a few rare people who could straddle my worlds with me and appreciate that it’s all the “real” me. Even I couldn’t understand where these polar opposites came from. I knew my need for free-play time and my zest for creativity and really loud laughter was a true expression of my most authentic self. I also knew that my strong, serious need for order and rules and structure at other times was really not negotiable. Both were real, and I thought what I was seeking was some balance in life. I didn’t think there could be any connection between the two. Until I learned that my moon is in Capricorn (not Aquarius as I’d previously thought)! Capricorn is an earth sign, quite different from Sagittarius, and while Sagittarius, my sun sign, which rules my outer life and how people see me, Capricorn rules my inner life, my thought-processes, the serious little me that is always lurking just underneath the surface, over-analyzing everything. This is the ESTJ in me that likes coming into a problem scenario, assessing the issues present, and directing people how I see that we can systematically fix it. It’s the me that washes the kitchen floor with bleach and a green scrubbie when I’m upset about something–how very practical that I can funnel anger into chores. This is the me that has to have the toilet paper on the roll a certain way, and will change it–even in public restrooms if I can! It’s the me that insists that I put a label on clear jars of things in the pantry. Everything that has been a mystery to me about myself has begun to make sense. I suddenly understand that there is a use in this world for a goofy overachiever who likes to assess problems and solve them for the greater good. Attention to business detail is a great skill for a self-employed author. That is so cool. Why didn’t I see that sooner? Why did I see my down-to-earth side as the antithesis of my creative spirit? They are great friends! They need to stop rejecting each other just because they are different! They need to stop trying to be more like each other and appreciate what they do for each other!
My inability to bring these two sides of myself together without denying either one of them has resulted in so many years of soul searching and banging my head against a wall. I wish I had gotten it sooner, but I can also clearly see that every little mess I’ve made has brought me closer to being ready to receive the message that it can be done–that I don’t have to split myself in two, and that I will be much happier when I’m respecting my whole self full-time, instead of bits of myself part-time. I hope that by sharing this little struggle, that it helps someone someone else work through their own labeling or naming issues. (You hear people talk about wearing masks, and it’s pretty similar.) What masks or labels do you have trouble integrating in your life? If you could stop hiding or denying something about yourself, what would it be?
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