I’ve fragmented myself into little pieces in an attempt to play by the rules. Always. Because I can’t be spiritual and sexual. Because I can’t be a good girl and a bad girl. Because I can’t be a beautiful young woman and a raging alcoholic. Because I can’t be a musician and grow my own business. Because I can’t have an eating disorder and love myself. Because I can’t have a fiery temper and a fiery heart.
But all of these things are/were true, and none of them at the same time. They are all parts of my persona.
The older I get, the more acquainted with myself I become, the more I can appreciate that I am all of these personas and none of them. My essence, my SOUL, is deeper than all the things that I do or feel, than all of the outfits I dress myself in.
I am realizing that I can wear almost any hat, and still be me – just wearing a different, silly hat.
(This is kinda irrelevant, but there’s this silly hat quote that has always stuck with me and that I SO love, so I’m dropping it here. I read a Tom Waits interview years ago where he talks about the existential crisis that comes with quitting drinking, or “draining the pool” – he says “I was trying to prove something to myself, too. It was like, ‘Am I genuinely eccentric? Or am I just wearing a funny hat? What am I made of? What’s left when you drain the pool?’”).
ANYWAY, musical interlude over; earlier this year, I had an existential crisis with all my hats – trying to sensibly separate all the threads that were weaving their way out of me into the world. I wanted to develop a coaching business, my work in sacred sexuality, my music and my writing. I felt (and still feel), that I could do it all because I knew that they were all coming from the same soulful place, but I felt like I had to keep them all separate in order to have success in any of them.
It felt like I wasn’t just crafting a double-life, but a quadruple-life.
Yet, if I shift the perspective to SOUL from PERSONA, there’s no need to fragment myself to play by societies rules. I am one soul, trying on different hats.
And I’m not here to play by the rules, anyway.
I want to live in a world where people can be in the fullest, truest, most unapologetic and unconventional expressions of themselves. I want people to be growing their gardens and their careers. I want to see podiatrists who paint. I want to see musicians who work in marketing. I want to see scientists who are sculptors. I want us to stop thinking that all these things are mutually exclusive, that certain paths are frivolous and need to be downgraded to “hobbies”, that we need to choose one thing and stick at that if that’s not true for us (and if it is, wonderful!).
I recently had a client bemoan the fact that they were a “jack of all trades, master of none”, and it almost made me cry, as I realized how many times I’ve heard that phrase darkly used growing up, and how it’s affected the way I see myself.
Fuck it! If I’m here for the limited time that I am, I want to try on as many silly hats as I can! This bullshit idea of “spreading ourselves too thin” is coming from the very lack mentality that I’m trying to move away from.
And this idea that we need to be perfectly poised, polished and branded automatons is only true as long as WE BELIEVE IT’S TRUE, as long as we’re actively CHOOSING to live in and play into the culture of persona rather than the culture of soul.
I want a culture of SOUL. I want a culture of authenticity. I want to see politicians who admit that they don’t know what they’re doing; I want to see spiritual leaders fuck up and own it; I want to see people shining and falling and picking themselves up again. I want to see what is already happening – fullness, realness, too-muchness. This is the age that is dawning, one where our masks are being revealed and we have no glossy veneers to hide behind, so that the light of the love of our souls can truly shine through.
I want everyone’s uniqueness to be fully celebrated. I’ve got to start with my own.
So I’m approaching the world with a ‘this is me, all of me’ attitude. I will change a lot. There are so many hats I haven’t tried on yet. I might decide some of my current, beloved hats don’t suit me anymore.
So I’m streeeeamlining my social media, and I’m sure my friends in each respective industry will tell me I shouldn’t, and maybe they’re right, and maybe it will be confusing and I’ll have no success in anything and blah blah blah, and if I change my mind, I change my mind. It just feels SO GOOD, TOO GOOD not to do this right now.
It’s a little step on a superficial level, I mean WHO CARES, really, but on a deeper level it’s a massive weight off my shoulders. To not be grappling with all these separate parts and feeling like they’re incompatible.
Thank you to all of my badass friends around the world who are already playing by their own rules and have inspired me, consciously or subconsciously, to do the same.
You can call me Ellowen. (L-O-N)