Shadow Work is really Identity Work

.Accepting all of You

I was going to do a rundown of all the missed takes I made in 2022. What worked, didn’t work, and reflect on what I learned from them. 

This will not be that email. 

Instead, this will be an email celebrating myself. 

Actuality I wish we would send more of these to one another. 

“What would you say I’m passionate about?”, I asked Alex. 

I was standing in the shower where I feel the safest. Earlier that day Alex & I were talking about passions and how our bodies can feel so connected to our true selves while our minds struggle to get on board.

Another way of saying that- our mind doesn’t always trust what our bodies are passionate about. 

“I would say making things look & feel beautiful”, he said. 

At that moment I realized I had spent my entire life so far trying to fit ‘beauty’ into a business. I don’t want that anymore. 

I don’t want to have to fit my essence inside of something or a name or title.

Alex was right, I love beautiful things and adore the feeling of them even more.

They are untouched by the archaic moralistic structures.

Beauty forces me to engage with my own beauty, a seemingly innocent invitation but one I’ve fought and has wreaked havoc on my mind-body connection for a while.

As I stood in the shower, beads of water massaging my neck, I fell into a trance.

I began listing.
Celebrating the multi-dimensional mosaic of identities I’ve existed as over the last 10 years. 

-Jeweler
-Ceramicist 
-Fashion Designer
-Fashion Editor
-Wardrobe Stylist
-Homeware Store owner
-Interior Designer
-Graphic Designer
-Kindergarten Teacher
-Tattoo Artists 
-Human Design Guide
-Music Producer

What a privilege to be able to bear witness when the body, soul & pressure decide to mutate.

To watch as they dissolve & reform over & over again.

Many times I’m too busy to notice or too obsessed with self-doubt to gawk.

This time I didn’t fight it. I made peace.

Peace with the fact that I will never be one thing, nor do I want to be.
Peace with this identity (Aquarian entrepreneur) signaling its expiration soon.
Peace that none of these identities can ever deliver the sense of safety I believed they once could.

What I really wanted was permission.

The permission to end when I was complete and begin again when I was ready.

To cease asking who I am & start being what I am.

So I granted myself that. 

I read that this kind of peace occurs when we cease being intolerant of ourselves.

There is no outrunning the body’s desires. Whenever I go against mine, my material reality crumbles & my body is the first to break down.

Life is not moral. 
Let me say that again. 
Life is not moral. 
One more time for when I read this back to myself. 
Life is not moral. 

I can get tangled here. Life doesn’t reward or punish me. It’s simply seeking a way towards expression- through what feels good to me. 

I’m getting ready to celebrate my birthday on New Year’s Day. This time there is no resolution- nothing to resolve. More of an absolution, a deep forgiveness of self-fragmentation.

I’m looking forward to sharing everything, slowly over the coming months. But for now, I’ll be holding it close.

sending all my love for a calm closure & a happy new year.

remember, care for your energy first,
talk soon
Jas

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ES World

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