Irish-American Witchcraft: Losing Yourself & Finding Yourself Again

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 5:06 pm by Morgan Daimler

Irish-American Witchcraft: Losing Yourself & Finding Yourself Again 2017-09-07T17:06:00+00:00 Morgan Daimler

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

There’s a term we often see thrown around in modern paganism the ‘dark night of the soul’ which as I understand it is a period where someone has a crisis of faith. What we don’t see discussed very often but something I see happening and have experienced myself – is more prosaic and personal. It happens when a person’s faith remains constant but what they lose touch with is their inner sense of self, that internal identity that anchors a person in who and what they are.

It happens for a variety of reasons and it can be a slow creeping uncertainty or a sudden crisis of identity. Sometimes it comes from a desire for acceptance and an inner feeling that the you need to change who you are to earn that. Sometimes it comes from something Paganism suffers from all too frequently, the cult of personality; you fall into following a well-known or charismatic person and start tailoring yourself to fit what you think that person expects. It may be rooted in a desire to earn praise or to avoid criticism but it expresses itself the same way: in a slow change of personal preferences.

Photo by the author.

Maybe you always loved vanilla and amber oil perfume until people in a group criticized that as being ‘basic’. Maybe you always loved wearing pink until you heard a group of people mocking someone wearing that color for being a poser. Maybe you hated wearing big jewelry until you got the idea that all witches needed to. The reasons and expressions vary but it always seems to be rooted in conformity one way or another.

You’re going along living your life without being aware that you have been transformed, changed into a shadow of yourself, and then one day you suddenly look around and realize that you don’t know yourself anymore. You aren’t your Self anymore. You’ve become the external expression of what you think other people expected you to be, but it isn’t you. It’s a mask, and not a comfortable one.

Maybe fear holds you in place. Maybe you decide to stay in that costume because you think it gets you what you’ve been looking for, whether that’s friends, or community, or respect. Maybe you simply don’t know how to find your true self anymore because you’ve lost that self somewhere along the way in a forest of dark trees and grasping hands.

Or maybe not.

Maybe you look in the mirror and you see a stranger standing there but in that stranger’s eyes you can still glimpse your Self. Maybe you see a spark, a hint of who you used to be. Maybe you catch a whiff of vanilla and amber and remember how happy it makes you, how much you love it. Maybe you start buying pink again. Maybe bit by bit you stop caring who judges you or what they think – or maybe you stop caring all at once as if you were throwing a concealing cloak to the ground. It doesn’t matter. Whether it’s fast or slow, just like it doesn’t matter whether the moth coming out of the cocoon bursts out or takes it’s time as long as it gets out healthy and alive.

“Shadow” by Rene Romero Schuler. CC 3.0 License. Image via WikiMedia.

We all lose ourselves at different points along the way. We forget who we are, we allow other people to shape us, to decide who we are for us. But it’s in our hands to change that. We can choose to find ourselves again and to step back into our selves. We can stand up and embrace what we like and do and be what we want. Yes we will be judged for it, but as Eleanor Roosevelt famously said “Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway.”

It’s not always easy getting your true self back, and I don’t mean to make it sound like it is. Once you’ve lost that sense of self sometimes it’s like rebuilding from the foundation up and you have to remind yourself of every aspect. Sometimes stepping into your true self means realizing that the person you were is gone and the person you are isn’t real, and you have to find your self all over again from scratch. It means getting to know yourself and trusting your own preferences over other people’s opinions. And that can be very difficult.

Here’s a funny thing though that’s worth remembering: true personal power only comes to us when we are standing in our true selves.
Find your true self.
And when you do, you’ll find your power.

Columns

Irish-American Witchcraft

dark night of the soul

Irish-American Witchcraft

Pagan

Paganism

Previous Post

August 30, 2017

Hearth of Hellenism: Why Greeks are Leaving Christianity

Next Post

September 5, 2017 The Other Side of the Hedge: The Witchhack

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Lakeside Hearth Adventures in Wortcunning Alone In Her Presence Arts, Crafts & Cooking Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft Book of Blackbirds Book Reviews Born-Again Witch Cauldron, Sword, Spear, & Stone Cermony and Liturgy Columns Community Dandelion Seeds Dear Jasmine Druid Thoughts Editor's Picks Everyday Pagan Family & Household Practice Family Traditions Full Frontal Magic Gateway Goddess Guest Articles Happily Heathen Health and Wellness Hearth of Hellenism Heathen Woman Hills of the Horizon History Holidays Horse Goddesses Interfaith Interviews Irish-American Witchcraft Jewish Witch Lamp & Labyrinth Letters from Midgard Literature, Media, Film, Music Loop of Brighid Love, Sex & Relationships Magic or Magick Making Light Naturalistic Traditions Nature News Outside The Circle Pantheisticon Politics Prayers, Poems, Blessings & Stories Queer Femme Mystic Queer of Swords Recipes Ritual and Practice Science and Research Seekers and Guides Seeking the Grail Socially Responsible Magic Spear of Athena Star Made Witch Syncretic Electric Technology The Blooming Staff The Busy Witch The Cartomancer The Crow's Nest The Dance of Pagan Recovery The Hearth of Hellenism The Lady's Quill The Other Side of the Hedge The Path of She The Rantin' Raven The Witches Next Door The Zen Pagan Theology, Ethics, Philosophy Tree City Witch Urban Earthwitch Wayfaring Woman Witch on Fire Wyrd Words

Select a Month January 2026 March 2025 December 2024 June 2024 April 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said: "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

An angel Jesus A voice from heaven (or the multitude) John