Identity Issues

[qos]

While contemplating a couple of projects that are important to me, I suddenly realized that if either of them make it to fruition, they will be presented to the public under names other than the legal name by which I am known in my daily life.

That stopped me cold.

What does it mean that a significant portion (although by no means all) of the work that is closet to my heart feels like something from which I need to distance myself? Not because of shame, but because the voices that rise up inside me insist that there would be unpleasant consequences otherwise.

One of those projects involves erotic writing, and there are issues there that touch the privacy of more than one former partner. But the other project, which involves my work as an underworld priestess, doesn't have those types of constraints. Although yes, there are sexual elements there as well. The underworld path has a great deal to do with sex and death, two loaded and usually unpopular topics for "polite society."

I know the other names which I would put on these projects, alternate names. . . Names that are feeling more and more like my real self than the name which I have carried for more than forty years.


I think that I've mentioned recently that I've been doing a lot of journaling to deal with inner obstacles to my goals that have been powerful but indistinct. I think journaling on this topic will be helpful as well. Those internal voices that are so worried about my reputation -- professional and otherwise -- probably need to be engaged directly, and their fears dealt with head-on. I've been deferring to those fears all my life, accepting that they know better than I do about how to be successful in society. I should stop giving them that power.

Comments

[blessed-harlot.livejournal.com]

Reading this and the post after it together really resonates with me. I got some stuff from my dad especially that bears some similarity to all this. I'm definitely leaning more these days toward defining integrity for myself, and allowing multiple personas to flourish, if that's opens me further to more authenticity. We all contain multitudes, after all, and I believe that there are benefits to multiple public personas besides just protection and confidentiality. But it's definitely a set of decisions to make on a very personal level.

I'm just now catching up on your posts of the last week or two. I'm not finished yet; I especially want to fix an audio problem this afternoon so I can watch the B5 clip. But I don't know when your vigil is, and I wanted to be sure I checked in before then. I see you diving deeply into some amazing, rich work and I hope that translates to a sense of fruitfulness for you very soon. Blessings on your vigil, and I hope it's everything it can be.

[qos.livejournal.com]

Thank you. . .

It's been very interesting that the weight of the comments on this issue -- both now and in the past, on LJ and off -- is the same: that it's normal, even wise, to have multiple personnas for public interaction and discourse, and not (necessarily) an issue of personal integrity or a failure of courage. And that, of course, raises a new set of questions for me about why I'm taking this to heart to the degree that I am.

The vigil is tonight, with a purification and other rituals tomorrow morning. I'll try to post something of substance later today about my intentions.

[blessed-harlot.livejournal.com]

Well, I definitely think it's possible to have a healthy set of personas. But I don't think it automatically follows that it's always the best step for any given individual to have those separations. There have been times in my life where, for example, my keeping of separate online journals reflected a lack of connection within me that I wasn't happy with. I merged them to do the work I wanted to do then. I now have very separate identities once again, but only after being convinced that I'd connected what I wanted to connect internally. The separate identities are more about 1) safety and keeping options open, and 2) staying clearly in particular roles with others, to facilitate the relationships I want to have.

There are certainly options for you. And it may well still be that integration into one persona is what's best for you now.

I look forward to hearing whatever you feel drawn to share about the vigil.

[qos.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing those insights.

Your concept of being "internally connected" is important. I do think I've done a lot of successful work around that over the past few years, especially as I've finally found a spiritual path which addresses the breadth of my being in a way no other has.

I feel much more internally integrated now than at other times in my life -- and maybe that's what's driving some of the urgency in my external life? Before I took the external divisions for granted, because they mirrored my internal life. Now my inner life is integrated, so it feels on some level that the outer "should" be as well. . .