Soul Crafting Requires Us to Dare to Die | by Jaclyn Lanae
Essay | Free | Soul Craft | Gorgon Project
Soul Craft is the practice of aligning with, embodying through self love, who you really are. The soul version of you. Which requires first getting to know your soul self. And that requires unlearning patriarchal socialization. In other words, letting some versions of you die.
Many, many years ago when I was first initiated into the world of soul-aligned spirituality (rather than religious, dogma-aligned), my teacher suggested that my most urgent need was to end my perpetual self-criticism and self-flagellation and instead, love myself.
I walked away from our session inspired, excited, hopeful… and utterly stupefied. I had no idea how to love who I was. With some reflection, and to my horror, I realized that I was struggling to love myself because I didn’t really know who I was. I realized that the essence of my identity was just a series of labels haphazardly glued onto my personality by the outside world. “Good daughter”, “Good employee”, “Good girlfriend”, “Good person”.
I was less Jaclyn Lanae, and more “an amalgamation of who everybody else thinks Jaclyn should be.”
More horrifying still was the awareness that I made most of my decisions based on what I “should” do in order to be who I ”should” be in the eyes of others.
The process of self discovery that was required to strip away all those layers of other people and their expectations was a long one, but I was gifted several opportunities (read: crises) to catapult me along that journey – and they did. Which made me realize: I could make those huge growth moves myself and skip the crises. If I could embrace and even create those useful little trebuchets: ego deaths.
Most of us have experienced an ego death in some way: identity crises, financial collapse, relationship failure, career loss… moments where our very sense of self has been shaken and we find ourselves swimming in a sea of emotion, grappling for some life line to the certainty that we are valuable, worthy.
Sitting in the emotional sludge of my last ego death (which happened to come in the context of a breakup) I was surprised to realize that I felt such anger along with the sadness. Which, admittedly, probably also had something to do with the fact that he cheated on me with his best friend’s daughter. But with some time and self reflection I realized that it was more than that.
When we walk (or are pushed) away from a job that told the world we’re good at something, when the house we loved to invite friends to is sold out from under us, when we leave a relationship that we thought was going to last, it hurts. A lot. And it isn’t just because we lost something important to us, or something that we thought was safe.
It’s because we’re also mourning the loss of a version of ourselves that we thought we were going to be with this thing/person/money/etc. The death of an aspect of ourselves or our lives that we liked the world to see.
I realized I was enraged with my ex not just for what he did, but for ruining our future - MY future. The future where I had successfully defied the rules for a prescription life (stateside, married, working in a traditional job…) and found real happiness and material success following my heart.
These moments are when and how the ego dies – if we can let it.
Admittedly, that’s easier said than done.
We’ve been conditioned by the capitalist dimension of patriarchy to quantify our value based on external manifestations. Money. Job. Parenthood. Partnership. Beauty. But in truth, none of these things define who we really are. They simply comment on the ways we have succeeded at expressing ourselves in our hierarchical, competitive, assigned container.
Who we really are on a soul level is a very different thing. And since almost our entire sense of reality has been constructed under the patriarchal worldview, it can feel sad – even devastating – to let go of those external qualifiers of our value. And it’s sad that it’s sad. Because those qualifiers aren’t who we really are. They are projected constructs that manipulate us into believing, even feeling, that without those things we hold no significant value. It disconnects us from the truth of the value inherent in us. And that’s why we need ego deaths.
That sadness we feel is real. Devaluing the very things that everyone around us prioritizes – the things that have validated us for so long – and embracing being a “failure” in the eyes of the outside world in one way or another is hard. It feels isolating. Uncertain. Because it is – which is why many of us just skip over it – understandably – and even, sometimes unconsciously.
It’s uncomfortable to face the prospect of never being the version of us that we wanted so badly to show the world. It’s terrifying to face the prospect of never having the safety or security or love or money or prestige that we thought we’d have. That fear often whips at us so persistently that we run out looking for another version of whatever we lost to fill the hole.
And – of course – we’re allowed to do that. Although it’s likely that a similar collapse will happen again. Because ultimately, our soul selves are trying to strip away the ego version of us in order to be most authentically expressed.
History has witnessed the fall of countless patriarchal structures, communities, and governments only to see them rebuilt and re-branded with slight adjustments – and then collapse again.
The beauty in that truth is that there is actually a tremendous amount of POWER in embracing the loss – the deep, life-altering one. In allowing – even encouraging – the death of our ego, we can strip away the projection of who we thought we were and how we wanted the world to see us, and allow ourselves to become something else. Someone else. Or, rather, a more authentic expression of our deep selves. Rather than rush to fill the hole left by the loss or gloss over the pain, we can allow ourselves to grieve the version of us that will never be, and explore what’s beyond the hole. Who are we without that ego-affirming thing?
If we’re healing-focused and ready to change ourselves (and, by extension, our world) we can seize our power from the hands of the outside world to whom we’ve surrendered it, and grow. Grow past the needs of our ego that are so easily weaponized against us. (Although our ego is a part of us and its needs have value - but that’s for another post).
We can grow past needing or even wanting the patriarchy or capitalism or religion or any other person or ideal to validate us.
We don’t even have to wait for some catastrophic collapse in our lives. We can initiate ego death by identifying where we’ve allowed it to drive or even define us, and make choices that help to slowly shift that control to our soul selves instead.
The best news of all is that this can be an incredibly joyful process. Liberating. Playful. In letting go of who we thought we were or should be, we can just coquettishly explore who we are. What would be different about you if you didn’t have to do the job you do in order to make money? What decisions would you make if you didn’t have to surrender your power of choice to your obligations? What would your life look like if you didn’t need a relationship? How would you dress or laugh or eat if you didn’t have to fit into a label or category?
Exploring the answers to these questions is the first step toward uncovering where subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) influences have manipulated our egos into creating a version of self or life that has been dictated, rather than birthed from soul-level passion. Of course, shaking up the logistics of your life and connecting with a different identity are not light-switch changes. However, empowering yourself with a deep understanding of who you really are outside the material definitions of the world is the first step toward crafting your life (and our shared world) in alignment with your soul.
When we let go of needing our lives or ourselves to be a certain way, we create all kinds of space for our soul selves to align us with what it (you), actually wants. In my case, when I embraced the idea of never having a “happy ever after” partner, I accidentally created an absolutely blissful relationship. I have no idea if it will last, but I don’t need it to. And that’s made it even better.
If you'd like to explore more about how you can put Soul Craft to work in your own life, we're creating a community over on the Medusa Rising Discord server. When it's up and running, I’ll share monthly questions and exercises to help us all reconnect to – and love – ourselves. Our soul selves.
Jaclyn Lanae is an author, embodiment coach, and contributor at Medusa Rising. She writes and coaches for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Find Jaclyn at AuthorJaclynLanae.com.
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