Monday, Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

Once again, it's technically Monday now -- past midnight Eastern time -- and here I am on Dreamwidth, so it's time for another Magic Monday.  Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer, though it may be Tuesday sometime before I get to them all.

With that said, have at it!

This Magic Monday is now closed to new questions. See you next week! 

Comments

Suggestions for Practice

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Thanks for running these Magic Monday sessions. I’ve been learning a lot by lurking and reading, and I’d like to de-lurk and see if I could get your help with something that’s really troubling me.

For the last two years, I was in a very tough professional situation where a lot of unrealistic expectations were placed on me, along with a heaping of guilt and shame for not living up to them. I am vulnerable to this sort of thing to begin with. I find it very hard to accept that I make mistakes, try hard to take the “right” action, and feel very ashamed when things don’t come out perfectly. It’s something I’m working on.

I’m now in a different professional situation, thank goodness, but I’ve still got all this shame hovering around, looking for anything to latch on to. It’s really unpleasant, and I’d like to do some kind of working to return myself to (or arrive at…) a more balanced view of making mistakes, making restitution, and taking action in the world. I don’t want to overshoot and wind up at “asshole” but this is an unhelpful level of shame that I’m carrying! It’s continuing to affect my life pretty profoundly.

I’m studying the OBOD Ovate grade (… slowly), and I’ve been doing the SOP regularly since January. Before that I was on and off with it. Since the end of Feb I have been doing it every day, and plan to continue it daily. I’ve also been doing some journaling around the situation.

Do you have suggestions for practices or rituals I might do to arrive at a more balanced and healthy perspective? Thanks again for your help with this, and for running the Magic Monday feature!

Rook

Re: Suggestions for Practice

[ecosophia]

Very often an overdeveloped sense of shame links back to emotional issues from childhood, and it's necessary to work back to the original experiences, remember them, re-experience the feelings you felt then, and then process those experiences, before you can walk away from them. Journaling can help with that, especially if you make an effort to call up memories; when you feel the sense of shame, ask yourself, "what experiences from my childhood does this remind me of?" -- and then pay very close attention to what surfaces, and avoid self-censoring.

The SoP can also help here. When you banish by each of the elements, add in something relevant to this. For air, say, "...and I release the old thoughts and memories that have hobbled me with shame." For fire, "...and I release the old pain and bitterness that have hobbled me with shame." For water, "...and I release the old emotional burdens that have hobbled me with shame." For earth, "...and I release the physical tensions that have hobbled me with shame." Give that a try for three months, and see how you feel.

Re: Suggestions for Practice

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you!