Knowing yourself

The vast majority of Pagan paths encourage the individual to take responsibility for their own development, to delve into themselves and explore different aspects of their emotions and personality.  I’ve used various techniques over the years to explore aspects of my past that I felt were blocking me from moving forward. I’ve worked with my emotions and my personal history to cut myself free of things that were holding me back and to develop a greater acceptance of parts of my personality that I’ve had mixed feelings about in the past.

All that somehow pales into insignificance with my current journey of self discovery.

I have realised that I am not the person I thought I was and yet at the same time I’m also more truly myself than I think I have ever been before.  Finally I am hearing the whispers on the breeze, finally I am seeing into the shadows.

And the reason for this is that I am finally understanding that I am autistic.  I don’t know yet where I fit into the spectrum, I’m still undergoing diagnostic investigation but I’ve now had that professional validation that I’m not imagining things.  I’ve had that confirmation that there are enough traits to make it worth while fully investigating.  It’s possible that the end of the process will not give me a formal diagnosis but I think it might.  Even if it doesn’t, I know I’m more autistic than not and that is already helping me make a different sense of my life to this point.  I’m already using this new vision of myself to help me understand how I react to all sorts of things and to develop different, conscious strategies for situations I find challenging.  I’m being more accepting of myself, less critical.

And while I go through this process I find that generally I’m more inclined to turn inwards to close family, my home and hearth, and my gods.  My devotional life has increased in depth and frequency of devotions.  Much of that is personal and solitary but sometimes I am now hearing calls to do more, to be more.

As I said to my mum the other day how can you tell what is an external voice if you don’t really know who you are?

I thought I knew myself pretty well.  I’m learning that I only knew a fraction of myself.  I only knew a me that had unconsciously covered parts of myself with heavy concealing veils.

I’m now getting to know myself unveiled. I wonder what else I will find as I learn more of what lies beneath my veils.