The line about “refusing to shrink, to perform, to sanitise” says so much. Many women are taught to make their truth more comfortable before they’re allowed to speak it, and that kind of self-editing can become its own quiet loss.
Absolutely — when it’s chosen. Pausing so we can respond with clarity can be powerful. I think the harm comes when self-editing becomes automatic self-erasure, where we shrink the truth before we even know we’re doing it.
Indeed! I lived that way (self erasure) until I learned better. I somehow had leaned that self-sacrifice was noble and couldn’t set a boundary to save my life. 🤦🏻♀️
Thank you for connecting here. I love that Hazel brings such awareness forward through story and characters.
Thank you for saying that. Self-sacrifice can look so noble from the outside, which is part of what makes it hard to recognize while we’re living it. I agree — Hazel has such a gift for making these patterns easier to see through story.
Well done 👏🏼 so helpful to ground these specific mythic images in their true sources. Delicious! like a drink from a very deep well. (Especially yummy after seeing The Odyssey)
Thank you for this one! Often at therapy lately I talk about how I struggle with some things because I “feel like a monster.” I think someone fed me the phrase as a kid and I’ve been using it ever since to villainize every act I’ve ever done for myself. I went through Betwixt a couple of years ago and started to reconcile my monster as my shadow self, but it still comes back sometimes. But while reading your article, I had the thought, “Can I be the monster?” The discussion about harpies and the rest of them made me want to join their ranks — to add my voice. I’m still figuring out what that thought means to me but I wanted to thank you for it anyway!!
I really appreciate your holistic, pragmatic, and possibility-filled observations and suggestions for stepping forward into better balance.
I have been working on this within the small fractal that is my “self”. I can see how in many (all?) instances from my past I have been part of the “problem” — because I’d shoved my potential under the rug. 🤦🏻♀️
We cannot understand what we are not aware of?
Since the big and small mirror each other, and my own thinking, being, and doing is the space in which my agency lies, I had to step out of the big to work with the small self. No easy trick in a world that seems to be yelling, “The sky is falling! Fix it!”
Do we “fix” the world by finding the wholeness within our selves?
Thank you for everything you do to shine your light!
The line about “refusing to shrink, to perform, to sanitise” says so much. Many women are taught to make their truth more comfortable before they’re allowed to speak it, and that kind of self-editing can become its own quiet loss.
Can the ability to self-edit become a super power? Giving space and time to formulate an effective, rather than emotional,response?
Absolutely — when it’s chosen. Pausing so we can respond with clarity can be powerful. I think the harm comes when self-editing becomes automatic self-erasure, where we shrink the truth before we even know we’re doing it.
Indeed! I lived that way (self erasure) until I learned better. I somehow had leaned that self-sacrifice was noble and couldn’t set a boundary to save my life. 🤦🏻♀️
Thank you for connecting here. I love that Hazel brings such awareness forward through story and characters.
Thank you for saying that. Self-sacrifice can look so noble from the outside, which is part of what makes it hard to recognize while we’re living it. I agree — Hazel has such a gift for making these patterns easier to see through story.
Well done 👏🏼 so helpful to ground these specific mythic images in their true sources. Delicious! like a drink from a very deep well. (Especially yummy after seeing The Odyssey)
Thank you for this one! Often at therapy lately I talk about how I struggle with some things because I “feel like a monster.” I think someone fed me the phrase as a kid and I’ve been using it ever since to villainize every act I’ve ever done for myself. I went through Betwixt a couple of years ago and started to reconcile my monster as my shadow self, but it still comes back sometimes. But while reading your article, I had the thought, “Can I be the monster?” The discussion about harpies and the rest of them made me want to join their ranks — to add my voice. I’m still figuring out what that thought means to me but I wanted to thank you for it anyway!!
Hazel,
I really appreciate your holistic, pragmatic, and possibility-filled observations and suggestions for stepping forward into better balance.
I have been working on this within the small fractal that is my “self”. I can see how in many (all?) instances from my past I have been part of the “problem” — because I’d shoved my potential under the rug. 🤦🏻♀️
We cannot understand what we are not aware of?
Since the big and small mirror each other, and my own thinking, being, and doing is the space in which my agency lies, I had to step out of the big to work with the small self. No easy trick in a world that seems to be yelling, “The sky is falling! Fix it!”
Do we “fix” the world by finding the wholeness within our selves?
Thank you for everything you do to shine your light!