Welcome back for another week and another blog, Dearest Readers. How have you all been? This week, I’d like to discuss something that has been a little difficult for me to grasp. Maybe talking with all of you will help me organize my thoughts. Recently, I have been having very interesting discussions with some of my friends via discord. And one topic that’s been coming up a lot lately is the idea of casting off maladaptive behavior-thought-feelings cycles. Also known as Shadow Work. Also known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. (Although one friend thought I was referring to Cock and Ball Torture. Same acronym, apparently!) 

Reaching the ‘Fuck It Stage.’ 

At some point, all of us reach a breaking point. And I think that breaking point for me came in the form of a pile of friendships that I finally saw for what they really were—one sided. A lot of people really reaped a ton of benefits of being ‘friends’ with me, but then immediately turned their backs on me the second I was anything but 100% convenient for them. Several of my friends urged me to really take a hard look at why I kept doing certain things, and what I was expecting. 

Turns out, a lot of it was on me for having very unrealistic expectations for what human beings should be capable of in their relationships. And, in honesty, a lot of relationships will be very shallow. And it made little sense to keep looking for a very deep connection. As depressing as that sounds, it was actually quite freeing. Why was I trying so hard when the same cycle kept landing me in burnout trying to make people like me or value me?

The more you give away, less others value you. And although I’ve been saying that for a hot minute, I think the lesson might have actually sunk in for me this time. All of you who have been waiting for this moment, you have permission to do ONE roast of me. 

Long story short, I realized that a bunch of what I was sinking my energy into was a literal exercise in futility. If the prize for perfection doesn’t actually exist, what is the point of perfection? Wasted energy, that’s what. 

Reclaiming our Flaws

I think I got really tired of thinking that society-approved and culture-approved virtues and avoiding ‘bad behavior’ was going to get me anywhere. So what was the point of beating myself up over human imperfections? There were several things that I began examining and realized I had no reason to police them as much as I was. 

First, letting produce go bad. Let’s be real, my Dearest Readers. We ALL let produce go bad. It happens. Such is life. Let anyone who has never let a plum or an avocado get past that perfect hour and go straight into mush cast the first stone. Plus, these days I have 13 tiny dinosaurs that will gladly recycle bad produce into protein. I think policing any kind of food waste to a total iron-grip standard was just stupid at this point. 

Second, online shopping/consumerism. And I’m not talking about buying hauls upon hauls of Shein clothes and then tossing them after making content. But, I’m going to be honest: I buy stuff that I don’t strictly ‘need.’ Sometimes I buy a new lipstick and I don’t need a new lipstick. Sometimes I buy craft supplies that I don’t use immediately—or a project falls through or I get depressed and then two years pass and I still haven’t used them. And I think that’s human and it’s a normal process within the context of a flawed/imperfect human life. So we are done with the self-flagellation about this. The bills are paid. I’m slowly paying down my credit card debt from graduate school—even though cost of living has gone up. I’m going fine. 

Third, taking everything seriously. I think that there are some things that I would do well to take seriously. But, I also think that it’s high time I loosened up about certain things. For example: I had a bad habit of being obsessed with only making ‘perfect’ and ‘on brand’ social media posts. To what point? I would pretty much say that half of my DBAs are more like tax holes than profitable businesses. It as working myself up into knots hoping for perfection from myself while knowing in my head that there was literally nothing I could do to control the reaction other people have to me. Like, come on. (Like I said. ONE FREE ROAST). This also includes getting bent out of shape about missing my posts by a few hours or a day or so. Yeah, this isn’t a Very Serious Social Media Empire. It’s a blog that talks about mostly unserious topics. 

Shedding Skin

I have heard some other occultists refer to the process of cutting off behaviors like this as ‘becoming’ or becoming your real self. But, my intuition says that it’s not quite that simple. Rather, once you no longer throw your energy at processes that go nowhere, you suddenly have a lot more energy in your ‘budget’ to do other things. And you can use that energy in a much more…you manner. 

It’s like how reptiles need to shed their skin in order to grow. And I wonder what I will grow into, and how that will be expressed in the future. 

What have you let go of, my Dear Readers?