I released a shadow that was a building block of my identity. It feels blank.

Dear past self. You are gone and the new me isn’t here yet. I go back and forth a lot. Who am I? Who are you that is writing this? Who were you, past self? As I release parts of me that no longer serve me, I often find myself completely disorientated. It is this blank space of nothing and nowhere, with no one around to show me the way. Except trees. Today I explained them what I am going through. They got it.

I am thinking a lot about identity. What it is and if I need one. Should I build a new one, now that old one is gone, or will it find me on its own? Maybe it is already here somewhere, but I do not see it. Possibly, I just do not identify myself with it. It could be there is fear of the new, the unknown. Because, what will people think of the new me? Will they like the new me as much as they liked the old me? Can they like both? Can they love both? Can I love both? I guess that is the real question.

Today, I went to sit in the forest (for rest) and jumped a few timelines. When I stood up and left my tree, I felt I am missing something, that I forgot something. I felt emptier, like I was missing a piece of myself. That I just left it where I was sitting before. It felt good, but weird. That is because my identity was attached to a part of me that I released then and there.

I believed I had a certain 'trait' for my whole life, but then I realised it was actually a shadow. (Shadow is a repressed part of ourselves that we don't see and/or are unwilling to see). For me the shadow in question was over-thinking and over-analysing. I though ok, that is just me. I overthink sometimes, but does not everyone? I analyze things, I am good at that even, I make money from that. It's my quality.

For months, I was not sleeping very well. Everytime I laid down to sleep, my mind and third eye went crazy. I was releasing everything else, the fear, anxiety, attachments to past, but nothing solved it. Not the way the realisation I am not the over-thinker did. Overthinking is an out of balance energy, a defense mechanism here to protect us. Protect us from failure, rejection, abandonment. Protect us from not being loved.

When identifying with a certain energy, two things become more difficult than when clearing anything else. Firstly, it is harder to spot. Fear is easy to spot, rejection is easy to spot, insecurity is easy to spot. Because that is not me. However, the overthinker, that is me. In all honestly, I did not even think it was an energy in the first place. Just a trait. This is called identification with the wound. I am a Virgo in Sun and Chiron, meaning I identify myself with the wounded Virgo, it's shadow side. The Perfectionist Extraordinaire; overanalysing, overworking, overthinking, overjudging.

Secondly, the process of releasing that energy includes more grief. It feels like losing a part of self. And combine that with over-active compassion, I did not want to let go of the overthinker, because I wanted every part of me to feel loved and wanted. To exist. All these are attachments.

This is why this whole process of shedding is so disorientating. I released a shadow that was a building block of my identity. It feels blank.

I am left with so many questions. Why do we build attachments? Which part of us needs them? Do they serve us for our highest good, or is it a coping mechanism? Do we need identity at all? I will explore all that and other magical topics in my next blog posts. Join me on my spiritual awakening journey, as I dive deep down different rabbit holes and report back.

Thank you for reading,

Katarina