My year of the Snake and Shakti- an overdue letter to my psychology teacher

So I can be quite stubborn sometimes.. I am now 47 and since I was 17 I have been battling with something that my psychology teacher told me. 

He told me I was dangerously feminine and that I was at risk of a mental breakdown in later life, all because I ticked the wrong boxes in one of those aptitude tests.  I don't like boxes and I don't like being told there is something wrong with me, so I wanted to prove him wrong.  

Up until now I have failed in that mission- I showed all the classic traits of being too feminine in an unhealthy way- people pleasing, co dependant, overly empathic and  lacking in boundaries until I made myself ill. 

But even then there was that voice within saying I didn't want to tick those other boxes! I liked being empathic and intuitive and I didn't want to be competitive or assertive, I didn't like structure, I had too many negative perceptions of these things. 

I was completely aware that this was likely down to my experience with men and the masculine in my life so I kept trying to make peace with these boxes, and see them in a more positive light.  I was continually working on balancing my inner masculine, on developing boundaries, trying to create more structure and support in my life but I kept feeling like I was failing.  

And I wondered if underneath it was because I felt I had something I had to prove- I wanted to be able to be me, my authentic self, without having to change anything, to show that I could be dangerously feminine and not have a breakdown!

When I had my kundalini awakening at age 44 I thought that was it, my teacher had won the debate- I had an awakening of Shakti within me, and I didn't have the structure to hold it, my life became even more chaotic, and if I had approached the medical system for support I would have definitely been classified as having had a 'mental breakdown in later life' just like my psychology teacher predicted (or likely worse)

But this was the healthy feminine awake in me, perhaps partly as a result of the work that I had been doing to attempt to create somewhat of a support for her.  

What she expressed when she woke up in me and she saw the world through my eyes was a deep pain and grief...she didn't know what she had let happen to her, and what she had become, she couldn't bear to see what had happed to Shiva as a result and she cried because she didn't even know if they would recognise each other anymore.   And I guess she didn't recognise Shiva in the boxes of the psychology test, of how we had come to label the masculine, because that wasn't the Shiva that she knew. 

I understand that through me she was setting out to find him again but at the time I did not know what was going on, all I was doing as a human was following her lead and trying to stay in one piece while I was also focusing on trying to look after my children.  All I knew was that if I followed her lead then everything would be ok. And so I did, each day tuning in and following what I was guided to do, even when it didn't make sense to the outside world. 

Except there was one part that I didn't follow because i think I was scared.  She wanted me to continue to do what I had been doing, to prove my psychology teacher wrong, to allow myself to fully embrace all of her and all of who I was.  But I kept trying to contain her as I had been used to, I knew that if I allowed myself to embrace all of her now that she was fully awake that I would experience pure chaos without any structure or boundaries and I was scared of what that would look like in my life. 

But she is insistent just like me (obviously, she is me) and eventually I gave in. For the year of the snake I decided to scrap trying to make boundaries and structure and I just let myself experience who I was without any edges.  I discovered that I didn't have edges and that was why I was struggling to put a container around myself, that I couldn't be contained.  My life did become pure chaos for a while and anyone who knows me can vouch for that. 

But chaos is what exists before creation, if we are to birth something new we need to experience this chaos first, that was what she was showing me. And I was tired of the old ways and cycles and I wanted to create something new, so I finally listened. 

And then something happened, I realised that I had finally scrapped those boxes in the psychology test and all my perceptions of what my inner masculine SHOULD look like.  By allowing myself to experience myself exactly as I was, in all places, spaces and dimensions I wasn't containing Shakti but I was witnessing her in all that she is, I was observing her, I was present with her.  And that is where I found Shiva. 

And this is the dance of Shiva and Shakti... Shiva is pure consciousness and the observer of the dynamic creation energy of Shakti.

Shakti without Shiva is chaos and Shiva without Shakti is a corpse.

So I found my inner Shiva, not by forcing myself to tick the right boxes, but by allowing myself to witness all that I am. 

So that is a very overdue letter to my A-level psychology teacher!!!