A Pagan and Emotional Authenticity

During a recent interaction with a friend where my feelings were hurt I was reminded if the importance of owning my emotions and avoiding the temptation to express myself in a less than authentic manor. As human beings we have all faced this many times. Strong emotions tend to lead to the incorporation of long standing issues, opinions and feelings into current situations. Inevitably this promotes the breakdown of honest communication, insight, love and compassion.

Avoiding this requires that we maintain contact with the initial emotion and not allow adjunct feelings and thoughts to interfere with our ability to gain insight into the base emotion. The temptation to engage in blaming, judgment, anger or rationalization is strong as we internally attempt to reconcile and resolve our emotional distress. It is, however, in the honest expression of the core emotion that we have the opportunity to achieve real communication, love, respect and understanding.

Yes I know this is a pretty basic concept expressed in common dictums like “it’s not fair to kitchen sink someone” Yet my recent experience got me to thinking about how maintaining an authenticity of emotional expression is important in my personal life as well as the broader Pagan community with which I am involved.

Do we as a community remain authentic in our emotional communication? As discussion points two questions come to mind.

First, when we use terms like “Fluff Bunny” to identify individuals who see only goodness and light in our community do we take the legitimate emotion of annoyance and let it lead us to identify ‘the other’ as separate and apart from us with a derogatory label?

Second, in the often quietly expressed suspicion of well-known Pagan leaders motivations, is jealously being expressed as mistrust, fear or antagonism? More to the point, does this lack of authenticity negatively affect the ability of Pagan groups and individuals to work together in our common interest?

As a Witch I would like to believe that I have grown beyond the temptation to engage in emotional thoughts and expressions that are less than authentic. Of course, as a human being this struggle is ongoing. At times I experience strong feelings that require me to engage in introspection and develop an understanding of the core emotion prior to expressing myself in our community.

As an example let me state that I am at times envious of members of our community engaged in interfaith work. Upon sitting with this emotion and considering my own beliefs and attitudes it has become clear that my reaction is about my lack of time, motivation and maybe even ability to develop an effective skill set to meaningfully participate in this movement that I so admire. By examining the core emotion I have come to a place where my respect for these individuals has increased and I am able to express my envy with authenticity.

On a more personal level, in my recent experience where I took the time to consider my core emotion of hurt I was able to express myself authentically and received in exchange love, understanding and support. When I was young I was taught to bite my tongue and think before I speak, interesting how the lessons from so long ago remain so powerful in my life.