by Karla Knowles
I’ve just recently, really started to embark on my spiritual journey. I’ve been absorbing anything I could get my hands on regarding spiritual development: Shadow Integration, Keys to Practical Magick, “You can create your own destiny!”
You get the idea.
Part of my personal development I have included is doing Fear and Gratefulness Inventories every night.
The Fear Inventory requires you to name something you resent, and then write down 20 fears associated with that resentment. The aim is to bring my subconscious fears out into the open, so they no longer hold power over me, and last night, my topic was loss.
I’ve only done a handful of inventories so far, as I’ve only just begun. A lot of the fears I admit to are things like, “I’m not good enough”; “I’m not worthy of love”; “I fear I won’t be able to forgive”; things that I know in my head aren’t true, but they bother me anyway.
Usually, just writing these things down helps, let alone following through with the rest of the procedure! Finishing the inventory makes it feel like I’ve had a weight lifted off of my shoulders.
But this time was different.
When It’s Not Enough
Naming my fears didn’t seem to work. Regardless of how hard I dug to try to find what was eating at me, I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
I made a note of it in my journal, because I started to think that maybe I had a genuine issue that I really needed to speak to someone about.
However, my parents are both together; no one super close to me has died; my life hasn’t exactly been a basket of roses, but I couldn’t place any traumatic event that would cause for me to have this kind of knot in my gut that would not go away.
So, after I’d written all my fears and thanks down, I was waiting for Sam to finish his game so I could finish my inventory procedure. I started to talk to him about this anxiety associated with loss; how perplexed I was that I had it; and what the fuck it could possibly be?
You know how you often answer your own question when you ask someone out loud? Well that’s what happened when I started talking to Sam about loss. I discovered that I had this huge issue with loss, because it is completely out of my control!
The Crux: The Difference Between Loss and Letting Go
In my inventory, I was speaking about loss and letting go like they were the same thing, and they aren’t.
When you let something go (old clothes, bad habits, ex boyfriend), it’s done on your Ego’s terms. It may be easy or hard, but you have gone through the mourning process and are ready to allow those things/people/issues, whatever, to pass on from your life.
Loss is a whole different kettle of fish! Loss is when something or someone (that you often love and are perfectly happy having in your life, thank you very much!) has been unexpectedly ripped from your life, potentially violently.
Even if you knew it was coming, like a family member dying of cancer, them dying is not on your terms. Until you have gone through the mourning process and are ready to let go, your Ego will fight tooth and claw to resist this unacceptable change to its Universe. “How dare the Universe take [Grandma] away from me! Doesn’t It know Who I Am?!”
The Illusion of Control
Being part of the magickal community, we often feel like we have more control over our Universe than people who choose not to practice magick; perhaps we feel we have more control than we actually do -at least as far as our Ego and preferences are concerned.
But when a car crash kills your child; or you find your girlfriend cheating on you; maybe you find out your husband has a secret gambling addiction; it’s a slap in the face to us that there are just some things in this life we have absolutely no control over.
And that is fucking scary! It’s also something that each and every one of us has to come to terms with at some point in our lives.
IN CONCLUSION
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Merken