Druidry and Self Knowledge

(caveat, Nimue spoken, James written)

For me, the quest for truth has always been an important part of my path as a druid. Self knowledge is part of that quest, but also really difficult. How do any of us know who we are? We all get constant feedback from others about how they see us. Our cultures bombard us with information about who we are supposed to want to be. Everything we encounter we see through the filters of experience, cultural bias and belief. Working out what’s real is never easy.

People who experience a lot of privilege can often have unrealistic views about their own capabilites and significance. Equally, people who struggle can suffer from lack of self worth. Experiences including poverty, disability discrimination trauma, and lack of opportunity persuade many people that they have little or no worth. Most of us get a mix of feedback from which to try and make sense of who we really are.

I’ve struggled with this one. On the one hand, are the people who feedback with warmth and encouragement. On the other hand, there are the people who have persuaded me that I’m some sort of monster. Much of my anxiety over the eyars has been rooted in not feeling confident that I could trust myself. How is a person to tell whether they are delusional or in what way? Caught between radically different and incompatible stories about who I am, I’ve never felt entirely confident about any of it.

Last week, I went through a scary medical procedure for which I had to be sedated. Partway through, the sedation started wearing off, and I had to ask for help. At this point, I was a bit shit-faced, had no filters, almost no capacity for self control or self regulation. I was also panicking, and aware that a full blown panic attack was a dangerous outcome we needed to avoid. What emerged, was me expressing distress, and asking for help. Along with that, I had the overwhelming urge to express gratitude to the medical team taking care of me. Of rage, cruelty, or other problematic behaviour, there was no sign when I was most exposed and most unable to manage myself. I may have caused some slight embarrassment. I can live with that. For me, this is a rare piece of evidence that I’m not so intrinsically awful that I can’t even overcome it with effort. Me in extremis is apparently me oversharing my gratitude. I know this story would do nothing to persuade the people who have decided I’m terrible. Once you think someone is peddling lies and is manipulative, anything they say becomes further proof of that, so there are some fights I can never win. What I can do is know for myself that at my most vulnerable, the worst thing I did was awkwardly gush. this in turn raises a lot of questions for me, and opens up some difficult things that I will have to work on.

I don’t recommend anything this extreme as a route to self knowledge, but at the same time I’m a big fan of making what use you can of the opportunities that come along.