During a wonderful new year’s dinner with friends, we played a game. We each had chosen different cards with images, that were then to represent a story from our past year.
I enjoyed this playful way of starting a round of reflection. And the extra twist was, that we weren’t only to tell a story or thought about a card that we had chosen ourselves, but our friend’s instruction was that we were to tell a story about each of the others’ cards as well… Ok, this is a twisted sentence.
Anyways… the point is, that one of my friends had chosen a card, that reminded me of how irritated I have been by numerologists in this past year.
And even thinking about it now, I can feel that again. I get so frustrated!
It is also a bit funny, how something can agitate me so much, without me having many actual interactions.
Just from stories…
But they are stories of people who invest money and time and trust in something that I perceive as utter bullshit. People who are in a moment of searching and vulnerability, turning to a kind of authority to get support.
And instead of inviting them to think, to dare challenge how they’ve seen themselves, to train and learn the skills they personally need, they receive answers about vibrations in the (random) set of letters of their names in combination with their date of birth (all things, that aren’t changeable but given).
And it annoys me so much, that today I’m writing an article about it.
Instead of empowering people to look at the things and actions in their lives and way of being, that they can change or take responsibility for, giving them another set of (random) letters… (or a list to choose from) this time with good vibrations.
Why is it easier to change my name to Beatrize Isolde Margarite Bethauuus and being brave, successful and strong as her, than stepping up, and being brave, successful and lovable as Aninia?
Of course, changing your name for whatever reason can be a powerful act and identifying with a new name, of course, can also influence how we perceive ourselves, challenges and interact etc.
And I also realize, that there are many ways of structuring thinking, decision-making, and change processes, that don’t make sense to me personally. That’s fine. I don’t need to understand everyone’s way of doing things.
(Also – why does it bother me so much, that people change their names five times? It doesn’t need to touch me a bit!)
But it is actually not the name change that bothers me. It’s the argumentation. The argumentation that due to a (random) collection of letters in my name, there are vibrations (of what!??) that determine that I’m as I am. (Once I heard about someone who was informed there that there is a „looser-number“ in their numeroskop.)
So, it is also the authority that comes with such a list of numbers, the overbearing sense of there being a right and a wrong set of vibrations…
One could say that – since I have not learned to be a numerologist – I just don’t understand. And that might be very true. I don’t understand a dyt, as they say in danish.
But.
If I advise people to change things in their lives, I think it is unethical to do it in a way that they need to follow my advice and not their own understanding. So either I have to teach them to understand and be able to follow what is actually going on. Or not come with weird shit that pretends to be an explanation, while actually being a set of volapyk and random rules.
And here is the funny thing. I think it is awesome when people do things, according to what feels right to them, following their needs, wishes, creativity, and personal little weirdnesses. And I have experienced people who can notice things in us when they just hear our voice or are next to us in a way that is surprising and mind-blowing.
I just hate it, when they then try to present it simplified and as if it makes sense and is logical.
Or the other way around, that there is nothing logical anywhere and it comes from strange energies, angels and other things that need your belief.
I hate it for each individual one of this explanation. And I hate it for the societal need. It bothers me that it’s not enough to say – I think, I want to be called Beatrize Isolde Margarite Bethauuus. And that it’s not more common to dare stand with the puzzlement that might create in others who could never imagine going for a change of name, for example, because they need to continue the legacy of their family…
And I guess, I hate it because I feel like I’m supposed to understand and be solidary with these practices because I too work with a sometimes non-logical approach and I too, support individual processes of change and discovery.
And I hate that I’m scared to offend some of my friends with this because they might believe in some of this stuff. The ones also who tell me that everything happens for a reason, even the shitty painful stuff. Or reincarnation.
But for me, all of this just works as a frame for thinking about things we don’t understand. And in the end, what really creates the changes are the actions. The interactions with other people. The reasons don’t matter to me – what I do with it in the world matters.
Any belief for me only works as a motivator or justification of what we do, how we behave with ourselves and others. To me, that is what matters.
But someone who doesn’t change anything in their behavior or their environment, but keeps themselves busy self-pity and with changing names and explaining to me how that now creates better vibrations… makes me really angry.
Or someone who hears my name, nods knowingly and then says „14 – money is an issue, right?” (in which urban life is money not ‘an issue’!?) Unless I have asked for your input, I am not interested in your interpretation of my life. And when someone does ask, don’t just give them generic bullshit. (Oh, I could go on forever. Because of course… in the end, everything is generic bullshit. It just depends on the timing and phrasing whether it is personal and fitting or not.)
And last but not least – the way that some people talk about their „old identity“ (when they had the other name or not found the angels yet), sounds so schizophrenic. So distanced from themselves. And that to me just seems to be a slight cowardice way of not taking responsibility for the person I used to be. Because it wasn’t my real self, I hadn’t found myself then…
Then who the hell else was it?
Yes, sometimes it really fucking hurts to look back and see things that I did. Ways I treated someone close to me. But it is part of me. Both that I did this and that I noticed it and have changed my behavior since.
I’m not only the powerful, charming parts of myself. I’m also the embarrassing or hurt or helpless moments. And then again I’m funny and convincing. And all in all, I’m me.
And because I know this about myself. I can also see this in you. And other people.
And somehow I believe we need to own this, in order to stop the pressure of this ‘perfect self’ that we perform and chase after.
And here we go – me telling you what we need. Ha. Hypocrite me.
I need this!
It is so much easier when I can be honest about being all of the things I am.
It's All In My Body 