I spent my entire life confusing being humble with being silent, and it has caused major misunderstandings between me and those around me. Due to the trauma I had experienced while growing up, I minimized my core belief system. I colonized my spirituality, avoided connecting to the older generations of my family, and neglected my lifelong spiritual gifts. Because of this, I didn’t have a grasp on my own identity or what was passed down to me.
I grew up “Catholic” because my grandmother was baptized into the religion to marry her first husband, my grandfather. He was part of an incestual religious sex cult that hid in the middle of the woods while living off the land. At home we never practiced catholicism, we were spiritual, passing down stories and old wives’ tales. We shared our psychic experiences, practiced contacting the dead, set up altars, and read tarot. I come from a long line of generational psychics. My mother and others in her age group now relate to our family’s spiritual gifts, both through mediumship and divination. My Grandmother’s little sister Beverly was one of the only siblings to regularly work with divination tools. Her other siblings would practice mediumship, though they never called it that. They would just say “You know if you know.” It was easy to miss what they were talking about if you didn’t pay attention. At the time, I didn’t know the depth of what I was learning when I listened to them talk about spirituality. After reaching adulthood and accepting my gifts I connected with the older generations in my family. I learned that my great-great-grandmother was a professional psychic. Everything I heard while growing up started making sense. My family wasn’t spooky or weird, they were gifted and shared our family history and magic through their stories.
I have always practiced divination. When I was 3 my mother helped me set up my first altar. The summer between 4th and 5th grade my mother gave me my first tarot deck. Shortly after I got my tarot deck my great aunty Bev taught me to speak with the dead through “listening”, and she taught me rituals that I didn’t understand at the time. When we were together she would say she was proud of me and that I was gifted because I always knew what she was thinking. I didn’t accept their knowledge or affirmations because I rejected my culture to heal a trauma that I was experiencing. Looking back, I now realize how much my family was reaching out to me.
Throughout my entire life, I had dreams and visions about what I should do with my time. These visions were guided in strange ways by a strange woman that I didn’t know. When I accepted my spiritual path as an adult I began mentioning these details to my older relatives. This is when I started getting stories and confirmation on details of my great-great-grandmother. I was getting messages from her that only those who had spent time with her would have been able to know. This experience deepened my family veneration practices and helped tighten my bonds with older family members.
My family and its history have stayed with me since I was a young child. I have been lucky to heal my trauma and engage my family with this new perspective. As I have been reconnecting with my past and growing the courage to share myself with others I have found some resistance. In a few circles, I have been minimized and not taken seriously. No matter how much I share with some of my circles I’m dismissed as not having experienced a lifetime of profound spirituality. This process has been an uphill battle to reclaim my lifetime of spiritual practice and not be treated as a novice. It’s been hard for me because trauma made it difficult for me to be clear about what I’ve experienced. I mistook being humble with silence and thought my experiences were unimportant. Now I know there are significant differences between these things. Within the act of reclaiming myself, I found my voice and within that space, I found those who are willing to listen to my truth.
Reclaiming yourself is such a difficult and long process. I have blogged about this before, sharing different details about finding myself and what that looks like. I have so much more to say about this process, but it’s so complicated that I can’t get it all out at once. I want you to know that if you’re just now accepting your history, or even discovering your gifts, that you’re not alone. Self-discovery takes time, it’s a never-ending project. It’s natural to get it wrong and reexamine yourself. Take your time to get to know the real you and find others who support your journey. Understand that being true to yourself is one of the most important things that you can do while you’re alive.
