By Kathleen Calder

I have begun to consider myself an “Essencist”. I don’t think that term exists yet, but I like it. Why? Because it doesn’t already have a role attached to it, an image of the person who may be involved in it, or even necessarily an existing set of beliefs. Well, I guess in a way it does, since I am coming up with it as someone who embraces SoulFullHeart, a healing and consciousness path where we speak of “essence” quite a bit, and yes, we have some specific beliefs we work with. They are fluid though, as life and the Divine always seem to be arising for us anew, depending on the chapter of our lives we are living out individually and as a community. To be an “Essencist”, to me, means that no matter what changes your life brings you, you believe in the power of your essence and you are also constantly in hot pursuit of what you feel it to be in every single moment, letting it be an unending journey of discovery with relentless curiosity.

I feel like I am diving into a chapter of pursuing what the heck my essence could be. I am experiencing the beginnings of what promises to be a deep journey of self-mating – deep, hot, romantic pursuit of the parts of me who have been neglected or put aside until now, and ultimately of my own heart and soul and what it’s made of. Is it difficult for parts of me to imagine that this phase could last a long time and that could mean not pursuing mateship with a man for a long time? Yes. Of course. And I also feel that I wouldn’t want to offer a future mate anything less than what I am already discovering about myself and my truest heart or my essence, nor do I desire a mate who can’t or won’t offer me the same, coming from an overflow of his own self-mateship.

So here we go, with much strength and motivation…but where is my vulnerability around it? Parts of me don’t feel too good about this idea, while it sounds good. It is different than what most other young women and men my age care about doing. So there is a deep loneliness I can feel inside myself too in this moment. Yet I can feel the possibilities of there being others and the chance for deeper relationships with others my age than I have experienced so far. And how could I draw what I really want in relationship if I am not pursuing it and cultivating it inside myself?

Perhaps the essence of being an “essencist” is actually selfishness, then. I selfishly want to focus on myself so that I can selfishly claim the gifts of that journey and the manifestation of that which I have always wanted in my deepest essence. To be an “essencist” means embracing personal other-ness – the fact that you are as unique as you feel yourself to be, whether you have been born with the sex of a woman or a man, or earned the role of accountant, actor, mother, brother, teacher, or priest.

What I want more than anything, as far as I can feel for what I know of my essence thus far, is to know and be known, but not in a superficial way. I feel encouraged to inhabit a new way of being in life where I pursue myself with so much curiosity that it overflows into a deep curiosity about others and puts me in a position where I love others’ essences so fiercely that I will fight for it the way I am beginning to fight for my own. I have already experienced tastes of my capacity for this as I have felt many moments of my capacity to feel others and how it is deepening with every step I take towards feeling myself first.  I am becoming more and more compassionate towards the false while advocating for the real. In a world that very much still tries to revolve around created personas and smokescreens, this is very challenging. This could be why I like the idea of a movement, if you will, that we could call “Essencism” – encouraging all human beings to get back to themselves in a healthy, authentic way, cultivating a relentless overflow of self-love that spills over into every aspect of their lives.

I feel in my essence a spark that keeps glowing, even when the night is at its darkest and all of life seems to parts of me to be conspiring against my/their happiness or comfort. It is something that I really don’t feel I will ever fully come to know, but that’s not as important as it is to keep discovering and getting closer to that answer, even if all I end up with at the end of each day is more data pointing out what it is not. So for now I will continue to try on each and every day and take it for a spin in my proverbial Cadillac, seeking and finding more answers while feeling myself deeply through every challenge and hard-to-feel feeling inside my parts and my heart.

 

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying with us and virtual sessions