For some reason, my Higher Self thinks that I’m a leader. I keep trying to tell her that I don’t want to be, but she doesn’t seem to listen to me. That’s why we fight so much.
Leadership is a positive word in theory. For men, there is an obvious positive connotation to having a take charge attitude, even when it isn’t tempered with empathy. Women however, tend to receive conflicting messages from childhood on. Strong-willed girls are given nasty looks by people when they speak up too much in class or in meetings. Dove has an entire campaign about girls losing confidence after adolescence, and Pantene has a commercial that demonstrates how women feel the need to apologize way too much.
Now I am an Aries and I’m definitely goal-oriented at heart, but I am also an empath and I listen to everyone’s opinion equally. But do want to know what’s irritating? It’s irritating when I try to show empathy to those that I’m leading, and I get called out for it by my higher-ups. Starbucks was notorious for this. When I first became a supervisor, my manager would tell me that I was too lenient with the baristas, and that made me feel bad. So I would harden up on the baristas, and they started to hate working with me. And that made me feel bad too. This cycle continued with me for about five years. I just couldn’t win.
The same thing happened when I was on boards and committees at school. I would speak up about something in somewhat of a masculine, take charge way and get dirty looks from the guys on the committee. And when I tried to tone it down, a female would call me out for it. I also had Black guys telling me that I had an attitude problem, and I had Black girls telling me that I sounded like a White girl. Lord!
Now to those of you who are reading this and wondering why I care so much about what people think of me, let me emphasize for you again: I AM AN EMPATH. I care about what everyone thinks. I care about how everybody feels. I don’t like making people upset and I feel everything everyone else feels. I am highly sensitive and I can’t turn it off no matter how much I try. And trust me, I’ve tried.
The continual strain of being so sensitive yet so action driven at the same time, has taken quite a toll on my mind. I can’t stand offending people even if it’s in the name of my authenticity, so I often find myself holding back in conversations. And when someone offends me, instead of telling them right then and there, I keep it to myself and leave them alone for a while.
Sometimes I’ll sit with myself and ask:
“What are you doing here on this planet?”
“Why are you such a contradiction?”
“Are you going to be a leader or not?”
I think that the only reason I ask myself these questions is because I can feel these questions in the minds of other people when they interact with me. I feel them judging me.
Whelp… this is where the fight starts. My Higher Self has a tendency to interrupt my thoughts a lot these days, especially when I’m complaining about something. She says that I should stop whining and recognize that I have the gift of diplomacy. She also tells me that the judgment I feel from others is a projection of self-judgment. She also reminds me that I have no one to blame but myself because I’m the one that chose to be this way before I incarnated on Gaia, so I should take full responsibility for my life. Well, someone is maaaad at me!
I can feel her glaring at me, so I turn away and roll my eyes. She metaphorically slaps me on the back of the head with three words: Warrior of Peace. This term confuses me, so I ask her to clarify.
You are a Warrior of Peace. You embody authenticity and empathetic leadership. That’s why you came here. You chose all of the struggles you had because you knew that they would eventually make you a very balanced individual. And balance is the path of spiritual enlightenment. You’re here to be a way-shower. And you’re not the only one doing this. There are many.
Um…okay. Man, if I really believe things like this, no wonder people are always laughing at me. No wonder I’m always on the fringes of my social groups. Can’t I just get rich and famous by doing reality TV or something? I dealt with the whole shaman, priestess thing in past lives and in other star systems. Can’t I just have a break this time around? I never get a break.
If you think that being on reality TV will help Gaia, by all means go for it. You can take that up with her.
Oh never mind! I don’t want to deal with Gaia! I’ve been on the receiving end of her wrath before and that was NOT fun.
My point exactly. You made a commitment to her to come here and be a leader. She asked you specifically to come here to be a leader. Even if you deny it outwardly, you can’t deny it inwardly. I mean, just think about the people you’re obsessed with. They’re all leaders.
Yeah, but none of them are clairsentient though. How can you tell people what to do when you feel everything? How can you blaze trials on your own if you don’t want to leave others behind? How can you love two seemingly contradictory aspects of yourself?
Your job is to live out the answers to your questions. That’s what you’re being called to do.
Really? So my job is to be a transparent leader with a myriad of contradictions and low self-esteem issues? Great. Juuuuuuuuuuuust great.
