the fear and shame i hold for my witchcraft practice
TLDR: i give my own brief history of my relationship with my faith (witchcraft/folk paganism) to ask the question of how one sheds the conditioned fear and shame to make way for spiritual growth and expansion?
does anyone else feel the shame they held as a child for their pagan/alternative faith is still keeping them from being the full witch that they could be? i have been struggling with it for my whole life i think. i became a witch officially at 17 years old, but there were of course blazing signs throughout my childhood. it started with my childhood best friend and i developing a relationship with the fae at age 9, and then continued when i checked out my first book of spells from the library around age 11-12. i am now 26, with almost an entire decade under my belt of calling myself a witch. but i have always felt like an imposter in the seer crowds, a wolf in sheep's clothing. let me start from the origin. i grew up in a rural midwest bible-thumping community. tale as old as time, i know. girl who loves trees, flowers, and fairy tales more than god finds religion in them in a world where trees, flowers, and fairy tales are just commodities, not sacred. this is, i believe, where the seeds of shame first took root where fear had taken root at birth. being of differing faith and also queer in a closed-minded community has and will keep any kid/preteen/teen wide awake at night. but i learned to adapt. after moving to college and into early adult life, i found more people who accepted me, and i learned to tune out the louder opinions of those who didn't. i thought i was free. now that i have found the people who accept me for who i am, i can cast spells and be my full witch-born self! or so i thought. throughout all that time, my fear festered within me. i'm still afraid of the shame and afraid of spiritual attack. the only spells i've ever feel comfortable with casting are apotropaic, and outside of casting i only research and read my own cards. but my aspirations have always been bigger. i want to be the village witch, wrapped in glamour and smoke, who everyone in town goes to for a love or wealth casting because no matter what it is, they always work out. more importantly, i want to be the witch who works with spirits regularly without fear. my religious upbringing has instilled such a deep fear of demonic possession for working with spirits other than angels, and all i want to be is brave. brave enough to deal with an unruly spirit for a neighbor, and brave enough to commune with and trust deities and spirits alike with spells and divination and eventually foster both working and personal relationships. i know i can be that version of myself, but i don't know how to be that kind of brave.
how do i let my shame and fear fall away. how does one become the most strong authentic witch they were born to be? how does one let go of fear for the sake of their own spiritual expansion?
