The Fear of Passion: Exploring Familiar Patterns

So here I am awakening to my own passion, my own Goddessness, and I am struggling with this ancient teaching tied to every assumption about everything my family has ever made. What is this fear of passion? My family has carried it for years, a cultural dictum stating that passion is sinful. Is it that being a vibrant, passionate, visible person is tantamount to putting oneself on the same level as God? Many are discovering, and Jesus actually taught, that we are Divine. We are on a journey of the Divine getting to know Itself better. God/dess is both transcendent (outside of us, not us), and imminent (within us, unfolding in each moment as us). For many generations this has not been accepted or taught, except in mystical sects often branded as sinful. That may be the root of this generational fear of passion and selfhood.

Or perhaps it's a sensory thing. Passionate people are too loud, too annoying, too everything. My parents, grandparents, and myself all have a very low intensity tolerance. This trait can be tied to introversion, giftedness, and even the autism spectrum. While we don't have any family members that are on the spectrum, we are certainly gifted introverts. Passionate people are overwhelming and scary. Feeling passion can also be overwhelming.

There is some layer here, too, about how people in my family (and we're not alone in this) gain a sense of self through their enmeshment with others. Passion in another person on whom you stake your identity is a fire that cannot be controlled. So we try to control it, dampen it, so that we can feel safe in our own selves. A person who is independent, self assured, and passionate doesn't feed that narcissistic neediness for control and containment.

I've grown up feeding that need for control in others. My dad, bless his soul, was a narcissist, as was his dad. He was also a very loving man, but it was like his bright and beautiful soul was controlled by this egoic familiar pattern of (not clinical) narcissism and shame. So I grew up learning to give energy to this pattern, and it's so second nature to me that I don't even notice it. I think it's this ability to attune to a shame-filled and frightened other that formed the foundation for my psychic ability. But now, at age 37, I am no longer able to maintain this pattern. I don't want to. I am having to monitor my body's energy and how it reaches out to others, dampening and leaking my own fire. Oh, it's insidious! But I'm working on it. Acupuncture is helping, too.Perhaps one reason I studied healing, psychology, and energy work was to gain the tools to notice, name, and heal these patterns, maybe healing the seven generations before me in doing so.

So - I ramble on partly to organize my own thoughts, and partly because perhaps you, too, dear reader, struggle with similar generational patterns. There is no blame, just light. I send God's grace to my ancestors and to my children and to my own path as I grow and heal and uncover. And, also, to you. What passion are you discovering in yourself? What speed bumps are you encountering?