#projectaquirius

[aquirius555-musings]

Pursuing Your Purpose Over Grabbing the Bag

The Necessity of Motivation in Pursuit of Wealth 

Being a witch with ADHD can be contradictory at times. And now is one of them. I am confident that wealth follows and it does not lead. I am comfortable not leading my life in pursuit of wealth. However, I am still a human existing on this planet, a planet where wealth not only leads, but having some form of income is a necessity for survival. For most, a steady income is a necessity for creating a comfortable, safe, and healthy environment to prosper in this decaying world. 

I am in a position where I have less wealth than I ever have before, but I have also achieved more dreams than I ever have before. I am living in a place I have dreamed about since I was young. I am living among the mountains and the great glory of this Earth’s nature and all it has to offer. I am living with and building a family of humans and animals that love me greatly and our soulmates of mine. I am living as a witch who believes in my value and abilities. 

These things drive my passion, my hope, and my willingness to do more than simply survive. My willingness to always push to be thriving. What doesn’t drive this will to live fully is paid work, perceived achievement/success, and valuing profit. 

It is very difficult for me to “show up” as my full self or with 100% energy when I am not intrinsically motivated by the values I consider most important. These are things I typically do and express in spades. Especially, in critical situations and oftentimes to a fault or to the great annoyance of others. 

However, I’ve learned the hard way in my adult years that when I try to pursue things that don’t fulfill my soul purpose or innermost values, I not only fail, but I suffer greatly, relapse, and regress. 

ADHDilemma 

As I referenced in my introductory post, I was a high-achiever growing up. This is also a result of being an AFAB person and an empath with severe ADHD. I knew all the rules, I studied hard, I hyper-focused, I hyper-felt, I had way too many varied interests that were always changing, I wanted to win, to be loved as I was, and I took rejection and torment to heart. This allowed me to rise up as a star student, star sibling, star employee. I masked the qualities and behaviors that I was ashamed of or the ones that led to torment, rejection, or guilt. 

You see,  I could read other people and knew when I was upsetting them or when they were intentionally upsetting me. This made it easy to designate different emotions, behaviors, reactions, and conflicts into different buckets in my head. There were buckets that were safe to dump out in public, within a specific system, or with certain people, and others that were not. I became a masked person instead of myself.

What societal rules mixed with my persona and neuro-status didn’t allow me to do was love myself, and therefore, it prevented me from being a star-friend, or at least being friends with those who had my best interest at heart. More than that, the lack of love I had for myself regressed my ability to be a caretaker for myself, to be spiritually aligned, and ultimately to be happy. I let so many people victimize me throughout my life because of this and therefore have accumulated my own traumas along the way.

I have now learned so much about myself, unlearned so many unhealthy habits and behaviors, worked through a lot of trauma, embraced so many emotions and qualities about myself. This makes it heartbreakingly difficult for me to face what I call “the old me”. I really do not align with this person anymore, and I don’t really feel them in me at the deepest levels, but at the surface they are fully present. 

Old Habits Die Slowly and Painfully

This “old me” knew how to present on LinkedIn, in the professional world, knew how to do what I needed to do to get the job, to fit in, to lead the group, to follow the leader. Whatever was needed of me, I did it. 

I am now in a really tough financial position. I don’t have enough money to pay my bills, get medicine, go to therapy, take my pets to the vet*, get groceries, get more soil for my plants, etc. I know that I need to make money, and I know that the thing stopping me has been restraining myself from pursuing higher-income gigs. I have been fearful that I won’t “make it” in this new field that I am pursuing and that I left my corporate job to pursue. This has been stopping me from taking the leap into freelance writing gigs, into seeking out magazines or sites to submit stories too, to recording my first podcast episode, to finish setting up my profiles for freelance sites that are connected to my LinkedIn or require examples of my work. 

*Both my pets had full vet exams in April, I have simply not been able to afford a visit to a new vet for either pet since we moved. They are healthy.

Instead of going for these things that may make me more money AND fulfill the want and need I have to try to write and create content for things I am passionate about, I am settling for much less. Getting low $/hour to do low-brain-capacity work. A big part of this is feeling like I won’t be represented as I am now and for what I want to be doing, but rather for the “old me” because of the work I’ve done in the past for tech companies or consultants. The buyers of the work I want to do won’t have any specifically-relevant work to review. And the buyers of the work I used to do don’t want someone like me and I don’t want to write for those types of topics anyway. 

So why am I stopping myself from presenting in my full form online? Why am I not believing in myself to do the things I went to school for, live and breathe and consciously learn about with my time? 

Because I was always told that to succeed in business or in any field or industry, you need experience, presentation, professionalism, etc. And these things have always been defined through a straight, white, and male-driven lens. This means no tattoos, no colored hair, no piercings, no political issues or talk (even though what I want to discuss isn’t political to me, even if it’s politicized by the public). Why, no matter how much I oppose and despise those who set these “precedents and standards” do I still give in to them?

Because old habits die slowly, painfully, and only with a lot of work and resilience is it even possible. 

Shadow Work Makes a Great Assassin!

The only one qualified to kill off these old, and frankly unwelcome, habits is with an old friend - Shadow Work. Suffice it to say, I think all of this means that Shadow Work is calling my name. It’s time to have a real focus on this as I also work to pursue my creative and professional dreams. 

Shadow work allows us all to go inside and break down these old habits, old traumas, old blocks that come back our way to try and break down our soul. Consulting, tending to, and loving your shadow self can allow one to break free of these things, or even better, allow them to work for you and propel you on your journey to achieve your soul’s purpose.

To get started, I am working with this very poignant Full Moon that takes place tomorrow at its highest illumination. I have some shadow-work journal prompts, a Full Moon spell, and a ritual planned. 

I guess sometimes, being an ADHD witch has it’s upsides too. Witchcraft is a tool that really helps me live a meaningful life despite the struggles that come with my ADHD. I am who I am, and embracing the intersections of these two identifying pieces of me allows me to pursue my soul’s purpose.

- Aquirius (July 2021)

[aquirius555-musings]

A “Modest” Introduction

What is the point of this blog? Do you even care?

Context is Key, so Get to Know Me

For those who find me here, I am Aquirius (not Aquarius, Aquirius). The word “qui” is within my actual name and a nickname I’ve had from a young age. I am an Aquarius sun, and heavily identify with this placement. I am a nonbinary individual (They/Them preferred). I am a neurodivergent individual with ADHD and diagnosed chronic depression and anxiety. I am a witch and nature is my spirituality. I am a writer and content creator who became caught up in the throws of a privileged, catholic upbringing. This meant college and a career path in business. 

I went to school and was an over-accomplished student due to my ADHD brain and hyper-focus on “winning” and “success” (most notably financial success), because that’s what I was taught was important. Just before my senior year of university began, I lost one of my best friends at the age of 21, suddenly, and due to something no one saw coming or could stop...a seemingly random case of cardio-respiratory failure. This altered the course of my life, the way that I saw my self, and how I valued my life and the lives of those I love. 

After half a year of disassociation, panic attacks, and inability to function as a human adult, I somehow made it to graduation. After not applying to a single job due to my mental and emotional state, I took the only job available to me. One I was afforded due to my privilege. I got an interview and offer at a job back home through a networking opportunity I only had because of my father, who was a businessman in my hometown. 

My Turning Point

It took less than 2 years working there, and being out in the “real” world, for what felt like the very first time, to realize how everything I have worked for in my life was for something that I was conditioned to believe, and not something I did believe. I “woke up” as they say.

Waking up and uncovering your true identity is an experience many (if not all) twenty-sometings can relate to. What did it for me was the immense sexism, homophobia and ageism I experienced alongside the racism and other problematic behaviors I witnessed throughout this new world around me that I was meant to make my career. The business world, especially tech and start-ups, is a life-sucking and it values profit and “new” innovation over being human. 

I made to leave this world that I had worked so hard to be accepted into. I have now successfully separated myself. I left my last office/corporate job back in March of 2021 (now July, 2021) and I moved 1500 miles to a tiny mountain town in Colorado shortly after. 

Get to the point, Qui!

I am now focused on what I want to do with my life, my love, my creativity, and my time. 

I went to school to be a leader in business for other women (I am AFAB and was identifying as a woman) and other communities oppressed by this world. I went to school so I could work for myself and wouldn’t have to be victimized or degraded by others who possessed values I disagreed with or who disrespected me. 

I have always been passionate about being a leader for my communities, to represent something good, to give opportunities and love to those who don’t receive it from this cruel world. I always thought the way to achieve was to crawl to the top, but I quickly learned how much suffering I would endure if I went about it this way. And what would be left of me to give to others then?

I left behind the career and life I envisioned, the path to financial success I thought I craved, and I gave up living according to what society and others valued. I decided my life would be vastly different than I originally planned and I became someone new to those who saw me, and more myself than I had ever been before.

Change Requires Inspiration, Knowledge, and Motivation

It’s important to note that the inspiration and motivation to do this comes from being inspired by others in my communities and my chosen family (and a few of my actual family members). Many people from all walks of life have paved the path to living one’s truth loudly, and finding success in that despite the cries against it from the public or boomers caught up in the “traditional” way of doing things. 

And newsflash, those traditional ways are what’s killing our people. 

Some Inspiration Shout-Outs:  To my dogs, my cat, to the drag community, to the trans community, the ballroom community, to the enby community, to my two soul mates (my spouse and best friend), to my twin/my sister, to the witch community, to my TikTok community, to the Moon and to the nature of this Earth.

A Few Reminders:  Capitalism kills. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Climate change is real and we need to work to save this planet.  White people benefit from our country’s and the world’s capitalist-driven systems that exist so that those of other races can get less and whites can get more. Racism is violent, deadly, alive and well today and it is everyones responsibility, especially and mostly white people, to make the changes necessary to decolonize ourselves, our systems, and fix the things that oppress people of color. Especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in America. The prison system is modern slavery. Regardless of any identify a white person may possess (AFAB, queer, LGBTQIA+, etc.), we are always white first. 

Back to the Program...

In Summary (what this blog is all about)

I am now on the path to discovering what my talents are meant for and applying my creativity to the many passions I’ve discussed throughout my story in this introductory post. 

I love to write and one thing I learned is that I am a damn good writer, content creator, and communicator. I want to apply these skills and talents to projects I care about, ones that are both unpaid and paid. 

After weeks of hardcore avoidance, disassociation, and doing things for others, it’s time to get to work. I have no excuses left (and no money), and those are the perfect motivators to get my ass in motion. 

I find it hard to get out of my overthinking and fear-driven state of mind to make real headway. I thought starting a blog as a format to write all sorts of things without restriction, without pressure, and with anonymity would be the best way to get started. 

Getting started is always the hardest part. But now that I have started, there is no turning back. Thanks for reading. 

- Aquirius (July 2021)