46 Self Portrait in the Pause- Part II – My Animus

Several distinctions occurred to me these past days as I’ve reflected on (and recovered from) the panic attack. Sifting through the noise in search of a concise way to describe what these distinctions are show up in other images I created in my conversation with my husband about what’s happening inside my body.

Underneath the red wildness of lines is ‘me’, is the person (girl, woman) I KNOW. (My censor is back. It’s saying: people are gonna think you’re bananas for writing this. Thanks, censor. A-buh-bye.) She/me is overwhelmed by all the Parts. The Parts live and move inside my entire body, inside my head. Some of them, step outside – and yell, scream, order, love – from that perspective, adding to the wildness of my Parts, to the layers of feelings/emotions and reactions/responses.

My brain (because that’s where it feels like all this chaos begins) is a container for the Forest of the Change. The hub, if you will, that reaches out through my nervous system, and moves the chaos so that it feels utterly uncontrollable. Currently, the Parts have a Leader. This is an aggressive, controlling, logical, analytical, Authoritative Ruler. I’ve recently learned that this Ruler has a name. This name is Animus.

On most days, I make extraordinary lists, to organize, to ‘rationalize’ and keep me on task. I am able to Be Present in the moments that I’m doing the tasks. Like now, writing this post. I have been able to stay present and focused. I am able to write clearly and, even though my body is having physical responses to what I’m writing, I’m still able to stick to it. These capabilities come from a Part of me, a driving force…

What I’m learning about the Animus is based on Carl Jung’s psychological work: The Anima/Animus relates to our inner or soul life. Not soul as understood in metaphysical terms as something which lives on beyond our physical existence but rather soul as in the inner force that animates us. The Anima is part of the male. The Animus is part of the female. Researching this more deeply brings complication, and needed time for contemplation. But for me to continue, I can tell you how I am beginning to know my own Animus…and in acknowledging it and learning how to ‘be’ with it, I hope that I can also learn how to shift out of its current…negative capacity, and create a Positive Animus that I can live with and love.

In other words, I am hyper-aware of this Ruling Part inside me that has been driving my rationality, my motivation, my ‘do-do-do’ action-ality (if you will) for as long as I can remember. My Animus is the big red circle on the top right of the diagram I drew. (The big red circle in the centre depicts how I feel about my body…the shape/size…more on this later.)

What if this Authoritative Ruler grew its first roots when I was child as a way to steer me away from something? Perhaps a Big Emotion. What if this Big Emotion was Anger? What if my Animus rooted and grew as a Guide that I needed to navigate childhood experiences that I was not able to handle emotionally? What if, having taken root and begun its growth inside me, and also been inspired by an external authoritative ruler, like a parent, or peer, or a teacher…whoever at that time I felt I was inferior to/was afraid of (which was pretty much everyone), my Animus did an exemplary job leading me through each day by helping me create stability through order, rationality, analysis and rules?

When I look at this version of the story of my Animus, I feel…grateful that it was able to help me through those difficult times. However, the rigidity through which my Animus ruled, simultaneously…fattened by way of a…how can I explain it…a side kick? This side-kick was in charge of my relationship with my body, that is, with the vessel that enables my ‘me’ to ‘be’ in the world. As a witness to women (both known in my childhood as well as unknown but observed in society) with complicated, negative, aggressive (hateful, even) relationships with their bodies, my Animus side-kick grew her own body and mind, and began to teach me how to hate my body – the sacred vessel that houses my spirit, my heart, my ability to love…

I’m recalling now a saying that women often offer each other in times of shared self-loathing/hatred: would you talk to your best friend like that? Call her ugly, fat, stupid, etc.? – we question each other. And, of course, our response, immediate and exacting is NO WAY! We wouldn’t. We don’t. Yet this ‘logical’ knowing does not stop, has not stopped me from continuing to talk to myself about my body with such vigorous negativity, with downright meanness. This Animus side-kick has been named. I call her The Demon Woman. She has been a Part of my ‘self’ for as long as I can remember.

What’s in a name? I mean, I’m beginning to feel a kind of…cautious kinship with my Animus. I’m quite enjoying that I have given it a name. But naming The Demon Woman…feels like it gives her more power, and she is not a Part I want to indulge. (She’s kinda hanging back today, eyeing the donut bag to the left of my laptop. And the Censor is still here too, suited up in a fancy black ensemble, arms folded, smug, denying its culpability in attempting to murder my creative life. What me? A maniacal, narcissistic asshole? Nope, not me…it coos.)

What is the relationship between my Animus, the Demon Woman and the Forest of Change – that is – the panic attack, my self-portrait and peri-menopause?

Today, it is the ‘ah-ha’ discovery that this trifecta of experience is an integral step in the process of deep change that I am inside of. If I am able to identify my Animus and its current functions that lean heavily toward negative self-talk, especially in tandem with the side-kick DW (let’s quiet her name); that, in fact, the genesis of this particular version of my Animus seeded and bloomed during childhood experiences wherein I had to quell my anger in order to survive safely, could it follow that (thank you, Isla) I can reshape, redirect, ‘edit’ this version of my Animus? Is it possible to seed and grow a Positive Authoritative Ruler that does not hate ‘me’, that does not avert my anger, but, rather, give it space to ‘be’?

What if, and this one brings on the tears, part of (or maybe all of) the reason that the DM exists is to continue the narrative of denial of love towards my body, this sacred vessel that gives me life? If I am aware of this…could I offer an alternative Animus side-kick who teaches me how to love my body?

It is extraordinary to me how interconnected my internal and external systems are in relation to how I engage with my body. What if my Animus’ stealing of motivation for doing/making good choices for my body is rooted in its protective energy for a narrative that began when I was a child…that no longer ‘fits’ the narrative of the woman, and of her body at this point in time? And what if peri-menoPAUSE is precisely that opportunity for ‘me’ (and all my Parts) to shift out of this (and other) narratives because, damnit, my body (the sacred vessel!) is literally changing at a cellular level and regenerating into something…new, different…open?

Part III forthcoming.