Just a few days ago, a number of realisations happened in quick succession. If I can hold on to them, I may have reached something of a breakthrough.

Much of it came from a very powerful conversation with my counsellor. I started seeing her in the summer, specifically to work on some old emotions that I still seem to be stuck in. What I discovered last week was how much I still identify with the wounded little girl that I was 30-something years ago. So much so, that everything I have achieved since then, didn't seem real. For so long, I have felt that the confidence, competence and the modicum of wisdom I display to the world are something I am faking, and they're not really mine. Because inside I feel like I'm eight years old and scared.

Now for the first time I realise that that scared little girl is a part of me, and she always will be. And given her family circumstances, it is OK for her to feel upset and sad and angry and frustrated. But I am no longer that little girl, and all the things I have achieved since then are indeed real. I can claim them and own them. And this confident, competent me can take the wounded little girl by the hand and comfort her.

All it took was for me to look at myself from another's point of view, and being told by another human being that what i display to the world and how other people perceive me really is me. It's a weird feeling. It's like I've been given permission to grow up at last.

Another realisation came from doing work with my Ancestors. I was working on a family tree collage, incorporating old photographs and some landmarks form the places in the East of Belgium where all my blood Ancestors come from. While I was doing this, I became aware of very ambivalent feelings towards these people, these places. On the one hand, I love them, certainly the people I know and have known. But on the other hand I feel contempt for the little lives they led in these little places. They seem so small-minded, limited in their outlook.

I wanted to work with those mixed feelings, and made a shamanic journey to my Ancestors. I was given a profound teaching that is still reverberating. The life force flows to me from my Ancestors in beautiful butterfly colours through strands of connection. And as I turn to each Ancestor of my bloodline, I can see that the smallness of their lives comes from their fierce love and their dogged determination to give their children what they need to survive. If my Ancestors hadn't had that very quality which I despise, I would not be here. And I am grateful for what they have given me.

The stubborn determination of my bloodline, and the tears of the little girl I once was, are part of who I am. But there is a lot more to me. I have 20 years or so of adult life that have made me confident and capable and gave me quite an open and accepting world view. I intend to fully step into that new vision of myself and live it.

No wonder I had such difficulty claiming the title of priestess. A scared 8-year-old girl would never have carried that. Neither would my immediate Ancestors, whose religious experience was so very different from mine. But this other person, this woman I seen when I slightly shift my point of view, can indeed. The journey is still not going to be easy, but now at least it looks possible.