Confessions of a Peacock

I once hosted a spirit animal party for a very hot, carefully selected group of libertines.

My spirit animal was the peacock.

And you’d better believe I had a two metre feathered headdress to match the electric blue lingerie.

The peacock honestly couldn’t have been more perfect. Showy, seductive, colourful, impossible to ignore. Peacocks are fascinating creatures really. The males display extravagant feathers to attract attention, admiration and desire. They are designed to be seen. To captivate. To hold the gaze of the room.

And for a very long time… so was I.

But what happens when your whole identity becomes “the peacock”? What happens when underneath all the feathers, all the stories, all the sex, all the performance, you’re actually just trying to feel seen, met and understood in ways you never learnt how to give yourself?

Because the peacock went hand in hand with my hedonistic side. The side that partied hard, loved hard, chased intensity and said yes too quickly. The side that collected stories and experiences and lovers and chaos like proof that I was alive.

And then afterwards I would disappear into bed for two weeks, burnt out, completely alone with my own thoughts, trying to recover from the intensity of it all.

The feathers and the chaos protected me from something much deeper. From stillness. From ordinariness. From invisibility. From the fear that if life became too quiet I might actually have to meet myself underneath all the stimulation. I might also need to let someone see the real me.

You see, when you have a brain that craves stimulation, life can feel difficult to do quietly.

My brain sought dopamine everywhere. Sex became regulation. Novelty became medicine. Intensity became identity. Polyamory, multiple lovers, drugs, adrenaline, fast living… not necessarily because I was incapable of love or depth, but because feeling alive became a brilliant distraction from actually feeling myself.

From the outside it probably looked glamorous. Free spirited. Liberated. But underneath, much of it was unconscious chaos. Compulsive. Boundary pushing. Dysregulated. Stimulation seeking. I found myself in all sorts of situations, scenes and dynamics that now feel like they belonged to another nervous system entirely.

One client recently asked me, “How do I still enjoy the thrills of life without blowing the roof off it?”

And honestly, my answer came in two parts.

Firstly, I can still have fun. I just make sure the fun isn’t going to collapse my entire life for the sake of the kick.

And secondly, when I finally met myself properly and started showing up for myself more deeply, I stopped needing to be quite so visible to everybody else.

Because that’s the thing about peacocks. The plume is for attraction. For display. For securing attention.

But when you no longer feel invisible to yourself, you stop needing to perform visibility so desperately for the outside world.

And strangely, that has been one of the most unexpected parts of healing.

Not becoming boring. Not becoming beige. Not losing my sparkle.

Just no longer needing to set fire to my own life in order to feel alive inside it.

3 ways to feel more visible to yourself (without blowing up your life for attention):

1. Stop performing and start noticing.

A lot of people aren’t actually expressing themselves, they’re performing versions of themselves that get attention, approval or desire. Start noticing who you are when nobody is watching. That’s where the real relationship with yourself begins.

2. Build a life that stimulates you, not destabilises you.

Your nervous system may crave intensity, but intensity and aliveness are not the same thing. Find things that make you feel expanded without leaving emotional wreckage behind them.

3. Learn to stay with yourself in stillness.

Most people don’t fear boredom they fear what silence might reveal. The ability to sit with yourself without distraction, chaos or external validation is one of the deepest forms of self-trust.

For everyone who wants to feel more seen and understood, listened to and heard. For those of you that want to make sense of complexity.

I’m here - Masks and feathers off

Jemma

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