I'm Ursula

I'm Ursula.

Er-sa-la is the typical pronunciation. If you really want to get on my good side pronounce it like the Brits do. (UHrs-you-la)

I'm not Danielle. Yes, Danielle is my middle name, but it is the not the fullest expression of who I am. It expresses who I've been in some specific way but now I'm am letting Danielle go so that I can be Ursula.

I'm on a journey. The journey has looked completely foreign to where I've been before. I know some people will feel this is me being 'over the top'. You're free to think that. I actually am a pretty big personality and I am coming to love that about myself. I am NOT SORRY to say that any opinions which seek to keep me from being 'too much' will be disregarded in so far as I will no longer allow them to diminish me. (Not incidentally, I fully support others learning to fully embrace themselves without apology as well. This is a necessary journey for wholeness and it takes quite a few twists and turns along the way before we really live WHOLE.)

A lot of people have trouble changing how they refer to people even in 'expected' situations like when a woman has married and chooses to take her new spouse's last name and now they must call her by that one instead. It's hard. I get it.

But I am actually working on recovering my true self. The self I always was but have felt was rejected in the past.

When I was 15 years old, I asked people to stop calling me Ursula, though I'd been called that since birth. Why? Because I felt utterly rejected as a human and in my immature state, I thought 'maybe people will like me if I am called Dani'. As it turns out, that really didn't help any of it. I didn't really become more whole in doing that.

I think it's true that Danielle may feel, for some people, like a more acceptable name. It's more common in the US at any rate, than Ursula is. Ursula, it so happens, is quite common in Germany, from which it hails. I'm not German at all, but that's another story.

Some people really don't like the name Ursula, it being unusual and used for nasty characters with some frequency by the Entertainment industry. No matter, it is my name. I am not a sea witch or a nasty twin or a woman who steals other people's husbands so do please erase that connotation if it occurs to you when you hear my name.

At any rate, in my recovery process, I am coming to see that the young person I was, actually IS who I am at my core, but I felt I needed to hide her and remake myself into someone more acceptable.

I AM URSULA. I am not ashamed of that anymore. (please hear that shame is what I felt connected to the uniqueness of my name and some of my personality traits which have been 'bigger' than is sometimes considered acceptable in our culture)

I am asking you to attempt to address me by my given name. I won't be angry if you struggle, I understand the force of habit, but I am asking you to try.

Ursula means 'Little She Bear' and speaks of both the ferocity of a mother bear and also the compassion and protective care of that same bear. I am fierce, and also kind and loving. If you are harming me or those I care about, you will see the fierce side. If you are kind, you will meet with compassion, empathy and care.

I'm adding a link to the Urban Dictionary 'definition' of Ursula that gave me a chuckle and I thought described me in some respects. And really, it's just fun.

If you've read this far, thank you! I appreciate that you want to know me, the real me, rather than the me you hope I am. When I interact with Jesus, this is the me He sees and I'm grateful. He made me who I am and has often tried to tell me a different story about myself than the one I've heard in the world of humans. I am choosing to embrace the Woman that Creater crafted me to be, at a deeper level than I ever have and I invite your support in that endeavor.

I plan to continue telling other aspects of my journey of recovering myself. I think it will be helpful for others who are trapped in 'expectation' from people and broken systems around them. It'll make some of you uncomfortable. I understand. It IS uncomfortable for me too. VERY............VEEEEERRRRRRRRYYYYYY! And yet, it's also good.