Category: Healing

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Our Need for Order and Meaning

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I live on the road. Out in nature. From campground to campground. It is visually random. Audibly random. Yes, there is a rhythm here. But you have to listen for it. Therefore, I wonder, if we don’t see it, how deep is our need to place it all in a pattern?

I was out walking my dogs the other day as I passed a woman standing in an empty campsite. It looked to me as if she were picking up rocks. But I did not look closely.

Later that evening, as I was, yet again, walking the dogs, I saw police cars. Quite a few of them, on the other end of the campground. On the return round of the walk I discovered her story, sort of. This woman was lost in San Diego. A 3-4 hour drive away from where we are camped in the high desert.  They had been searching for her for 3 weeks. She had Alzheimer’s. How she got here was a mystery.

But here she was. Collecting rocks.

As I passed the spot the next day, I took a closer look. On the picnic table, she had organized rocks, twigs, raven feathers, and even a silver earring she had found. All in order. All classified by the thoughts and patterns in her head.

We are the pattern seekers of all the species. Humans look for order, patterns, meaning, in all things. I saw that in this older woman. She didn’t know where she was, she may not have known who she was, but here she was, making patterns, making order. I wonder what she got from it. Did she feel safer with order? Did she find meaning with the patterns and classification? Was it a comfort or a drive?

My guess is that it was both. We feel comfort with order. It helps define what things mean. Puts things into place and perspective. And that helps us to know who we are in relation to this world.

 

 

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Superstition

 

Black cat crossing your path.

Walking under a ladder.

Stepping on a crack, breaking your mama’s back.

There are so many superstitions in every culture. As a part of culture, they are quite  interesting to look at and and their history can be fascinating.

But once you internalize them. Once you give an object or event power over you, that’s where the danger lies. It’s giving up agency. It’s telling the world, and, more importantly, yourself, that you are powerless.

I used to avoid cracks as a kid. It was fun. Until it was stressful, as I just didn’t want to take the chance of actually hurting my mother, because, oh, I loved her so much. What if it really happened? I couldn’t take that chance As a child, it is easy to slip in to all forms of beliefs about yourself and the world. Especially with a child’s desperate need to feel safe. But, as adults, we need to investigate these beliefs, shine lights on them, make conscious decisions, become our own sources of power and knowledge.

Let’s take this to tarot. The cards have no power over you. Drawing The Devil card does not mean that awful things are going to happen to you. Drawing The Tower card does not mean that there is going to be an earthquake. replete with lightning and thunder, that tosses you and everything you love out the window.

If we went with superstition, that is what we would be lead to believe. Or, conversely, that if we draw The Ten of Cups, it means marriage, house and children are all waiting for us around the corner. I know, this is where superstition really draws us in. This safety, this happy ending. This luck of the draw and (at the same time)  this guarantee.

Yes, superstition can make us promises. But they are not real. And they are random. Life is random enough. To allow superstition to come in is taking any power we have in circumstances away from us.

But we actually are more powerful. We do have choice. We have the ability to decide for ourselves. This is so much more amazing than just being led by the nose.

The power is in the Wheel of Fortune card. Yes, life spins around us, tosses us challenges and gifts. But that is just what is. The power shows up when we consciously make the decisions on how to take it on.

And that has nothing to do with not opening an umbrella in the house…

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We Make Our Own Three of Swords

imageWe are all powerful. Sounds good, doesn’t it? We have the ability to create our world, see our world, interact in our world however we like. A good thing, right? Absolutely. Until we create our world in a way that is harmful to us. That makes us sad. That disempowers us. We have the choice to go either way. (we really do)

Take a look at the Deviant Moon Tarot’s Three of Swords, above. She has three swords piercing her heart. A loss, a blocking of energy. Maybe a heartbreak or a betrayal. These things happen. We can’t live in a 100% perfect world with no pain or suffering. It is called being human. We can’t ‘opt-out’ of everything that is challenging.

But. Take a look at this woman again. What is the one thing that she is taking action on, that she is actively doing? She is poking her own wounds, isn’t she? She has a black tear running down her face, but you have to ask, is it because of  her situation, or because of her actively adding to the suffering? If her hand was on the other side, on the handle, pulling a sword out of her heart, she would be powerfully engaging in her situation. But, no, she’s poking. She’s adding to the pain. She is going in deeper.

This is an aspect of our power that we have to recognize. We often get in the habit of taking things to the dramatical heights, seeing the worst case scenario, dwelling in the suffering. We forget that we have choice. That we may not be able to change the situation, but we can change our reaction to it. And that makes all the difference.

So, what are you wallowing in? What are you poking at? What can you step back from? What can you do instead of poking the wound?

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The Imaginary Hierophant Named “Family”.

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One of the Hierophant’s elements can be structure. Also authority. When you put those together in a family dynamic, it can be intense. It can become a structure that we were raised with, then automatically, unconsciously, fall into as adults. This can run our lives. At the very least, it can keep us from living full out in the life that we want for us. Bringing it up into consciousness and the light of day can be scary, but truly amazing as well.

A family can generate a set of ideals. Created by the group, or by a single or few strong personalities in the family. These ideals can be absorbed into our ways of being, being run by that awful word, “should”. Shining a light here is a great thing. Ask yourself if you have been striving for perfection based on someone else’s ideals/desires or your own. Look at how you are comparing yourself to your family and ask yourself it you are being how you want to be, or how they want you to be. Are you punishing yourself because you are not fitting in to their expectations? These types of questions can be difficult to look at. But once they are answered, once you get clear on  who is really making your decisions, it can be truly liberating when you let go.

It’s exhausting living your life according to someone else’s vision, it really is. For me, not living an authentic life makes me feel as if I am not living a life at all. It just doesn’t work. I had spent years trying to fit in to someone else’s idea of how life should be. Years. I compared myself to how I was “supposed” to be, I was outwardly well behaved and gave all the correct answers on demand. I covered up who I really was. They were all so proper and well behaved, and I must be lesser than, because I was not fitting in to that mold. Turns out, they were all full of shit anyways. Not only were they not better than everyone, they were downright creepy. I spent so much time wasted on being unforgiving towards myself for not keeping up with those ideals that never even existed in the first place. It is just not worth it.

Don’t give up your true self for anybody.

 

 

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End of the Day Sadness with a Touch of Anxiety? Tarot’s Thoughts

There can be a certain sadness at the end of the day. Its over. Like the end of a vacation, the last moments of a party. But it is a daily ending. We go through it over and over again. Little endings. It can leave us at a bit of a loss.

I did a quick little tarot reading about this, looking at both the sadness and the anxiety and the advice that follows. What I drew was:

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I drew the Two of Swords for the sadness. A woman with her arms folded protectively across her chest. As if she is protecting her heart. Maybe we fight to protect ourselves from this sadness? Maybe we are using energy to not admit that, hey, yes, one more down.

  • What would it be like to just open up and feel it? Have a little melancholy with your evening tea. Maybe it really won’t be so bad. It might honor the day. It might bring you closer to yourself by being honest. You might find that it is quite o.k.

I drew the Three of Pentacles for the anxiety part of the end of the day. This one is obvious. We work each day with goals and  desires. We don’t always reach them.  And when we don’t, we beat ourselves up over it. The end of the end of the day is the time we have to let go. We don’t have a choice in the matter, the day is gone, nothing we can do about it. But some part of ourselves wants to finish up the unfinishable. That can create anxiety.

  • What would it be like to just let that go?

The advice card I drew is the Queen of Swords. Mature. Wise. Faces the truth, but doesn’t get worked up over it.  She can see ‘what is’ and still not get all worked up over it.

  • So what would it be like to just be in the acceptance of it?

When you give it a try, you  find the beauty that is there. Being o.k. with however it shows up allows everything to fit into the right place.

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Failure. It’s a good thing.

Creating boundaries, and getting great at establishing them, is an ongoing process. From my childhood, I brought with me the idea that I was not allowed to have boundaries, it was selfish, only adults could make those decisions, and a bunch of other crap that really winded up getting me in a lot of really bad situations.

So, I love taking on boundaries! I love exercising that right whenever I can, whenever I want to. But a sneaky thing started showing up. I would state a boundary, but then, in the back of my mind, I would have these long winded conversations, with myself, by myself, to prove to myself (?) that I was ‘right’. It was getting in the way of the joy that boundaries can create.

Turns out, I could establish boundaries, but I needed to be right while doing so.

Why? Because if I was wrong, it was a failure on my part. And failures meant I was a bad person. Failures meant a judgement on myself. Know one might know, but I would know, and that was bad enough. (It’s amazing the stories we make up about ourselves. Makes me want to take a nap, they are so exhausting…)

But was all that true?

Is a failure a bad thing?

It all depends on how you look at it. And how you look at it is everything. What if failure was an amazing gift? What if failure meant you got to move one step forward on the game board of life? It moves us forward. It teaches us. It gives us wisdom. It gives us compassion. It gives us maturity. It gives us another tool in our bag of knowledge.

Failure is something to honor. To say thank you for. We can see it as information. As a lesson that gets us closer to graduating.

We let failure walk hand in hand with shame so often. And we don’t even question it.

Failure can be a hard lesson, a hard gift, I am not going to deny that. But it is also to be honored. It can be celebrated. Why not?

Really. Why. Not? We all do it. No on gets left out. What an amazing thing.

You always have the ability to choose how you want to look at something. What if you congratulate yourself when you fail? What if you start to honor your experience of being human when you fail? What gets better in your life? What things drop away? What would be the most amazing way for you to see a failure?

Try it and see what changes it brings to your life.

 

 

 

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Filling Your Cups

horse5In tarot, the cups are all about emotions, feelings, love. Good yummy stuff. Until they are empty. At the bottom of the cups (think of them reversed if that helps), are the gunkier emotions. Away from reality, emotionally driven, or lack of any emotion at all. This can show up in many ways. Different for all of us. But we all have a need to keep our cups full. If we don’t, they dry up, the get cracked. They dry out. We have nothing left to give.

We can’t give if we don’t got. By taking care of our own needs, we can refill our cups. We often feel that it is selfish to ‘do for ourselves’, but, really, it benefits everyone. Once we take care of our needs, we can give again to others. We have access to the balanced emotional state that is neither overly gushing and out of control, or so bland and empty that we do not even have a smile to share with anyone.

Think about how to fill your cups. Pencil it in your calendar. No, pen it in. Non erasable ink. It’s imperative.

Yes. Imperitive:

im·per·a·tive
imˈperətiv/
adjective
adjective: imperative
1.
of vital importance; crucial.

 

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Just Keep Moving in the Right Direction. Don’t Worry About Perfection.

I had a great insight the other day. I was so excited about writing a blog post about it. It was profound, it was insightful, it brought me to a new understanding of myself.

Then I  instantly forgot it.

I was upset because it was a really great learning experience for me. It really made me feel good about myself.

But things have a way of circling back. If you miss out on a lesson, a new awareness, don’t beat yourself up. Just keep moving forward.

For me, missing out on that lesson gave me this lesson. To just keep moving forward. Allow  your life to be imperfect. Allow yourself to skip a life learning “class” every once in awhile.

Often, when people take on self growth, they start to force it. They feel they need to be perfect. That growth and self awareness happens in a straight line. It doesn’t. Nothing in life follows a straight path.

Once you accept that, your process will flow so much more easily. You don’t need to worry about “doing it right”. Just “do it forward”. Don’t count how many times you stumble. It really doesn’t matter.

Use your stumbles to find humor, joy, self care, something gently positive. If you snap at someone at work, for example, just use that opportunity (as it is an opportunity) to reflect on what you need. Are you cranky? Tap into something funny. Are you tired? Gift yourself with a treat/bath/extra hour of sleep, etc. Do you just not like this person? Gift yourself with compassion (as it surely will get passed on).

It’s not all going to work out perfectly. So don’t worry about perfection. Focus on direction.

Love,

Vaike

 

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Life and Happiness. What Are Your Top Ten Daily Stressors?

We all have what I call “invisible stressors” in our lives. Things that we have lived with for so very long, or that are so much a part of our everyday lives that we no longer know that they are there.

Because we are not aware of these stressors, we can’t do anything about them. They can make us physically and emotionally uncomfortable without us even knowing it.

Start to ask yourself what some of these may be. Start to shine a light on them A good way to do this is to make a list. Things that annoy you. Things that get in your way. Things that make you physically uncomfortable. I am not asking you to look for the large life stressors here, rather just little things that tweak at you.

Go ahead and make a list of 10 things that bother you every day. Mine are:

  1. Constant loud noise.
  2. Being too cold or too hot.
  3. Unresolved to-do list.
  4. Guilt from not spending enough time with my senior dog.
  5. A messy house. Clutter.
  6. Feeling physically dirty. Unwashed hair.
  7. Low grade back tension.
  8. Unpaid bills.
  9. Low blood sugar.
  10. Getting into a messy bed at night.

These kinds of little things can just eat away at your daily comfort and happiness. They are ‘low grade” so we just tend to ignore them and live with them. What did you come up with?  Start looking at you list and finding solutions. How can you just make a few of them go away? Start to think about how you would feel if you gave yourself the gift of solving some of these issues. How would you feel after? Would it be worth the 5/10/20 minutes a day that it would take to shower/pay bills/eat on time/make your bed?

Just getting a handle of a few of your issues will make a world of difference.

Try it and find out!

 

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Sadness and Negative Emotions

Achieving your dreams and living a fulfilling life doesn’t equal perfection. Life is still here. It’s how we handle it that matters. When you are in a good place, centered and calm, you can allow the sadness, anger, grief, wash over you. To pretend it’s never going to exist once you reach your dream is unrealistic. It can put pressure on you, making you doubt yourself and your goals.

To acknowledge the imperfections, the moments of sadness, anger, etc. allows you to let these things pass through you. You have to remember that these emotions are not permanent. Letting them be, instead of fighting with them, is the key.

Allow sadness. Allow anger. It’s not you. It is just something passing through you. Look at it and understand that sometimes you and the negative emotion will stand in the same place.  But that emotion is not you. That emotion is not permanent. Let it be and it might hang around a bit, but then it will go. Don’t hold on. Don’t identify it as part of the permanent you.