Today's Draw: The Hierophant from Dreaming Way Tarot. Have you ever observed yourself avoiding your emotions? What kinds of things do you do in order to avoid them? How much practice do you have at purposely sitting in the midst of those emotions and feeling them through to the end?
The Hierophant signifies a spiritual teacher or teaching, among other meanings. Recently I've been feeling really disconnected from my spiritual self, so I've been making an extra effort. One of my friends has a 1.5-2 hour commute each way every day, so she listens to Buddhist teachings from Pema Chodron on CD and, frequently when we talk, she mentions some of the principles she's considering at that time.
Lately she's been talking about "staying with your emotions", which is something I've always meant to get around to...haha. But see, that's how it usually works with people. We avoid. We have an issue at work, for example, and we distract ourselves. Bury our heads in work. Or go home and have a drink. Or watch TV. We follow our impulse to "make the pain stop".
Staying with the pain isn't about going home and telling your spouse about your day. Sure, that's better than nothing. But staying with the pain is about sitting there and going inside yourself and letting it wash over you. It's about taking that pain all the way back to what it's really about. It's about feeling all the fears that the situation brought up for you. It's a deeply personal thing and not something someone can do for you or with you. You can share your experiences with others, but it's part of your personal journey.
Most of us don't even know what that is, because we're so good at not looking at our issues. And the consequence of all of that is that, at best, we're held captive by our fears. At worst, avoidance manifests as unhealthy behavior and addiction.
I think we can all agree that I'm a pretty introspective person...haha. But I'm an expert at avoiding really feeling my pain. And if I'm that good at it, imagine what it must be like for someone who avoids introspection altogether! Think of how many people can't even go as far as the people who read this blog. And think of your own behavior when you're hurt or scared or frustrated. Do you sit there in silence and feel it all the way to your toes?
Yeah. Me either.
Pema likened it to scabies (gah!). But I'm going to say poison ivy. Our first urge is to scratch the spot, just like our first urge is to stop the emotional pain. But if we scratch, we spread the poisonous oils and make the poison ivy worse. The same is true for our pain...if we scratch our itch by avoiding the pain, it just spreads within us. It creates more pain and even disease. If we don't scratch our "avoidance itch", however, and sit with the pain...allow it and trace it back to our innermost fears...we learn how strong we really are. It may sound ironic, but the only path to making the pain go away forever is to dive down deep into it...stop avoiding it.
I frequently find myself examining myself and seeing where I can improve and raise my vibration and all that. But that's just one facet of the path. We can become better people all we want, but what kind of a foundation is that built on? One where our fears and pains are swept into the corner to fester and mold? I think we can only go so far along our path without learning to sit with our emotions. Because the more refined we become as individuals, the more the tar of our avoided emotions diffuses our light.
Today's Draw: Nine of Wands from the Dreaming Way Tarot. Do you have a personal, intimate relationship with yourself right now? Do you feel like all your energy is fed-by (and given to) external sources? What's the "final hump" you need to get past in order to achieve holistic success in your life?
The Nine of Wands is about gathering up that final bit of energy so you can make one last push toward your goal. The older I get, the more I feel like Nine of Wands moments come more often...haha. Exhausted and fatigued, you push through to eventual success.
I look back, say, 15 years and think I had so much more energy. But when I look at all I do now, I'm pretty sure I do more now than I did then. I did more socializing then, sure. But I do more work now. And I continue to take more on. Recently I've heard about a couple of different groups that want me to deliver my tarot and psychic development classes, for example. And I'm interested in doing more of that because I do enjoy teaching.
On the other hand, it takes a long time to develop these classes. So if they're interested in something I haven't taught yet, it takes a lot of time to come up with that stuff, which I usually do in the evenings. And then there's the time teaching them takes from my weekends. This year I've been teaching and developing three new classes a month on average. So I find myself working sometimes a couple/few months straight without a weekend off.
Meanwhile, my REAL job as a freelance copywriter is moving along busily. And I do these blogs six days a week (though I posted repeats all week this week...haha...sorry). Put it all together and I can see why I feel like I'm always in a Nine of Wands moment. And the thing is, there's none of it I would willingly give up. I enjoy my job and it brings me money. I enjoy teaching. And I like the discipline and daily deep thought of writing this blog.
I was talking to another woman earlier today and we were talking about how, at our tender, advanced ages (haha), we're also less amenable to putting up with BS along the way. Stuff I would go along with fifteen years ago—and even five years ago—is just one stone too many for this camel's back. So there are certain colleagues I won't work with, types of friends I won't hang with and situations I won't get myself into.
Like I said, though, I socialized more 15 years ago. I exercised more 15 years ago. So I'm looking for a solution that works for me today...something to give more balance to my life. I need the exercise. There's no denying that. But I also need something to capture my spirit and that's been elusive lately. I still meditate a lot, but I think I'm looking for something more along the line of my solo trips to the river.
The Nine of Wands can be about using your very last bit of energy, and that's usually how it's intended. But I think it can also be a Bat-signal in the sky saying, "find something other than work and dogs to fuel your life, Tierney". I hate being at this place, because I know better than to get lost in the haze. But in my enthusiasm with the tarot stuff and the book writing and blog writing over the past couple of years—and now my new little doggie—I see that I've set aside some piece of me that takes me off the hamster wheel of outwardly focused (and fed) energy.
I don't regret taking on more, because it's all purpose-built for my present and future. I've got a great product coming out for tarotists in the spring, I teach some kick-ass classes, I have an enormous library of spiritual and personal insights from two years of doing this and I've even test-marketed my next book project to you in posts I made earlier this year. But my mistake was in doing it at the cost of my "me" time, instead of in addition to it.
For me, I guess, that's the final, Nine of Wands hump I need to get over in order to achieve success in my life—finding that way to do all the cool things I get to do on a daily basis without losing myself in it. No matter who you are or what you do, your personal, intimate relationship with yourself is something you should never lose sight of.
The Hierophant signifies a spiritual teacher or teaching, among other meanings. Recently I've been feeling really disconnected from my spiritual self, so I've been making an extra effort. One of my friends has a 1.5-2 hour commute each way every day, so she listens to Buddhist teachings from Pema Chodron on CD and, frequently when we talk, she mentions some of the principles she's considering at that time.
