5/15/13—Claiming Your Power

TODAY'S DRAW BREAKING NEWS!!!! 
I will be interviewed on an internet radio program Wednesday night at 7pm Eastern US about spirituality, my deck, breaking the rules, manifestation and more. The show will be archived if you miss it live. I hope you'll tune in. Details can be found here.  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/psychicalx/2013/05/15/breakin-the-rules-alx-interviews-tierney-sadler


Today's Draw: Eight of Swords from the Victorian Romantic in the What to Avoid position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Where do feel stuck in your life? What are you hoping will happen to make you unstuck? Do you have a plan?

In all its many artistic interpretations, the Eight of Swords usually depicts someone "trapped" in a situation they can easily get out of. Look at the picture. Are those ropes holding her wrists together really that inescapable? Is she being poorly taken care of? Does she look like the victim of anything?

At first glance, the picture seems to portray a woman held against her will, but the more you study the details, the more comical her situation appears. Now what if I told you it's likely the same picture is present somewhere in your life?

I'm stuck in this job. 
I can't leave my husband. 
I don't have the time. 
That is too difficult for me. 
Quitting smoking is too hard. 
I can't meditate. 
I can't move forward.

Those are just a few of the things we tell ourselves to remain trapped in a less-than-satisfying life. They're all excuses. And people hate this word, but they're all the statements of a victim. Reality is....

I choose to stay in this job until the economy improves. 
I'm afraid of all the uncertainties involved with leaving my husband. 
I don't want to give anything up in order to make the time. 
I'm not willing to put in the effort to learn something new. 
I choose to continue to yield to my nicotine addiction. 
I tried meditating once and it didn't work, so I won't try again. 
I choose to remain tied to the past. 

The first set of statements identify you as powerless over your life or situation. They make you a victim. The second set of statements acknowledge your power, as well as your choice to continue the unfulfilling behavior. And until you acknowledge that it's a choice, nothing will ever change for you. 

There won't be any knights riding in on white horses. There is no secret force out there looking to save you from anything. The fairy tales we read as children are charming but they've also screwed us up. We believe in Cinderella and Prince Charming and happily ever after. And all throughout our lives, movies and books and other influences reinforce these things as truth. 

So when they don't happen to us, we wonder why....another victimized way of thinking. We choose to believe it because we want to believe it. So we look around us and think we see it in pictures or over the fence, but again, we're victimizing ourselves. It doesn't exist. Life doesn't happen to you. A fairy godmother doesn't come along and sprinkle you with dust and suddenly everything's ok. 

There are good people out there who will help you if you ask them, but the only hero—the only savior—you're going to come across in life is yourself. And the best way to start is to re-language the things in your life that seem insurmountable. The more you "save yourself", the more you see how magical and powerful you truly are. Claim your power to create positive change in your life and do it soon. Because the one thing worse than doing the hard work of creating change is continuing to live a powerless life subject to the whims of outside forces. 

4/4/13—Being Lucky Like a Fox

Today's Draw: Eight of Swords from the Phantasmagoric Theater Tarot in the What's Crossing Positive Influences in My Life position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Have not been able to manifest what you want in life? Is it possible you've given up too soon? Or could it be that you just tried too hard?

A "crossing" card is usually a card that is placed on top of another card in a tarot spread, crossing it, like a plus sign. (This is different from a "covering" card, which is placed square on top of another card in a spread, thereby covering it.) The crossing card can either help or hinder the card it crosses, depending on the context (whereas a covering card is always hindering or getting in the way of the card beneath).

In this case, the crossing card is what's getting in the way of positive influences in our lives. And the Eight of Swords from the Phantasmagoric Theater is about not making decisions, having a lack of patience or giving up too soon. So consider if leaving things up in the air or backing out too soon might be blocking the positive influences in your life.

One of my friends calls me "lucky like a fox", because I set myself up for success without even trying. It's not like I stumble into luck or luck just happens to me. At some level it's by design, but I'm usually not conscious of it or "trying".

Here's an example. When I first joined Facebook, I decided to friend some tarot people, because it's my hobby. At this point, I had no intention of ever writing a tarot book or creating a product or anything like that. In fact, it was the furthest thing from my mind. I did know I wanted to one day write a spiritual book one day, though. But I certainly didn't think anything on Facebook would help that. 

So anyway, while chatting with the tarot people I friended on Facebook, I noticed a really friendly woman named Barbara that everyone seemed to know. She and I got along really well, so I friended her. A couple of months after friending her, I realized that the Barbara I friended was a big-time tarot author. And I thought, "oh cool I have a famous friend". Then, after time, I learned she was also mucky muck at Llewellyn, the big publisher in the space. But what did I care? I wasn't ever going to write a book. I was just happy that my friend that I liked was part of the tarot glitterati...haha.

Then a year or more passes and I get the idea for the Deck of 1000 Spreads and I need to know how to approach a publisher. So I ask my friend Barbara, figuring I'd send the proposal to her and a few others. Then, as it turned out, my friend liked my idea and Llewellyn made me an offer. Lucky like a fox.

Since then I've learned what it takes to get a spiritual book published. It's one of those Catch-22 situations. They want to know you're worth taking a risk on. So having a published work that's doing well in its space doesn't hurt. Having a following on my blog (that I started for no conscionable reason other than I felt drawn to do it) and having this now huge cache of content and spiritual thought, also doesn't hurt. Nor does the discipline it takes to do this every day. Nor does the fact that I have a loyal following. 

None of this was planned to fall into place like this. But the end result of writing a spiritual book was. Now, that part hasn't manifested yet, but after attending a seminar on publishing spiritual books not that long ago, I learned that I'm WAY better positioned than most others. I've somehow already done all the work that looks like such a huge obstacle for them to traverse. Lucky like a fox. 

Now, the reason I've told you all of this is because I think a lot of people set an intention, sprinkle some seeds, then sit and watch. And wait. And poke the ground. And stay on course. And spend their energy completely on point. Then get disappointed when nothing bears fruit....or when it bears little fruit.

"Lucky like a fox" plants seeds and goes on with their life, sprinkling seeds everywhere they go. And they get caught up in the wind like a leaf, floating here and there, doing loop-de-loops and never quite landing. Never having any concrete expectations from the seeds they plant, never making a specific planting with the intention of it growing. Just knowing their ultimate intention, then going on with their lives. In Buddhism, it's called detachment...detaching from the outcome. 

When you go after something pointedly with intention, the temptation to manipulate outcomes is huge. And this sort of desperate energy is felt all around. It's constricting. It narrows the flow of positive influences, because your definition of what is "positive" is something entirely dependent on its ability to bring an outcome. So maybe you make connections with people solely for the purpose of reaching your intention. And that is felt. Or maybe you don't "waste time" on writing a tarot book when what you really want to do is write spirituality books. So you don't get a good track record with a publisher, or a following from people who like your work, because you didn't anticipate you'd need all that.

When you detach from an outcome and just float in the wind like the leaf...always moving forward but not attached to any single action producing an outcome...you float in a field of greater possibilities where pathways offer themselves to you through weird little whispers in your ear—"friend that chick Barbara", "write a tarot book", "start a blog". And you follow these voices and some bear fruit and some don't. And you may plant 1000 seeds, but you're not keeping count, because you're not outcome driven. Your intention, like everything else along the path, is a seed you've planted in the universe. And as long as you keep moving forward, you trust it's getting water and sun and food. And because you're not so constricted by having to watch the earth, positive influences have a much greater pipeline through which to reach you.

So that's what I think today's Eight of Swords is trying to say. The little guy has a turkey baster with which he's conceived his idea. But he's otherwise trapped in the dark, not knowing where to move...instead of just moving anyway. He's waiting for a red carpet to roll out and guide him through all the thoughts (swords) in his head. And he's even giving some of those ideas "the hand". He's thinking too hard...trying too hard...and making it all too hard. Some of those ideas he's refusing might be positive influences in disguise...or routes to positive influences. But he's not free wheeling and open enough to even consider that. 

People who have what you want didn't get there because they never failed, made a wrong turn or tried something that led to nowhere. They got there because they kept on moving forward despite all of that. And they probably kept on failing, too. But they were on a journey, not running errands, you know? And they probably found success in a way they never could have imagined or set up through conscious thought. 

They were lucky, yes. But they set the luck up for themselves through the seeds they planted, the perseverance they had and the wide channel they created to allow positive influences to flow in through. Lucky like a fox. 

2/27/13—Widening Your Options

Today's Draw: Eight of Swords in the Underlying Issues From The Past That Form The Heart Of The Situation position from the Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery and the Deck of 1000 Spreads. Do you feel trapped? Stuck? Do you feel your options are limited?

Today's draw is different for a couple of reasons. One is that I'm drawing it in advance of meeting up with a friend, thinking this may help her. And another is that it's using an AMAZING technique developed by Lee Bursten, creator of the Gay Tarot, among others. You can read about it on www.1000Spreads.com, but it's basically creating a unique spread position by combining two or more spread positions into one. To my knowledge nothing like this has ever been done before and Lee was inspired by my Deck of 1000 Spreads!

OK. So my friend seems to have been having a difficult time lately. I know nothing about it. That's why we're getting together. But I thought a little tarot insight might help. So I created the Underlying Issues From The Past That Form The Heart Of The Situation position...haha.

Here's what the Eight of Swords is all about. There are times in our lives that we feel trapped and devoid of choices. It can also refer to blocked energy and negativity. Add it all up and it's a big ball of self-induced limitation. We all do it to ourselves at some point. And the biggest culprit is black and white thinking. 

What I mean by that is that there's only two choices. Stay or go. Win or lose. Succeed or fail. And when we only allow ourselves options at extreme opposite ends of the spectrum, we up the fear ante on every decision we make because the stakes are absolute. If we do the boss' dirty work as requested, we succeed. If we don't do it, we're doomed to fail. So we do it out of fear of the repercussions of not doing it. But there's a whole array of options in between, ranging from turning your boss in to changing departments to getting another job. And you haven't considered them because you've been blinded by fear. 

The Eight of Swords is why people stay in broken relationships. They only see stay or go. Some stay out of fear of not having enough money to be on their own. Some stay because they fear failing the relationship. And some leave because it never occurred to them that there were other options. Like counseling. Or having an open relationship. Or leaving the relationship, but not leaving the home. Or leaving the home, but not leaving the relationship. Or, like the best-selling book The Five Love Languages advises, learning how to speak your partner's language. Personally, I think a lot of relationships can and should be saved. But, because the minute conflict and discord sets in the first thought is "stay or go", none of the options that can save the relationship even get considered. And then it becomes too late. 

Beyond the black and white thing, I think in some cases the way we were raised leaves us with only one option. For some that translates as "failure is not an option". For some it's "gay is a disease you can be healed of". For some it's "everyone in our family is a doctor". You get the picture. You get shoehorned into something that doesn't fit and, while you might question it from time to time, you're nonetheless resigned to it. Another trap of the Eight of Swords. 

Yet another trap is depression, negative thinking or even mental illness. Depression definitely causes our focus to narrow to the point where we can't see our options. And all those shootings? Those people had convinced themselves there was only one thing they could do. 

So if you feel trapped or blocked or stuck right now, move past the fear and the black and white to the gray space in between. And ask yourself, what are REALLY my options. List them all out, including the ones you'd never even consider. And if one of the options is to ask for help, by all means do that.  When you see all the options you have, fear will dissipate and may even clear your mind enough to allow a divinely inspired solution to set in. 

6/8/12—Escaping Fear

Today's Draw: The Eight of Swords from the Zombie Tarot by Paul Kepple, Ralph Geroni and Stacey Graham. If you want change and haven't gotten it, why do you think that is? Do you feel imprisoned or held back by something? Are you wondering how to break the chains that hold you back?

First things first. HOORAY! I got my Zombie Tarot!!!! Woo hoo! Woo hoo!

*ahem*

Now on to more serious matters. Since I've already decided to talk about manifestation this week, I'm going to read this card in relation to that. The Eight of Swords is about fears, limitations, toxicity and paralysis. It's about that moment or phase where you want to move forward but you just can't. And even though nobody likes this word, if you're in this phase, you're indulging a victim mentality. 

Walk into the undead...er, unknown.

Anytime you have excuses for why you can't move forward that's what you're doing. Because you can always move forward. It doesn't have to wait until your children are grown or until you get a promotion or until the weather is better. The prison that binds you is usually in your head. And of your own making. And a lot less inescapable than you make it out to be. 

Like we talked about yesterday, you just need to think a new thought. Or at least be honest about it. Instead of "I can't do XYZ until I have more money in the bank", why not just tell it like it is? "I can't do XYZ because I'm afraid I'll fail." Or, "I'm afraid of what will happen if I succeed." 

Hold your head up high and move forward with your life!

As long as you keep pointing to reasons outside of yourself—your kids, job, financial situation, spouse, etc.—you're powerless. You're a victim. And, conveniently, you don't have to change. But when you see the prison exists within your head—that it's a fear—then you not only have to claim responsibility for your inaction, but you also have to claim your power over it. And once you claim your power over it, change will come. All it takes is one step.