6/19/13—Learning Lessons the Hard Way

ATTN: Tomorrow's Daily Draw will be one of those "special" posts I do for the blog group I'm a member of. So those of you accustomed to reading tomorrow's post the night before, I will be posting Friday's post at 1am Eastern on Friday (rather than at 8pm on Thursday)

Today's Draw Classic*: Three of Swords in the Lesson position from the Legacy of the Divine by Ciro Marchetti and the Deck of 1000 Spreads by me. When you think on the big lessons in your life, do you remember more of the ones you learned through pain more profoundly? Or do you remember more of the lessons you learned through happy moments more profoundly? Is there something you can learn from that?

It's interesting that this combo came up, because I've been thinking lately about the lessons we learn from heartbreak. If you can't tell by the tarot card (and the spectacular way my spread card makes the fractured heart on the cheek pop) that's what this card is about. 

I often debate the value of the lessons we learn from loss vs. the value of the lessons we learn through victory. I will never misspell the word "committee" ever again because it caused me to lose a spelling bee in third grade. I cried just like the girl in the picture there. 

Looking back over my life, the most valuable lessons I've learned have been the tough ones. That doesn't mean we don't learn from the good stuff because we do. Doing something right the first time reinforces that behavior or system and so you repeat it to success time and time again. But when that's the case, it just becomes the way you do it....a repeatable process that ends in success. Not so much a lesson you've learned, but something you figured out on your own. 

But when you learn something the hard way, it becomes somehow more meaningful, more profound. We define it more like a lesson than just a "way". It seems like the higher the price, the more meaningful the lesson, the less likely we are to screw with that particular thing again. Some lessons we just have to learn that way, whether through our own obstinance, lack of awareness or whatever. 

Can you think of a lesson you learned in the past that you didn't need to learn? Can you think of a painful experience you've ever had that didn't bring lessons? I can't. Pain seems to write on us in ways that both knock us to our knees in tears and then, after time, to our knees in gratitude. It is both toxin and tonic. It poisons and purifies. 

The universe never brings us something in error. If we're experiencing pain, it's needed on our path. If we're on a winning streak, it's needed on our path. Everything is brought to us in love, as a means to lift us higher. That's sometimes hard to see in the moment, but always visible in retrospect. The hardest lesson of all—the one that causes the most self-inflicted pain—is to learn is to trust in that. 

*From 3/22/13

5/14/13—Checking In With Your Superpower

Today's Draw: Strength from the Art of Life Tarot in the Lesson position from the Deck of 1000 Spreads. What superpowers have you developed in your lifetime? Are they impervious to attack? Or could something quietly worm its way in just enough for a speck of kryptonite to flow in?

I have this really cool superpower. I can allow certain types of thoughts and fears (certainly not all types...I'm not THAT good) to pass through my mind with non-judgment. By that, I mean that instead of entertaining a fear and allowing it to swirl out of control in my head, I can note it and let it flow out of my head as quickly as it flowed in. I don't judge it true or false, good or bad, scary or pleasant. It is what it is. A thought.

This is a superpower, because I used to be one of those people who over thinks things and worries and allows fears to take over. Then through divine means (and a long-lived meditation practice combined with conscious discipline), I found myself nearly impervious to fear-based, catastrophic thinking when it came to money, my career, my creative talents and other aspects of the professional part of my life. I did this just in time to become a freelance writer, supporting a rag-tag pack of dogs through two recessions and countless other challenges. 

See, there are consultants who get gigs that last for six months with guaranteed income. Then there are consultants who earn their mortgage a quarter-hour at a time. I'm the latter. It can be hard to survive as the latter in a competitive, uncertain landscape like advertising. I know of very few people in the marketplace who have lasted as long as I (as an aging single person in a young man's game with no other stream of income or support.) I say all of this not to brag, but to paint a picture of how truly awesome my superpower is, and yet how vulnerable it can be under the right conditions. 

See, this weekend I was minding my own business when I inadvertently allowed a couple of fear-based, self defeating thoughts to creep into my head in regard to my capability, competence and future as a creative writer. It's not like I came into contact with kryptonite or anything. It was the same kind of stimuli that had bounced off my brain of steel many times in the past. But somehow, something breached the perimeter and started working on me. So the timing of this Strength card with the Francis Bacon quote, "He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity," is perfect. It reminds me why certain things happen. Without being tested you forget a superpower is a superpower. 

Ordinary powers are made to be weakened and compromised. Those tests are usually obvious...the invitation to the candy gala right after you give up sweets for lent. But superpower tests have to be sneaky. They must appear non-threatening and insignificant. Then, once inside your head, they swell up like a tick, feeding on your confidence until one day, boom!, your brain explodes. :D

Adversity comes to us for a reason. It shows us where we've left ourselves open...or where we've lost our vigilance. It's the first Seal Team...the one that opens the door just wide enough for the second Seal Team to roll the kryptonite in. So this weekend I had some pre-adversity. It didn't really work. I was over it by today. But it was working on working. 

For you it could be the thought that sends you in a downward spiral toward depression...don't entertain that first thought. Or it could be the conflict that makes you think about smoking after 20 years...close the door and lock it. Or it could be something that sends you back into the arms of a toxic old lover. It could be anything. But it will come with a whisper first...a whisper subtle enough to charm the door open for your kryptonite to roll in. 

On one hand, the whisper seems evil and divisive. But in actuality it's the Jor-El to your Kal-El (look at me and my Superman geek talk!) It's an early warning system that could keep you out of more dire circumstances ahead—adversity enough to keep you forever connected to your own super-human strengths. 

3/22/13—Learning Lessons the Hard Way

Today's Draw: Three of Swords in the Lesson position from the Legacy of the Divine by Ciro Marchetti and the Deck of 1000 Spreads by me. When you think on the big lessons in your life, do you remember more of the ones you learned through pain more profoundly? Or do you remember more of the lessons you learned through happy moments more profoundly? Is there something you can learn from that?

It's interesting that this combo came up, because I've been thinking lately about the lessons we learn from heartbreak. If you can't tell by the tarot card (and the spectacular way my spread card makes the fractured heart on the cheek pop) that's what this card is about. 

I often debate the value of the lessons we learn from loss vs. the value of the lessons we learn through victory. I will never misspell the word "committee" ever again because it caused me to lose a spelling bee in third grade. I cried just like the girl in the picture there. 

Looking back over my life, the most valuable lessons I've learned have been the tough ones. That doesn't mean we don't learn from the good stuff because we do. Doing something right the first time reinforces that behavior or system and so you repeat it to success time and time again. But when that's the case, it just becomes the way you do it....a repeatable process that ends in success. Not so much a lesson you've learned, but something you figured out on your own. 

But when you learn something the hard way, it becomes somehow more meaningful, more profound. We define it more like a lesson than just a "way". It seems like the higher the price, the more meaningful the lesson, the less likely we are to screw with that particular thing again. Some lessons we just have to learn that way, whether through our own obstinance, lack of awareness or whatever. 

Can you think of a lesson you learned in the past that you didn't need to learn? Can you think of a painful experience you've ever had that didn't bring lessons? I can't. Pain seems to write on us in ways that both knock us to our knees in tears and then, after time, to our knees in gratitude. It is both toxin and tonic. It poisons and purifies. 

The universe never brings us something in error. If we're experiencing pain, it's needed on our path. If we're on a winning streak, it's needed on our path. Everything is brought to us in love, as a means to lift us higher. That's sometimes hard to see in the moment, but always visible in retrospect. The hardest lesson of all—the one that causes the most self-inflicted pain—is to learn is to trust in that.