1/7/12—Becoming What You Might Have Been

Today's Draw: Page of Wands from the Art of Life Tarot. What limitations were assumed of you before you even got to know your possibilities? What might have been different in your life had you not believed those limitations? What are you willing to believe of yourself moving forward?

I love the quote from George Eliot on today's card, "it's never too late to be what you might have become." And who better than Mary Anne Evans (aka George Eliot) to deliver that message? She wrote some of the Victorian age's most popular novels—Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner and Middlemarch—under a male name to ensure her work was taken seriously...to ensure that she would be what she might have become had she not been subject to stereotype about the kind of literature a woman could create. 

I was lucky to grow up with a mother with a successful "man's" career. Her generation was really the first to take the risks of entering a man's world and it forged new possibilities for women. She never allowed the fact that she was a woman to limit her career, but she *was* limited by the fact that she was the mother of six kids and the wife of a high-ranking officer...a wife that's expected to entertain and lead "the ladies". Put it all together, though, and she totally worked her overall potential...successful career, marriage and family. That's rarely truly achieved today, much less in the '60s and '70s. 

So I grew up believing there really were no limitations based on the fact that I was a woman. But in other areas of my life, my parents and my environment offered clues that there were some dreams that just weren't in the cards for me. And just as I bought into knowing that being a woman wouldn't limit me, I bought into believing that there were other aspects of who I was that would. 

This isn't my "cry me a river" story. I think it's the story of every person reading this blog. Maybe you were too short to be taken seriously. Too pretty to be appreciated for your brains. Too opinionated to play the role of a mediator. Too independent to work for the government. Too poor to get out of the 'hood. Or may just not "good enough" at something to be a success at it. 

I doubt any parent or teacher or sibling or other influential person meant to do it. But before you got a chance to really even explore your options for yourself, someone or some situation came around to tell you who you were and who you weren't. What you were suited for and what you weren't. They may not have even said it to your face, but you knew it was there. Concern over your grades. Worries about how you never had any friends. Fears about you being too wild. And this became part of your story for however long. 

So this is what I've been thinking about recently. I have a strong feeling that 2013 is when a lot of things are really going to coalesce for me. And for me to take full advantage of the opportunities that may come my way, I need to determine the amount of truth in some of the things I've been brought to believe—and have chosen to continue to believe—about myself. 

Childhood psychology and modern thought indicate that the things that happen in your life prior to the age of 8 or 10 pretty much shape everything thereafter. So, for example, the loss of a parent at four might have far more wide-reaching effects on who you are than the loss of a parent at the age 13. Both are tragic and pack impact, but your ability to process the impact in healthier ways grows as you do. 

So these things that happen during those impressionable years have a tendency to stick. And, having lived with those beliefs for decades, we may not ever question them. But we should, because chances are those beliefs and limitations are a reflection of someone else's fears about us than actual facts. For every limitation out there, there's someone who bucked it. 

Certainly Oprah heard many times that her weight would keep her from succeeding...or her poor upbringing would keep her from being accepted by a certain part of society. She even tells a story about how her grandmother taught her to scrub floors in preparation for her life as a black woman in American society. I'm sure Oprah's not devoid of false limitations, but she completely defied the most obvious ones. Because she got that they weren't about her. They were about everyone else's fears and limitations.  

So think about the things that are holding you back, whether they're physical, psychological, social, societal, financial or whatever. And really try to trace that belief back to its origins. Is it true? If it was true then, is it true today? And think also about "what you might have been" if it weren't something deemed silly or impractical or impossible at one time in your life. You may find that false beliefs based on someone else's life view could be holding you back from what you might have been. And, like George/Mary Anne says, it's never too late to right that wrong. 

4/3/12—Respecting Your God

Today's Draw: Page of Wands from the Mary-El Tarot. Do you think having faith in God makes people stronger and more successful? When you look at your daily behavior, do you treat ALL others as you would have them treat you, or is this a practice reserved only for the few, or only for those who return the favor? Do you think Christ's forgiveness makes it OK for people to ignore his teachings and his examples?

Today's card talks about the power of belief and how faith helps people pursue and achieve their divine purpose in life. No doubt most of us would agree with that statement and each of us would identify our own version of the higher power as the one to believe in and the one to have faith in. I know I did when I first read the statement.

But then, just for kicks, I googled "celebrity atheists" and look at what I found. Richard Branson, Lance Armstrong, Bill Gates, Ricky Gervais, Howard Stern, Julianne Moore, Woody Allen and James Cameron are on the list, to name a few. Those aren't "kind of" successful people. They're not people without a view of their "divine purpose". They're people at the very top of their game. They're philanthropists. And they don't believe in God. Any god. 

I saw a blog today by a Catholic woman who felt her child had been possessed by something.  Turns out her massage therapist received a reiki treatment and infected her child with the devil. A reiki treatment. Given to a massage therapist. Who massaged the mother. Possessed the child with the devil. In the blog comments, others chimed in about the witchcraft performed by healers and the devil-worshiping rituals involved in becoming a reiki healer. 

Ignorance is everywhere. And, in my opinion, people shame themselves and their god when they perpetuate lies out of their own fear of the unfamiliar. 

I'm not writing about reiki today, but I will say this. There is no religion in it, there are no devil-worshiping attunements and the only god I've heard mentioned by a reiki practitioner is Christ and Christ's energy. And angels like Michael. And the white light of heaven. Though not all reiki practitioners are Christian, most have a healthy respect for Christ, his teachings and his healing abilities. Most healers I know give very freely of themselves to help people. To see them characterized in such a way is repulsive to me. It comes from ignorance and fear, not from anything Christ ever said about healers. In fact Christ tells us to "heal the sick" and says that those who believe in him, will do greater things than he did.

That said, what I am writing about today, though, is that it's time for the judgment and stereotyping and hating to end. Really, it is. And if your neighbor isn't willing to be the first or even go along with you, do it anyway. We ALL fancy our beliefs to be the right ones. We ALL think our faith and love gets us ahead in life. We ALL have misconceptions. We ALL judge. But only a few of us will be the leaders who will stop the madness and actually follow the teachings and examples of Christ or Buddha. Why not make yourself one of those leaders?

Here's how you do it. If your god is loving, love. If your god is forgiving, forgive. If your god is accepting, accept. If your god is inclusive, stop rejecting. And if your God is humble, stop acting superior. And if you don't have a god, love, forgive, accept, include and be humble anyway, just because it's a gracious, cooperative and loving way to move through this world. Sure, we'll always disagree on things and have opinions and whatnot, but it's time to stop fighting over god in god's name, and using his teachings to justify fear-based, ignorant, hateful, marginalizing, judgmental, nasty and holier-than-thou behavior. That's just disrespectful. 

1/13/12—Syncing Up With Synchronicity

Today's Draw: Page of Wands from the Spiral Spirit Tarot. Do you believe everything in life happens for a reason? Do you see messages in the random weirdnesses of everyday life? And if the "coincidences" in your life were telling you something, what would it be?

Because many of you will not recognize this deck, I thought I'd give a little information and maybe enable a few of you to buy it. The Spiral Spirit was created by Khara Scott-Bey as part of her path of evolving consciousness. The images appear to be printed on a color copier and affixed to black board. So they are plain black on the back. The stock is sturdy. Because of the thickness of the stock, the deck is a big handful.

Whatever the deck lacks in production values, though, it makes up for in imagery and originality. I'm a fan of non-traditional decks and I'm also a fan of decks with words on them. While this deck borrows a small bit from traditional imagery, I think it can be considered a totally original, non-traditional deck. There is no lwb, but none is needed because keyword appear on every card. The deck's contemporary, multicultural images result in a number of interesting and original choices that will make you glad to add it to your collection. If you are viewing this on Facebook, go to http://thedailytarotdraw.blogspot.com/ for a link and an additional image.

OK. Now that's said, this Page of Wands is a nice follow-on to yesterday's post about fate. In that post I said I thought the things that happen in our lives happen for a reason and there's a message in there, if we know where to look. Well, that's what we're talking about today. 

Spiral Spirit has fully illustrated pips.

A couple of months ago I took a job with a new client. I could feel in my gut it was going to be a problem, but I took it anyway. Then a couple of weeks later, before work ever started, I got another chance to say no. This time the message was (figuratively) accompanied by starbursts and glitter and big red arrows. But I kept going. The work was only going to last a month or so, so I figured I'd be in, then out. Bada bing, bada boom.

Anyway, long story short, one month has turned to two. And during that time I've had a number of anxiety issues (which I NEVER have), worry, heartburn, irritable bowels (no kidding) and a number of other symptoms, all perfectly timed to milestones with this job. While I know it never pays to ignore signs and intuitions, I did it anyway. And now I'm all tied up in knots trying to finish up this work in a way that makes everyone happy.

The Universe/God uses its hand to guide us in many ways, through feelings, situations, memories and other clues—even direct messages. A person may warn us against something and we do it anyway. We may be discussing an investment opportunity and the image of a stop sign comes up in our mind's eye. Or, conversely, we might see Lotto signs everywhere we go that day, buy a scratch-off and win $100. Much of what we call coincidence is not coincidence at all. It's there for a reason. I'll bet you can't even count the times when you've said to yourself "I should have trusted my gut!"

While I had clues before I accepted this job—and even an outright warning—I took it anyway. But, even though I defied all the clues, it still wasn't a mistake. Because the entirety of the situation has come together in another message for me. It has made me realize that I just really can't work with people who aren't my peers anymore. I usually only work directly with people who work in my business—either marketing directors, artists or agency people—rather than, say, an HR expert who is having their first experience managing a marketing project because they were the one who volunteered to do it.

Is it a coincidence this experience is happening now as I'm transitioning into another career area? Is it just happenstance that, as I question if I can ever leave behind a career that has been my passion for 25 years, I'm having a less than stellar experience that is taking a physical and emotional toll on me? Is it just circumstance that right now I'm getting a lot of good, energizing feedback in other revenue-generating areas of my life? And is there any way possible I could have made an actual mistake in all this? Of course not! 

My main client relationships are clipping along fine, as they always are. And they're the ones that earn me the bulk of my money on a yearly basis. So looking at the clues around me, I can't help but feel the universe guiding me to stick with what is working and stop messing with opportunities like this because they take energy away from focusing on what I want to be doing.

Many times we go through our days marveling at coincidences, grimacing at our mistakes and wondering "WTF" at the occasional monkey on a unicycle that crosses our path. But consider that these things are signs, messages and signals from above and the language they're speaking is one you know. It may be a little fuzzy or unusual in its delivery, but you know. And if you only think you might know, then you know.

Yes, we can drive ourselves INSANE thinking everything is an important message we must understand or there will be consequences to pay. That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm saying is, first, just notice the coincidences. Become aware of them. Then once you start noticing them, consider what they might be telling you. The more we listen to the guidance we're given, the more guidance we're given. And the more guidance we're given, the more beautifully the universe's plan for us unfolds.