3/13/13—Deceiving Yourself Over and Over Again

Today's Draw: Fool in the House of Snake from the Tarot of the Tattoo Age and my Deck of Lenormand Houses. Do you feel like you keep repeating the same cycles over and over in your life? Do you feel like you're being eaten alive by the hounds of hell? And are you just really tired of it?

Usually when we see The Fool, he's tripping happily along the path with his little dog nipping at his heels unaware of the leap he's about to make. But this Fool is different. He's clearly drug addled, confused and being ripped apart by wolves. Which happens to fit nicely with the House of Snake...the house of lies and deception. 

What this pair reminds me of is that vicious cycle we get into where we keep repeating the same frustrating patterns all the time. For example, you keep encountering jerks on your path to your goal. Or you keep getting bosses that don't respect you. Or you seem to have friends that are always running late. 

It seems like the cycle is THEIR problem. After all, it's not anything you're doing. They're being the jerks, the disrespectors, the inconsiderates. Right?

Well, um, no. This is where the House of Snake comes in. Because you're deceiving yourself. 

See, you're attracting these people into your life. You're allowing the behavior. They're mirroring SOMEthing back at you. It's possible your ability to clearly communicate your boundaries, needs and deal-breakers is even courting this kind of thing. 

Be gone by the time your late friend shows up a couple of times and she may start to be on time. Or lie to her about what time to meet you and see if that doesn't fix the problem. Or stop meeting her without another friend present and, when she does show up, tell her you were talking about her the entire time she was late..haha. Or just dump her disrespectful arse. You're not powerless over this stuff. Yet if you lament the presence of it continuing in your life without making any changes in your own behavior, you are playing victim to it. It's an ugly word nobody likes to cop to, but it's true. 

Problems don't exist outside of us. They exist within us. For every challenge that comes our way we have choices. How am I going to respond to this? Am I going to allow this to happen again? Is this acceptable? Should I just walk away right now? All of those are options. We don't have to respond the way we did last time this happened. In fact, we SHOULD respond differently, because that's the only way we can create change in the future. 

Listen, we all do it. I have a couple of things that keep coming back around to me. I do change my behavior and try different things. But it still keeps coming around. There's a lesson I'm not learning. And every time I whine about it, I know I'm playing the victim. After all, I'm the common denominator every time the issue occurs...haha. Any math buff will tell you that when you change the common denominator, you'll get a different solution. ;)

Some lessons happen fairly quickly and we stop the pattern in our life relatively painlessly. And some we shave away it slowly over a lifetime. I think these ones that keep coming back around in my life are like that. For me, they're about boundaries. And each time I make an adjustment, more respectful people enter my life. I'm learning those lessons in layers as I'm learning to respect myself. Turns out their disrespect for me mirrors my own. 

So if you wonder why you're always meeting jerks or people are always doing you wrong, its within your power to change it. It's probably a boundaries issue, but could also be a behavioral issue in that people get pissy with you when you get pissy with them, for example. And if you don't keep responding differently than you did last time to shave away at or change the cycle, then the problem's not with them at all. It's definitely with you. 

4/2/12—Making The Sale

Today's Draw: The Blowoff (Judgment) from the Sideshow Tarot. Are you up front with the people in your life? Do you have things that no one will ever know about you? Is there someone you're painting a deceptively pretty picture for right now, whether it's intentionally or unintentionally?

In the sideshow world, the blowoff is when, at the end of a show, a carney calls out to the group and reveals that there's really something even more shocking to see. It will cost extra, but it will be worth it. For example, after seeing the tattooed lady, they might offer to show you more of her body. In everyday life, it's commonly called a follow-on sale. In the carney world, it earns the carnies extra money because it's all under the table.

This kind of reminds me how people reveal themselves to others. They reveal themselves in layers, with each layer ever more "shocking" than the last. And at each "point of sale" you have the option of whether or not to move forward.

This has probably happened to everyone in a love relationship at one time or another. And not necessarily intentionally or with ill intent. It makes sense that you would show your best side first, then slowly reveal the muddier corners. In fact, we are so socialized to that kind of reveal that we'd be horrified if we met someone who, on the first date, said "I have herpes, was once arrested for shoplifting and enjoy watching porn. What are you thinking of ordering? Because I'm thinking veal...even though it makes me a little gassy."

Now, none of those things may be deal breakers when revealed slowly over time by a person who is otherwise warm, supportive, smart, funny and kind. So it makes sense to reveal stuff like that over time. If we all showed our ugly side first, the human race would all die out in a generation or two because nobody would be having sex.

The same kind of thing happens in friendships. You know someone for a long time, but then a situation comes up that never presented itself before and you learn something new about them. It might be a good thing...that they're really supportive during tough times. Or it could be the opposite...that they make themselves scarce when you need them the most.

We always talk about how we hate it when people play games, but "games" includes behaviors along this line. It's not always nefarious, misleading, infantile or even intentional. Some of it's just the way we're socialized to be, whether it's pretty or not. We dislike the thought of misleading people, but in a way that's what we do when we put our best foot forward. We're all guilty of it.

The problem comes when it's less about the way people reveal themselves to each other and it's more about intentionally misleading someone about who you are. Worse yet when the person you're misleading is yourself. So give a little thought to this today. Where do you know you're holding back with someone in your life and what are your true intentions behind it?