Today’s meditation was ten minutes long, and was not a guided meditation. Instead I put on some YoYoMa and settled in to a lazy body scan that started at the top of my head and worked slowly down to the bottoms of my feet. I then switched over to a few minutes settling into sounds as had been practiced in a previous guided meditation.
On the whole, it was very relaxing.
Today’s draw is the Six of Cups, which I pulled an intuitive hit off of that deals with taking some time to not just examine my memories, but appreciate how my past has created who I am today and the life I have.
This is something that I think a lot of people take for granted. I personally never wish that anything I’ve experienced had happened differently. I’ve gone through a good deal of bad experiences, and a significant amount of trauma. But, each of these things in my past has made me into the man I am to day, and I am proud of the man I am today.
Yes, I am hard on myself, but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel I have good ethics and good moral values, and that I follow those guidelines and live them every day. I am also very happy with my life. Yes, things could be better… but they could also be a lot worse. One small change to my past and my experiences, and maybe I wouldn’t be where I am now. Maybe I wouldn’t have a wonderful partner, a loving sister, a trusted friend. Maybe I wouldn’t be in a stable home that I’ve created for myself.
So when looking back at your past and experiences, be sure to remember that these things are a part of what make you who you are. Without them, you might have turned out to be an entirely different person in an entirely different position… and not necessarily a better one.
Deck Used: Dark Mansion Tarot
Bonus Reading
Another #TarotForGrowthOctober prompt.
Question: How can I better navigate through fear?
Reading Summary: Sink into your inner strength (Strength card) and value the trials you have gone through and recovered from (Ten of Swords), and you will find yourself in a better place to deal with what comes (Nine of Pentacles).
Take Away: This is a continuation of the daily draw from above, which surprisingly fits in really well with the question for today’s challenge. (Surprisingly because I wasn’t expecting them to correlate.)
The fact is that I am strong. My strength is built up over all of the things I have survived and moved on from, whether that’s my father and family’s treatment of me growing up, the attacks I have survived through, the car crashes I have been in, the cancer and treatments for it, and the physical damages from everything I’ve mentioned that I have sustained along the way. All of these things have built up my strength, and taught me how to survive and thrive in difficult (or seemingly impossible) circumstances.
I am proof that you can survive through things you did not believe were possible, and I’m proof that you can adapt to the changes that these experiences create, and learn to thrive because of and despite them. Remembering this when fears get the best of me is how I can (as the question asks) better navigate through that fear.