developing inner strength

Inner Strength and The Past

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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.

Six of Cups - Dark Mansion Tarot 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?

Ludy Lescot Tarot 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.

Deck Used: Ludy Lescot Tarot

My Most Important Tarot Reading (non) VR to Becca Tarot Night Owl

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On YouTube, Becca Tarot Night Owl did a video that spoke of her first tarot reading, which was the most impactful tarot reading of her life.  I found it really interesting and I feel the want to share mine here.

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I don’t remember my first tarot reading, so I can’t really share much about that.  Because I come from a home where tarot (or rather, Lenormand) was a part of life and our faith, readings and card pulls have always just “been there”.   BUT, I do have a most impactful/important reading.

That would be a reading done by Z (with Tarot) when I was ten years old.  It was a Life Path reading, which involves thirty nine cards (plus any jumpers or clarifying cards that enter into the mix).   She does this reading for me every ten years, meaning that I’ve had it done again twice since then.

In this first reading, there was a great deal of information on the past, the present, and the future.  But, what really stuck out to me was the overall message that came at the end.

This was delivered gently, and with great empathy and understanding as she explained that the “moral of the story” for my life would be one of struggle, strife, and woe… BUT, that it’s okay to have this kind of life.  It’s okay to find your life filled with struggles and hurdles, strife and discord, woe and adversity.  These things are lessons in life that teach you how to become better.  Better at the things you want to do… Better at the way you find your joy… And, just an all around better person as a whole.

She told me that my life would have many, many things to overcome and work through, and that these things are there not to drag me down and make me miserable.  Instead, they are there to create strength and foster deeper roots within myself and my life with which to anchor me through the hardest parts, like a tree standing strong in a storm is anchored deep within the soil.

She was far more eloquent, and that moral of the story stuck with me in a way that the reading itself didn’t.   Ten years later at the age of 20, she did the reading again, with much the same result…. as was the case last year when I turned 30 and she did the reading for me again.

Most people would consider this reading  to be a bad one, but I don’t.  Not at all.  Because it prepared me for what was to come, and helped me to understand that I’m not a victim.  Not of people, or of circumstance.  I’m a survivor, and each hurdle I come upon (of which there have been many, and will surely be many more) is an opportunity for betterment in some way, not a road block.

 

Don’t Be Such a Bastard

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Today’s meditation was ten minutes long, and focused on our internal dialogue and the language we use.   That is to say, how we talk to ourselves (whether aloud or in our heads).   It went into detail on asking why we would treat ourselves worse than how we treat others.  Are the things you say to yourself something you would ever say to another person?

In my case?  This is a hell no.  I know I’m very hard on myself, extremely judgemental of myself and very confrontational in my language to myself.  This is not how I am with others at all, and yet when it comes to myself… I’m mean as fuck.

The meditation encouraged noticing these times and, when you do, gentling your approach.   It is about being mindful of how you are treating yourself… and it’s something I definitely need to work on.

Today’s draw is (again) a double without a jumper.  In today’s draw we have the 8th card (in some decks this is the 11th card) of the Major Arcana, the Strength card which is represented here by a bee eater bird and a lion.  With the Strength card came the Seven of Pentacles, which in this deck is represented by the peacock.

Like all cards in the Major Arcana, the Strength card deals with the “bigger picture” of one’s life rather than one specific aspect of the human experience.  This card most often represents inner strength rather than outer strength, which includes courage, skills in persuasion and influence, as well as qualities of compassion.   In this deck, the strength card depicts a lion and a bee eater bird, which in the guidebook are described as….

Lion: power, protection, courage, patience, wisdom, and passion Bee Eater Bird: unity, family, tranquility, support, comfort, and balance

The Seven of Pentacles is a representation of progress, sudden leaps ahead, and the unknown in the area of finances, resources and the physical word.  It can also indicate the entrance of spirituality into a situation, and looking beyond the self.    This deck depicts the Seven of Pentacles as a Peacock, which in the guidebook holds the qualities of rebirth, confidence, victory, patience, resilience, and devotion.

Whew… that was a long one for definitions today.

My interpretation of the cards in today’s reading boils down to that I need to spend more time lifting myself up, rather than tearing myself down.  And, in doing so, I will foster more strength within myself and a calmer, more centered outlook concerning not just my family, but the world at large.

It’s a good message, as I have been struggling a bit with being a right bastard to myself lately, and I have a visit coming up with family that will do plenty of that “tearing down” for me.   I don’t need to be so harsh with myself, instead, now is a time to foster my strengths and build myself up for what is coming. (Which, of course, I’m referring to  either visiting those family members out east, or staying here and helping my mother through her surgery, depending on what she decides she wants to happen.)

Deck Used:  The Animism Tarot