Advice on letting go from the tarot
This morning I drew the Tower card.
I used to panic when this happened, but now I recognize destruction as a sacred process.
I have learned to be ok with discomfort. I can even recognize excitement when I feel the old crumbling so that the new can be constructed.
In a kinky way, I revel in the chaos.
This is the kind of acceptance that is only found in people who have toured the underworld and lived to tell the tale.
The image of the Tower card in the traditional Rider-Waite deck is of lighting striking a stone tower. The tower is burning and people are jumping from the windows in an attempt to escape. Very doom and gloom.
I like to think of the point in the image where the lightning bolt hits the tower as the intersection of destruction and desire. The only way that desires show up is if there is space created by destruction. It’s a beautiful, sometimes jarring exchange.
Tower moments seem to be thrust upon you without your consent. Things like a sudden job loss, a devastating accident, or a break-up that shakes your world are tower moments.
Sometimes tower moments are completely private. There may not be anything on the outside that appears to be going wrong, but the inner shifting can be earth-shattering.
I have had several tower moments in the last few years. The way I see myself has completely changed.
But, the destruction has felt like a slow crumble rather than a lightning strike.
It all started with a decision to heal. Meditation was my gateway. Reiki was my life raft. Connection was my medicine.
After a while, I acclimated my nervous system to the process of destruction and eventually it morphed into a little zing of excitement.
If something was falling away, what was going to take its place? For the first time, I realized that I had a choice.
The Dark Night of the Soul
In 2018, I had a serious Dark Night of the Soul. A complete crumbling. A moment where I began to question what all this was for.
This was not my first experience with sudden devastation. We all go through several Dark Nights of the Soul, but this time I recognized the connection between destruction and desire
This particular Dark Night of the Soul was a gift from my job.
I was approached about a different position at my company. I was sweet-talked and flattered and told that I had been chosen. I thought that the years of grinding were finally paying off. Even though I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that this wasn’t right for me, I allowed myself to get caught up in the idea of a linear path to traditional success.
At the last minute, they decided to go “another direction”.
At that moment, I realized that I had lived my entire life to please other people. I tortured myself to get to the top and made all the right moves. I desperately wanted to prove my worth to others. I needed their validation.
The emotional ramifications of this event were far-reaching. This was about a lot more than a job. This was me being confronted with the fact that I had been living my life in a way that I thought was the “right path”, but in reality, I was only abandoning myself to fit into a box.
On the outside, nothing was lost. I still had my job. I was still able to pay my bills and take care of my family. The devastation came from the internal crumbling. I realized I had betrayed myself by dedicating so many years to a life that wasn’t true to me.
I was playing a role. I was wearing a costume. I had suppressed so much of myself in an attempt to be perfect that I didn’t even know what I liked anymore. I had no relationship with pleasure, rest, or joy.
For a while, it seemed like my Tower moments were coming one after another. I barely had time to catch my breath before another one of the bricks I used to build my identity fell.
My ego towers were tumbling like dominos.
Unhealthy friendships ended abruptly, my relationships with family shifted, and the way I saw myself completely changed.
Instinctively I knew the only way through this swamp was to turn inward. I started by going back to yoga. Those precious moments in Shavasana at the end of class were slowly giving me life again. I felt peace in my body for the first time in years.
One day I realized that I didn’t need to wait for yoga class to have those moments. Those moments happened within the container of my soul and it occurred to me that I could access them at any time.
From there I started a daily meditation practice. Through this practice, I learned that I have an internal guidance system that will never steer me wrong. I had just turned down the volume so low that I couldn’t hear it before.
I was beginning to understand that I have complete power to create a life of my choosing. That I didn’t have to bushwhack my way down a path that felt hard and restrictive.
Listening to my inner voice led me to learn how to work with the moon and allow my energy to ebb and flow. I studied reiki and learned how to feel the subtle vibrations of the world around me. I dove into tarot and astrology and, for the first time in my life, I felt a connection to something bigger than myself.
I fully embraced my role as the creator of my reality.
I know I can’t build a life based on joy, pleasure, and play if I am clinging to hustle, exhaustion, and obligation.
I can, however, find exhilaration in the anticipation of the rush that comes after the pain.
Letting go of the old is not always easy,
Even though I recognize how my patterns have been destructive and unhealthy, they are familiar, which is comforting on some level.
The reward of surrender is ease and flow. I allow things to fall away and instead of desperately clinging to people and situations I lean into curiosity. If this is meant to leave me, what is waiting to take its place?
I no longer recoil from the pain of destruction, I revel in it.
I don’t have this mastered, but I am embracing the spiritual maturity that is blossoming within me. I have reached the point where the pain of staying the same is much worse than the uncertainty of letting go.
And now, when I draw the Tower card, I look forward to the rebuilding phase. I revel in the pleasure and the pain that find me simultaneously when I sense a big change looming.
Transformation is what happens when destruction meets desire and the pain is sweet.
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