Withdrawal: Card of the week 21st October, 2013

 

 

This week’s card asks us to examine our relationship to “withdrawal” and,  because there is always  positive and negative expression of any energy, there’s a balanced way to be in withdrawal and an imbalanced one.   As we learned from last week’s card “Drop it”  — there’s a benefit to withdrawal and it’s a handy emotional tool to have as Mercury goes retrograde.

Balanced withdrawal allows you to move into safety and to withdraw your efforts so that you can regenerate, gather resources, retain well-being, research and plan solutions.  It allows you to have a retreat, but it also allows you to ACT  and connect to life when the time is right.   Balanced withdrawal is always in your empowerment and active choice  and it’s designed to help you MOVE forward with success.  It helps you know when and how to get what you need safely.

Imbalanced withdrawal, on the other hand, keeps you feeling stuck. Forever trying to avoid some situation of conflict or pain instead of dealing with things head-on.   Imbalanced withdrawal has the character of disempowerment, avoidance, fear, isolation, and is a continuous loop of anxiety.  Imbalanced withdrawal keeps you from life and from the next steps that would bring you success.   It might seek to “prevent” worse pain, but isolation or avoidance only increases whatever problems there are and makes them worse,  compounding them with guilt, pain and feelings of worthlessness.

Withdrawal, applied with the right intention can be a positive, balancing, productive and active tool to restore success.    In the same way you can’t make a nice cake and beat the batter for 20 hours, or cook the cake for 5 days,  there are times when withdrawing your effort is important!

 

How to spot Imbalanced Withdrawal :

•    “I want to be alone.”       A breather from social engagements,  me-time  and downtime is essential to wellbeing, but your “downtime” is constant and you find yourself avoiding others on a continuing basis.  You’re no longer taking a breather;  you’re avoiding  and you don’t feel confident in yourself.
•  “I need to figure everything out.”   Thinking things over is often necessary, but your urge to pull away or self-examine has taken over your life and inhibited you in connecting to life in a way that causes you to feel stuck and un-satisfied.
•  “I don’t want to deal with it.”   You find that you are withdrawing instead of dealing with issues or problems  more than the time it takes for calmer-heads to prevail and for logical steps to emerge.  Instead of dealing, you dump it and “later” never comes.
•   “I need to do it on my own.”     In a relationship, imbalanced withdrawal  is any persisting, chronic  habit where you want to isolate and work on your own in situations where honesty, communication, listening or compassion could bring both healing and progress.

 

GET BACK IN BALANCE

This week, consider the role of withdrawal has in your life.      Are you withdrawing or avoiding too much? In what areas are you out of balance?  Are you waiting for something to step in or are you willing to take steps for yourself?    Are you not withdrawing when you need to?      Is there some situation that requires you to step back into safety and assess your next moves?  Is there a dynamic in your life that is not healthy or good for you?

This is a perfect week to be reflective, to think twice before reacting and to go into “planning” mode – but it’s just as important to intend to get into the swing of things, to open that stack of mail and to make the decision to get on with life.   A stunningly filmed, and gorgeously acted recent movie examines “withdrawal”  (both positive and negative forms) in a very clever way:   lost-in-space thriller GRAVITY starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Can you think of the different examples of ‘withdrawal’ in that film?

 

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:   Imbalanced withdrawal, fear or avoidance  is something every person experiences from time to time.  However, if your system of withdrawal is persistent, severe or interferes with your life and you have other qualities of sadness, loss-of-interest, hopelessness, or physical/emotional symptoms, you may be suffering from depression.  There is help and balance out there for you, please talk to your doctor or seek help.

 

About this deck:    This week’s deck is the  “DREAMING in COLOUR:  LUMAN DECK”  by and self-published by Mindy Hope Sommers.   This 60 card deck, illustrated with colourful, digital, fractal images, while seemingly all about colour, is anything but.  Many clients and friends love this intuitive, meditative  deck, and use it to encourage their own intuitive response.     I admit it’s not one of my personal  favourites yet (some of the colours are muted in the deck I received and some of the tones and shapes fail to relate to the keyword on the card for me either literally or intuitively) – still, I’m glad to have gotten it in a trade and it has many teaching possibilities.

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The Gambler: Card of the Week 19th August, 2013

 

This week’s card came with a hopper (a hopper is a bonus card or two that falls or “leaps” out of the deck somehow).     And what a great hopper it was, because it gives us an intuitive clue as to what these cards from the Sibila  Oracle are on about.    “The Gamblers”  and  “Love” appear to give us guidance for the week and it’s all about risking our heart.

Take a closer look at the image on the two of spades:

 

Obviously, these fine gentlemen have spent more time coiffing those prodigious mutton chop side-burns than brushing up on their poker skills.   Mr. Blue Coat seems to be winning – and it’s no wonder! He’s getting getting clues from Mr. Green Coat standing behind the table about what cards Mr. Red Coat has in his hand.   “Two queens, you say?”  Unfortunately for him though, he’s not the brightest oil lamp, and because his brain is so busy trying to gain insight, he’s not aware that his grip has loosened and his own cards have flopped forwards.   Mr. Red Coat is scrutinizing whatever he can see.     One or the other may win a hand or two, but with all this protecting, hiding, sneaking and competing, neither of them will get ahead for long. It’s going to be a long night.  These two buffoons are so busy trying to one- up one another and figure each other out that they’re not enjoying (or really winning)  the game.

Sound familiar?  There are a lot of parallels to this scene when it comes to our eternal project: learning to get along with (and love) each other.  No matter what kind of relationship it is (brother, boss, jerk-roommate, boyfriend, girlfriend, sister-in-law, husband or wife) chances are at one point or another you’ve been so busy trying to figure them out and what their motive is and get an “edge” that you’ve totally lost perspective on what your own personal responsibilities and powers are.  You’ve become a helpless victim with all the mental figuring, adding-up and determining you’ve been doing without the benefit of actual communication.

This card asks:  is it more important to “win” or is it more important to really authentically play the game and do your best?     If you’re trying to make someone jealous, make them lonesome, make them figure out how much they screwed up, or trying to figure out what they’re thinking or feeling  (without actually TALKING to them) then you’re losing steam in your effort to be on top and protect yourself from being hurt.   Loving someone else is not about winning, not about gaining an advantage over them and not about “figuring them out”  from the vantage point of your fears (and your wild imagination when fear gets going).  Won’t that always let you see the WORST?   “He’s a jerk. He’ disrespecting me.”  — all of those thoughts are excuses that your ego can use to get you to play a dirty game of poker that you will never ever win.

Instead of trying to figure everyone in the situation out,  get back in the game.  Use your kindness and compassion to see the situation more accurately and use your mouth to speak up  and to learn about your loved-one.     Since there are only two intentions (to protect/close or learn/open up)  you know what you have to do.  Be willing to involve yourself  and be willing to be vulnerable again.          Letting go of all the card-peeking also means that you’re not spending 24 hours a day thinking about this problem!  Are you so busy trying to figure everyone out that you’re not living your own life?    You have things to do for yourself and the focus must go back to you so that you are in touch with your personal responsibility, empowerment and flow. Without those important ingredients of self-connection and self-love  the stakes of the game are too high:  “I must win this… and if I don’t win. I’m lost. There is no me.”

Why is this all so important?   Because this little guy is on the scene this week:

 

That’s right.  Cupid is on the scene and he’s trying to shoot an arrow into your fist-like core and open your heart.   Love is trying to come in here, if only you take a risk and make the gamble to be open and to let others in.   He’s a naked baby wearing a ribbon so he knows all about “exposed” and he’s saying it’s OK to let it all hang out a little bit even though that sometimes feels like the most terrifying thing in the world.     The only weapon in his arsenal is a quiver of love, kindness and acceptance and that is, ironically, the best kind of protection for YOU because the truth needs no other defense and your integrity requires this like sunflowers require the light.    At his feet lie the shackles of bondage and the gilded-lily of ego.   Cupid has his arrow fixed on our inner foolish Mr. Red Coat and Mr.  Blue Coats.    They’ll play a round, they’ll play fair, they’ll have a lovely conversation about mustache wax and carriage taxes and then they’ll hug-it-up and buy each other a pint at the pub with the money from the pot.

Ahh… love is in the air

 

*About this deck:    Before and around the time of  Madame Le Normand, in the 18th and 19th centuries there were “Sibilla” oracle decks:  illustrated cartomantic decks based on traditional European playing cards.  The usual suits and pips appear, but with scenes from daily life. These practical and obvious symbols make for a fun deck that is easy to read and the illustrations in this pack, Sibilla Oracle published by Lo Scarabeo , features a 52 card traditional deck with beautiful  original 19th century water-colour renderings of card images.  A good deck to use with your intuitive imagination about the meaning of cards, this deck has a combination of negative and positive events and therefore is not a “cutesy” or fluffy deck.    — if you’re reading this post on a date other than the week for which it was intended…. these symbols and or topics relate to you in some way!  Have fun. 

Can I learn psychic reading?

A lot of psychics want you to believe that they have a special, unique hoo-doo that no-body else has, like some special super-power that could get them into Xavier’s School for Gifted (mutant) Youngsters or the Justice League,  but in my experience (and careful nerdy observation) *everyone* has psychic or extrasensory abilities.

We all have the capacity to use our intuitive mind and do, many times a day, without even thinking about it. The ability to “predict” and extrapolate what is possible in the future is a unique human adaptation;  “If I shoot arrow at Woolly Mammoth, might have Mammoth chops for dinner.”    Human intuition takes this ability to think in terms of what-is-possible with awareness that goes beyond our every day observational ability.  This  is really just part of our native tool kit (“gut instincts”).   Believe it or not, there is a part of you which is tied to all other energy everywhere.

You can learn to develop your intuitive mind, develop native psychic ability and your connection between your rational mind and “inner voice” through practise and study using a myriad of techniques and some people can learn how to use traditional tools such as tarot, playing cards, tea-leaves, etc. to sharpen intuitive awareness.  The problem is, many people simply stop with successfully learning the “tool”  instead of tapping into their own awareness.  You can learn how to give readings with the Tarot and be as psychic as a pet rock.  All that is required is memorisation of card meanings and layouts. Voila.   In fact, you don’t even need a person – there are web-sites and flash-programs that randomly generate meanings and layouts.  This is DIFFERENT than learning to expand your psychic abilities and different (depending on how you approach your reading) with actual psychic/intuitive guidance.

I recommend students who are learning to tap into inner-awareness/psychic mind using cards, runes, or tarot (etc),  to always look at those tools as jumping off points to the part of awareness that is in an altogether different neighbourhood from the conscious “memorise- a- set- of -symbols” mind.   In fact, when I help instruct people in this topic,  I like to use NON-TRADITIONAL (and less culturally loaded) tools  such as drawings, greeting cards,  sand, etc. to open up this part of awareness and close the gap between Self and perception.

Not every person uses their intuition to the level of “psychic reading” or clairvoyance and your own personal mileage will vary.  In the same way that everyone has rhythm and musicality built into their heart and soul, not everyone will play, not everyone will master an instrument and not everyone will be Sergei Rachmaninoff.    There are native intuitive abilities just like there are physical or mental abilities.   Not everyone can touch their tongue to their nose, and not everyone possesses mediumship abilities, or the ability to “see” energy, etc.

That doesn’t mean you can’t learn your own unique psychic talent, whether it’s to give readings or to gain awareness and have a better relationship with your instincts.  Get to it!