Category: Gilded Tarot

The World

The World from The Gilded Tarot

Key words/Impressions:  This card makes me think of an Olympic athlete standing on the medals stand having claimed victory.  It is a card of Success / Completion

Book Meaning:  Balance of conscious and unconscious, Being recognized yourself, completion and accomplishment, self realization

Guidance:  Be mindful, be more calm

Journaling

What a perfect card to draw today as I get ready to send a letter to my mother explaining why I’m not talking to her.  In a way, this is the end to my childhood as it represents me truly standing up for myself.

Oddly enough, I didn’t really feel a sense of completion after I sent the letter.  In fact, a part of me felt as if it was was cruel and as if things were better left unsaid.  I recognize that she will never recognize the validity of my point of view and she will just get defensive and fall back on her usual stance of “Well, I’m your mother.”  There’s also the likelihood that she will go on the attack.  It makes me sad when I realize that that’s exactly how I used to behave.  I took everything as a personal attack, even if people were trying to help me.  I am so glad that I’ve learned a different way to act and that I’m helping my kids act differently.

I had such low self esteem that the slightest criticism made me get smaller and smaller until there were days I thought I would disappear.  If I had to pick one word to define myself during those days, I would choose fragile as that truly defined me.  I’m so much stronger now, but I still want and need people to have my back.  One of the things I long for is to have had a mother who had my back like I have my kids’ backs.  I am there for them and I support them even when they make mistakes.

I’ve also realized that I don’t really want a lot of friends as I’m comfortable being alone.  However, I also know the kids will move out someday and it would be nice to have other people in my life.

November 7, 2017

It’s been almost a year since I wrote that letter and my mother never wrote me back or reached out.  It makes me so sad that she is so unaware that she cannot figure even open her mind to the possibility that she was wrong.  Over the past year, I’ve really realized that you cannot help someone who is not ready to be helped and who is unable to recognize their own flaws.

Daily Draw: Five of Cups(R)

First impressions:  Appreciate what you have

Book:  Return and restoration of hope after recent losses, situation is beginning to turn, feelings of hopefullness

Guidance: Be hopeful, let go of the wounds

Journaling

There are two meanings of this card reversed and I am torn as to which one is more suitable.  One is about the restoration of hope and the other is about the utter loss of hope.  There is a part of me that feels hope being restored and ready to move and the other that feels devastated and as if I have no hope at all.  Dinner was wonderful, but I still ended up sleeping alone and that hurts.  I really and truly want the real deal and I am not sure if I will ever get it and that is devastating.

September 1, 2018

It’s been almost two years since I wrote this and I’m not even sure who I went to dinner with.  LOL.  I still want the real deal, but I have learned a lot in the last two years about the value of being alone and the value of my independence.  I’ve realized that if I had gotten with anyone right after John and I broke up that it would have been a disaster.  I was so broken that I would have trashed any relationship with my neediness.

I’ve come to value myself so much in the last few years and I’ve learned how to talk myself out of the bad places when I need to.  I’ve learned to take a step back and evaluate what is real and what’s not.  I find that my thoughts take me down into a deep dark place sometimes, but I can also use my thoughts to get myself out of that deep dark place and back to a place of hope. 

Daily Draw: Nine of Wands

First impressions:  Contemplation

Book:  Full of fire and ready to fight another day, refusing to ask others for help, resistance to change

Guidance:  Ask for help, be open to change

Journaling

This card is about the hard won courage that comes from sticking to our guns when it would be so easy to give in and give up.  I have to be honest and say I feel that way today.  After my mother’s guilt trip yesterday, it would be so easy to give in and play the good daughter.  But I can’t go back to having her question everything I do, especially as she isn’t even mature enough to accept that she’s doing it.  I need people who are loving and supportive in my life, not people who constantly tear me down.  However, part of me says I should just let go and accept who she is.

September 1, 2018

What I know now after a lot of introspection, a lot of journaling, and a lot of hard conversations with myself is that accepting who she is and keeping her out of my life are not mutually exclusive.  She is not good for me and having her in my life is detrimental to my mental health.  However, I have also had to accept that I need to let go of her and not think that she will be the person I need her to be in my life because she is incapable of that.  She doesn’t have the self awareness or the skills to be the loving, kind, and nonjudgmental person that I need in my life.  And it is okay for me to not have her in my life as an act of self preservation.