king of swords

Daily Draw: King of Swords

First Impressions: Drive, taking action, communication

Book: Directly facing all who approach him, intelligent, reliable man in authority, power, strength, logical, and rational

Guidance: Don’t cross the king, be flexible and innovative, continue moving forward

Journaling:

It’s time for me to be decisive and begin making plans to move forward. I don’t know exactly what the future looks like, but I know it is time to start figuring it out.

December 30, 2018

What I am finding so amazing about reading through past posts is how much I have changed my life by taking time to read through and analyze my past posts. It is so helpful to get it all out on the page. It just helps to have it there instead of festering. And going back and looking at it with a fresh set of eyes makes it so much less scary.

Shadow Work–Day 12

How do I integrate my shadow?

Dreamer King tells me to cut through the illusions and the bullshit. I have spent enough time working on healing work that I know it is bullshit to think everyone will treat me like my ex-husband. I also need to cut through my old beliefs that came from my misogynistic upbringing. I do not need a man to be happy. I do not need a man to be successful. It would be nice to have someone to hang out with and confide in, but I am a fully functional human being all by myself without anyone else. That is a really hard concept for me because I saw how divorced women were treated when I grew up (and yes that was in the 70’s and 80’s). Divorced women were to be pitied for not being able to keep their men and they were expected to either go out and get a new man or to move in with their parents. Intellectually I know that is total garbage, but I guess there was a part of me that believed that bullshit. Dreamer King tells me that I have the responsibility to let go of that way of thinking.

Dancer Two is a card that I love because it shows the soul mates back to back instead of face to face. I like this because it tells me that soul mates can be connected and always be there for the other, but that being soulmates doesn’t mean I have to be completely focused on the other person. Even though we are partners and together, we can still have our own lives and our own interests. This is the complete opposite of my marriage where John said he wanted us to build our own interests, but every time I tried he sabotaged me. I wanted to go back to school and he put up road blocks. I started working out after work and he started taking an earlier train so I’d have to pick him up sooner. He also expected me to be interested in everything he did and got pouty when I wasn’t interested in football. That is now how a relationship should work and that is the very clear message I’m getting from Dancer Two.

Dreamer Eight tells me that I sometimes get caught up in my own illusions and it is okay to cut through them and to recognize them for what they are. I have chosen to trap myself and it is time to free myself. I have it within my power to cut through everything that is holding me back and to step out of the trap. All that is holding me back is my own beliefs. This card has come up multiple times lately as it came up for my card of the day on Friday and it came up when someone read for me. The universe is screaming at me that it is time to step out of my own constraints.

Daily Draw: King of Swords (R)

First Impressions: Be kinder

Book: Biased decision, dismissing feelings, not playing by the rules, suspending judgement, ruthless action, accept you cannot change people, lack of decisiveness

Guidance: Feel More, judge and analyze less

Journaling

I don’t make decisions decisively and implement them when they come to my body. I know sugar is really bad for me and make s me feel horrible, but I keep sucking it down I need to let go. I’m also not very decisive about my X decision. I let go, then snatch it back. I need to just let go.

July 8, 2018

Letting go is really hard for me. I need to figure out why sugar has such a draw for me. No, I don’t. Sugar is a physically addictive substance and I am addicted. This is not about me being weak or having a lack of willpower. It is literally about being addicted to a substance. I need to go back to the 12 steps and apply them to sugar. I am just addicted. I think I am going to try going to Food Addicts Anonymous meetings to see if that helps. I’m going to order the literature, then make a decision about the meeting

Daily Draw: King of Swords

First Impressions: Mastery of one’s thoughts

Book: Compromise, Fairness, Consider other points of view

Guidance: Be fair and objective, listen to others, be intellectually honest

May 25, 2018

Interesting, I did not journal when I pulled this card originally. I’m sure it is because I was super busy and caught up in work. I love this card. Most people would take it as a reminder to listen to other people’s points of view, but I consider it a reminder to value my own point of view. My upbringing by the Bitch taught me to value other people over myself so it is second nature for me to discount my own beliefs to appease others. However, recently I have begun valuing my own point of view and truly listening to and asserting myself.

That is really uncomfortable for me because it feels like I am sticking myself out there and setting myself up to be stomped on, but it is important that I assert myself and make my thoughts and feelings known. It was uncomfortable this week at work as I had to assert myself regarding the demo we were doing and sometimes it felt as if I was a broken record, but in the end I got support and we ended up including OCM and it was great as they guys wove it into their presentation seamlessly.

Asserting myself and standing up for myself feels uncomfortable and there are times when I feel as if I have two speeds: Door Mat and Freight train, but that is because in the past, I did not do a good job of asserting myself until I got really pissed off and then it seemed as if it was the first time I had said something, when in reality no one had chosen to listen to me before.

John was wrong in calling me a freight train because he chose not to take responsibility for our lives or anything that was happening so because I was willing to assert myself and take responsibility, I was a freight train. The reality of the matter is that if he had chosen to be an equal partner in our marriage, we would have not had all the problems that we had. Instead, he chose to be passive and as a result, I was viewed as domineering.

It is so valuable to look back on my marriage through the lens of time and see that all the horror and pain he put me through were not really about me at all, but were about his own self esteem issues and his own inadequacies.

King of Swords
Hanson Roberts

First Impressions: I love how his sword is personalized with a purple embellishment. He looks so resolute and ready to defend his land. I also like the eagle on the standard behind him, which is echoed by the clasp of his cloak. He looks to be middle aged, old enough to have wisdom but young enough to still do battle. The king of swords is decisive and clear-headed.

Book: Intellectual, decisive, discriminating, inability to be swayed by emotions, tendency to be too rigid.

Guidance: Make decisions by facing the facts

Journaling:

Odd that I pulled this card today as more than anything I was called to be kind and compassionate and not all about the facts. April opened up to me about her life growing up and what’s going on in her life now. It opened my eyes to what it must have been like to be my mother.

When I take a step back and take out the emotion of how I feel about her and about how she treated me, I am amazed that she turned out as normal as she was. It doesn’t mean I like everything she did or that everything she did was okay, but maybe if I dig down I can find a little more compassion for her.

December 23, 2017

Over a year later and there are still days when I am conflicted by my relationship with my mother. I know that I made the right choice for myself and my kids because I have peace and self esteem in a way that I never did before. I like myself and I have learned to value myself and do the right things for me. There was no way that I could do that when I was still talking to her on a regular basis.

In my heart of hearts, I want for her the peace that I have found in valuing myself and taking care of myself. However, I also know that that is not something that I can give her. That’s something she has to want and to work for herself. However, I can pray for her to find peace in her life.

King of Swords

Immediate Response: Although this card appears cold and icy, it isn’t as the tree still has green on. I love the purple embellishment on his sword as it takes an object that is cold and icy and humanizes it. I also like the cloak clasp as it mirrors his standard which you can partially see in the background. This card as well as my tarot knowledge says that this king is decisive and has the ability to make good decisions, but he might also be a little rigid.

Book: Intellectual, stern, tendency to be too rigid, guardian of social order.

Guidance: Be flexible, make decisions, hold boundaries

Journaling: The last few days have been about flexibility and going with the flow for me so it is interesting that this card came up. I have been deliberately working on going with the flow and not being rigid so I’m not sure what the guidance is here. Have I been too flexible? Maybe this card is suggesting that I be a little more rigid and maintain better boundaries, especially around work. I’m not exactly sure how I would do that as these people are nuts. I’m going to have to give this some thought. Maybe there are ways I can more provide more structure.

December 21, 2017
Interesting to review this a year out of the situation. All of the things that seemed so important at the time and so urgent aren’t important any more and I don’t even remember what all the drama was at at the time. I do know that I was working at Gateway in Chicago and they were kind of nuts. They had chosen the wrong solution and were trying to make it fix and it wasn’t working. They didn’t do a good job with order and structure.

I’m also learning that overall I don’t do a good job with boundaries and I’m struggling with that now as my client wants to meet every day next week even though I’m on PTO and the rest of the team is. However, being a consultant means sucking it up and doing what needs to be done. Not sure how to set boundaries when the expectation is to be available. Again, I’ll have to figure out how to set those boundaries.