Psychologists, holistic health professionals and Buddhists agree. Action Eases Anxiety – maybe better than you think. Simple mental and physical exercises can take the edge off of anxiety, which is more than typical day-to-day worry. Things like naming five things you see, taking a short walk, patterned breathing. I highly recommend @DanHarris and @jim_donovan_sound_health on instagam for more trustworthy real world anxiety advice.
This layout is inspired by Lenormand Tarot but works with any Tarot or Oracle Deck. The left card reads the current concern or the current energy environment. It may be a clue to what is the cause of your anxiety. The right card is a clue to the best thing to do next. It’s like a sentence; Subject and verb. It shows what the situation is and what to do about it.
WHAT’S GOING ON: Queen of Cups. This is deep emotion, perhaps something long suppressed bubbling to the surface. Emotion isn’t your enemy. Sit with it. Feel it fully, then move on knowing it doesn’t rule you or the reality around you.
BEST NEXT STEP: The Emperor. This signifies deep competence and real-world skill. Build your confidence. Head over heart. Let logic lead for a few steps to give emotions a chance to exist and heal and be understood without letting them rule you. You are in charge here and probably doing much better than you may think. Expanded post on https://TaoCraftTarot.com tomorrow
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In this simple layout is almost like a sentence: what it is and what it does – more accurately what you can DO with the collective energies around us all today. Actions eases worries, in this case worries about relationships or connections with people.
The ship hints at a time of prosperity & progress. The emphasis is on progress, on forward movement. The ship implies smooth sailing, much like with the smooth waters / go with the flow collective energy I’ve seen lately with the Six of Swords in collective and private readings alike.
The bouquet hints at affection and, more importantly, showing it. Not is not the time to bottle up feelings. If you feel kindness, compassion, love, amusement, or any good thing – now is the time to show it. Show it in no uncertain terms.
If you feel less pleasant things, show that too. Yes, by all means, communicate those feeling too, but the key here is to show it with emotional maturity and kindness. The Bouquet card with its pretty flowers reminds us of those wise old adages: “You catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar.” and “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”
Again the phrase “emotional maturity” comes to mind. Pitch kindness, not a fit. A little calmness and reason will go a long way for you in this energy environment.
The outer world may be chaos, but it is a good time to show love and kindness. If it is returned, soak it in. Even when it is unrequited, you can feel good about loving in the first place. That moment, that feeling existed and added to the good in the world and still does.
When you love, you win.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved used with permission llwellynpublishing.com
The five of swords is about conflict, but not the big conflicts that is so in the news and so stressful to so many of us. This isn’t about a moral line in the sand. This is about selfishness, ego, squabbles with a big dose of pettiness. Be clear about what is important and what is petty noise.
What to do: Emperor
My first thought when I saw the Emperor was “look at the side eye on that guy.” The Emperor is associated with responsibility, reliability, confidence in your own power and competent leadership. Do you, engage with the important things, but remember you are not other people’s drama. Disengage from useless drama and nonsense. Rise above. Rule your own inner kingdom, protect your own inner peace, let the immature ones figure it out for themselves. Save your strength for when it really matters.
Failures, obstacles, and betrayals take time to heal even as life demands that healing. The more painful the experience, the stronger the message that this is not the path for you.
You are not your failures, unless you accept them as such. Take them as a message and an opportunity to learn or to change direction then suddenly painful setbacks are just signposts along your way.
Next Step: Nine of Cups
This is a card of community and celebration. Found family heals. Found community supports. Your true tribe is a place of love and acceptance wherever and whoever they may be.
Your true tribe is the people and places that energize you, uplift you, comfort you, and make you feel most deeply at home. Only you can who your tribe is. No one can tell you who your tribe should be.
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The “Action Eases Anxiety” layout is inspired by the sentence-like quality that Lenormand style tarot readings tend to have. We’ve talked about that before in he “learn with me” series about Lenormand
In this layout, the left card functions as the subject of the sentence. It is the thing that is, be it your current situation or our shared energy environment.
The right card is like the verb in a sentence, the action, the thing to do now that might help the situation – or at lease easy your worry a tiny bit.
Today, the mental image that came with both cards is an advertisement where a person goes “trust fall” and falls backward into a huge pile of dried plants to demonstrate the plant stems and leaves that they don’t use in their select flower-only suppliment.
As much as I like that product, I’m not here to endorse anything. The trust fall bit of it is the key to the intuitive image.
“When things seem terrible, it can feel impossible that they will get better. if the future is too big for a leap of faith, then all you can do is take a trust fall into the present moment.” comes through here.
The “what it is card” is the bouquet. If today isn’t stressed, enjoy the beauty of it. Enjoy the moment. If you are feeling stressed, try to sort out what of the stress is rooted in the past and future. Try to see the present moment for what it is. Look around you. Are you in life threatening danger? If you are – then you aren’t reading this. If that’s the case you have bigger things to do than read blogs and scroll social media. So if you are seeing this, stop: Take in this moment for what it is. Stop and smell the flowers the bouquet card is offering. It also reminds me of that quote attributed to Mark Twain “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, the most of which never happened.”
What it is is not so bad when you eliminate the parts that are actually worries about a future that may never happen.
What to do is the Clover card. It is a card of luck. The doing is simple in this case. Simple, but easier said than done when anxiety is raging. Acknowledging and accepting that things aren’t so bad and are getting better. When anxiety or sadness is raging in your brain, it’s hard to feel as lucky as you really are.
Acknowledging your luck attracts it to you.
Tell yourself that you are lucky.
Blind, rote, repeated affirmations even when you don’t feel them isn’t going to magically manifest the thing you want. They won’t do that even if you do feel it. But what that can do is bring your feelings and your energy into better alignment with the flow of things and help you find what you really need, even if it is different from your original desires and expectations.
You are lucky, it is just a matter of finding it. And it may look like something you never in a million years imagined.
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deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler c 2021 all rights reserved used with permissions on Llywellynpublishing.com
THE COFFIN: Something has ended. No one decides the depth of that loss for you but you. Grief and sadness are valid emotions. Honor them as you see fit for as long as you need.
The platitude “don’t be sad that it’s over, be glad that it happened” rings as profoundly toxic and wrong-headed here.
No one gets to tell your emotions but you. They are yours to be named, faced, and released in your own good time.
It isn’t a matter of healing. This assumes with great hubris that the processes of grief and loss are unhealthy. The feelings aren’t unhealthy. Processing them, sitting with them, feeling them IS the healthy thing. Suppressing them, bottling them, ignoring them, smothering emotions in toxic positivism….THAT is the thing that needs healed.
It’s hard to trust in the face of profound losses. Fault or blame is of no value. Even if you can’t trust others enough to share your emotions with them, trust yourself enough to feel them, face them – and survive the experience of it.
What to do (right)
THE LILIES: I don’t know how it is in other cultures, but in the Appalachian evangelical culture where I was born, lilies are a common flower for funerals. It has an almost exclusively religious meaning in that context. It was always connected to Christian symbolism like redemption, resurrection, a return of the soul to heaven – a litany of things that hold no truth or significance for me individually.
If those things are meaningful for you here, please, by all means embrace them in any way that they help you.
I think there is another message here, drawn from the general symbolism of giving flowers, any flowers, as a gesture of good wishes. We give flowers as a message of sympathy, condolences, love and support for those who grieve at a funeral, but we also give flowers in celebration of holidays, birthdays. They are a part of weddings for good reasons. This is the energy I see around the lilies card.
It is a reminder of the whole spectrum of human emotions. Flowers are a reminder of all we feel and all that is possible. Loss of any kind is never easy. Grief exists within its own timeline and it exists side by side with all the other emotions in life.
It takes particular strength to choose the flowers of love and compassion from the bouquet of everything that life hands us. Choosing kindness toward your own emotions and that of others is a beautiful flower within our humanity. Choosing compassion in the face of loss is perhaps the hardest thing to do, the hardest flower to grow.
Wisdom is always hard-won.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved, used with permissions listed on llwellynpublishing.com
What it is: The Fool. It may not be the opportunity that you wanted, but it is the second chance that you need. Only you can walk through an open door. No one can do it for you. Some journeys we have to begin alone. Don’t let fear of being alone stop you. Walk your walk, and your tribe will find you along the way. I intuitively ‘hear’ the Annie Lennox version of the song “Sisters are doing it for themselves.”
What to do: Seven of Swords. Take action. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Use your logic, intellect, and resourcefulness to the max. No one is going to save you but you.
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What it is: Strength.
In this case, a test of your strength. Your patience and perseverance are being tested. Failure is always an option. It shows where to get help if you need it. It shows where you need rest and support. The test can show you weak spots before they break so damage can, hopefully, be avoided or lessened.
What to do: The World.
Finish. Complete the tasks at hand. Don’t change horses mid stream. Focus on the end goal and the big picture. There is a sense of reassurance. Success is possible if you see things through to the end. Think of an airplane. Things may be turbulent now, but focus on bringing this stressful time in for a safe landing. A pilot once told me that “any landing you walk away from is a good one.”
Deck:Alleyman’s Tarot by @publishinggoblin1072 used with permission
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