I sat down to write this column a week ago. But I just couldn’t. I was feeling too overwhelmed, too raw, honestly, too mired in the exact energy I’m trying to talk about.
So I spent the week trying to pull myself out of it (by doing the exact same things that put me there in the first place). Go figure.
I already felt guilty for skipping the week before (clue one). I knew I needed to do something to feel better (clue two). But without knowing exactly what, I felt driven to make my self-care more perfect because I felt like I was massively failing and dropping ball after ball as a result (clue three).
So what did I do with all that? Pick up one damn little thread and just write the column? Of course not. That would be too sensible!
Instead, I buried myself earnestly into an endless round of planning hard enough so I cannot feel overwhelmed ever again. I even thought this might be possible: that’s how blindly invested I was!
I expect we all know how that turned out.
That’s my Very Virgo(TM) brain, and there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s authentically mine. The trillion-and-three ways I can see to build the perfect system are coming from the same brain as the trillion-and-three ways I find fault with myself and the systems I’ve got. Worse is the bite: I see so many options that I freeze, can’t pick the “best” one (because it’s always got to be the “best,” right?), and then beat myself up for that, too.
But you cannot produce in the real world when you’re living in the guilt of the past or worry of the future. So I am moving, for this moment, anyway, into the now. This column, right here, these words on a screen? It’s one thread of the whole fabric and it’s enough for right now.
The cards are loud this week. And I’ve learned that when they get loud, you (or more pointedly I) would do well to listen.
Coming Up in the Cards
This week is the Kingdom of Heaven Tarot on top of our feline friend, Thor the Warrior Kitten (who is actually not-so-kitteny at 11 years old).
Outlook: Empress Rx
I often tell myself, if I can nail that one tiny, elusive little piece of magic, everything will instantly click into place. I’ll have it all figured out and I’ll stop making things so HARD on myself.
Even my ‘things-are-too-hard’ mode is my own fault in my head. “I am failing at being kind to myself!” I think. But this is the Empress Rx: relentless self-improvement, constant admonitions to do better at loving yourself and caring for yourself because obviously, it’s not working. It’s self-blame with some bright, red lipstick on it, declaring itself all for your own good.
I mean, I’m all about giving yourself permission to do what you’ve gotta do. And sometimes, what you’ve gotta do is note the failures so you can improve the system. There is real benefit in considering how you approach what goes on in your life and constructing some plans to make that orchestration less chaotic.
But sometimes, the slavish drive towards building a system—figuring out life’s ‘shoulds’ basically—is the actual problem, what you’re running away from. And it’s not a question of do more and try harder. It’s a question of reassessing the need.
A reversed Empress points not-so-subtly at needs not being met. What she won’t necessarily tell you is which. Maybe it’s a need you’ve named and you’re just starving it, putting it off to “later.” Or maybe you’ve not actually landed on it, and the fixes you keep slapping on top are more like duct tape on a broken leg, a cheap substitute for addressing the bigger issues. Only an honest look in the mirror (without the self-blame baked into the image) can say.
Advice: Wheel Rx
Good, bad or indifferent, it’s all data. And all data can be used to good ends, even if it wasn’t fun to collect. (This reads like an epitaph, man.)
That’s more or less my philosophy of life, right there. If I’ve gotta ride the pain, I’ll be damned if I don’t get something useful out of it.
But here’s the catch the Empress hints at: reducing everything to data can be a fancy way to submerge the feelings. Sometimes you need to just let the moment be what it is.
Sometimes we aren’t reaching for another lesson. We need the grace. The reversed Wheel says we can accept what feels like bad luck honestly right now. The lesson might come later. It usually does. But let where you are be good enough today. That can be the hard part of the equation.
Taken Together
Maybe you’re feeling the gap between what you want to create and what you’re actually creating. Maybe you’re feeling not up to the task. Insufficient, scared, small. I feel you, man. More than I’d like to admit.
That’s okay. Feelings aren’t right or wrong, they just are. But they don’t appear in a vacuum.
So dig below the surface to consider if you’re addressing the right questions. That’s the mystery my clues were pointing out. Because I grew up with ‘do more/try harder’ drilled into every waking breath, I can say without hesitation, it’s a poor alternative for allowing yourself to just not feel okay sometimes and being at peace with that.
We don’t always need a better, more fool-proof, more disciplined approach. Sometimes what we need is the one thing we hand out so freely to everyone else and so severely ration for ourselves: grace.
Good enough for now counts.
Your Turn
Where are you feeding the perceived flaw when the real need is allowing yourself to be less perfect? And the harder question (that I share with you): can you let right now be good enough, without adding it to the list of what you’ve failed to fix?
Be kind to yourselves out there, friends. Or at least, do your best. And accept it as enough already! I’ll be shooting for the same.
~Dix
