My Oracle Card Reading

I was thinking about my last post. I have recently been intrigued by oracle cards. I don't believe they have divination powers or anything like that. I view them the same way I view journal prompts. They are a way to look at something in a new way or bring subconscious thoughts to the forefront. So I thought I would try pulling some cards to see what shakes loose.

I won't go into details about oracle cards themselves but I pulled a spread of 4 cards. One to get to the heart of the issue, one for how to heal, one for the special guidance that I already know deep down, and one for guidance for the future. Once again, these cards are similar to journal prompts so the results could be viewed as very generic but they did get me thinking.

Heart of the Issue: I am still tethered to past hurts and lessons. I have not cut cords and completely unlearned lessons so I have been unable to move forward. I will keep repeating the same cycle until I have completely released the past.

This definitely true. I have been mistreated at every job that I have had and I always struggle to release it. I still find myself getting very angry about what happened at my last job. I also struggle with letting go of the things that I have been taught about careers and the proper steps. I come from a conservative, religious, right-wing family and have had everything that comes with that drilled into my head. The steps for being successful ( go to college, get a job, move up the ladder) have worked for everyone in my family, except for me. I am the example that it doesn't work for everyone but instead of acknowledging that, I am constantly being told that something is wrong with me. I have to get out of the corporate cookie-cutter mindset and take the leap to something else, even though I have no support.

How to Heal: I need to surrender to the changes going on within me and around me, while remaining strong in my convictions about what I should be striving for despite what people are telling me.

Releasing everything I have been taught and moving forward is really my only option.  I know that the standard 9-5 job will never work for me and no amount of criticism, lectures, and advice will ever change that. My mind is slowly wrapping around that but I am a bit frantic as I try to figure out another path. I need to tone that frantic energy down by surrendering to the process.

Special Guidance: Do not judge myself or my situation. Trust my discernment and focus on using it to make my future choices. Trust my vision.

Most of the time I just feel like a fool for being in this situation. I've been trapped in this cycle for so long and I feel foolish for not being able to get out. I know that judging myself this way does not help but I'm still doing it. I need to find a way to take that energy and put it into connecting with my intuition and developing discernment.

Guidance for the Future: Keep pushing forward. Choose to rise instead of being taken over by depression. Have compassion for yourself as you have had a very hard road. Remember that you have been given power to co-create your reality.

This one annoyed me. If I knew how to rise instead of being taken over by depression, I wouldn't be in this mess. My depression has always been situational. It rears its ugly head whenever some part of my life is in shambles, especially when it's something that I have worked very hard on. So all of the standard advice about how to get rid of it never works for me. Daily nature walks can never change the fact that something I poured my heart into blew up in my face. I have yet to find a way to keep that kind of depression at bay. I do find it very hard to truly have compassion for myself so that could be the main issue.

Whatever one thinks about things like oracle cards, doing this did help me calm my mind and begin to organize my thoughts. I feel a bit more grounded and I have a bit more energy to keep moving forward.

Trying To End A Cycle

I am really struggling in the area of career right now. I am still unemployed and have very little in the way of prospects. I am also just very tired. I have always struggled in this area. Whenever I find myself unemployed, it lasts for months and even years. Then when I finally do find a job, it turns out to be a dead end and I end up being mistreated. I get used and abused, then let go for some bullshit reason. This has been my cycle since the beginning and I cannot seem to get out of it. Something has to change but I cannot figure out what or how.

Jobs are not one of those things that you can really just wait for the right one to come along. You need to be making money. You have bills to pay. You need to eat. There isn't a way around that unless you have someone willing to take care of you. I consistently find myself in a position where I am completely broke and only have one option for work. Then the job quickly turns out to be terrible and completely drains me so that I am unable to work towards something else. Then I get angry at myself for being so exhausted and scatterbrained. That's when the depression rears its ugly head and the downward spiral begins.

Something has to be different this time or I will end up back in the same cycle.

Guiding Word of the Year for 2019

I have really struggled with deciding on what to do with this year's guiding word of the year. At first after thinking about it for awhile, I considered keeping my guiding word for 2018 going into 2019. My issues with my former employer gave me so much stress and really derailed my progress in 2018. I really did not focus on that guiding word much so I wanted to try again. However, it didn't give me that settled feeling that I usually get when I find my word of the year. So I decided to keep reflecting and see what happened.

I don't know exactly where the revelation came from but suddenly I realized that I live my life in fear. I have been stuck for awhile because I've been fearful and too tired to address it. It was pretty sad to realize. When I started this blog, the catalyst was the Anias Nin quote I have posted on top, over there. ------------>
I was tired of hiding and not growing so I started journaling here to work through my blocks and heartache. I healed in many ways and made big changes in my life. I was really proud of my progress. However, some of those changes and chances I took blew up in my face in a big way and forced me into a situation I worked very hard to avoid. Now I'm living in a very conservative city as a woman of mixed heritage with no friends because I don't fit it, being mistreated at every job I've had, and with no real prospects for advancement despite being highly skilled.

Now I realize that I am paralyzed in fear of taking another chance and that has to change. I'll never get out of this situation if I don't start taking big chances.

My guiding word of the year is:
Courage

I don't know how I am going to put this into action yet. It's going to take more reflection to get a better handle on what exactly I want. I have a basic idea, but I will need to be more specific before I can make a plan.

Journaling Again

It's been quite sometime since I have written anything and even longer since I've written regularly. Writing has kind of failed me lately. I do not even have the energy for it and it is very disconcerting. This is part of the reason I feel like I'm flailing right now.

The year started out so well. I had big plans for my guiding word of the year, I had started dating a man that I really liked, I had finally gotten a full time job that I thought was going to be long term and I was hunting for an apartment. I got the apartment and my relationship is going so well that we moved in together. However, the job turned out to be a disaster. If I knew half of what I know now about the CEO and the advisors there, I never would have taken the job. I ended up being let go because I stood up for myself and gave the CEO realistic expectations about how long it takes to complete certain tasks. The troubles at work drained my energy and my guiding word fell by the wayside.

Now I am not sure what my next step should be. I keep attracting these kinds of jobs where I have a male boss with a weak ego who gets off on lording his position over women. I am not sure why I still attract that kind of energy. I know I need to figure that out and focus on what my career plan should be. I don't know where to start though.

52 Lists Project- Week 11

Week 11 ~List Your Essentials~

Love Loyalty Touch Compassion Health Writing Poetry Reading Photography Plants Pets Fantasy Music Self Expression A Pack/Tribe

A Big Comfy Bed Deep Conversations Starry Skies Beaches Purple Flowers Dancing Kissing Water Femininity Sensuality Laughing Solitude Comfort Freedom Intuition

Guiding Word Of The Year For 2018

It only took one exercise from the Find Your Word course to figure out what my guiding word of the year needs to be. The first exercise was to imagine your ideal day. When I was thinking about it, I realized that most of what I imagined was ritualized and specifically geared towards my ideal life. Everything had a purpose. I understand that this is something that is missing from my life. Far too much of what I do is just to pass the time. I'm listless and kind of lost. I want my days to have more purpose.

My guiding word of the year is:
Mindful

I'm also doing something that I haven't done in previous years, and that's to choose some supporting words to help make this less of an abstract concept.

My first supporting word is Ritual. This is kind of an action word. One of my big goals is to create some rituals around different areas of my life to bring more meaning to things and to better care for myself. I need that. The most important rituals to create will be around my menstrual cycle. I've come to the conclusion that it is super important for women to get back to honoring our cycles, our life giving ability, instead of dreading them. A gratitude ritual will be important as well. I think I also need simple morning and nightly rituals.

My second supporting word is Sensuality. This is what I want to feel. Sensuality gets misconstrued for something sexual but it's actually about embracing and feeling all of your senses. I have struggled for years to get out of my head and back into my body. I want my mind to be less of a dominant force and more in harmony with my heart and body.

I wanted my last supporting word to be something I could learn to embody. Words like Queen, Empress, and Goddess are popular right now and were rolling around in my head but didn't feel right. So I went in search of lesser known feminine archetypes. I was directed to a website called Women Love Power and the 7 Basic Feminine Archetypes. Based on those descriptions, I believe that I am currently a "Mature Maiden" and it's time to move on to the next stage in my life. The archetype that goes along with what I'm trying to achieve this year and is my last supporting word is Mystic.

Finally, I'm starting out the year with an affirmation to get me started.

"My heart is filled with gratitude for all that I have and all that is yet to come."

Quote: Tahereh Mafi

“The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

 ― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

Guiding Word of the Year

I dropped the ball this year when it came to posting about my guiding word of the year. The short story is that it went really well for the first half of the year. There was lots of decluttering, especially digitally. When I sat down to look at it, I was amazed at how much digital clutter I had. I was hoarding emails, subscribed to dozens of newsletters, overwhelmed by YouTube videos, and swamped with Instagram. It took months but I sorted through it all, deleted thousands of emails (yes thousands!) and prioritized my subscriptions. That's as far as I got though. By the time I was ready to go deeper than just physical decluttering, I found myself unemployed and it went downhill from there. Collecting clutter is a manifestation of depression for me and I started struggling with it during my unemployment and the sporadic temp jobs that came after. I kept my digital clutter down but my physical clutter went back to how it was before I started this. I spent the end of November and I'm spending December undoing the damage.

I have been having trouble figuring out what my guiding word will be for 2018. The past few years were easy to figure out. A word popped out at me without really thinking about it. I just knew what I needed. This year has not been like that. So, I'm going to go through Susannah Conway's Find Your Word course. I hope that it will give me some clarity.

Quote: Susan Beth Pfeffer

“I never really thought about how when I look at the moon, it's the same moon as Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at.”

 ― Susan Beth Pfeffer, Life As We Knew It

I have always been a night person and a star lover but lately my focus has been on the moon. When I take my dog out at night, I always look for the moon.

5 Imaginary Lives

I was watching Lavendaire's YouTube channel and came across this video. This exercise is from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I really need to finish reading that book. The idea is to imagine what you would do if you had multiple lives to live and then figure out how to bring some aspects of those lives into your actual life.

1. Photographer
I'm not sure when I fell for photography but I know it was when I was young. I actually think that I have a very good eye for photography. The thing that holds me back is the technical aspect. I need to pull my camera out more often and go on day trips that will allow me to flex that muscle.

2. Archeologist
I always felt drawn to ancient Egyptian and ancient Mayan culture. I received a computer game that was about exploring Mayan ruins. My best friend at the time and I wanted to plan a trip to explore the ruins in real life. She's not in my life anymore but maybe it's time to make that trip happen with someone else.

3. Interior Designer
There was a time in my life that I was thinking about either going into interior design or architecture. I almost failed geometry so I decided that architecture might not be my thing (although I just watched Abstract on Netflix which kind of reignited my interest in architecture) but interior design still intrigues me. I've been working on decorating my space. It is slow going but will feel great once it is done.

4. Geologist
I'm not sure if geologist is the right term as my focus would be on gemstones and crystals. When I was young, I collected rocks, mostly from my school playground. Because of this, I was given a little gemstone kit and decided to do a project based on it for my school's science fair. I loved learning about the gemstones and have been interested ever since. If gemstones and crystals weren't so expensive they would be the majority of my decor. Maybe I should set money aside to start buying some so I can at least have them around me.

5. Writer
Quite frankly, I think that if I could just write and travel the world, I'd be happy. Writing is vital for my life, hence this blog, but it's much more for self expression than something that many people would actually want to read. Taking the time to do research and write posts that are more than just self expression might be a good idea. Writing more poetry would be good too.

Creative exercises are so interesting. They bring up so many unexplored things. I need to do more of them.