Wisdom in pain and loss

As those who follow this blog will have gathered, I like to play with my tarot cards, and with Spring equinox just behind us, that was an occasion to pull some cards. The one that has inspired this blog is the 3 of swords. A card I slightly dread getting. For those that don’t know tarot the picture is of a heart pierced by three words. This card appeared as what I need to pay attention to. It’s so much nicer to get “good” cards where one can bask in the sense that all is or will be well. But just like everything else, even with the cards, often it is the harder ones that bring the opportunities for growth. And it got me thinking about how we can grow through our tough times.

Many years ago (2008 to be precise) I began the year pursuing a relationship with some-one I’d have been better off not. This dreaded card appeared in my immediate future, and as predicted, failure of said liaison wasn’t far behind, and I was initially heartbroken, although in all honesty it’s demise didn’t really need cards to predict. But this initial heart break became the catalyst for a period of great growth and change for me. It was the year that I fully understood how not placing enough value on myself was affecting my relationship choices for the worse. It was a year spent largely alone, but I did a lot of yoga and meditation and also used my savings to fund therapy. It took the best part of the year for me to start feeling better which is important to be honest about. I’ve mentioned in a previous blog the issues with spiritual bypassing. Bad feelings can’t be spirited away. But spiritual practice gave me the capacity to hold the bad feelings and to seek to understand them, and what they were telling me, rather than trying to make them go away. And eventually they did go away, not overnight, but in time it got lighter. I no longer have the pack that I used for this reading, but the card in this pack had an additional element to it. The heart as well as being pierced by the 3 swords had eyes, as if to depict this heartbreak would open my eyes. As a result of it, I would see things I hadn’t before, and would be better for it in the long run, which I was.

There is no quick fix for emotional pain, and no prescription. Being with it, trying to have a manageable routine and being patient all helped. I also considered other relationships in my life, who had my back, who was kind, who did I enjoy spending time with. I started saying no to people who didn’t fit those descriptions. It was the beginning of me placing a value on myself.

Around the same time, I was at a girlie gathering and we were playing with her goddess cards. Each of us pulled a card, and I got the goddess Isis. The card stated that legend had it that the river Nile was Isis’s tears as she cried for her lost child, but through her pain Isis grew strong and wise and went onto become the mother of Horus. I never went on to become a mother to anyone else, so that bit never came to be. But the experience of losing my baby has shaped me and given me a strength, and I think, wisdom that I did not have before. I had become pregnant with my little one ten years earlier. It was an unplanned pregnancy that by and large was not well received. That year, I discovered a strength in me that I had not known was there. And that was before I lost her. That was when I thought I was going to be a mum in challenging circumstances. But that year taught me that we really do never know what is round the next corner. Life got turned upside down twice. But this has given me a respect for the uncertainty of life and that it doesn’t always happen to other people. Sometimes other people means us. It has also made me more sensitive to the pain and loss of others in a way I don’t think I would have been otherwise. And I’ve seen this in others who have experienced a big loss. That the bravado is less, and that they are gentler and kinder. It doesn’t always follow, sometimes loss can make people bitter, but it doesn’t have to.

What about other types of loss? Times when we feel that we have failed. Failed at a project, or failed as a friend or partner. These too can be very challenging in a world that celebrates success and often shames failure. Yet, it is from my failures that I have learnt the most. Of course it’s great when things go well, when people think I’m good at what I do and like me. I’m not at all immune to becoming self congratulatory and conflating this with worth. But the challenge is to believe in our worth when things don’t go well and we mess it up. To believe in ourselves when others don’t. To be able to take the experience, and be with it and transform it into something better. It’s a fact of life that things won’t always go our way, and being the flawed human beings that we are that we will sometimes mess it up.

But we always have a choice, to push it under the carpet or to learn from it.

And there we times, when others mess up with us, when friends or loved ones let us down or hurt us. This also is unavoidable as they too are only human. Of course there are times when we need to decide whether it’s time to move on from a relationship or whether the relationship can hold whatever it was that caused the hurt. But this too is something we can learn from, we can know more deeply what matters to us. What we can accept and what is a deal breaker.

I have a little book, Tarot for self discovery, and it makes suggestions and gives affirmations for each card to help you grow. The affirmation for 3 of words is “ I am in charge of how I feel today” and the slogan for the card “Own your sadness” Sometimes we can’t choose how we might feel on a given day. I’ve never really got on with these start the day with a positive attitude and it will all be fine mantras. Sometimes we are heart broken, or exhausted, or depressed, or anxious. And my own experience is that it is better to acknowledge that and cut my cloth accordingly that day. Rather that telling myself I should feel better, accepting that is how it is right now. Feelings, even bad ones do tend to pass, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Gentle movement and getting out of my head and into my body can help. Sometimes a good cry helps, or a warm bath, or a nice walk.

Some-one once said life is bittersweet. Even in our sad times we find little things to enjoy. They might not take the sadness away, that has to run it’s course, but they can still be little moments of pleasure for their own sake.

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