How do we self sabotage ourselves?

I wonder when I will tire of learning about Tarot?  When I will stop being amazed at how prescient and subtle the insight can be?  At the moment, and what keeps me humble is 20 years in on my tarot journey how I am still learning and relishing how the meaning of tarot cards expands and deepens.

Eight of Swords….when we’ve tied ourselves up in negative thinking

For instance, The Eight of Swords.   Yes a card that literally illustrates someone tying themselves up in knots with overthinking.  Swords represent our thoughts, beliefs and identity and what is true for us.  The Eight of Swords shows a woman tied up, the ties are loose, as she stands between 8 swords, the sea behind her, the tide coming in, unable to free herself from the power of said thoughts beliefs our identity and our truths can be exactly what keeps us trapped and become a form of self sabotage, when we lose our nerve to move forward, the cut the ties, and step into our own authority.   

And so it can be the card of denying ourselves, self denial due to conditioning.  Societal conditioning, notice the tarot features a woman! I don’t deserve that, I’m not the kind of person who (takes centre stage/speaks up) ….and we end up denying ourselves what we desire,  because it’s not how we see ourselves, not our usual role, not what is expected of us.   And we give away our power to those ideas and thoughts.

Standing there she is in danger of being swept away by the incoming tide, this card talks of the urgency of being courageous.  It is imperative that we free ourselves, the danger of being in self sabotage mode is not to be underestimated!!  

It can be fascinating then to consider if there’s a part of our personality we are denying?  Or perhaps allowing our known/received/accepted personality to unconsciously deny another aspect of ourselves? Indeed our own sense of personal identity can be restricting.

Embracing your inner child, playful, naive, innocent, idealistic, creative

I’m going on holiday tomorrow and have decided to have a holiday from me!  The me who takes life a bit seriously, always needs to be learning something,  tries to keep things under control, myself, others, make sure nothing goes wrong….etc etc am bored with how serious and responsible I am! 

A curious giraffe on my travels

Do come and have a tarot reading online with me while I’m in Africa!  We can do facetime and perhaps you’ll see an elephant in the background.