Meaning of the Ten of Swords (part 2)

There’s more I need to say.

Ten swords are piercing the spine of our being, asking us to let go of identity…..

I always have the tendency to try to sugar coat things….or as I like to call it ‘reframe’ in order to turn a ‘bad/challenging’ card into an opportunity to grow, an opportunity for self development.  Ha ha and while true in the sense that we always have a choice about how we respond to each card and their challenges.   So I was intrigued to hear Michael Mosley on his podcast ‘Just one thing’ talking about five rules or recommendations for happiness, the one that he and the presenter of these ideas put above all others was …..

To use SOCIAL FRICTION as FREE therapy.  i.e. if someone is rude to you….instead of getting angry or being ‘hurt’ you use the situation to choose see things differently, as free therapy.

The example was given of a young girl in a concentration camp.   Within an hour of arriving, both her parents had gone to the gas chamber and she was asked to dance for the camp guards.    A situation that’s hard to imagine. There was nothing she could do, she had no choice if she wanted to live.  It was out of her control. And how to dance in such fear terror heart break?

What she did was imagine she was dancing at the Bolshoi ballet in a beautiful costume and was able to perform. She later came to realise her captors were in fact prisoners of their situation also.

While in the telling years later, we can see the tools of survival she used, reframing and ‘act as if’ to get through it, to survive, and I hope to see a new dawn on her release. An exaggerated example I admit to demonstrate a ten of swords situation but it does offer the possibility of surviving and a new dawn and the need to let go of control/ or in this case everything you believe it to cope with an impossible situation….it seemed timely to hear and resonated with my desire to always find the potential of a new dawn in a difficult situation. A classic example of trying to find the positive is in this  blog I wrote ages ago. I definitely overlooked the challenge inherent in the ten of swords.   It’s all very well being told, let go, but it’s hard. And can be painful. 

So how to handle it?? If I take the example of the girl in the concentration camp with creativity, compassion and imagination.

Keep up the good work, time to hone your skills, for steady improvement

What about my situation? I pulled the 8 of pentacles.   Which is a very down to earth, dull, keep up the good work, more is needed sort of card.   To me it says just get on with the basics, keep working at what you’ve already been doing, keep up your practice (in my case perhaps the energy medicine exercises I’ve been given with the understanding that they will undo bit by bit over time release/let go of the past damage that has been done).   This is a card that speaks of doing the boring bits, possibly over and over again (there’s something about the figure 8 which is repetitive) until you succeed, step by step, and get to the 9 of pentacles, the lucky bonus, the lucky extra, because you deserve it and all the work you’ve done.  I will say in Energy Medicine the figure 8 is a key aspect…..it is essential for your energy field to have lots of figure 8s in it! There’s a weave aspect to the 8, a synchronicity at play.

I digress, but it is reassuring advice. Rather than do something else the 8 of pentacles says keep working at what you’ve been doing, there’s more to be done to hone your skills, it may be boring or at least not very exciting, but you will achieve steady progress…

Perhaps I’ll add a bit of self compassion creativity and imagination, perhaps ‘act as if’ I am already on the way to full recovery!!

Do come and have a tarot reading with me online or in person in battersea.