Tarot reading for when you feel stuck

Sometimes, in fact quite often people come to me, because they feel stuck. They can’t quite put their finger on what is wrong, things just aren’t flowing, there’s an underlying sense of anxiety about a situation perhaps and general uncertainty about whether we are heading in the right direction. Which is how I was feeling last week. Feeling decidedly ‘out of sorts’. Hence I decided to a ‘Setting your North Star compass’ reading for the blog, and mostly myself!

This Queen uses her intellect, logic, to navigate life….

The first card (central position) reflects where you are now.  Queen of Swords.  Think an intelligent women somewhat detached emotionally. Operating from her intellect and mind. And not from her heart.

She thinks she is protecting herself from being hurt by distancing herself from feelings and using logic and intellect to negotiate life.  At her best she is a great strategist, problem solver, quick witted, and able to make difficult decisions. Quite often she has a great sense of humour (often regarded as a protective mechanism) but at her worst she feels cut off from her heart and stressed out with all the thinking and judging and anxiety that can cause. She can be a terrible self critic…and quite good at criticising others!

All Queens represent mothers, with different styles of loving, this queen delivers the truth, her style can be described as ‘tough love’.

Feeling stuck in my head, trying to work out what I should do to shift my mood, and feeling decidedly unloved perfectly described by the Queen of Swords. A default position I often get myself in. A habit I attribute to a childhood worldview that the world wasn’t safe, I wasn’t good enough and therefore I needed to be hyper vigilant in assessing the environment, and if I scanned the horizon and what everyone else was doing, thinking, feeling, perhaps I could negotiate myself in the right position and do the right thing to get the approval at least (forget love) of others. It is not a happy place feeling stuck, unsure, anxious, governed by the alert ‘watch out! you need to be very very careful not to do the wrong thing! And if you stay stuck and safe you are wasting your life. You can see how the mind can torture you/me! Its exhausting. And it’s very unrelaxing for others! When I was young, probably up to 40, I genuinely thought every human being was living life on this exchange system. If you pat my back I’ll pat yours. If I do this, I will get that. It took me a long long time to genuinely believe there were people who live from their hearts, and give unconditionally.

How to unlock feeling ‘stuck’ in a tarot reading.

So how to unlock the Queen of Swords (the crowning card)? and I pulled the Ten of Wands as best course of action.  Well first of all wands are in fire, and about passion. The ten says yes you can achieve it all, you can succeed, but it does look like you are perhaps carrying too heavy a load. You’ve got so caught up with everything you want, you can’t even see the wood for the trees anymore! Put down the load. And why are you making it such a load anyway?ha   Give yourself a break. The image that just jumped into my mind is a moment in the Abba video ‘Dancing Queen’…there’s an old woman carrying a huge load on her back, she’s bent double with the weight, but when she hears the music she twirls around in the air and throws the load to the ground to join the dancing. Love that image!

the Ten of Wands does look like a load…

I sometimes see this card, in relationship readings, for how he/she feels about you, and I want to say. Stop being hard work. Because I can imagine it might be hard work living with someone who wants it all and is a perfectionist!

Root card. What supports you.  The Knight of Wands.  Passionate, bold, courageous, adventurous, loves to travel.   I do remember a version of me like that . And actually one way to get to the heart is via your passions. Which is why the advice is always do what you LOVE.

Left hand card.  What to let go of.  The Knight of Cups.  The opposite of the boldness of the Knight of Wands. He holds a cup, in his hand as he rides his beautiful while horse cautiously forward in search of the Holy Grail. He believes in true love, kindness and sharing and wants to make the world a better place.  All very honourable except he can have a tendency to be a bit too idealistic and put others and his quest on a pedestal and doesn’t quite ground his quest in reality. Quite the opposite of the Knight of Wands! Who is so fired up about what he desires, is inspired by, he just charges forward.

Right hand card.  Where it is leading.  The Ace of Wands.  Brand new inspiration.  The match is struck, the flame is lit.  A new creative idea.

Thank you.  Inspiration is on its way.  

The first thing that occurs to me in this reading is a feeling stop making life such hard work. You’ll get there but for goodness sake stop all this striving. Let go of perfectionism. There’s no such thing and besides it just stops you being bold, because if you have to think everything through thoroughly, make sure you’ve looked at it from every angle in your head (queen of swords) and fing  the perfect answer, solution, action before you move, you won’t do anything. With my root card and what supports me being the Knight of Wands. Embrace your courageous bold self and follow what lights your fire.   Tennis! Yes to that, and yesterday on the court I certainly felt alive and myself, all that competitive spirit and dashing about to the fore.  6-1.   So more tennis. And where else might I be a bit more courageous, bolder? 

Writing about this, or rather journaling, has opened up the imagination, and the image of the one of the women throwing her load (of sticks/kindling for a fire?) up in the air and joining Abba and the crowd in Dancing Queen is going to help me get into the spirit.    

There are many ways to access the heart, and perhaps when you are in Queen of Swords mode, gentleness and unconditional love isn’t the route, perhaps fire and brimstone. With the promise of the Ace of Wands, new inspiration…. I rather like the challenge.

Wish me luck.

And if you are feeling stuck, do come and have a tarot reading with me in Battersea or online.  Online reading is just as effective in terms of connection and intimacy in the sense that you can be just as open and ask just as many questions as if you were sitting in front of me in Battersea.