I’m starting this blog series in an attempt to find my way to “chill” because yo gorl has almost no chill – only now instead of that being a personality trait it’s causing hormonal fluctuations that my body doesn’t know how to process anymore which then leads to me passing out … which is no bueno. I consider myself agnostic because I’m not sure there is/are a god/s, but I’m not going to tell you they can’t possibly exist either. I do however enjoy the idea of trying out different forms of meditation to see if any of them will work for me, which brings me to my latest adventure – using tarot cards as a point of focus for meditation. Let’s see what cards I pull today, shall we?
Today I’m just pulling a single card while asking myself how I can process what sort of broke my brain in therapy today. Yes, I see a clinically licensed therapist regularly again. Also by break my brain I mean a sort of mind blowing experience – aka I am confused and the confusion is slowly turning into understanding. I’ve been having problems concentrating and accomplishing my goals. It’s not that I don’t see myself as responsible for getting them done so much as the part of my brain that usually helps me focus being seemingly contrary to when and what I want to concentrate on. I’ve always looked at that as a function of my brain I couldn’t really force to work without it just cooperating – and there may be an element of a physical limitation there. But, what if the part of my brain that helps me concentrate on things needs a boss – like treating the concentration tasks like a job with real world consequences.
I’ve traditionally been a kind of “all or nothing” type of person – which I’ve been working on. (It’s a really unfortunate mindset to be in for a lot of situations in life.) I either hyperfocus or am not tuned in to what’s going on at all. I’ve also used pacing exercises to help myself with physical tasks, but I’ve never applied it to mental tasks. What if it’s just my subconscious being a little sassy pants saying “I’m not interested because I don’t feel like it – therefore I’m not going to concentrate on it”? What if this is a piece of emotional maturity to work on? What if I apply those pacing timers to mental tasks? What if I try bossing my brain around like I boss my body around? What if conscious me says “we are going to concentrate for five minutes on a very specific task”? Could this help me to focus on the things I used to be able to focus on but for some reason right now I’m just – not?
Four of Fire
Concentration
Focused Energy
Increased Skill
Ok ok ok – hold up a second. I’m still agnostic, but tarot has a weirdly accurate way of pulling cards I had specific question about – and they’re not super duper vague about it. I– I just– this is hilarious to me. ACCURATE. The first sentence in the description for this card is:
The Four of Fire is symbolic of focussed mind, emotion, and deliberate action that, once applied, lend impetus and momentum.
Dreams of Gaia Tarot by Ravynne Phelan
So … what I’m getting from this card is that practice makes perfect and that maybe it is normal to need to practice on focusing on things. It’s almost verbatim what my therapist went over with me in therapy today. I’m going to start writing down one or two goals that are reasonable/doable, and then use pacing techniques to practice focusing on those goals even if my brain is being difficult.
This card was pulled from the Dreams of Gaia Tarot set by Ravynne Phelan – it’s sort of a hybrid oracle deck that I’ve really been enjoying. The accompanying book for this set really makes sense to my brain.
TheBookishSock 