Suspicion

 Posted by
Dec 032018
 

So, I’m sitting there, across from a rather bothered woman. My cards are on the table between us and I’ve explained what they are saying about her husband. She doesn’t believe me. Her arms are folded. She’s leaning back in her chair and looking at me like she can’t believe I just said what I did. Her eyes are narrowing and her tongue is working around the inside of her mouth and she’s staring daggers at me.

Why? Because she asked me if her husband was cheating on her and I told her “No.”

You would think that was good news. I would think that was good news. Learning that her husband loves her and is faithful to her pissed this woman off. She was so sure he was cheating. She was so sure I was going to confirm her suspicions. When the cards contradicted her she had a choice. She could examine herself and what she was thinking and why. But she didn’t. She chose to think the worst of her husband and conclude that I was a fraud.

Suspicion and distrust have a place but it’s at the end of the line of options not the beginning. Frequently enough, I see people whose first reaction to situations is suspicion. They rapidly find a target for their suspicion and convince themselves that they are clever and have it all figured out. Given time they even get self-righteous about it. But they aren’t clever. They don’t have it all figured out. They are afraid and insecure. Those two feelings make people do whacky things.

This woman sat across from me and told me a list of events that could have been innocent or not. She had no evidence that her husband was up to no good. All she had were suspicions based on how she felt. I’m all for trusting your gut but your gut needs to be educated. (that is a blog post for another day)

People who default to suspicion use it as a defense mechanism to combat their insecurities and fears. They don’t require proof. They just know. It makes them feel in control. It feels like they have a handle on the things that are hurting them and that those things are someone else’s fault. That is so much easier for them than the self-examination they really need to do.

While they are protecting themselves they are destroying their relationships. Suspicion is corrosive. It is hurtful. Damaged trust is very difficult to repair. It’s especially hard when the person who no longer trusts you has no good reason not to. How do you defend yourself against false charges and prove you didn’t do something? You can’t.

This angry, hurt woman made snide comments about my skill as a reader. Knowing I don’t give refunds she insinuated that I should since I wasted her time. There were a few more choice tidbits. I didn’t respond to any of them. She is, of course, going to tell all her friends that I’m no good and a waste of money. I wished her well. I also smudged my space and put her name in the “Fired” file.

Truthfully, I don’t care that she thinks I’m a fraud. I feel bad for her husband because she has convinced herself he is up to no good and there is nothing that will change her mind. Her attitude is going to end her marriage and she will blame him and not see that it was all her doing.

Acceptance

 Posted by
Nov 192018
 

 

The most important part of any lasting relationship is acceptance. Friendship, family, coworker, and most of all spousal relationships benefit from acceptance. People are flawed. They can be irritating, self-centered, and just downright annoying. You cannot love someone for who they are and attempt to change who they are at the same time. Accept them as they are; especially if you love them.

Now, understand that acceptance, and approval, are not the same thing. They have been conflated in our culture by people who have been careless with their words. Acceptance is seeing someone for who they are and acknowledging the truth about them. Approval is celebrating what you find in another. It is actively, liking something that the other person is, or says, or does. Acceptance has nothing to do with liking what’s going on. Acceptance is closer to non-resistance than it is to approval.

Acceptance is difficult when the other person is very different from you or holds different values from yours. Under those circumstances approval is nearly impossible. In any meaningful relationship this will come up time and again. It is important to remember that while the other person is yours in a relational way, (your child; your parent; your spouse) they are not your property. They are adults who belong to themselves and the choices they make about their lives are also theirs, not yours. By accepting the adults in your life as they are, you are respecting their autonomy.

This Thanksgiving Day, when you find yourself seated between the one relative who voted for Hillary and thinks Obama was the greatest president ever, and the other relative who is wearing a MAGA hat, remember the good things about these people you love and accept the whackiness that makes them the individuals that they are.

Disappointment

 Posted by
Nov 122018
 

In the last week or so I have pulled the four of cups and the five of cups for quite a few clients I’ve read for. When a card shows up a lot I pay attention to it. Sometimes it’s something I need to look into for myself and other times it’s a heads up about the energy around at the time. I did the introspective thing on this and I’m not particularly disappointed or dissatisfied with my world right now. I took a step back, got a wider view and I can see this energy simmering away in several areas. That’s not a good thing.

Disappointment happens when your expectations and reality don’t agree. When that thing you wanted so much, that you believed it was real, turns out not to be so real after all. How invested you are in your version of things effects how deeply disappointed you will be when the world tells you can’t have that version.

Adjusting to reality is a process and for some people it takes only a few moments. They understand that this is the way it goes and they move on to the next thing. Other people resist for a while as they work through it. The idea that things are not as they want them to be is too much for small bunch of people so they ignore reality to varying degrees. A few resist forever.

 

(Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham)

Accepting that you aren’t going to get your way is part of the human experience. It happens to us all. Understanding that you aren’t alone is helpful in processing this and processing this is important. One of the many obstacles we put in our own way is our refusal to move past disappointments.

 

We so very much want things to go our way that some of us get angry at reality and try to force the outcome we want. Some even do this repeatedly aiming for the same outcome. Each time we are thwarted we find a new way to manipulate things to get our way. And each time we do this we make facing that disappointment harder for ourselves.

People who take it this far feel entitled to have things turn out the way they want. Out of frustration they come to readers like me expecting an easy answer or a quick solution to their quandary. They really don’t see their own part in this until those cups cards show up and we start talking about what they are focusing on and what they are missing.

These readings go one of two ways. Either the client gets mad at me or they catch on right there. The angry clients don’t come see me for months or they never come back at all. The ones who are ready to do the work, to get out of their own way, hear what the cards and I have to say. Sometimes there are tears. Most of the time we can get to a level of acceptance and the client feels lighter and more in control of her life. Those breakthroughs happened quite a few times this week and it made me love this work all over again.

Gratitude ~ The Healthiest Emotion

 Posted by
Nov 052018
 

 

This is the month of Thanksgiving. If you go into most retail shops you would think it’s Christmastime. It’s not. It’s time to be grateful.

Brother David Steindl-Rast, who has a TED Talk titled Want to be happy? Be Grateful said “The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

Gratitude is expansive. It makes what you have enough. Your life, your home, your job, your relationships, all become more when you appreciate the gifts that they are. As the opposite of scarcity thinking it puts you in a mindset of abundance and shapes your awareness of how good things actually are. It’s an appreciation for the things in your life and your life itself. Zig Ziglar called gratitude the healthiest emotion and he went on to say the more grateful you are the more you will have to be grateful about. He’s right because your brain loves to have its biases confirmed. If you focus on things to be grateful for it will find more for you.

At its simplest gratitude is a decision. It is an active choice to see what there is to be grateful for. This requires a shift in focus. Sometimes that can be a challenge but the practice of living in a state of gratitude is so transformative it is worth the effort. There have been many psychological and scientific studies done on the effects of gratitude on your quality of life and the benefits it bestows. The active practice of being in gratitude releases dopamine, a feel good brain chemical. So, not only does this practice make you happier it helps you sleep better, and alleviates depression.

Spend this month being grateful and see what happens.

Stop Looking For Your Soulmate

 Posted by
Oct 152018
 

 

For the longest time I only had the title of this post written. The topic of soulmates comes up all the time. One blog post is probably not enough to explore it fully, but trust me on this: stop looking for your soulmate.

I’ve heard all the stories you’re telling yourself. I’ve had dozens of dreamy-eyed clients share them with me in hopes that the cards can give them a date and time for Prince Charming’s arrival. It doesn’t work that way.

The idea of soulmates has been around for ages. Plato discusses it in his Symposium. He has the gods splitting multi-limbed humans into the bipeds we are now, leaving us longing for our missing half. There is the idea of Twin Flames which is one soul in two bodies. Edgar Cayce has you hooking up life after life with the same soulmate. I get the appeal. It’s sort of romantic to think there is someone out there who is the ideal fit for you. Add to this, romance novels and movies that revolve around the idea of a perfect mate who swoops in and they live happily ever after, and you have a persistent idea that won’t go away.

As a concept it’s lovely. As a way of operating in the world it’s problematic. It actually gets in the way of meaningful connection. If you think there is a perfect person waiting out there for you then you also think you know exactly what that looks like. This creates a template that all potential mates have to fit into or you reject them as not being ‘the one.’ Expecting perfection from people is unreasonable and sets you up for disappointment and them for frustration. Depending on what you believe about soulmates you will end relationships because of disagreements, or even simple misunderstandings. You tell yourself that your real soulmate would never do this or that or the other thing and you decide that behavior is proof that the person you are with is not right for you. Relationships don’t work this way.

Humans are flawed. Each and every one of us is imperfect. Having a wonderful, fulfilling relationship with someone is not effortless, even if that someone is who you are destined to be with. Expecting another person to intuitively know what you want and how to be with you is unrealistic and unfair. No one can do that and especially not before you really know each other. If you chase them off or ghost them you will never get to really know each other.

Why do I say stop looking for your soulmate? Because, the quest for a life partner is not a pursuit; it’s more about being the right person than it is about hunting for the right person. Stop looking for your soulmate and focus on being the best version of you that you can be. Learn who you really are and what you really want. Most importantly: Trust. Trust the Powers That Be to arrange the meeting at the optimal time. Trust that a guy who meets the good guy checklist is worth the effort even if he doesn’t conform to your notion of perfect. Trust yourself enough to allow for imperfection.

 

(photo by Joe Yates on Unsplash)

Ancestors

 Posted by
Oct 082018
 

 

“Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine, but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents; Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as ‘my’ feet were actually ‘our’ feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh from No Death, No Fear

My daughter worked in the marketing department of a local company for the past three years. There were months in there where she was the entire marketing department all by herself. They loved her. She received great evaluations and several raises over the years. Then they hired a new manager who decided to change things up. He fired her. (He fired a few other people too but I’m not their mother and this story is about my girl.)

This was the first time she was ever fired from a job. She was so hurt and angry. They didn’t even give her a reason, which they don’t have to, but it would have at least helped her make sense of it. Life is like that though. Shitty things happen and you don’t always know why. It’s difficult watching your children go through life’s hard times.

She took a day to regroup and then set about finding a new job. We live in the Lower Hudson Valley and a lot of people here commute into New York City for work. It would be soul crushing for her to have to do that but we both knew if there were no bites locally she would. To help her out I did some road opening work on her behalf. She found lots of local jobs to apply to but no one was biting. After a month of this I decided to call in the big guns. I asked my dad for help.

My father was a corporate headhunter. He had spent his whole career in personnel work of one kind or another. He wrote amazing resumes and helped a few of my friends find work when they found themselves unemployed. He would have been thrilled to help her navigate the waters of job hunting. I really wish I could have just picked up the phone or had her call him, but he died in 2012. A phone wasn’t going to work.

In my home I have a nice bookcase full of books and family photos. If you were to visit me you wouldn’t think you were looking at my ancestor altar. But you would be. I know the names of many of my people on my father’s side going back about two hundred years. On my mother’s side I know less. I have photos of my grandparents, one set of great grandparents, and even one set of great-great grandparents. They sacrificed a lot so I could be here today. I thank them for that on a regular basis. On a recent day I asked them for help. I asked on behalf of my daughter, who is their child too. I asked them to help her by lining up the opportunities she needed. She would do all the mundane work. I had a conversation with them like I would have if I could have phoned them. They were told the finer details of the situation and how it fit into modern life and her life. I asked my dad specifically for whatever help he could give her. He understood the finer points of personnel and hiring better than any of the rest.

The next morning she called me. She had an interview. A resume she sent out nearly two months ago landed on the right desk and they were excited to talk to her. The job was perfect for her and by the end of the week they offered it to her. It was more money than she was making at the previous place and the commute was the same. She was overjoyed and so were we.

Family is family whether they are here or passed on. They are ours and we are theirs. The ancestors are the suffering, wisdom, and love of generations of our family. Thanking them for making your life possible and occasionally asking the loving members for guidance and help is a way to honor them. We are the family they built. We are blood of their blood and bone of their bone. We are the result of their love and their sacrifices, and they are our allies.

Autumn is Here

 Posted by
Oct 012018
 

I’ve been seeing lots of posts regarding a phenomenon called Autumn Anxiety, so named by a therapist in Wales, Ginny Scully, who was seeing a lot of patients with similar symptoms this time of year.  It’s attributed to the crush of responsibility that a lot of people feel when summer ends and the “real world” comes crashing back in. Some say it has to do with the shortened days and a feeling of anticipation but they can’t quite pinpoint what they are anticipating. There are lots of articles online with decent advice for dealing with this but none of them address the thing I think is partially at fault here.

There is a primal part of us that is still very much at work in our lives. It is the animal part of us that we like to pretend doesn’t exist. The fear response we have to perceived threats dates all the way back deep into prehistory; to prelanguage days actually. It’s function is to keep you alive by warning you of dangers. The brain of a modern human still has this fear response because it worked so well for our ancestors that they passed it down to us. Yay! It’s a wonderful thing when it keeps us from getting killed by a bear or burning ourselves in a fire. It’s when this response is triggered by things that aren’t really dangerous that we have problems. This sometimes manifests as anxiety.

With the changing weather comes the end of the harvest. For thousands of years this was the time of year that our ancestors either put by enough food for the coming winter or they didn’t. They knew that a bad growing season meant a hard winter. If, in February, they were out of onions, that was that. There was no supermarket to run to. The shortening days meant time was running out to put away grain for the coming months. It meant that they had only a few more weeks before the frost and freezes drove them indoors and they had to be prepared for whatever might come so they could survive the winter. Our ancestors operated like this for millennia. It had to have a lasting effect on our human psyche.

In the modern world we have outsourced almost all our basic needs. We don’t hunt, gather, build our own homes, sew our own clothes, chop our own wood; at least most of us don’t. Some of us do these things as hobbies now. We work for money to pay others to do these things for us because they can do it more effectively for the most part. But deep in our brains is the primal us. The part that knows that winter can kill you. The part that knows we didn’t grow any food this year. That ancient relic from our ancestors is triggered when the days get shorter and the air gets colder. I think acknowledging this instinctual response to the season is helpful in handling the change.

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