Do you sabotage your own happiness?

We're sitting on our back lawn, smoking, and my sister, da'Renegade Mama (dRM), heaves a sigh.

"I don't know why I do this!  I'm at the 11th hour again with my homework, and now I'm dreading doing it because I'll have to pull an all-nighter to get it done.  It doesn't make any sense because I LOVE what I'm studying!  Everything I read for school, every paper I write, every assignment is highly fulfilling and interesting ... and yet I put it off and put it off and treat it like a duty until I resent it and have to grind my way through the task!"

She goes on..

"And if anyone asked me what my number one favorite thing is in the world, I'd answer that it's playing with my kids.  Playing with them - wrestling and dancing and jumping on the trampoline and throwing frisbees.  And how often do you see me do that?'

I shrug my shoulders.  "Like two or three times a week," I reply.

"Right!  But if it's my favorite thing, why don't I do it every day?!?"

We sit in silence for a few moments.

I add, "I love running.  Like, love LOVE it.  And I can't remember the last time I went running."

"So why do we sabotage all of our happiness by avoiding the very things that make us happy," dRM wonders aloud.

That's a good question!

I hear this question quite a bit actually.  At the coffee/metaphysical shop I work at, I chat with customers a lot.  We get into what's going on in their lives and I invariably hear, "I should read more - learning more about this new age stuff is so fulfilling to me!" or "I should meditate more.  When I do, I feel so much better, but I just don't, even when I have the time and will to."  On and on.  Just yesterday, one of my housemates, Papasan, mused that he put off his homework all weekend, and spent the whole weekend drenched in guilt, and when he finally did the homework - which only took him about an hour - he felt light, happy and free as a bird!

Can you think, right now, of things that you absolutely love that you never do, even when you have the time and resources to do them?

What is it in our culture/belief systems, our biology, or psychology makes this sabotage so commonplace?

I have a few thoughts, but I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

First, I think culturally, we give a lot of power to guilt and "hard work" and are veritably terrified of hedonism.  By hard work, I'm referring to forcing oneself to put their nose to the grindstone, use discipline, and dig their way through something.  My dad used to always say when we were little "Great people do hard things".  If something makes us happy and we enjoy doing it it feels wrong to us, or at the very least suspicious.  I can't just enjoy myself day-in-and-day-out reading books and going running - that would make me a hedonist!  Our culture teaches us that too much enjoyment and pleasure is small-minded, wicked, or wasteful.  So we limit our enjoyment, even if limiting it gets in the way of our personal development.

Maybe that sounds far-fetched to you.  But let me ask you this - how often do you choose to do the hard things before the easy things just to "get them over with"?  I do it all the time when I eat.  I always eat my least-favorite part of a meal first, and save the best for last.  Guess what happens?  I feel full halfway through the meal and still haven't even tasted my favorite part of it.  So now I'm in a conundrum - do I stop eating and miss out on what I was most looking forward to, or gorge myself?  Do you do the same thing?  Do you stay up until bedtime doing your least favorite things, and then you have to choose between getting the sleep your body craves or reading that book you've been dying to get to?

I think we are afraid of too much happiness because we are taught to be afraid of hedonism.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

This brings us to my second thought on the topic, which is that we have unrealistic expectations for the things we love.  Because absence makes the heart grow fonder, we begin to believe that the things we love are 100% easy and delightful from start to finish.  That's simply not true!  Let's go back to me and my love of running.  What I love about running is feeling powerful and strong, feeling the blood coursing through my body and my muscles feeling fatigued and still taking me miles and miles further.  I love the power that comes from setting my mind to the task and the physical reward of having a strong mind.  But right now, I'm out of shape, so running doesn't do that for me.  Right now, running makes me feel weak, slow and fat.  So when I go running, it does the exact opposite of what my expectations for it are.  Because my expectations are unrealistic.  Running is challenging and takes a lot of focus and dedication.  And only after consistently applying focus and dedication to the challenge do the rewards present themselves.

Now, returning to dRM's lamentations.  Playing with her kids is FUN ... for about 1/3 of the experience.  But it also includes being out in super-hot or super-cold weather, changing flat tires on bikes, packing around snacks and taking incessant potty breaks, and the kicker, managing 4 beautiful grommets fighting over each other for mom's attention.  And, of course, with kids, if you play with them once, then for the next week, every five minutes they're wondering why you aren't ready to swing from the chandeliers with them again - it sets a precedent that is challenging to live up to.

So yes, the things that make us happy truly do bring a lot to our lives, but they also often require dedication and challenge.  That taints them for us.  Why not just settle for the happy memories instead of dredging through the effort for the payout?

Finally, we tend in our culture to have an all-or-nothing attitude about pretty much everything.  I can't have fun until I'm in perfect physical shape and have the perfect wardrobe, home and appliances to match the level of happiness I aspire to; I can't convince people (or myself) that I'm happy if I'm fat, single or poor!  I have to have it all in order to experience any happiness whatsoever!  And even if I do things I love, because I'm fat/single/poor/etc. I couldn't even enjoy them because I'd know I'm falling short of the dream!

I can't just go running when I feel like it, I must go every day and be continually improving my pace and distance.  We can't just do the same thing over and over with the kids - we have to innovate more fun activities!  And I can't enjoy this book until my house is perfectly clean and my inbox is cleared out and I've prepared a 100% raw, organic, vegan dinner.  Then, and ONLY THEN can I actually enjoy it!

Not true.

We are so overloaded with guilt for what we don't do, that we don't allow ourselves to enjoy the things we want to do.  Is it impossible to "have it all?"  Probably not.  But it's unreasonable to hold happiness at bay until we have it all.  Wouldn't you rather have "some of it all" and every day experience those things that make you most happy - and become a truly happy person - than finally achieve it all and have lived years or decades in stress and guilt?

I say, cook your kids ramen for dinner once a week so that you have time to play with them, if playing with them makes you truly happy.  Eat the dessert you love and gain a little weight if eating dessert rocks your world.  Choose happiness over other things regularly, even if it means cutting corners, and then from a happy place find ways to improve areas of your life that you feel merit improvement.

Does this mean I condone a full-fledged hedonistic lifestyle?  No.  It isn't black or white like that.  Be a hedonist two or three hours a day, and with the time that's left, go back to chipping away at the grindstone.  There's a time and a place for seeking pleasure, and I think that time comes around at least once a day.  Be balanced with where you get your pleasure from - sometimes a fabulous TV show, sometimes skipping through the park, sometimes chatting with a friend for three hours - but not always all of it.  Just dedicate two or three hours to doing whatever it is you love, every day, no matter what.  Inject happiness in your life, then build from that base.

And finally, for those really grueling tasks there are psychological happiness games you can play to make them more fun.  Only do them to music you love.  Do them in your favorite pair of underwear that you reserve for special occasions.  Allow yourself to eat one bite of your favorite food for every math problem you finish.

In our home, with four small children, dRM and Risseroo made one small change of verbiage that changed the kids' entire paradigm about their chores.  "Do your chores," we'd say, "you can't play on the Kindle until your chores are done."  Then we experienced about an hour of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  So one day, dRM and Riss decided to call chores "life skills."  They told the kids that they needed to practice their life skills every day in order to be ready for adulthood.  The change was astonishing.  The kids started arriving home from school with, "When do we get to do our life skills?"  After dinner, we'd say, "Ok, you can come watch us play Donkey Kong" (because Riss and I play so amazingly that the kids are overcome with joy at simply watching us play ... he he he) and the older girls made faces at us and said, "Nuh-uh!  We haven't done our life skills yet!"  Um, the 7 and 5 year-olds reminded us that they hadn't done their chores yet.

So when it's time to clean your house, are you cleaning, or loving on your home?  How different would it be to say, "I'm gonna show some love to my toilet that I'm so grateful takes our waste far, far away," instead of, "Gotta clean the toilets ... *sigh* ... again ..."  Or, "I get my blood pumping every morning and clear my pores for perfect skin," instead of "I'm gonna go sweat like a pig at the gym."  Try it.  It works.  What chores in your life can become your life skills?

One last thing that I have recently rediscovered.  Do it now.  When something pops into your mind and makes sense, just take action right away.  Don't give yourself time to think through whether or not you want to do it and when you should start.  If it pops in your mind that you haven't played with your kids for a while and you kind of miss it ... stand right up and find your offspring and initiate play.  Even if only for 2 minutes.  If you suddenly get the urge to crack into your work or homework, before thinking about it, stand right up and do it.  I had this happen to me last week.  Risseroo goes to the gym every morning at 7.  One afternoon, I was reading a book, and paused with the thought, "I could totally go to the gym with her and it would be fun.  My biggest holdup with working out is that I don't follow through unless I have someone to go with that I'm just a little bit accountable to, and here's someone right in my house that I adore who goes every morning at a reasonable hour, and I'm not going.  Why?"  Then I decided I'd think about it for another day or two to decide if I really wanted to do it or not.  A few hours later, Riss and I were out back smoking, and the thought popped into my mind again, and I realized that I had no reason to not start immediately, except for pure procrastination.  So I said, "I think I want to start going to the gym with you."  Riss said, "Yay!  Awesome!"  And then I said, "Wake me up tomorrow.  I want to start tomorrow."

And I've gone to the gym with her every day since.

If I had paused to think about it for a few days, I would have not even started by now, or probably ever.  And today I ran 3 miles on the treadmill and we did 45 minutes of lifting weights.  Did you hear that?  I went RUNNING today.  And I clocked a reasonable distance for starting up, so I didn't feel fat or slow, but I felt strong!  Going to the gym with Riss is one of the highlights of my day - even though I wake up a full 5 hours earlier than normal for me (yes, I usually wake up around noon).

So whatever this post is making you think of, do it now.  One small step in that direction you're thinking of - you don't have to take on the whole enchilada, but set it in motion now.  No more planning or contemplating, just step towards happiness.  And make sure five or six times a day you consciously take more small steps towards your happiness.

Because wouldn't you rather be happy than anything else?

Spiritual Memoir #6: Life is Not a Competition ... or ... The Race I'd Never Win

 For an explanation of this Spiritual Memoir
blog series, see THIS post.

Radiant Rider Waite Tarot

Tarot Card: Nine of Wands

(see pics in this post from various decks)

My Interpretations of the Card
"When creation cages the creator"

I totally pick these cards at random - and I found it really interesting to get the nine of wands right after the four of wands.  Because I see the four of wands as mastering creative power and sticking it in the ground as the framing for life (see post on that HERE) ... and I see the nine of wands (this post) as that use of creative power barely being contained - to the point where it's haunting to the creator.

In the Rider Waite symbolism, the dude is looking very jumpy and suspicious, with a wall of wands/creations behind him.  He's holding on tight to one wand, looking over his shoulder.  The card feels so defensive, protective, and afraid.  But the wands aren't doing that, the wands are just being what wands are; the dude has turned them into a wall for him to peek through to the world.

In contrast, the four of wands shows the wands independently standing, with people cheering their energy on.  It's open and community-oriented.  This card, the nine, is closed and impatiently impersonal.

Crystal Visions Tarot

In the Crystal Visions tarot, a fiery and melancholy woman sits on her lion throne, surrounded in the night by blazing torches. This depiction seems more confident which is a positive edge, but overall it still feels brazen, defensive and almost threatening to me.

Little caveat here: As I was looking at/for different nine of wands cards from different decks for this post, I found a lot of variety in the energy of the card - often with a more positive and reassuring twist.  While that's cool, I like the cards in the tarot that carry shady, nervous, dark, or cold energies, because I feel like they create a more complete, complex reflection of the world we live in.  (My Spirit Guides disagree with me though ... see THIS post).  So I leave this card in its ill-dignified interpretation for this post, and will do so with other cards in future posts, as I see fit.  (Man, is that statement the Emperor meets Queen of Swords or what?!?  I'm so bold! :)

Spiritual Memoir: Nine of Wands
When I was about 8 years old, I started a fast-paced track in life.  My parents saw that normal old public school didn't challenge me, so they started me in various challenging extra curricular activities.  I started with private art lessons at home and horseback riding lessons at a local farm.  At about age 10, I was already fluent in Spanish, so I also started private French tutoring at home.  Then, my parents got me an oboe tutor, picking what they understood to be one of the hardest instruments to play.  I excelled at all of it.  Next, I skipped sixth grade, gaining permission from the school board after scoring 136 on an IQ test.

In Junior High, I took advanced classes, but still was bored out of my mind.  My dad bribed my teachers to give me extra assignments and book reports that would affect my grades in exchange for him donating expensive book sets to the school library.  I liked math a lot, and on my own took my pre-algebra book home and finished the entire book's assignments in about two weeks.  So the school moved me into algebra.  I finished that book in about two months.  So then they put me in geometry.  I taught myself geometry in about half a school year.  I was 12.

By the time I was 15, I had been to over 20 countries in the world, was fluent in French and Spanish, and skipped 10th, 11th and 12th grades, and started my first semester of college.  At 16 I worked three jobs, completed my Associate's Degree and paid for all of my books and tuition with my own cash, bought myself a car, and spent the summer setting up the entire inventory system of my sister's new bookstore.  Believe it or not, I had a healthy circle of friends and even dated.

Once, when I was 16 I got hired as an Executive Assistant to a top executive at a prestigious local company, based on my resume and interview.  He called me back the next day and told me that he couldn't give me the job because he found out I wasn't a legal adult.  I also flew through all interviews for a $35,000/year job at 16 and was going to be hired, but my brother worked at the company and talked the managers out of it because I was young and, though accomplished, actually historically flighty.

Housewives Tarot

Despite the age discrimination, the world was my oyster!  Like the Housewives Tarot's nine of wands, I had my happy face on with all of the brooms and mops surrounding me as I climbed my ladder of success.  Anything was possible, and I actually had the terrible attitude of thinking everyone around me was pretty dumb.  I knew I could do anything, ace any challenge, impress anyone I talked to, and get away with just about any degree of nonsense.

And with that, I found myself very alone in the world.

Although I was surrounded by peers and admirers and all of the wonderful wands of my accomplishments, I was lonely in my defensive stronghold of awesomeness.  I had no idea who I was.  I knew I could do anything, but chose to do what would impress or shock or fill my resume ... never what I liked, or what I was passionate about, or what fulfilled me, or blessed others.

It got worse over time, and hit like a ton of bricks when I was 21 years old.  I had earned a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration.  I hate business.  I was out of debt and had a teacher that offered to take me under his wing and start a market research firm with him.  I hated market research, and in reality, hated the teacher (although looking back I adore him!).  I didn't have any friends except my one sister.  I had stopped dating and was holding out for one particular person whom I had alienated and expected to come back.  I was a shell.  I was a fancy exterior around a scared, lonely, angry little girl.  And for the first time in my life I realized that without the competition of racing through life, I had nothing.

Accomplishments don't necessarily define us, and they certainly don't always improve us.  Nine of wands energy speaks of how sometimes we create for the sake of creation, we do for the sake of doing.  It's a trap.  We can get so wrapped up in the heat of the moment that we forget who we are and why we're about the tasks at hand.  Think about times when you realized you weren't eating because you were hungry - you were eating for the sake of eating; or that you weren't dating someone because you loved them or enjoyed their company - but were with them for the sake of not being alone.  Mindless occupation, habits of industry, hegemonic compliance.

My passion for overachieving and racing through life built a wall around me, and when I stopped to consider where I was at, I found myself trapped in a ring of fire (like the Crystal Visions tarot).  I was ready to defend myself!! ... but against what?

Incidentally I had an experience at age 24 where I was invited in a meditation to visualize myself with God, and to ask Him who I was.  Who am I?  Whether or not it was God I talked to or just getting in touch with my higher self, or my inner being, the answer surprised me...
I wasn't told I was a smart, accomplished, fast, powerful leader of the universe...

"You are a tender, Divine, accepting woman of light."

That's what I heard.  I am kind, I am deep, I am open to others, I am wise, I am gentle... hmmm... no race or competition in that...

And what's really interesting is that I realized, at age 24, that was how I actually saw myself.  I saw myself in my mind's eye as a gentle, quiet, deep-thinking, and accepting 8 year-old.  Right back to where I started off!

Lesson learned: life's not a race or competition - that attitude isolates and alienates, building fiery walls of separation between me and others.  Keep to my heart, my purpose, my values.   Just because I am capable of tearing the world apart with big brains and an intimidating resume, doesn't mean I ought to, doesn't mean I have to to be a good or valuable person, and certainly doesn't mean I want to.  The tools don't define the objectives of master, the master wields the tools for his own design - (but first, he becomes the master).


"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth... - as in being able to remake ourselves."  --Gandhi

The Rebellion is Over - or - War is Obsolete

When I was about 12, I complained to my mom about a class or teacher or something, and she told me the following story:

When your big sister was in AP History, she struggled a lot.  And one day I walked into her room and saw that she'd hung a banner on her wall that said "WAR ON HISTORY."  Instead of complaining or giving up, she decided she'd fight to get an A in that class, and you know what?  She did.  


I, of course, was irritated by the story at first, because that is how 12 year-olds respond to parental guidance, and then after a day or so I was like, "Yeah!  I can do this!  War on *whatever it was*!"  And I'll be damned if it didn't work - because it became a standard tactic in my toolbox for overcoming things.

When I was 13 at boarding school, I employed War on History to my Algebra 2 teacher, because she made me crazy.  By the end of the class, we were best friends.  I made her love me.  I decided I would make any sacrifice - even getting F's in all other classes to make Mrs. Macintosh love me.  It worked.

I moved out belligerently when I was 17 because I was declaring War on my Parents.  I was going to show them how much I didn't need their expectations, their rules and requirements, or their love.

I would declare War on boys I was attracted to - "I will MAKE him love me."  It usually worked.

I would declare War to run faster, lose weight, eat healthy, starve-myself-for-Kenya-for-two-months, ad nauseum...

...and on and on for over a decade.  Declaring war was how I accomplished things.  It was how I decided what to go for in life.  Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't - but in general, I controlled my life because if anything else even threatened power over me, I declared war on it and worked towards overpowering it.

Something has happened to me in the past 2 years though.  Suddenly, declaring war is harder to do.  Beyond simply being exhausted by living my life on a battleground, I realized that more often than not, the things I declare war about aren't worth fighting for.  It's not worth a gigantic emotional battle to try and control your love for me.  It's not worth sleepless nights, haunting schedules, and false personas to make a business succeed - I hate business.  I hate capitalism.  Wait ... what am I doing?  What is my life all about???

---

Fast forward, to last night.  Last night, my sister Sunny Jo was doing an emotional balance treatment/exercise with me.  As we discussed in particular my weight issues, she told me that she once had a client that realized she gained weight as a way to retaliate against her health-conscious parents.  And she realized, in her 40's, that there's really no point in rebelling any more against her parents.  "The Rebellion is Over became her mantra," Sunny explained.

I thought about that.

The Rebellion is Over.

It made me think of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution, as I understand it.  People were due to revolt, to declare war.  But once the aristocracy was eliminated, these people were impassioned for battle -- bloodthirsty in general -- and began finding excuses to kill more, to hunt more, and to have more war in general.  Why did they not realize The Rebellion is Over? ...

When did they stop being peasants, and become warriors?  And if we are warriors, and there is no war, what are we to do?

I think society shows us what we do - we declare war on everything.  War on Islam!  War on Homosexuals!  War on Terror!  War on Drugs!  War on Poverty!  War on Free Speech!  War on Sharing!  War on Kindness!  War on Neighbors, Family Members, Friends and anything else that we come up with!  War on War!  ... War on Peace!

How ironic that my initial exposure to this very principle was "War on History!"

So ... when is the Rebellion Over?

It's been over for a long time.  And so many of us are still out fighting windmills.

---

As I was talking to Sunny Jo, she said, "Why don't you exercise and eat well?  Why not?"  I replied, "Because I don't want to be one of 'those people.'  I don't want image, and dietary restrictions, and I'm-so-athletic, and god-you-look-great to rule my life."  Sunny responded, "So ... you're rebelling against ... 'them'?  Whoever they are? ... Holly, the Rebellion is Over."

Oh.


So I'd love to hear what you do with this thought, and I'm contemplating what I do about it.  To this day, how many of my decisions do I make because I'm FIGHTING?  When will I know peace?  I'm tired of fighting for my rights, fighting my weight, fighting traffic, fighting for freedom, fighting until the end...  When will I know peace?

Now.  The Rebellion is Over.

Fighting is obsolete.

How?  Because every battle I fought yesterday was an imaginary battle that I created to validate myself as a tough, stripling warrior.


But if I want to know peace in my life, I have to stop fighting!  It isn't a change in behavior, but a change in attitude and thinking.  When things go wrong, instead of feeling threatened or ambushed or judged, I could just smile and think, "That's interesting.  Good thing the Rebellion is Over!"  And then what happens next doesn't matter.  I'm at peace.  That's all I care about.  When I beat myself up because I'm becoming a deplorable warrior, I can just stop and say, "How appropriate - given that the Rebellion is Over..." And then I'm at peace.  What follows doesn't matter.

What an astonishing revelation!  The Rebellion is Over.


(Many thanks to SunJo, dRM, and J for being Lights in my life and encouraging/helping me lay down my weapons.)

The Individual in a Village

I was raised in a household where independence was the most treasured and rewarded trait. I could be smart, funny, athletic, or kind and it never held any luster unless I did it with an independent spirit.

My father was the firstborn son to a 16-year old girl. His mother, my grandma Ovard, subsequently had 3 more children. She never graduated high school, never pursued a career, and barely struggled to feed her family. At the ripe age of 18 Dad joined the Army and became the breadwinner for his mother and siblings.

Through the years he cared for Grandma, and all of his siblings at one time or another, while raising a family of 8 children. This made him tough, and fortunately he was clever as well, and made a fortune for himself. Over the years his toughness has peeled away to reveal a tender and loving man who cares deeply for the welfare of others.

But being the youngest of the 8 children in my family, I was raised in an impoverished household. And as the money began to flow into my father's life, he very much hid it from us kids. He wanted us to experience the roughness of life in the hopes that we'd toughen up like he had.

At the baffling age of 13 I was told that I'd had to earn money for any new clothes I may want, including socks and underwear. I was encouraged to buy my own deodorant and face wash. My parents spent money on me in the form of private tutors, who would come into my home and teach me French, oboe and art lessons as I wore the clothing my neighbors had handed down to my older siblings. My father would talk to local day care centers and have me work 30 hours a week in the summers as a "volunteer" while he'd pay me hourly for my work. I tutored other kids during the school year and he'd pay me hourly for that.

When I was 16, I was in college already and needed a car. I got a job working at Arby's and a job working at Uncle Sam's Army Navy Outdoor, AND I was attending school full-time. Since I didn't have a car, my mom would drive me to college, pick me up and drop me off and Arby's then pick me up later and drop me off at Uncle Sam's. It has been a consistent pattern in my life to work several jobs at a time. Later that year, my Dad told me I'd have to start paying for my own college as well.

I moved out at 17. It took me until I was 21 to get my bachelor's degree, and I did it incurring very little debt. Just working a lot. I'd live with my sisters or rent a cheap room. I learned to wait tables - a great source of income for the independent spirit.

To this day, I have this belief that I must prove my independence to the world. I struggle to ask for help from anyone that isn't a very, very close friend. I'm the girl who carries all of the groceries into the house in one load, while my hands turn purple, to prove I can do it myself, and I can do it without any waste of time.

This streak has affected many areas of my life. I struggle with fashion. I find it crippling to be identified with the trendy crowd. I've been known to keep my hair very short and sometimes shaved (at the moment it's very long though). Social situations terrify me. How do I mingle with others as I obsessively fret over my need to be independent of others? I have employees now and I find it absolutely impossible to delegate tasks to them. Etcetera. I go to a bar or club and look for ways to be "distracted" out of socializing. I proudly go to movies or dinner alone, after rejecting a friend's invitation to join them.

In my study of the Tarot, I have recently studied the Hierophant card of the Major Arcana. Pictured here is the card from the Universal Waite deck (my favorite deck at the moment).

A quick review: In the Fool's journey he meets an active male, passive male, active female, and passive female - his parents and beginning influences and introductions to life.

The next stage is to meet the Hierophant. The Hierophant is depicted as a religious leader, with two acolytes - or attendants - engaged in an initiation ceremony. The Hierophant sits above them, in his tiered crown, holding the power to accept or reject them as members of his fold.

This card represents the stage in life when one finds organizations, clubs, schools, social circles, religions, etc. that they would like to belong to. There are rules, though, and qualifications that must be met before admittance into these institutions. It lies in the hands of each of us to decide how badly we want to belong and to willingly rise to the standards. Think of young college students eagerly going through initiation into a fraternity.

Many people, in their formative years, encounter this experience of the Hierophant, and indulge in it. They work hard and get on the teams, or they buy the clothes that help them fit in. They learn the skills that get them jobs or practice the video games to *pawn* their opponents. In the culture I was raised in, in Utah, a lot of the pressure is to fit into the prominent LDS religion. Who's going to be called as a leader in the church? Who can be considered worthy, humble, penitent, knowledgeable, Christlike, etc.? Who wears clothing that is modest and decent? Who can cook and clean and care for children? All of these questions lead to the true question at hand: who meets up to the standards?

It was all often a struggle for me. I'm very competitive, by virtue of my independence, and so instead of being initiated into the societies of my youth, I challenged them all. (It's the Artemis in me.) I searched in life for things to not belong to - places where I would stand out. Independent.

Unfortunately for me, though I am an individual, I still belong to a village. I've rarely accepted that in my life. I've never embraced it unless I got to be the big leader. It was a critical stage of my development that got skipped. I jumped from Dad's rigid lessons in independence (The Emperor, card 4) straight to my personal independence (The Lovers, card 6).

As I discussed in my last post, the Lovers card is tied to the story of the Garden of Eden. When Eve partook of the fruit directly disobeying her father's orders she became responsible for her actions. For the first time in her existence, she was independent. The Lovers card shows the transition from childlike innocence, to adult independence.

In life, until we become masters of love, and masters at approaching all situations from a space of love, there is an eternal debate between the Hierophant and the Lovers. One says "follow me" (Hierophant) while the other says "make your own path" (the Lovers). Both options are appropriate in life, depending on the situation. Sometimes, enlisting a person to train us, teach us, hold us in accountability and in our excellence is a powerful option. At other times going it alone, learning through trial and error, and taking risks brings great rewards. The problem is that by nature we tend to choose a favorite. My favorite choice is the independent Lovers card. In fact, I almost never even let the Hierophant make an appearance in my life. I've completely tuned out to him.

What is the trend in your life? Do you like to belong, or do you relish your separateness? Are you a member of your village, or are the you the individual living amongst villagers? Perhaps it depends on the circumstances? Do you flip-flop between the two?

Based on my study of the Tarot, the key is to learn a balance here. There are steps to achieving this. Once the balance is achieved, you will be stable enough to look inside of yourself and take the time to discover what's making you tick the way you do. But you (and I) have to stabilize and balance our urges to either belong or stand out, before we can have enough peace to look inside. This step of balance and stability is the next card in the Major Arcana: The Chariot.

The charioteer, using no reins whatsoever, keeps his chariot moving forward, because his horses (or sphinxes) pull him as a team, completely balanced.

In my life, one horse pulled all of the weight, while the other was blindfolded and chained up. That is to say, my desire for independence has completely guided me. I've never given any power to the possibility of belonging to a village. And because of that, when one horse pulls all of the weight, the chariot runs in circles.

Do you feel in your life like you're going in circles? Take a look and think about it.

The first step to achieving the balance of the chariot is to learn to acknowledge the Lovers in you, and the Hierophant in you, in every situation. Honor both possibilities. One way to do this is to imagine Eve sitting on one of your shoulders, and the Hierophant sitting on the other. When Eve says, "Break away! You can do it alone! Go for it!" pause to hear the Hierophant say, "Maybe you should find someone to help you with this. Why re-invent the wheel?" Recognition of the possibilities is the first key.

And then, let go of your favorite. Don't be afraid of offending the Hierophants in your life. Don't be afraid of offending Eve's independent nature. Sit in between the two possibilities - sit in your chariot, keeping both horses close and ready to run and choose your path. You'll find that when you sit neutral between these possibilities, the two options will happily work together to follow your will. There is no struggle between them, though they're opposites. When you're in charge, they let you choose the path.

Look at all three of these cards again. Notice in the Hierophant card there are three people, with the Hierophant in the commander's seat. Now look at the Lovers card - there are three people, with the Angel in the commander's seat (the Angel allows Eve to make her choice, then closes the gates of the Garden behind her as she's kicked out). And the Chariot card. Who sits in command there? One man, two sphinxes - two mysterious possibilities in life. And in the Chariot card, you sit in command. I sit in command. We call the shots.

In this case it is the most empowered position to be in.

And shouldn't that satisfy my thirst for independence as much as anything? It is my belief that independence one of the weaker imitations of empowerment. It's a substitute, and a poor one.

And as I reflect on that, I wonder to myself if that's what my dad was trying to teach me all along. Yeah, I think his intention was to empower me, and I misinterpreted it. It was never about independence.

Is that true for you?