Every so often, when I pull some tarot cards for myself, the ones that pop out feel like a smack in the teeth. Like, they fall out out the deck as I’m shuffling, and promptly slap me round the face like a wet kipper. Today was one of those days. So I thought I would share with you what I’ve learnt from The Chariot and the Knight of Swords in reverse about perseverance and how to slow the fuck down.
Reading Your Own Cards Can Be HARD
Usually, when I pull cards for myself, I have a whole routine. I’ll meditate, light some incense, and cleanse my cards with crystals, smoke or my singing bowl. Then I’ll kneel down and draw three or four cards in a predetermined spread, and meditate for a bit on what they mean for my life/day. Most of the time, I find this incredibly difficult, although I’m getting much better. But it’s not always clear what the cards mean straight away. A lot of the time after meditating on things for a couple of minutes, I still don’t get anything, so I’ll just throw them back in the deck and record a TikTok video. But I’m trying to get better at writing them down even when they don’t make sense straight away. As often I’ve found when I’ve thought about things they make sense in hindsight. I think it’s often a lot harder to see your own blind spots, especially if you’re avoiding dealing with your trauma.
But as I mentioned at the top – today was NOT one of those days.
Today I was sitting on my sofa, casually rewatching Drag Race Season 11. I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my day, telling myself I needed to be productive and trying to set some goals. When I felt prompted to pull a card for myself. No sooner had I started shuffling, The Chariot and the Knight of Swords (reversed) popped out and the meaning slapped me like the poor fish I mentioned earlier.
Finding My Purpose Again – The Chariot
The Chariot comes as the seventh card in the Major Arcana. As we move from the conscious world of the first stage of the Fool’s journey to the murkier, unconscious realm that follows, we take everything we have learned up until this point and take control of the situation and drive the Chariot forwards. This is a card of movement, determination and all-out grit.
The Chariot has been coming up a lot for me lately. This card represents focus, determination and grit – so it’s unsurprising that this is coming up for me now. If you didn’t see, I spoke in my previous post about the fact that I’m finally dealing with my trauma after about seven years of avoiding it. And I’m finding I’m motivated for the first time in years.
I spent so long feeling demotivated, depressed, and dissatisfied with my life because I avoided dealing with my shit and therefore lived a shell of a life. Now that I’m coming through that, I’m SO motivated in ways I’ve not been before. I feel like I have a purpose. I’m building something here and that’s really exciting.
The Chariot coming up again and again for me keeps confirming I’m on the right track. I’m doing the right thing and trust that things will move forwards. After so many years of not dealing with things, I’m finally putting my own health first and getting some confidence back. But the card that followed today, gives me an extra layer to this message that I so desperately needed to hear.
There’s No Need to Be Hasty – Knight of Swords
My best friend will tell you that I am a classic for diving into things head first. Once I have an idea for something, it’s verrry hard for me to put it away. So much so that I’ve been known to rearrange the living room at 3 am multiple times. So the Knight of Swords today coming out in reverse is giving me that hard warning I needed.
The Knight of Swords usually represents something incredibly similar to the Chariot. Swords are representative of our mental landscape, and the Knights are that intern energy as I like to call it. They take the energy of their suit and they run with it. So the Knight of Swords is somebody who is focused, determined, and decisive.
This reversed position, however, especially in the context of the Chariot, is telling me to slow the fuck down. I am classic for taking on too much, diving in head first, I don’t know if it’s the undiagnosed ASD/ADHD or what, but I find it incredibly difficult to let go of an idea once it’s in my head. Maybe it’s because I find motivating myself or concentrating so difficult that when it happens I don’t believe it’ll last very long. So I try and do as much as I can while I can.
But that’s rubbish.
Jumping into things hastily can lead to serious consequences. Most of the time, there’s no harm in taking your time to get things done. I’m getting better at writing lists of things to do when an idea pops into my head at 2 am, rather than having to do them there and then. (That didn’t stop me from staying up until 4 am the other night updating my website for the 1000th time to improve my SEO scores by 1% – but I’m calling it baby steps OK!)
I’m still recovering from a breakdown that was seven years in the making. It’s OK if I have a day where I don’t do anything more than sit on the sofa and watch TV. I don’t have to be productive 100% of the time. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s better to make progress slowly and consistently, rather than keep pushing myself beyond my limits, and I needed that reminder today as I have been going a tad overboard recently with the amount of TikTok live streams I’ve been doing.
This is Your Reminder to Slow the Fuck Down
This was my reminder to slow the fuck down. To practice patient perseverance, rather than dive headfirst into everything inevitably having to put myself back together after I push myself too far for the 20th time in a row.
I’ve made too much progress to screw things up now.
I need to slow the fuck down.
And that’s OK.
If you needed to hear that too. Then let me tell you again. It’s OK if you need to slow down once in a while. Even if you’re focused on a goal.
Diving in head first, without assessing whether you are capable of doing something, almost never ends well. Obviously, I’m not saying don’t take risks. But make sure you aren’t sacrificing your mental health in the process. Because if you do that for too long it becomes almost second nature. And that is a HARD thing to undo.
I’m not really sure if this will make sense for anybody else. But it’s the lesson I needed for today.
Gord x
