Barbs and other stuff

Nov 29 / Laura Apolo
I’m feeling a little lost and disoriented today. I can’t escape the feeling that I just haven’t yet been able to get completely in-sync with my life. It’s like I can see it, touch it, even taste it but I don’t seem to be living in it. It looks like I am to everyone else but I’ve got some loose ends that have me feeling, well, a little disconnected, frankly.

From the outside, I have an amazingly beautiful life. It has people with whom I love to share my time and that love me plain and simple. Inwardly, I’ve shed most of the toxic stuff that attracts drama, awful people, and stuff I’ve learned to steer away from. I like who I’m being most of the time, and I definitely like where I’m heading. The problem is that I’m in the midst of one of those transition periods where I'm not yet ‘there’ but am no longer ‘here’ either.
Feeling neither here nor there is disheartening, because you don’t quite know where to put yourself or when the end of the feeling will be. This makes it uncomfortable to be in your own skin and imposed with the struggle of not being able to enjoy looking forward to what’s ahead because there’s no arrival date to hold on to.

I’m learning to vibe at my own frequency but I have to say, it takes serious work to stay in tune with it. When I’m in my vibe, life is good and things flow almost miraculously, however I keep getting dragged out of it by the distractions around me. I keep getting swept off by what I see in front of me rather than overriding it all by focusing on and creating with what’s within me.

To see past what’s visible to us, to see beyond all the stuff and to remember that I am a spiritual being having a human experience is something that I know intrinsically, yet I keep getting caught on the barbs as I scratch my way through this path of clearing and manifesting. My monkey mind keeps snagging my operating thoughts with a very convincing and persuasive self-talk that takes me out of my groove and into the doldrums. True, it’s mostly old habitual stuff, and I am gradually changing it but being tripped up constantly is frustratingly annoying. Especially because half the time I don’t even realise I’ve slipped back into old habits until I’m well into them.

Yes, meditation and listening to positive music helps greatly to cleanse my mind but I can’t just put some music on and begin meditating in the midst of a social interaction (as much as I would like to sometimes). No, the private times are mostly okay, it’s the being around people who are stuck in their misery and seem to want to stay there and yet complain about it, that is where I struggle. 

It's very easy to get caught up in that low vibrational hum-drum isn't it?

The other time I really struggle is after those first few minutes in the morning, where my habitual mind kicks in and starts telling me about all the things I have to do today. Somewhere in that internal conversation, it seems to transition over to all the things I haven’t yet done, then all the things I said I was going to do but still haven’t got to, oh and while we’re at it, let’s list any other stuff that is wrong with my life. I seem to slide down that slope at such speed that I don’t even realise I’m in it until I’m at the bottom of my coffee and I have the grumps on! Once again, my good vibe has been interrupted and now I have to work consciously at getting myself out of the hum-drums, again.

In the midst of my grumps this morning, I was looking at The Magician card in the Tarot. In the Rider-Waite-Smith deck he is standing behind a table, and on the table are each of the tools that represent the internal energy we have within us.

The Cup, our ability to feel. The Wand, our ability to act on our feelings. The Sword, our ability to cut away falsehood from what is right and true. The Pentacle, our ability to combine our powers to manifest.

I realised that in order to wield these powers, to combine them and create the life we want, we first have to understand how to focus, how to hold our mind’s attention for long enough. That takes not just practice but a certain level of maturity that cannot be achieved without experience, and perhaps just a sprinkle of the haughty swagger that comes with knowing you know.

This brings me to my next point beautifully. 

You see, all of this comes down to believing in yourself so radically that nothing, absolutely nothing can get you to question yourself. Whilst I’d like to think I’m there, simple little things keep rattling me, which shows me that I am not quite there yet. I have the potential to be there, and well on my way, in fact, I’m close, and closer than I was yesterday, and the day before.

I keep getting closer and it feels better each time I move toward it. As I step back and share this conversation with you, I’m beginning to see that what usually feels like steps backward are simply aspects of myself that are yet to catch up with the parts of me leading this transition. Rather than my self-wrath, these aspects of me need comfort, encouragement, and my faith - not my frustration and doubt.
Learning to love our Self for who we are, and all our shortcomings is one of the most challenging aspects of the human experience. It requires compassion, patience, resilience, and faith, undying faith. That’s what gives us the energy to pick ourselves back up every time we trip, to heal the scratches from every barb we get caught on, and to keep going until we finally get it, whatever ‘it’ is we’re after.
Amusingly, that’s the hidden message of The High Priestess, the woman we meet after The Magician, who tells us that whatever we need to wield our power, we already have within us. She’s referring to our compassion, resilience, and faith, in our human self, and our higher spirit self, and our deep soul self. It’s through the relationship we have with this dynamic trio that we can wield the powers that The Magician shows us we have.
So, that means that today, instead of whining further about another barb scratch, my focus will be on having a closer look at why I keep doubting myself. What do I need to strengthen my resilience and faith in myself? What is it today that I can do to remove a little more of that doubt, so that these scratchy little barbs stop bothering me so much.

Pictured below, The Magician & The High Priestess from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck.
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