Story: Finding comfort in the discomfort
2020 has brought with it a time of significant discomfort. Of dis-ease. We are all struggling on oh so very many fronts right now. We are balancing the fear of going outside the safely defined perimeters of our own homes with worry over what may happen if that perimeter becomes breached. We are navigating the trials and tribulations of providing our children with their right to education without having any of the time, resources, and know-how to teach them. We are navigating job losses or furloughs and the associated anxiety over questioning our self-worth and how the bills are to be paid. We are leaving our homes, oftentimes when we don't want to so that we can teach, drive, deliver, clean, and heal. We are scared. We are tired. We are weary. We are frustrated. We are at the moment in this story where we want to put the book down and say, "nope. This is not a plot I want to continue to witness unfolding." We are in the collective moment when Joey Tribianni of my beloved "Friends" fame wants to take the heart-aching tale of "Little Women" and put it in the freezer for safekeeping because he is too afraid to read onward - he needs to take a timeout. He needs a pause in the challenging narrative. We want a timeout from all of this, too, don't we? The worrying, the juggling, the decisions on whether to go out and why, the masks, the fear, the awkward new normals of social interactions, and the hours of virtual connection that with family and friends that though powerful and potent, cannot replace the sheer joy and deep need of a cuddly embrace. We are in the proverbial moment where the child asks the parents from the car's back seat on a lengthy family road trip, "are we there yet?" Are we? Can we please be? When will we be? How will we get there? We ask this question silently in our own minds, already knowing the sorrowful response, "no…not yet dear one. I wish we were, but not just yet, no." And this journey seems to be never-ending. Predictions and trackers and determinations and data are fleeting and unassured. Milestones, finish lines, and start-dates are changing with each buzz of the alarm clock that ushers us in another waking day.
During this time of dis-ease, this time where we both lack ease and face disease, I continue to bring to mind the Tarot deck, and even more specifically, the hanged man card. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Tarot, by way of *very quick* background, the playing cards were first invented in China during the Tang Dynasty. They entered Europe in the late 14th century and spread rapidly. They began being used as a tool for divination by the 18th century. They depict illustrations rooted in astrology, Kabbalah, the Egyptian gods, and the occult.
It is actually a hanged woman card in my preferred deck (the Mystic Mondays deck) instead of a hanged man. The way I see the hanged woman depiction is that yes, she is in a seemingly tortured position, caught perilously upside-down appearing to be ensnared and a victim of an evil scheme of entrapment but yet somehow, she is calm. She is relaxed. She can ease into her circumstance and find her own way to gain comfort and control. Though the world appears, at face value, to be upside down to her, it seems like everything is very much right side up from her vantage point. How does she do this? How does she face this terrible, seemingly dire trap, with ease and grace? She does this by getting outside her everyday perspectives of life. She finds a way to hang comfortably upside-down, and in so doing, she changes her perspective and her vantage point on the challenge that confronts her.
Whenever the hanged man or woman comes up in Tarot, your projects and activities may be coming to an unexpected and abrupt halt (methinks yes - thank you pandemic…). In a way, I see this entire period from mid-March to now and beyond as the hanged woman's time. The key to our resilience is that we each have to find our own ways to surrender in this forced slowing. Forced slowings are, by their very nature, forced, and thus involuntary. None of us asked for this virus to disrupt our lives, our hearts, our minds, our laughter, our ease. Nevertheless, here it is. Thrust upon us. And with it, something new is emerging in all of this for each one of us. We won't be able to identify and embrace that new reality, the new relationships, and structures unless we slow down enough to catch it what's being thrust upon us. Now is the time to pause with intention. Now is the time to pause. on. purpose. The hanged woman is an invitation for each of us to surrender to 'what is,' even if it is drastically different from what we expect or what we ever-so-greatly wish it would be.
But how do we do this with what we have access to in today's new normal? How do we change perspectives when our physical boundaries and perimeters are tightened? One way we may have to surrender into this uncertainty is to change our daily routines. Small, seemingly meaningless things may open us to different energy flows. Try writing on a piece of paper with your non-dominant hand for a few minutes. Or have a picnic in your back garden even if the neighbors stare. Change up the assigned chores in the home for a week. Eat in a room you rarely use or with china that never gets taken out. What would lying on the floor to watch TV instead of sitting on a chair give to you in terms of a new perspective? What would moving some furniture around or de-cluttering a space do to shift your energy?
We all need to invite our exuberant and whimsical selves to this time and this place. We need to participate playfully. The more we can bring our conscious, playful awareness to the table, the more skillful we become at navigating the discomfort. Changing up your energy will change the mindset from which you operate. It will enable us to call upon our much-needed resilience and ease more wholly into this significant period of dis-ease, coming through it with new self-awareness and the deep personal wisdom of what we are capable of when we put our minds to it.
— Lisa Kjellström