Tarot Card of the Day

The Hanged Man

This card denotes the need to look at your current situation from a different perspective. The Hanged Man creates change by acting passively and accepting fate. By surrendering control and making yourself vulnerable, you will facilitate change in your life. In order to see the bigger picture, you will need to take a step back.

I do feel like I spent the majority of my life only focusing on the smaller details. I'm such a dynamic person and see everything that I never realized that I never took everything in, the curse of abundance. It gives the illusion of a dynamic perspective when they're just distractions. I'm desperate for a different perspective. Very rarely do I ever passive accept things. But, as a result, I never feel in control. Recently I've discovered the value and necessity of surrendering control and making myself vulnerable. I need it for personal growth and to connect with others.

Why It's So Hard to Accept

What makes letting him go so difficult is the very true reality that if I didn't deliberately sabotage what we had, it could've worked. I mean really worked. I've never felt such fear and certainty about a single source. In the past I would require clarification because I truly didn't trust people, but this time around, I needed clarification because I wanted to make sure that the floating sense that was trust was appropriate as if it can be defined in that sort of way. I've never looked within myself before. I always sought external sources, and I was doing that again, but he was trying to teach me to trust myself. Instead of realizing that he was trying to lead me to myself, I took his obscurity as a deliberate technique to absolve any responsibility. I totally ignored the reality that as my friend, he wouldn't betray me like that.

I've never looked within myself, let alone trusted myself. When I was exposed to it (myself), I saw and felt that I do have the ability to uncover the mysteries I seek in others to provide me with. But I was afraid of the idea of being accountable for them. If others lied to me, it's their fault. If I believe the wrong thing, I would be forced to transfer the same treatment onto others on myself, basically blame myself. That logic is severely flawed and one I want to explore at a later time.

My point is that my fear to trust myself stopped me from embracing the relationship for what it was. I prepared myself as though I was wrong already but took it out on him, as though he did something wrong. He put a lot of effort into opening up to me, something he rarely does. He shared with me things that he didn't share with others and because it seemed clique, I accused him of being dishonest. It was so unfair to him; I was unfair to him. The more he tried to help me, the more I attacked him. I pushed and pushed until the thread broke.

I kept focusing on all the things that made us different, that makes couples incompatible, while failing to realize how much we had in common. Even the things that separate us made us closer. The things that usually break relationships because of their differences were factors that weren't really at play for us. They were so superficial.

For the first time, I felt what someone felt for me. It was intense and sincere in ways I could've never imagined. I can't believe I thought that I didn't matter to him considering all of that. But it makes me wonder how much I really meant to him if we can't even be friends. Then again, maybe that's why we can't be friends because the feelings are still there. If the feelings are still there, it makes me wonder how much is repairable. It's incredible how powerful my words can be. I know that I'm an influential person, but I think I fail to realize the impact I can have because I don't have the same experience. So I couldn't know. It kills me to think that I was the one who made him feel that way about me and equally lose interest in me. I keep thinking that if I had it in me to attract him, I could do it again. But that's not the point is it? And this is all assuming that it's true.

I just wanted to get it off of my chest that it's hard to accept because I know how much he felt for me. Does something like that just disappear? If it does, how significant was I to him? If it doesn't, then is there hope? The problem with this mentality is that I run in circles and never complete the thought. At the end it doesn't matter. Yes, I feel awful. But I'm doing the same thing now. I'm not actually expressing what I feel. I can change how I feel about him about as much as I can change the circumstance. It is what it is. More importantly, it is not what it is not.

The Quote that Truly Touched Me

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

I used to do things that made people describe me as daring and impulsive, but the truth is that I'm a VERY good planner. I even plan things that appear spontaneous. I'm always blabbing that I think people fail to realize that it's usually my idea to do something completely insane! As long as it's on my terms and I plan for EVERYTHING, I'm okay with it.

I never actually realized how closed off I am before until someone brought it to my attention. He's a really guarded person, so it really opened my eyes to how I really am. I'm not that good at reading people, so I never really understood any of this before. I just thought I did. When AJ became less guarded around me, I didn't really notice until I was told so. I never noticed before that he was guarded until I saw the contrast. I'm so different from him that I would've never guessed that I had my own version of guardedness. I never really knew that different kinds of guardedness existed, although it makes sense that it does.

I know that how I feel for the most part is transparent because of how people react around me and the comments they make towards me. That led me to believe that I'm an open person, but that's not true. I can't contain how I feel; I don't know how to. As a result, it becomes exposed. There aren't too many things I know how to hold in, but those things I never really reveal. I'm a guarded, closed-off person by nature but not an ability I've learned to harness like AJ's.

The first time I've ever felt exposed and vulnerable, my emotions poured out of me but not by choice. I tried to hold in as much as I can for fears I can't even articulate or even perceive. I pushed away the one first person who was exposing me to who I am, the raw truth I didnt' even know I was hiding from myself. In my mind even though I never really admitted it to myself and even though this is the "truth" I was willing to share with myself, I kept fearing that I would be rejected for what I want, how I feel, and who I am. But the real truth is that I feared being accepted for what I want, how I feel, and who I am.

I've never been comfortable outside of my natural element. I like being in control, feeling in control, being able to call the shots, all the unhealthy desires that cling to us for all of the wrong reasons. Sometimes you have to be pushed into a direction you're afraid of going in order to acheive something great. Sometimes you need an external force to make that happen. I was so afraid of taking that step, but I withdrew completely until that force and everything about it disappeared. All I could think when it was there was how I wanted to escape. Now that it's gone, I realized how wrong I was. In retrospect, it makes no sense that I was afraid. But without that experience, I would've never believed it. That's why this quote touched me so much.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

~Thanks for sharing this quote. It's one thing to have an experience and remember it, but it's another thing when you find a quote that encompasses how you feel. There's something about a written manifestation of it that makes it more real.

I Don't Feel Human

For such an emotionally-charged person, I never felt very human. I’ve always felt disconnected, and I feel that way even more now. I always knew I was detached, but it never bothered me. I just didn’t know any better. I never knew what I was missing. When I first started noticing what I was missing because emotions rushed in AND spilled out of me, I felt like I was suffocating. I hated it and wanted to turn it off. When I truly realized how emotionally disconnected I was, which, in turn, made me disconnected to everything, I was desperate to feel something, anything, to feel a part of something meaningful and overpowering. I felt that way for a while. I started realizing that something was missing. But once I got what I wanted I wanted the exact opposite because it was overwhelming. I feel like I’m trapped and living in this paradoxical state. I wonder if I’ll learn to appreciate the good and the bad or want to withdrawal each time it becomes painful or if I’ll actually develop the ability to separate myself. If I do separate myself, am I susceptible to returning to my original state, disconnected and unaware of what I’m missing? Will I even remember or care?

25% of my Senses

I've been described as being overly logical. I can even argue that it was dangerously logical and emotionally disconnected, but I didn't see it that way because my behavior appeared so paradoxical. For such an overly logical person, I could act really emotionally irrational. As it turns out, I was overly logical until my emotion failed me. I never realized how detrimental it was to my well-being.

Being overly logical was a security measure to protect myself from being emotionally vulnerable. But no amount of protective barrier can prevent emotions from entering. Since I resisted so much and had so little practice managing it, I was unable to cope with it. It felt unbearable, not because it was but because of my perception and limited exposure and experience with it. Instead of experiencing all of it, the pain and the love, I continued to ignore the emotions and feelings until they weighed my logic down. I'd have panic attacks, struggle, take sedatives if I had any, and repeat the entire process. It was bad, but I never realized how much because this is all that I knew, all that I experienced. Some changes in my life forced a different approach on me.

I broke up with my long time six year boyfriend. It was one of the most natural, easy, and most difficult changes I've endured in my life. Before him I never escaped danger because that's where I lived. It's painful but natural to be thick-skinned and be used to the environment you're in no matter how hard it is. I never learned to sense and protect myself from it, which is rare and it made me feel left out. But I didn't concern myself with it. I was just glad to be protected from it. I no longer had that.

It's amazing how astute our intuition is in action if you let your body take over. It was intoxicating and liberating. It made me realize how suffocated I was before without even knowing it. I was drowning a part of me, and I had no idea. It's like waking up and realizing that you've only been using 25% of your senses your entire life. It's an enlightening and profound experience, but it's also terrifying in ways I can't express.

Every doubt and fear became amplified. My logic was no longer able to silence those insecurities like they once did. My fears felt equally real as the truth. How can both be true? I was too busy asking myself that that I didn't answer the question, which is that it can't be. So, which one is the truth and which one is the lie? Had I have asked myself that, things would've turned out differently. But I was too busy allowing myself to be overpowered to see things for the way they really are. Humans are emotional creatures who possess intellect, not the other way around.