Messages
Ever get a message from the universe that kind of throws you? I did last night. I was experimenting with a new tarot spread. I did my reading, which was interesting and I might use again on other people. I then shuffle my cards to put them away and a card pops out. In my world when a card pops out it means it has significance. The card was the four of pentacles, for this deck it has a dragon hoarding a collection of coins. It's a card that expresses selfishness and hording (being a miser if you will). Now pentacles often refers to actual money, but it can also relate to physical things in general, health, ability, etc. But it refers to someone who is unwilling to let go, of someone who is trying to keep things still and unchanging.
Talk about a wake up call.
I would never consider myself to be a selfish person, at least not in any degree that would be considered harmful, we all after all have a little bit of selfishness in us. But it kind of struck me about how I've been behaving, or more appropriately, how I've been failing to act.
I make noise in my head about finding my purpose, but I don't really think about what that really means, or what it might look like. Meanwhile I am in a position where I don't have to work and can spend my day more or less how I like. But things around my house don't get done. I spend much of my time in a state of lazy apathy with just a smidge of self pity. And it's all because in my mind I have failed to find that all elusive purpose.
But I had never thought of this behaviour as selfish before. Even though in the light of day it clearly is. I will be the first person to admit that I am not domestic. I have a hard time 'seeing' the mess as it were, my brain does kind of skip over it. But my husband works very hard, does he not deserve a clean house? Does my daughter not deserve a mother who is more engaged? Which is not to say that I don't spend time with my daughter, I do. I also cook supper almost every night. It's the housework that gets me. It's the apathy and laziness.
And mostly it's the realization that I truly have no excuse. If I have enough energy to go out with friends then I should have enough to clean my house. It isn't as though I have a toddler or a baby to look after, which is almost a full time job in itself, my daughter is in school and isn't even home for most of the day. So the excuse becomes that being a housewife is not what I feel to be my purpose and so it's what? Somehow beneath me to do it? Well that is perhaps the most selfish thing I have ever heard.
And I'm living in all this fear that the things that I love to do, like art, and writing might be my purpose, but I can't break through to the other side of that fear. And so I do nothing, even though I could easily do all the housework and still have plenty of time to pursue those other things. I have been doing art recently, and it's good, but it's hard to do something, even when you love it when you think no one else cares, or at least that the amount of people who do care aren't enough to fill some sort of quota in your head.
I think that I do a lot of things because I want praise. I want to be good, and well liked. I get anxious especially when I do something I think I do well (like singing) and don't receive the praise I clearly think I deserve. And there is something very sick and broken about that. And so if I do have a sick compulsion to need that praise, it makes sense that being a housewife, an almost thankless job, is so unappealing to me.
This behaviour is ruining me and I had no real idea how deep it went. I mean I've wanted to be a author since I was three, but I've never really shared my work and now I have to think that the reason I haven't is because if it isn't good, or if people don't praise it then I will fall apart. It would be the loss of my last bastion dream, the dream I so want to live but have been so scared to fail that I put it behind walls.
And it isn't as though most of this hasn't occurred to me before. I've made many deals in the dark about finding more energy, or being a better wife and mother. But the context has always been different, it's always had that ring of lazy apathy. It was never in my mind that what I was doing was so very narcissistic. I never thought that I was the kind of person who would walk around with a chip on my shoulder thinking that the world owes me something. As if the world owes me a purpose.
If purpose is about self fulfillment and if that fulfillment for me is anchored to praise then truly I will never find my purpose living in such fear. And meanwhile I could be doing things for others, in a way that is altruistic. I stumble and fall, a slave to my apathy, to my lack of energy, to my selfish need for praise. I fall.
I can't say if this newest message has even penetrated my haze. It has provided a new perspective, which is what has really thrown me, a new word to add to my vocabulary of self hate and self doubt. I don't know if this will be a kick forward in a new direction, or another anchor to hold me down.
Talk about a wake up call.
I would never consider myself to be a selfish person, at least not in any degree that would be considered harmful, we all after all have a little bit of selfishness in us. But it kind of struck me about how I've been behaving, or more appropriately, how I've been failing to act.
I make noise in my head about finding my purpose, but I don't really think about what that really means, or what it might look like. Meanwhile I am in a position where I don't have to work and can spend my day more or less how I like. But things around my house don't get done. I spend much of my time in a state of lazy apathy with just a smidge of self pity. And it's all because in my mind I have failed to find that all elusive purpose.
But I had never thought of this behaviour as selfish before. Even though in the light of day it clearly is. I will be the first person to admit that I am not domestic. I have a hard time 'seeing' the mess as it were, my brain does kind of skip over it. But my husband works very hard, does he not deserve a clean house? Does my daughter not deserve a mother who is more engaged? Which is not to say that I don't spend time with my daughter, I do. I also cook supper almost every night. It's the housework that gets me. It's the apathy and laziness.
And mostly it's the realization that I truly have no excuse. If I have enough energy to go out with friends then I should have enough to clean my house. It isn't as though I have a toddler or a baby to look after, which is almost a full time job in itself, my daughter is in school and isn't even home for most of the day. So the excuse becomes that being a housewife is not what I feel to be my purpose and so it's what? Somehow beneath me to do it? Well that is perhaps the most selfish thing I have ever heard.
And I'm living in all this fear that the things that I love to do, like art, and writing might be my purpose, but I can't break through to the other side of that fear. And so I do nothing, even though I could easily do all the housework and still have plenty of time to pursue those other things. I have been doing art recently, and it's good, but it's hard to do something, even when you love it when you think no one else cares, or at least that the amount of people who do care aren't enough to fill some sort of quota in your head.
I think that I do a lot of things because I want praise. I want to be good, and well liked. I get anxious especially when I do something I think I do well (like singing) and don't receive the praise I clearly think I deserve. And there is something very sick and broken about that. And so if I do have a sick compulsion to need that praise, it makes sense that being a housewife, an almost thankless job, is so unappealing to me.
This behaviour is ruining me and I had no real idea how deep it went. I mean I've wanted to be a author since I was three, but I've never really shared my work and now I have to think that the reason I haven't is because if it isn't good, or if people don't praise it then I will fall apart. It would be the loss of my last bastion dream, the dream I so want to live but have been so scared to fail that I put it behind walls.
And it isn't as though most of this hasn't occurred to me before. I've made many deals in the dark about finding more energy, or being a better wife and mother. But the context has always been different, it's always had that ring of lazy apathy. It was never in my mind that what I was doing was so very narcissistic. I never thought that I was the kind of person who would walk around with a chip on my shoulder thinking that the world owes me something. As if the world owes me a purpose.
If purpose is about self fulfillment and if that fulfillment for me is anchored to praise then truly I will never find my purpose living in such fear. And meanwhile I could be doing things for others, in a way that is altruistic. I stumble and fall, a slave to my apathy, to my lack of energy, to my selfish need for praise. I fall.
I can't say if this newest message has even penetrated my haze. It has provided a new perspective, which is what has really thrown me, a new word to add to my vocabulary of self hate and self doubt. I don't know if this will be a kick forward in a new direction, or another anchor to hold me down.