Your Week Ahead: March 10 to 16, 2024 – The Buoyed Sailor

A lot of what keeps us back is found within our perception of what we think we’re capable of achieving. We can run on autopilot and form ideas about ourselves without us even realizing how these things limit us. Somewhere in our early years, most likely, we were impressionable enough to internalize something we witnessed or were told either about the world or about ourselves. As we grew up, these beliefs grew roots and barriers, and we learned to operate within those structures.

I don’t suggest that this is some traumatic event we experienced, although it can be. For some, it was a subtle influence while for others, it may have been more dominant. We may have grown up with certain ideas about money. Maybe it was internalizing ideas about what a healthy relationship looks and feels like. In time, we insert our beliefs about our self-worth and can struggle for many years trying to compensate for feelings of lack or imbalance.

I would offer here that this is a path of life rather than one of struggle or of victimizing identity labels. If we can see our perceived limitations as a teacher and a guide, then we can embrace a path of learning and empowerment. The opposite of this might look like a never ending series of events that are imposed on us and that we have no way of making things better. We form labels that we aggressively attach to and interpret almost all experiences based on the struggle of having to fight for what one wants.

This is an illusion that many can become caught in. Life seems predestined to give us the same result. We meet the same people who inevitably act the same way toward us. We struggle to make ends meet because thats the way it has always been. We become confined in a state that seems to offer no solutions, only the old voices of the past that said this is the way life is, this is what people are like, and this is all we get.

This is a mental landscape where we are undermined by what we have learned. What if it was all wrong? When we tell ourselves something, is it true, and who said it? How did we arrive at those conclusions? Go back, way back, and see where that line of questioning goes. If it feels nervous, if it feels guilty or like we’re betraying someone or something, keep going. Keep going, because we’re headed in the right direction.

When we look at the 8 of Swords card, we are dealing with the past and our response to it in the present. In the traditional tarot, we see a blindfolded woman standing tied up around swords stuck in a muddy pool. She can walk away from that perceived confinement yet she might bump up against a sword and get nicked. Or she can stay there. Either way, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. No one is there but her so this is about her ideas and perceptions.

In Edmund Dulac’s card, an old sailor has given in to the two siren’s song and has drowned by being pinned down under the coral reefs. His decision to act and go to them came from past conditioning about what he felt his role was in life. Was he a saviour? Did he fall into the trap of needing to love others at all costs because he was taught that his own need for love was not important.

The idea here is that we are not seeing something clearly and that we are basing our current limitation on a set of rules that are basically invalid or outworn. The good news is that we have a chance to work with them and investigate how we interpret events now and base our actions upon them. Leave out any blame and just work with the material. We can make some very good and healthy changes by taking ownership of our beliefs and making adjustments without any need to fight anyone or convince anyone of anything.

Looking to the next card, the 8 of Wands, something definitely is released from us and seems to feel like a weight is lifted. We are buoyed up by new life and new energy. It all feels like a momentary setback, a pause and a chance to ask some personal questions. In the 8 of Wands, our intentions and actions seem to have momentum and things feel as though they are lined up. So, this suggests less confusion and doubt about where we are and where we’re going.

If we’ve felt held back for whatever reason, seeing if there’s an opportunity to come to a different conclusion about it will feel more productive and less fatalistic. In the process, we can re-identify with a more wholesome sense of action that is based on our confidence and self-worth. Then we get to apply ourselves within that framework and paradigm.

This shift can have us feeling like the world is a stage and that opportunities are to be found in everyday experiences. The 8 of Coins describes this attitude. It says, “look at what I can do right now.” It’s a card situated in the present. We respond, we produce, and we perceive within a new outlook.

If we do it right, we will feel as though our whole life is a path to understanding our relationship with energy; what we determine we can create, what it is worth, and what or who we believe is healthy and supportive to us. That sounds like a joyous life, full of promise and adventure.

Affirmation: I am me. I can offer new visions and ideas about myself now and I enjoy moving into new territory. The past is a good source of information, but I leave it in the past where it belongs. Today is my opportunity to tell a different story, one sentence at a time.

Thanks for reading, and I wish you a wonderful week!

Daniel Palmo

Ps. I would love to hear what you think. If you find my writing helpful or would like to share your thoughts, please feel free to comment below.

If you missed last weeks reading, you can find it here.

If you are interested in having a personal reading, please click here for more information.

If you would like to receive my weekly readings emailed directly to you, please subscribe below.