We made it! We really did. So many of us are moving on this week from old habits, limiting beliefs, unhealthy relationships, destructive patterns, and exploitive jobs that I personally think we all deserve some celebration and remembrance. And while the energy of the cards acknowledges this need, indeed, they urge us to mourn some of what we’ve had to walk away from, it’s rather on the work of what we’re building discouraging us from indulging the navel-gazing of the past.

But to be honest, that feels a lot like this:

All work and no play…is what I say. We can spend the rest of the week on the reading’s advice regarding the work ahead of us, but what I care about more is taking a moment to just exhale and realize how far we’ve come.

Many of us have been gearing up to mentally leave a situation, person, or value system for so long that it felt like it might never come, right? For MONTHS, I’ve been posting encouragement and for months we’ve been diligently doing our work, feeling the hard feelings, and now, at least for me, I feel like we’re actually done with it.

Last week I worked on a monster of a post about the Resurrection of my Love after self-sacrifice. The moment the story started to flow out of me, I realized how long it had been since I had truly felt so free and self-confident, so unburdened by the imagined feelings of others, especially with my writing. Normally I carry the weight of others’ opinions, ‘blog posts shouldn’t be longer than 800 words’ and ‘the title should be snappier‘ which fuels an unhealthy relationship with self-doubt. I get so full of others’ perceived opinions, that I forget that I’m here to do something that is wholly my own. I can’t live my life or run my business someone else’s way, I always have to find the Janet Way.

As admirable as that level of independence and authenticity might seem, the work of finding those ways is arduous, difficult, and honestly, more data-driven than folks might think. I was encouraged as a kid, both by my scientific parents and my initial ambitions to be an astronaut, to conduct experiments, track my progress, and observe patterns. So while it might appear that i”m outwardly rejecting the advice of others, it’s because it’s experimented with their ways, I’ve tried them on for size and given them the benefit of the doubt and they simply don’t work for me.

Finding my way didn’t just happen, it was the result of hard work, and struggle and it often required me to overcome barriers without the luxury of help or the ability to delegate. It’s required me to humble myself with my mistakes, apologize when I’ve let people down, and have forgiveness for when I want to give up. But ultimately, it took courage in my own vision, confidence in my own abilities, and an openness to learning from failure that made me successful at the “Janet Way” of doing things.

The message of hard work contained in this reading this week wouldn’t be so hard for me to swallow if I wasn’t already exhausted from sacrifice, I am traumatized by lack, and fed up with encountering obstacles in my path. And I’m not alone. We want to get started on our new paths, but we are all starting to realize that we will need to rely on people more and not less if we want those dreams to come true. No one person can do it alone.

This is why it’s important for us to look around at each other and notice where we’ve each been struggling, recognizing what we had to sacrifice to be able to stand tall within ourselves. That didn’t happen overnight. And one thing we can do for each other is simply sharing our congratulations. We don’t need to know the specifics of someone’s struggle to praise them for just having made it this far. All of us have had to struggle, and all of us have had to go it alone for so long – even just a simple “I’m glad you’re still here fighting with me,” is the positive reinforcement we need when the path before us is unknown, but the one behind us is too painful to go back. We deserve a moment to celebrate how far we’ve come individually and together.

This week’s deck is from a Kickstarter I supported: The Unfolding Path Tarot by Athene.  I am just so in love with it already. It’s very…honest and sincere, but also optimistic and hopeful. It acknowledges the shadow side of the cards but insists on being read upright only, offering a refreshing clarity. I hope you enjoy it!

See more below…

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Undercurrents & Final advice

Last week I wrote, “Sometimes our dreams are so impossibly out of alignment or imprecise that when our manifesting net draws it in, it brings a bunch of junk we didn’t anticipate.” Well, grumpy-puss hipster man here is dissatisfied with the three IPAs he’s had today and so he gives up and ignores the magical blend of sour, sweet effervescence that he was really craving. Don’t let temporary discontent or discomfort blind us to the offered blessings. Remember that we’re responsible for the consequences of what we’ve manifested. Think it through, be more precise with our intentions, otherwise, we’ll be too burned out from the extra energy we expended fending off what we didn’t want that we won’t care when our dream-comes-true walks through that door.

Our ability to trust our inner guidance will become even more critically important in the next few months. Anytime we’re leaving behind old grooves in our lives, life has a tendency to push us right back where we started. And just like my mom used to tell me whenever I got lost in a store, “stay put”, this is the advice this week. If we find ourselves spinning in circles, unable to focus, struggling to resist the addictive patterns of the past, then it’s time to anchor into one’s own wisdom. Mediate, find solitude, go for a walk by yourself and just listen for what your heart truly wants, not what the world is demanding that we conform to. The doubt we face often are outside forces that have been trying to push us back into the holes we so painstakingly crawled out of. Return to the solace of our connections to source. Our intuitive clarity starts within.

Blessing

We leave the selves of the past behind, landing in a new land of vast possibility and infinite potential. May we recognize our shared struggles as we work together to construct new worlds of life-giving truth and compassionate action. May we have the courage to hold steadfast to all the earned wisdom our lives have given us so far, as we shake others out of their slumber of denial. May we see one another not as rivals, but as spiritual conspirators each adding our innate gifts to the larger healing of humanity. May we find strength within and celebrate the healing that has already flowed through our lives.

I am with you always in love 💖

So may it be.

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