Each week in The Wisdom of Change blog series, I share the original artwork and unpack the insights and meaning behind one of the 44 cards in The Wisdom of Change oracle deck.
This week’s card is 22: Acceptance
Oh this card! It reminds me of exquisitely frustrating times; let’s politely call them the ‘resting points’ on our chosen path. They drive us wild with frustration because we feel so stuck and resourceless in the face of insufficient progress towards our goals. These sometimes brief, but often prolonged periods of time are where we can’t seem to nail the thing we want no matter how hard we try.
In truth, being left wanting is one of the hardest aspects of personal change. You are all geared up and ready to go with all your goals and technicoloured visualisations delivering their healthy dose of excitement and joy. You’ve dared to put yourself ‘out there’ into your place of discomfort at ‘not yet having’ and you’ve been brave enough to state what you want despite the very real risk of disappointment.
And now here is it; your worst fears staring you right in the face; something that looks very suspiciously like a dead end. All that time and effort; all that planning and investment and you just can’t see a way through to the finish line. Every doubt you’ve ever had is ringing in your ears and all the naysayers, disbelievers and dream breakers you’ve ever encountered suddenly seem to be right. It’s enough to make you run back to your sofa, hide under the duvet and retreat to the comforting daydreams about ‘someday I will be/do/have this incredible thing’.
I have been there; many times, in fact. On one notable occasion early on in my exploration of what it takes to create profound personal change, a wise soul shared this nugget of wisdom with me;
Sometimes your only job is to push against closed doors for a while.
It stopped me in my tracks. I no longer felt like I had picked the wrong path, that I was wasting my time, or doing something wrong…’being stuck’ was simply my task to do for a period of time. The path towards where we want to be is not linear. The pace of progress varies; sometimes we are forging ahead and achieving great milestones, at other times nothing happens despite all our pushing. Once in a blue moon events conspire to lay all our plans to rest for a while.
I recently watched a talented healer interpret the card of Acceptance during a reading she recorded on her Facebook live feed. Her interpretation of this illustration was that of a birth canal, 7cm dilated, to be exact. Her intuition was that the recipient of the card was in the ‘birthing process’. Giving birth is arduous and at times, terrifying. When you think you simply can’t carry on, you realise there is no way back and from somewhere inside yourself you find a deep well of primal resource that you never knew existed until that moment.
Profound personal change can be this visceral, especially when it feels like you have little control over the conditions that created the change in the first place. I’m writing this blog as the world is gripped by the Covid-19 virus…what we knew will forever be altered as a result of this collective experience. As we come to terms with what we see going on outside of ourselves, we are simultaneously invited inwards; to tap into that still, calm alchemical space of acceptance. We have all been so busy. It’s truly exhausting to run at that pace, to numb out so much of ourselves by trying to keep up with a never-ending list of externally imposed priorities.
Perhaps we have been kept busy while something so much better is lining up for us. Maybe we are being invited into a state of acceptance as all that does not serve us falls away.
Wherever you find yourself amid this global change process, stay safe and know that you are loved beyond your comprehension.
The world is conspiring to do you good.
This week I’ve dedicate some space for to count the ways this is true in my own life.
How about you?
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s connection to your inner wisdom.
As always, I’d love to hear your comments below.
If you’d like to learn more about The Wisdom of Change oracle deck you can find out more here.
If you'd like to find out more about a Wisdom of Change reading with Wendy please click here.