Today’s card says “I look for more reasons to appreciate.”  On the back it says “The more I appreciate, the better I feel.  The better I feel, the more I am allowing who I am to flow through me.  The more I allow who I am to flow through me – the better I feel.”   This card reminds us of some pretty important stuff.  The big message, and the thing that we all need to remember and carry with us, is the understanding that energy is two things.  Constant and always flowing and directing more energy to you.

Energy can be a bitch!  It’s a Catch 22 a lot of the time.  We sometimes punish ourselves with under-appreciation for ourselves.  We have it somehow built into our brains that we’re not supposed to think nice things or say nice things about ourselves.  It’s OK to think you’re amazing if you really have to but don’t ever declare your awesome power to the world! When we downplay who we are we attract energy from others that says “don’t acknowledge me, don’t see my good qualities because I can’t acknowledge them.”  We’re not giving gratitude to ourselves when we do that and we don’t appreciate our own part in the Universe when we do this.

Here’s an example of some of this from my own life.  I had a really, really unpleasant experience last year that involved some writing I was doing that angered me immensely.  I had been asked by someone to write a piece for a publication and did nothing but come up against skewed criticism and problems while trying to hash the work out after months of writing.  Eventually the piece was rejected and some of the things that were said to me in the process stung quite deeply.  As any artists will tell you, whether their art form is words, music, or paint, when you are criticized for what you do, even when it’s meant to be constructive, it hurts.  In my case it wasn’t constructive and it wasn’t helpful, it was just hurtful.  For some reason this person expected a different level of work than what I do (i.e. looking for an investigative reporting piece from someone who is mainly a blogger and a free-form writer).  My anger came from an expectation that was put on me without my knowing it because had I known this was what would be expected I would have turned it down outright.  So it was a very frustrating time.

I share this because appreciation and gratitude were two things that I couldn’t for the life of me muster in that situation.  I felt bad because I perceived that I was made to feel bad and that energy came out as I tried to rework what I was doing and it just snowballed.  It would be later that I would turn this around and where I found appreciation.  I appreciated having that experience because it taught me that I know who I am with my art and that I will not compromise my stance on things.  I am not going to pretend to be something I’m not for the sake of making someone else happy.  I also appreciated the experience because it reaffirmed my desire to write and put out my work in the way I wanted without others telling me how to do it.  And my gratitude for the events came in when I started to let this energy flow more and I started to get more attention for my work; MY work MY way.  Soon I was getting a lot more blog readers, Facebook and Twitter fans, and then I was getting support from various people in a few different parts of the Pagan and metaphysical communities and being offered guest blog spots and even guest spots on podcasts and radio shows.  Things were growing and flowing because I had that appreciation for myself, my work, and the experiences that brought me here.

So when you’re feeling that you’re stuck in that energy catch 22 you need to stop and ask yourself “where and how am I blocking the flow of energy around me?”  “What can I appreciate in this situation, even if it is a harsh lesson and not something happy and fuzzy?”  Once you acknowledge and appreciate that energy and event things will flow for you once again as you let go and feel good.

 

Current Mood:  grateful