Although I perform divination for others, it might surprise you to learn that I have relatively few readings done for myself. I have a check-up reading that gets done every year or so just to see how I’m doing with the big picture; I had a local reader for minor check-ups but we sorta drifted apart when she moved her practice to another city. Most things I’m stubborn about figuring out on my own, or am uncertain whether or not a concern actually justifies divination. I talk myself out of way more readings than I actually end up getting.
The other night I received a reading as part of a trade. I was admittedly a bad client. I felt argumentative and pissy, wanting to hear something specific but not even being sure what that was. I took away the advice to not be such a goddamned drama queen (among other bits of guidance) and sat with that for a day.
I’ve been depressed – I’ve said as much – and that makes everything harder. I feel like I’m wading against a constant current, like everything is harder than it should be and doing even the most minimal of tasks is monumental. The only reason I’m not just constantly in bed is because I’m also very bored at the moment and keep looking for something to occupy my mind.
I did a small follow-up reading for myself using an oracle deck (the Ceccoli Oracle, if you’re curious) and was told directly that my problem was rooted in a lack of compassion for myself. This came up in a more circumspect manner in the reading I’d had done; seeing it twice made me take it a little more seriously.
See, I’d argue that I do have compassion for myself, but a toxic variety that doesn’t actually have the right results. I’m indulgent, I lack patience or perseverance, I have no discipline or follow-through or accountability. I’m messy and gross and kind of a weirdo, not to mention constantly grumpy and socially anxious. I’m a mess.
Compassion is able to identify shortcomings without transforming them into pathological mental baggage. Since my opinion of myself and assessment of my qualities is nothing but pathological mental baggage, I’m clearly failing to have any actual compassion for myself. This is part of what my single-card reading pointed out to me.
Honestly I have no idea how to turn back the morbid tendency towards self-recrimination and self-loathing. I’ve done it for so many years I don’t know how to stop it; even recognizing it is difficult and not always a sure thing.
It’s uncomfortable being on the other side of the cards. It’s uncomfortable to have severe truths pointed out to you. It’s uncomfortable to have no real tools at hand to address those truths. But I’ve taken the first step and acknowledged the problem, and I’ve taken the second step and expressed a desire to change.This is the work of a lifetime. Sometimes people talk a lot about spiritual advancement and it seems like they have a clear goal in mind, a thing they want to achieve. My goals are much more modest if only because I don’t much imagine that I can get very far. I’d like to stop hating this thing that the gods seem fond of. This seems like an advancement I must might be able to achieve in this lifetime.
The Road, the Walker, and What Comes Next 
It’s uncomfortable, Silence, Many mornings I am ill at ease because my mind doesn’t generate anything of interest. I have my meditation time, my routines, but I keep thinking there ought be some great thought, notion, something I can journal that is fabulous! But there isn’t. I think that this kind of disappointment is a way of seeing that everything isn’t just about our own inner drama (doh!), and that for the most part, everything rolls along as it should. You have to learn to sit with it, be with it, and most especially, look at what’s going on around you.
Yeah, I said one morning to my inner self. But that’s very uncomfortable.
And who, my inner self replied, told you experience was designed for your personal comfort?
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Learning to sit with it – yup, definitely something I need to work on.
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I can relate to this, it is only in the past decade that I felt this was getting better. One thing that did help me check myself in the tearing down process was to ask myself if I would think the same way or talk to a friend the same way rather than myself. if not, I could not allow myself to do it to me.
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It’s a very tough habit to break! I only noticed it when other people seemed never to say to me the sort of things I said to myself. I started to think that maybe all these negative thoughts weren’t true after all. And like you, I’d never say these things to someone else, so I need to not say them to myself.
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