Using Your Voice

Today's Teabag Tarot: be heard

Being heard is about using your own voice to clearly express your needs, wants, desires and choices. It's about the firmness and directness of what is said. You don't have to be loud or obnoxious. You don't have to whine or chide. What you have to do to be heard is to be clear.

Of course there will always be people who will run over you with their own desires or choices. Being clear or firm with people like that may not change the outcome (like that co-worker who always follows you to lunch even when you say you want to be alone or you're meeting som). What it does, though, is remove the self-shaming, the self-blame ("Maybe I should have...."). If you''re clear about what you want, need or choose, then it's easier to accept that the response is not your fault.

Being heard is not about blaming others either. It's about personal boundaries and personal voice. It's not about giving you permission to be mean to the co-worker who follows or accompanies you to lunch without your permission. It's about giving you permission to continue to do what you need to do for yourself, to be clear that you are providing boundaries, even if they are being crossed. Eventually, even the most persistent pest understands being ignored and redirected because you are clear.

Being heard is also about speaking up for yourself. If there's a task you would like to do, ask if you could be in charge of that item. Or if there's a task you really don't feel comfortable doing, clearly state that you don't feel comfortable with it. That doesn't mean things will always go your way, but you know you're doing your best by yourself and others when you use your voice.

There are many opportunities each day for me to be heard. I can speak up on my job. I can tell my partner my meal preference. I can express without malice that a sales sign is misleading or misplaced.

How do you use your voice to be heard? How do you feel about speaking strongly for yourself? What next step would you like to take to improve your chances of being heard?

Natural Expectation

©2014 ML Monroe

I'm afraid to live any place but in expectation.

~ Leonard Cohen, The Favorite Game

Over the past decade or so, there's been much focus on being in the present moment. Many interpret that to mean we stay focused on today and have no expectations. From my point of view, that's a near impossibility. I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning if I didn't expect the natural flow of time would call me forth to work, to breakfast, to greet the day. Although that sounds simplistic, there is a natural expectation that dwells within all living creatures.

The bee expects to find sustenance when it reaches a flower. Her inclination is to reach for it, to touch it, to check it out. She does that because of her natural expectation around flowers.

Humans have natural expectations too. Infants are born expecting to be fed and nurtured. Most newborns naturally turn toward the mother's breast, open-mouthed, searching for food. They live in that precise moment with a need and an expectation that the need will be met.

Our fears and anxieties are often born out of unmet expectations. Or the thought that the expectations may go unmet. Our thoughts, our creative imaginations, so vital to our life and survival, can also conjure fear.

Understanding that some of our expectations are natural provides balance in the now moment. Expectations mean we are looking for or forward to something. What creates the negative side is our anxiety that those expectations will go unmet. If we live in the present moment, we can acknowledge the expectation and the feelings around it without allowing those feelings to overwhelm us, and without getting upset with ourselves if they do.

What are your natural expectations? How do you feel when you think about them? What feelings overwhelm you when you think the expectations aren't going to be met?

Struggle

Who wants to find Struggle as a central card in a Tarot reading? I certainly prefer not. When I researched possible meanings, this is what I found:

You may be working through personal issues .... At the same time, you have others around you who have strong views about what you should do .... Just when you think you have a clear point of view, you are challenged on that view or you discover new information, and you change your standpoint again. This process is actually highly beneficial and will help you to come to a well-researched and well-thought out perspective. Know, too, that there is no ‘right’ answer, and whichever path you do choose, someone is not going to agree with it. So, you have to find the most comfortable option possible that sits best with you. It may not be 100% right for you but you need to choose whatever is closest.

I am finding this to be so very, very true. I waffle and waver back and forth, attempting to determine what is the best path, how do I best accomplish it, when do I move forward and in what manner. Each of these could take months to determine. Together, it could be years. Yet a decision needs to be made soon.

Even though I am the final decision-maker, I find myself asking others for advice, direction, resources and help. I want all the necessary data to make a fully informed decision. Sometimes that means I am overflowing with knowledge, yet slow with choice.

Reluctantly, I must admit, this is precisely where I stand. I have some major deciding to accomplish and often feel frozen in indecision. I am hopeful with the ending of the explanation of the card: "It may not be 100% right for you but you need to choose whatever is closest." The time is coming.

How do you handle struggle? What would you want to say to Struggle in your life? How would make your choice?

Be Curious

This morning's tea bag came with advice: be curious. What a great focus for the day! I began with noticing the way the light played on the grass; the shimmer of bright reflected on the car; the rosy tint surrounding the clouds as the sun rose. My beginnings were about observation. What was different about today? The light? The sound? My focus?

At work I allowed the flow of the day to run its course. We had a meeting and I focused on being present ~ I know that's not the same as being curious, but it led to curious questions along with the discovery that answers were not necessary. Answers were not about curiosity, questions were.

• How is being present different from sitting there daydreaming?
• Why would I want to be present?
• What purpose does it serve?
• What can I do differently each day?
• Can I be present every moment?
• How can one NOT be present in one's life?

That teeny tag attached to my tea bag brought moments of diversion, joy and curiosity to my world today. I wonder what tomorrow's teabag will say....

Do any of your teabags carry message tags? If so, what does your message mean for you? Do you take teabag tag messages as omens? What other signs and wonders are in your life today?

Detachment

I have lots of 'stuff' ~ not unlike most of the people I know ~ yet somehow I find myself wondering how I got to the point of owning so much that I often feel owned by it.

When I was younger (not so very long ago), I lived fairly simply in a studio apartment and I was happy. It was a simpler time in my life, a more reserved time, a slower time.

When I think about nothing owning me, another sensation passes through my being: this is not only about 'stuff.' It's also about the ideas and beliefs that I have. When I get caught up in them, tangled in the web of 'being right,' I am owned by these notions. I am attached to how right I am in my particular thoughts or beliefs.

What I like about Ali Ibn abi Talib's statement is that it reminds me of the importance of detachment in my life. It reminds me that nothing is important enough to own me; that I need less than I insist on having, no matter what I choose.

What do you insist on 'owning'? How does that ownership in turn own you? What are you willing to do to change that?

Well-Burning Life

On my list of things I've never considered: whether or not my life is burning well. If I had thought about my life burning at all, I would not have considered it a great option. Under most circumstances, burning and life are not positively associated.

If my life is burning well ~~ what does that even mean? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that, for me, it means that I am living from my passion, living with passion. My expectation is that my life would shine with excitement. If that's the case, then I haven't been burning well. I don't think that is the case. I believe that passion is what keeps us in forward motion, what keeps us breathing. It doesn't have to be big and exciting. It can be simple ~ and bring us joy. When I find that place, that moment, that space between the breaths, I pause and write. What shows up is poetic and revelatory. I want to capture the moment in words and in images.

My well-burning life keeps me posting on this blog. It keeps me in motion. Speed matters less than intensity and continuity. I am grateful for every breath, every flame, every ash.

What does a well-burning life look like to you? How does it express itself? What is its definition and shape?

World-Ending Meditation

Whew! It's been a while since I've sat for a significant time in meditation. I'd forgotten how altering it was ~ and that forgetting happens almost immediately when not sitting regularly.

When I sat in meditation today, I slipped into that deep, quieter-than-relaxation place. I felt my shoulders drop in relaxation, my breathing deepen and slow, the voice in my mind go still. It was more profound than my words can describe. I merged soundlessly and seamlessly with another dimension of reality.

Shortly after moving out of meditation, a phrase from a R.E.M. song filled my mind:

"It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."

I interpreted that as an intrinsic Tarot announcing itself to me. Like the card Death, meaning a transformation, transition or significant change. Perhaps revealing one that is already present in my life. Meditation set the stage for open awareness, a time to notice what is happening internally and in the world around me.

How do you interpret songs that 'show up' in your awareness? Do you meditate? If so, how does it help you? If not, would you consider trying it to see what happens?