Life Lessons from the Major Arcana: #3
This post is for you if you…
- want to attract the abundance of your dreams
- don’t think you are creative
- are willing to get messy
The Purpose of My Post
I want to change the world, create a shift in perspective and raise the collective consciousness. It is my utmost belief that every one of us has a gift to share with the world but we make it too hard and give up before we start. I want to help you overcome the hurdles in front of you so you can bring your gift to the world that so desperately needs it.
The Fool’s Journey
Who is the Fool?
Fearless and enthusiastic, the Fool is the faith-filled wild spirit in the tarot who excitedly embarks on adventures she is being called to by her soul. She has complete trust in the Universe and can be viewed as an innocent who is open to all she encounters.
How Does She Relate to You?
The Fool represents each of us on our hero’s journey to know ourselves and live our purpose. Every Major Arcana card in tarot represents its own lesson, so as the Fool visits each one she gains insight and guidance that keeps her on her path.
Stages of the Fool’s Journey
What can you learn from her?
Truly a beautiful soul, look to the Fool for inspiration on trust and openness. She embodies the truest form of your soul, the pure version of you without the baggage picked up from life. As the Fool moves through the Major Arcana, she asks for and receives a lesson from each person she encounters. Some lessons are harder than others and some repeat themselves until you learn what you need to learn. The Fool’s journey is never over, when she reaches the end, she starts again.
Who is The Empress?
Beautiful, sensual and abundant, the Empress is the very embodiment of feminine. She is pregnant with life, connected to the Earth, in tune with the Moon. You trust her implicitly and want to crawl into her lap and lay your head on her shoulder. This supple and gentle woman is the giver of life, a mother, the nurturing encourager who tells you that you can be anything you want to be. She reminds you that you have the power to create the life of abundance you want but only if you open yourself up to love through creativity.
The Empress’ Lesson
You have been living in a man’s world using masculine energy. Constantly on the go, pushing hard to make things happen and existing with a no pain, no gain attitude. You are exhausted but never slow down because that would mean you aren’t working hard enough. So you forge on, shutting down any softer energy inside of you that is trying to get your attention and essentially throwing yourself completely out of balance.
Speaking from experience, when you refuse to allow your feminine energy to surface, you will never be whole. When you aren’t whole, you cheat yourself of your natural gifts and will not see the abundance you want. Of course, there are plenty of examples out there of people who worked their way to the top and have more money than they can spend, but at what expense? Therefore, it is necessary to define what abundance means to you so that you know exactly how to get there.
Once you know your final destination, then you can map out your route. This is where it gets fun and where your feminine energy shifts into full gear. Everything starts with an idea and the only way you are going to get one is if you are open to receiving them – a decidedly feminine trait. So how do you receive ideas? By being creative.
Main Lesson: Through creativity comes abundance
Why is Creativity Important?
Now that we know creativity is essential to manifesting our dream life, let’s talk about some other reasons creativity can help you. I think it’s important to know right out of the gate for those of you who think you aren’t creative that contrary to what you believe, you are. Creativity is 10% talent and 90% hard work and is a skill you can absolutely develop. So whenever you find the excuse coming up that you just aren’t a creative person, challenge that thought because you aren’t lacking the creativity gene.
Authentic Self-Expression
My deepest, darkest desire is for every human on this planet to show up in the truest expression of themselves. That means all conformity is gone, the fear of what other people think vanishes and everyone is just real. When I think about what our world would be if that happened, I can’t even comprehend the magnitude of what we as a collective would be capable of.
Until that happens, you can tap into your own authentic self-expression simply by allowing yourself to be creative.
Improves Problem Solving
It’s happened to all of us, the a-ha moment in the shower when suddenly we know exactly how to handle a difficult situation. More often than not, these lightbulb experiences usually happen when we aren’t thinking about the problem at all. We have cleared our minds and are onto something else when the solution comes through. The reason for this is because we aren’t so focused on trying to force something to happen, in this case how to handle our situation. We are fully in our feminine energy, receptive to ideas thrown at us from the universe when least expect them.
Reduces Stress/Anxiety and Improves Overall Health
Science shows that creativity has a marked effect on our brains in a positive manner. Creating anything at all decreases cortisol levels in our brain, the hormone that our body releases to handle stress. With this in mind, creativity in any form exercises your mind and allows you to enter a flow that is relaxing and non-demanding. It also releases stuck emotions that are trapped in your body, giving yourself the opportunity to fully let go of old, stagnant energy holding you back.
How to Be Creative
Now let’s have some fun!!
Get Bored
My kids hate when I tell them this, but it’s good for you to be bored. Boredom practically invites creativity and is one of the best ways to practice. Next time you find yourself reaching for your phone as a distraction, slip into the world of doing absolutely nothing. Let your imagination run free and see what pops into your mind.
Last night, my teenage daughter was sluggish due to boredom and was begging me to find something for her to do (other than clean the toilets, of course). When I told her I wasn’t her entertainment director, she eventually took it upon herself to find something to do and ended up making pipe cleaner animals and tissue paper ghosts. The amazing thing? It cost nothing and she had a blast.
Think Like a Kid
Hand in hand with getting bored, drop back into the days when you were running wild outside as a child (or was that just me?). I could spend hours outside, deep in imagination and fantasy, and loving every minute of it. By myself or with others it didn’t matter, I still received the same pleasure either way and my parents would have to force me to come inside.
Channel your inner child again. Do absolutely nothing and see what happens.
Take Off the Pressure
One surefire way to stifle any kind of creativity is force yourself into it. This is not to say you shouldn’t carve out time to practice but rather it’s a reminder to be kind to yourself as you do. When you set rigid expectations and don’t meet them, you have a tendency to be hard on yourself and feel like a failure. If you find yourself taking this route, choose the path of flow instead. Open yourself up to riding the creativity wave and see what happens. Just the simple act of openness is a direct invitation to the universe to send you an idea or two.
Get Active
Exercise is not only good for your health but it’s great for your creative brain as well (you can read the study here). When you move, it gets you out of left brain thinking and into the right creative side. Any sort of activity will help, you just need to make sure you are actively clearing your mind. As we talked about before, a clear mind is fertile ground for ideas.
How You Can Incorporate Creativity in Your Daily Life
- Practice daily
- Put away distractions
- Know when you are at your best (for me, it’s definitely early morning)
- Play music
- Get messy and release perfection
- Focus
- Don’t force it
- Think outside the box: create a Pinterest board, go old school and create a magazine cutout collage, draw/doodle/paint, daydream, write anything, read, get inspiration from your dreams
Exercising your creative muscle is one of the most loving things you can do for yourself. A form of self-care, you are intentionally doing something just for you. The more you practice, the more you learn about who you are and what you like. Creativity encourages vulnerability, releases emotional toxins in the body and dismantles perfectionism. I urge you to let go of what you believe creativity to be and develop your own brand using the infinite imagination and possibilities available to you.
Continue to follow the Fool on her journey through the Major Arcana and she will lead you to where you want to be: living the life of your dreams. Next stop: The Lovers.
▷ I am currently in the process of writing the Fool’s journey through each of the 22 Major Arcana cards. Rather than wait and release them at once, I decided to post them as I finished writing in the hopes that it would help inspire at least one beautiful soul. Keep checking back for the newest installment or sign up here to be notified when a new one is available.
Also, I am not writing these in order as I am relying on my intuition to tell me which lesson is most needed right now. Thank you so much for reading. I am honored you have invited me in.
Other posts in this series
