Dear Kindred Spirit,
I’ve been in a deep healing cocoon this week. It began when I pulled the Four of Swords card for my personal week-ahead tarot reading last Sunday.
The Four of Swords can indicate a time of rest and recovery. Sometimes that’s for physical health—but it can just as easily be for spiritual or emotional health.
To work with the card, I journaled about what it might mean for me. What came through was a new awareness of a stress response I’ve been having around a writing project. The message that came through was simple: I need to hit pause for a moment.
When the writing idea first arrived, I set up a daily schedule and weekly word count goal. I devoted myself to it for a couple of weeks. Then I hit an emotional block featuring the usual suspects: fear, anxiety, and “how dare I?”
Even though I was so lit up by the idea at first, I felt it slipping away. Who were my characters? What were their stories? I started to forget, and it became easier and easier to not write each day. I felt like Dorothy heading to Oz with her friends, when they stumble upon the poppy field, forget what they’re doing, and drift off to sleep.
But this week, guided by the Four of Swords, I decided to change the pattern. Instead of unconsciously letting the idea fade, I consciously chose to pause and devote my daily writing hour to exploring my blocks.
This was hard to do, because the voice of my productivity is so strong. You can’t stop to ponder your blocks! You must keep writing! But this didn’t make sense, because I had already stopped writing.
So, for five mornings in a row, I spent an hour or two each day pulling tarot, and doing meditations and energy work around the fears I was experiencing.
One of my favorite meditations is an energetic healing process created by Emily the Mystic. In the meditation, you do a guided visualization to see a cord or negative energy impacting your life right now. Then you ask it questions: What are you? Why are you here? When did you attach? How are you affecting my life?
The answers to these questions revealed so much.
Here is what I discovered:
There was a cord in my voice chakra still connected to the terrible fear I carried of my father when I was young. I hadn’t consciously thought about that in a long time, but when I saw it, I was like… Oh yeah. Of course.
There were cords from old love attachments—decades old—still tugging at my heart.
Energetic blocks from childhood church experiences were still active in my field, making me want to hide under the blanket from scary demons.
All of these were activated by my writing idea—a fantasy novel about women using their voices, choosing love, and taking down an oppressive force. Sometimes our ideas ask us to heal our lives. This is one of those ideas.
Bundled together, these blocks inhibited my self-expression. They made me want to turn away from the project and get very distracted by watching The Office.
The guided visualization helped me get clear on what was going on, and it helped me clear the block. It was like taking a mystical, wondrous bath of energetic healing every morning for 5 days in a row.
It felt so good. And it made a difference.
The story is calling to me again. I can see my characters’ faces. I feel the tug on my heart to return to them—because these women are up to no good in the best possible way, and I want to tell their story.
To be honest, when I first pulled the Four of Swords card, I felt scared. What did I need to recover from? Was I about to get sick? Was it a bad omen?
Instead, it led me to care for myself in a beautiful way. It invited me into healing around my creative spirit.
This is the kind of week I forget is possible. Once I begin a project, I believe I must keep moving forward or I’ve failed. But this was a gentle reminder that it is always okay to pause and lovingly tend the deeper layers of our beings.
I can’t wait to return to my writing next week.
—Emma
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Hi, I’m Emma Basu. I’m a writer, tarot card reader, and book lover. My soul’s work is to help you find clarity amongst the chaos, meaning in the mundane, and purpose in your life’s winding journey.
Disclaimer: This blog is a resource guide for educational and informational purposes only and should not take the place of hiring a life coach, a therapist, or of seeking medical attention. No information on this blog creates a coach-client relationship between us. You are fully responsible for the decisions and actions you take in regard to your life and affairs.