This photo reminds me of the 5 of Wands Tarot card, the sense of desolation Of course, 5’s in the Tarot are all about choices….. Photo copyright by Aislinn Bailey, all rights reserved.
When you’re in the midst of a heartbreak or trauma, it’s very easy feel stuck in the muck. I have come to see the turning points of my life in a different light, because that’s exactly what the worst moments of my life have been: turning points….turning to something better, even if that was impossible to see then.
If I look back on the path my life has taken, every time there was a really rough patch, it forced me to change the course I was on. Usually, I was not content with the course I was on but I didn’t know how to change it, to craft it into something better for me. In a way, I suppose I brought that to me, Law of Attraction-style, because I was looking for something that would force a decision. I wasn’t proactive in an action sort of way but rather in a thought sort of way.
That was true of my back injury when I was so focused on my career that I wasn’t doing much toward fulfilling my dreams or tending my spiritual needs. It was true of how my marriage ended. It was true of home-business decisions. It was true of health decisions.
It was true of several relationships I had that were really forks in the road for me. I was happy with how things were going but wanted more. If I’d gotten more, I would have been taking a particular fork that would have led to misery. I couldn’t see that at the time because I needed that aerial perspective to see where the path beneath me was headed….into fire pits, swamps, and far more heartbreak than I got from a break-up. Those break-ups put me on different path, one that was smoother, wider, gentler, and far less violence to the emotions. The break-ups were just a few horrendous days wide as I got pushed onto a different course, rather than the miles of sameness before walking through years of hell.
What started as heartbreaks put me on better paths to more confidence, independence, happiness, serenity. I could have spent the rest of my life–easily–with any one of those men. I would not have grown in the ways I have, been loved in the ways I have, or learned to love myself. If I were to map my life, you would see drastic zigzags with markers at each course correction, each with a name or event, but each directing me to higher ground.
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