I have paid dearly, sometimes, for telling a sitter something he or she does not want to hear. It is extremely difficult to give bad news, especially when that news is earth shattering for the sitter. Occasionally, I feel like I am an ER doctor, walking out from the trenches, hands wringing with the news of the inevitable, “No, he is not coming back.” “It is imminent that you are losing the job.” “No, new love is not stopping on your doorstep this month.” I take absolutely NO pleasure in sharing this information. I hate it. I hate being the proverbial bucket of ice water just doused on sitters. This is heavy, heavy emotional work but this is the spiritual calling of my profession and this is the most difficult part of what I do. Some days I will sit there with a beloved sitter and feel my own heart fall out of my chest, “Why, Spirit? Why not love for this gorgeous person yet?” This tough emotional work is why, I believe, that there is such a high turnover rate for Tarot readers, it can be so hard to continue to do the heavy lifting, and bear the brunt as messenger. But because I am a conduit for a message, because I believe that Tarot is a message from our Greatest Selves (and Higher) and for our Greatest Good, and with this blessed work I am midwifing transformation; that I have to share what I see, even when I get the backlash. Some sitters are not ready to hear the heavy medicine of truth, the bitter, painful, unbelievable, unredeemable, unsavable truth- the sharp slap to ego and lust and endorphins masquerading as love. Or even beauty, but at the wrong time and in the wrong way, “No he is not ‘the one’, he is not a twin flame, he is not a soul mate but he represents something else, a greater awakening, for you.” As the messenger we must wear emotional and spiritual protection for ourselves while still connecting to the other and it can be a very hard balance to achieve. There are sitters who sling the anger of their disappointment: lashing out, writing bad reviews out of their own pain, slandering, ignoring communications, or leaving the reading in a violent psychic fashion. Anger misdirected and projected onto the reader what should be directed and resolved by another. Or trying to manipulate the information, or negotiate for a lighter interpretation, “Maybe you can read it this way… maybe it means this instead.” "Are you sure this is accurate?" Most sad of all, the heartbreakingly sad refrains I hear such as, “But… I went to three readers before you and they all said that he would come back.” Those readers, who did not make a true covenant to do this Heavy Spiritual work of course will tell a sitter that someone is coming back. Keeping someone happy and hopeful is more profitable, you can string them along indefinitely, “Just around the bend, he is almost here… come in for another reading, let’s take another look.” These unscrupulous, unethical “readers” toy with people’s hearts and emotions to make a buck. The sitters, deep down in their most secret room in the quietest part of their heart- they know better, which is why they keep going to readers. Someone has to break the tableau, the truth must eventually out itself despite the lamentations of the ego. These sessions with sitters who have been told a pack of lies are the hardest to help by far, that glimmer of hope has kept them going (and imprisoned) for so long that to break the illusion creates emotions often backlashed onto the reader: rage, incredulity, hostility, depression, sadness, anxiety, despair-- as a reader, I try my hardest to soften the blow, to care for the sitter even in the face of hostility, to hold the space and to love and care for as much as possible. But easy this is not. The first heartbreak is in sharing hard information, the second is the projection I am succumbed to when I do. But, this is my commandment… to tell the truth, to speak what I see… no matter what, even if it hurts me in the process. This is my spiritual calling. The days where a sitter comes back, to thank me for the hard message I delivered in the past only to see the new wonderful life they are living now, is why I stay. When a message is heeded a life is saved, when a truth is acknowledged a person is reborn, its heavy labour but once we are out of the canal of accepting hard truth we get a new life, a beautiful life, a life that begins again. And those bright tokens of life renewals make all the hard work of no… worth it.
2 Comments
11/6/2014 07:11:44 am
"Midwifing transformation" - lovely. Great post. And that's a great pic of the northern forest!
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Jesse Dujari
11/6/2014 08:45:13 am
Love this!
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Jenna Matlin
M.S. in Organizational Psychology and Leadership Categories
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