So your life is crumbling. Now what?

Many people seek therapy in the midst of a crisis. Something strikes, as a bolt of lightning might, and things cannot go back to the way they were. The origin of this flash can be within or outside ourselves, and when we follow the associations from this point, it often leads us to something important that we are now ready to learn about ourselves, which was not previously possible. 

This awakening process might be seen in someone who is going through life in a steady relationship, and finds themself caught up in a spontaneous love affair. Or the prior understanding of one’s childhood is shaken after finding out new information about a family member. Or something new comes to you in a dream.

Something breaks into our conscious awareness in a cataclysmic way, and forces us to stop. This sets off a cascade of thoughts and feelings that were previously dormant. The result of this can be terror, and may be followed by a deep depression as new understandings are uncovered. Together, we will explore what wisdom the Tarot can offer us during this time.

Awakening in myth

The archetypal experience of awakening is found across cultures, and is often symbolized as something dead coming back to life. This is depicted in the story of  Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld, who was dismembered by his jealous brother Set. Through her magical powers, his bereft wife Isis successfully re-membered Osiris, bringing him back to life. He became ruler of the underworld and bearer of judgment for those who passed. This was symbolized in the weighing of hearts, where an individual was deemed “of true heart” if his heart was equal to the weight of the feather of Maat. Osiris’ new task is one of the heart.

Osiris now knows what it means to exist authentically after going through his own process of dying and being reborn, specifically re-membered. In the process of therapy, we are re-membered through remembering scattered parts of ourselves into a renewed existence. If we can survive being torn apart, we can wake up to a new psychological landscape that involves the heart. 

Awakening and the Tarot

If we try to capture this sequence of psychological awakening in the Tarot, there are a few cards that come to mind. And like any good reading, it can be useful for us to think about the position of these cards within a spread. As such, these archetypes are positioned within the psyche. A temporal spread is one way to situate ourselves here, as it can help show us where one has been, where one is, and where one is going. Past, present, and future. 

Past: Destruction

The first card in this spread encapsulates the moment something is realized, which may be in the recent past or sprawled over years. This moment is the bolt of lightning that strikes from above: the Tower. The Tower is complete destruction of the status quo. It strikes without caring who you are or what you’re doing.

The Tower has no investment in the impact of it on your life. It just strikes. So it is with the unconscious. It operates as an independent autonomous agent that we may not fully understand, and we must follow it to see its message.

In this way, the experience of awakening might feel as if everything is crumbling around you, like there is no relief in sight, and confusion and devastation reign. That period of terror following a new insight is experienced here. This is the pain of having to bear what you can finally see. 

Present: Curiosity

The next position in the spread is the present. The Tower bleeds into this position, no doubt. It may actually feel as if the Tower is your past, present, and future, that nothing else exists. But it is just when you feel this way that it can be crucial to try to separate oneself from the devastation for one moment in order to find your ego, which will help ground you.

From this place, another card emerges: the Fool. This is a card about potential, as the Fool sits outside the numbered arcana, existing before the beginning. He can move in any direction and is open to possibilities. 

The Fool is initiated into the mythic journey of the Tarot, and he enters this journey with a childlike openness and curiosity, following his heart. The challenges are present in the image (the mountains that lay ahead of him, the cliff), but focusing on where he is presently without knowledge of where he is going can be an important sensibility when navigating through an awakening.

It takes a great leap of faith to keep going. If we greet our awakenings with the care and compassion you would for a child navigating the world for the first time, as the fool calls us to do, we can slow down and be more present and understanding for what is being worked through. 

In therapy, we can take those moments that feel like destruction, and allow them to exist without trying to run from them as we once did. Letting yourself become the fool in this process requires surrender, which of course, is never easy. Nevertheless, this is a useful archetype to call on when we are in the midst of this process, as it allows us to stay with ourselves and our feelings instead of moving too quickly away. If we are focused too much on escaping the Tower, then we miss the message, and may have more Towers ahead of us.

Future: The heart

In the last position of this spread, future, we find Judgment. In the broader Tarot journey, Judgment is the last card before we return to the beginning (the World). It is the card of being reborn, with a new sense of responsibility to what has been seen and learned from the journey.

Judgment signals the beginning of a new order where consciousness and unconsciousness meet. If you can survive the Tower and move through the final stages of transformation, carefully considering what your unconscious has shown you, then you will arrive at a new place within yourself. 

Therapy can be useful here, as you are re-membered and ushered into a new beginning. Certainly, there is no returning to the beginning as it was; the return will always initiate a new beginning. This means that one has allowed oneself to be vulnerable and surrender, and arrive at a more embodied and heartened existence where we can see ourselves and our world more clearly.

One’s previously neutral or dead heart may come back to life in this card. Just as Osiris’ transformation moves him to a heartened existence, so you will be moved to a similar place psychologically. 

When to seek help

If you are in the midst of an awakening, I hope this offers a beacon in the dark. Things can shift if you keep going. And know that you are not alone. This is a transformational experience many humans have and will go through.

Therapy can be useful during this time, particularly if you find yourself in a state of stuckness and increasing psychological symptoms such as panic attacks, heightened anxiety, depression, periods of confusion, or relationship disturbances, all of which can be responses to this process.

By incorporating Tarot into this psychological understanding, we can open up parts of our experience that may not get much attention otherwise, and find our way closer to our heart.