I have an issue when it comes to going to events. I really want to go and then, when I am preparing to actually go, I dread it and really don’t want to go. For no real reason. It isn’t like I think I will be shunned or have a bad time or anything. I used to be able to blame the feelings on these sorts of things but they are more formless than that. There is a little around going into the unknown but I don’t think that is it either.

I try to turn my thinking off and just follow the automatic pilot I programmed in earlier when I was excited. Lately that hasn’t been working. I will get into a holding pattern and not move and not know why. Today I missed an event because it was hard to get me started and by the time I was ready it was a little late and then I stayed stuck in that circle when all I needed to to was literally walk out the door until it was too late. Part of me really didn’t want to go but wasn’t telling me why.

I think I have always been like this but as part of my work on myself I have gotten rid of some of the things that I was able to use to get me past the blockage and have a great time. What I am using now is friends. I totally own my flakiness and inability to do things sometimes and I arrange to have someone pick me up or poke me or just insist that I be there. I do lots of things for other people that I don’t do for myself. I will try but I also try to set up a backup plan with someone else in case I fail (which I do more often than I succeed, but I keep trying).

Turns out that large events when I am not actually going with anyone just aren’t happening. It doesn’t matter that there are people there I want to see and I have been really looking forward to it. In fact, the more I am looking forward to it, the more likely I won’t make it.

I did a online tarot card reading around this social anxiety. For Current Situation: The Lovers; Action To Take: 10 swords; Expected Outcome: Page of Wands. At first I saw the Lovers as me using others to pry me out of my hole, that I can only face these things holding someone else’s hand.

The reading from the site explains the Lovers as being whole and complete and that in this position, I feel broken and want to be loved. It then says that if you don’t love yourself then no one else will. All very true. I don’t love myself, I don’t feel lovable, I do feel broken and I want to fix myself. I want to supply what is missing so that I stop hurting myself. Thing is I KNOW that it isn’t coming from the outside. I don’t expect anyone from the outside to actually help. I would like it if I had some help finding what I am looking for but I have to find it,I have to be the one that provides/discovers what I am missing or change so that there isn’t anything missing. I don’t feel like I have much help along the path which is sad but I also don’t expect it any longer. Frankly, I expect everyone is tired of me and my quest, I know I am. Life is a journey and you need to enjoy the steps because there is no “there” to go to. I am in a bog and I wish I could enjoy the moss and water and mud and beauty that is here, I know it has to be here but I am still holding my breath trying to get to the other side where I can get some traction under my feet again and build. I think I am slowly building now but I have a hard time seeing it or believing in it.

So, yeah, 100% The Lovers fits (I think it is reversed in this position the way the site works).

Next is 10 Swords. Reaching your mind beyond its capacity, thinking something to death. It is time to stop and move on. Yup, I can see this one. I think on things. I am doing this because it is a way to condemnate things and try to understand so I can fix it. I wouldn’t be surprised if my thinking is what is keeping me in the bog. I feel that if I let the thinking go that something will get forgotten or I will get lost in the bog or I will lose ground and go back the way I came and my forward momentum will be lost and a lot of hard work will be wasted. (So says the part of me that thinks and is crying out not to be let go). I guess this card is telling me to move from thinking to just doing. I used to DO. I have been trying to learn to BE. Both are propelled forward by THINKING, that is my engine. I have found when I try to stop thinking I stall out. I am guessing that me involving other people in my plans is my way of setting up a back up for if the automatic pilot stalls out. This feels true. I have been looking for some spiritual practice I can turn myself over to so that I can stop thinking and start following a tradition. But nothing I have looked into has stuck. Anything I have come up with is a me alone sort of thing and depends on me motivating myself to move, which doesn’t work. I don’t have anything that on its own motivates me. I find if someone needs or wants something from me, that motivates me. Being called into work provides motivation. Having someone to eat with motivates me. Having someone to go to an event with motivates me. Having someone needing help or wanting to see me motivates me. I would like to switch to DO but I have run out of ideas on how to make this work. Well, I can try to stop thinking about things some more and see what happens.

The last is Page of Wands: Enthusiasm, faithfulness, unquestioning readiness to leap head first into any situation. The site says this card in this position means I will soon embrace adventure, that maybe I was held back by fear but now I am ready to dive into life with shear abandon. No matter what I do, I will have some serious fun. This sounds like who I think I normally am. I can be Enthusiasm embodied. It burns out quickly but it burns bright. This is the side of me that makes it so confusing that I don’t make it to events. This side of me wouldn’t have any problem with not knowing exactly how things will work out or who will be there or what will happen. This is the side of me that will take someone’s idea and promote it until it becomes reality. This is the side of me that comes out when someone else is having social anxiety issues. I become the cheerleader. Again, it requires someone else.

I don’t want to need someone else. I know (oh god do I know)) that I am in this on my own and if there are others around, that is just a bonus that could go away at any time. I need to be able to support and provide for myself. In some ways I am still learning how to let others be the bonuses that they can be. Anytime I have looked to others for actual support, I get hit with the Universe Clue Stick that I need to appreciate their support but not count on it. For a good chunk of my life, that meant not being open to others at all. While that may have been the only way to make it through my life, I think that has cost me dearly. I still don’t trust but I am trying to try.

To sum up, the cards say that I feel broken, that I need to switch from thinking to doing and that things will be great in the future. Seems like again I am told to do what I have been doing and I will get where I want to go. The only real change will be to try to think less, which I try to do but could do more.

I keep seeing these readings as support for the path I am on. How much of that is a set of personal rose colored glasses and how much of that is because I really am on the path I should be on for where I am trying to go? People have been pointing out that what I am doing hasn’t been working and I agree. But I also know that sometimes when building a new foundations, things don’t work for awhile so they can work so much better afterwards. Am I building for a better future or am I stuck in something that will never work? I can tell you that previously, I was functional but that wasn’t really working either. It was just barely survivable. Not a way that is worth living. Now is no better but it is very different. My real hope is to built to a point where life is worth living rather than less than tolerable.