Discouraged

Franklin: A man down on Earth needs our help. Clarence: Splendid! Is he sick? Franklin: No, worse. He’s discouraged. –It’s A Wonderful Life

It often happens when doing several Tarot readings in a row that the same cards keep coming up. The skeptic in me thinks it’s just a matter of not shuffling good enough, which of course, only makes me shuffle the cards more. The messages that kept coming at the Holiday Open House at Brigid’s House had to do with frustration.

That caught my attention because in the days before the open house and in the days following, I’ve heard more people speaking of their frustrations. Frustration with working and having little to show for it. Frustration with relationships. Frustration at feeling frustrated and not knowing what to do about it.

I talked to a woman last week who is a single mom, working long hours and barely able to keep food on the table. Last week was a particularly difficult week for her. She feels guilty for having little time to spend with her son and daughter. Every extra penny seems to go to handle life’s little wrenches thrown into the machinery, like fixing the car.

Another woman is dealing with an aging parent, year-end work overload and no help from other relatives. Yet another has lost her home, all their equity gone, and to top it off, a beloved pet died unexpectedly. Some one else has been torn to pieces by a Thanksgiving family gathering gone horribly wrong.

Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom, was on Oprah yesterday talking about how the world seems P.O’d . The other night I joined a wonderful group of women for a drumming circle. How good it felt to hit that drum. As we went around the circle talking about what was on our hearts, more than one woman talked about anxiety, worry, and feeling unheard and blamed by others unfairly.

It is at times like these when the prevalent mood seems so discouraged that I am most grateful for the lessons learned from past life regression. When we feel as though we have no options left, what we really need is a higher perspective. Decisions are more easily made when we are relaxed, calm and confident. Even just finding that we do have choices can make a huge difference in the way we feel.

So if you are feeling cornered, feeling as though you’ve no alternative but to suffer, then kick back for a moment or so. Relax. Watch It’s A Wonderful Life, a movie that perfectly describes Integrated Imagery Therapy, by the way.  Be gentle with yourself. Most of all be gentle with yourself. Have a massage, a hot bath. Remember the times you felt happy and hopeful. Hold onto your positive thoughts. I will close this blog with what one client taught me about the planet Earth, this is the place to learn all about faith and hope. Without an understanding of feeling discouraged, there is no understanding of faith or hope. In the end, and from that higher perspective we will see that it is all good.