The Overthinker's Oracle #004
Your December 2024 Oracle Reading
I have always been an over-thinker. I get lost in my thoughts and end up feeling more confused than when I first started thinking 🤪 When I discovered Tarot and Oracle cards, I found a tool that helped me get out of my head and into my heart. They’ve become a fixture in my daily life. One of my favorite ways of using them is at the beginning of the month. I ask for what I need in the coming days and weeks.
I felt called to create my own oracle cards 😊 This process brings me so much fun and joy. My hope is that this experience sparks curiosity and gets you out of your head and into your heart.
When you’re ready:
✨Close your eyes.
✨Take a few deep breaths - allow the breath to fill your belly, ribcage and chest. Hold the air and audibly exhale. As you do, let go of anything that no longer serves you at this moment.
✨Pick the card you feel most drawn to then scroll for your story.
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REST
‘吃苦’ chi ku is a Chinese phrase that translates into eat bitterness. It’s the idea that we must endure and persist through hardship. You eat the bitterness. When the going gets tough, you double down and keep going. You certainly don’t stop.
Growing up, I was told this constantly.
It turned into a belief that fueled my actions.
I endured and persisted through hardship. And I never stopped.
A few years ago, Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure, an HBR article that came across my inbox, taught me the important role rest plays in resilience.
Authors, Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan wrote, “We believe that the longer we tough it out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be. However, this entire conception is scientifically inaccurate.”
I have grown up believing and living “the longer we tough it out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be.” Scientifically inaccurate?! What?!
“The key to resilience is trying really hard, then stopping, recovering, and then trying again. This conclusion is based on biology. Homeostasis is a fundamental biological concept describing the ability of the brain to continuously restore and sustain well-being.”
When the body is out of alignment from overworking, we waste a vast amount of mental and physical resources trying to return to balance before we can move forward.
As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz have written, if you have too much time in the performance zone, you need more time in the recovery zone, otherwise you risk burnout.
Thus the more imbalanced we become due to overworking, the more value there is in activities that allow us to return to a state of balance. The value of a recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of us.”
This article broke my brain. All this time I could have rested?! In fact, it’s actually healthy and beneficial for me?!
My culture aside, no one ever taught me otherwise.
Instead, “the longer we tough it out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be” seemed to be championed everywhere. All night study sessions before exams. Work emails on your phone so you are accessible 24/7. Eating lunch at your desk. First one in, last one out. Emails going out at midnight.
All to say: “see? See how hard I work! This proves my worth.”
My relationship to rest changed when I got Bells Palsy at 40 weeks pregnant with my first child. My non-medical diagnosis was stress. “The longer we tough it out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be” finally broke me.
Since then I’ve been working to incorporate rest into my practice. It’s been hard. I’m a stay at home mama who has recently started a small craft business. It’s been challenging juggling both. Social media fuels my desire to push myself because I see other parents in a similar position who seem to be doing both productively and efficiently. So I go, go, go and by the time my head hits the pillow at night, I haven’t had a minute to myself. I am EXHAUSTED. I’m not reaching homeostasis. I’m burning out.
My body is forcing me to reflect on my capacity - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
It’s too easy to get swept up in the hustle. There will always be something to do. Always.
We can trick our minds into believing we can keep up or even get ahead! We’ll go to bed earlier later. We’ll exercise later. We’ll start nourishing our bodies later. “Later” we continue to tell ourselves. The joke is on us because later never comes.
May this be a reminder that YOU are the most important resource. You need a rested body, mind and soul to be firing on all cylinders. Later can start NOW. You get to make that decision and choice.
It’s Okay To Change
One of my core memories was post college when I shared with someone close that I would not be going to law school. Their response was, “next time, don’t tell people that you’re going to do something if you’re not going to do it.”
You see, up until this point, my dream was to be a lawyer. Growing up, two options were on the table - doctor or lawyer. Since bodily fluids give me the heebie jeebies, law was the natural choice.
I didn’t choose not to be a lawyer. The universe made that decision for me when I was rejected from ten law schools. So when I received this person’s response, I crumpled in shame. What a disappointment and embarrassment I was.
That moment cemented the belief that I was never allowed to change my mind. EVER.
In college, I would make fun of and roll my eyes at couples who openly shared their love through pictures and posts. ‘Ew, they’re so annoying. No one gives a sh*t.’ I proclaimed.
Years later after I got engaged, I wanted to share my pictures from the experience.
I didn’t.
I didn’t want to be at the receiving end of other people’s judgement. Most of all, I didn’t want to be called a hypocrite. So I held back and didn’t share.
Then my friends started to get engaged. They would share pictures and posts of their love. The same friends that would make fun of and roll their eyes at ‘those’ couples with me. A deep wave of anger and jealousy washed over me. I realized it was because they changed their minds. No explanation. No validation. They just did.
This past year, I’ve given myself permission to pursue the things that excite me. Even if it might not make sense to those around me. I’m changing my mind. No explanation. No validation.
Our present doesn’t look like our past. And it will not look like our future. Our needs and dreams will change, evolve and grow.
My hope is you will meet change with courage and confidence. Embrace it and evolve! Listen to the whispers of your heart, explore the things that pique your curiosity, pursue the things that inspire passion. It’s okay to change. Remember you are the only person who will wake up as you and face the consequences of your choices.
Cultivate Gratitude
I have been in my feelings this past month.
I am processing the heaviness of the US election. I am working through emotionally provoking situations in my personal life. I am feeling physically uncomfortable with and in my body. I am struggling with the feelings of inadequacy as a wife, mother and small business owner.
I have caged myself into a cell of anxiety and overwhelm.
There is no space for joy and happiness…right?
I LOVE Brene Brown. One of my favorite books is The Gifts of Imperfections. She shares guideposts to wholehearted living.
I recently picked it up and reread the chapter on cultivating gratitude and joy. It was the ignition of hope I needed.
Here are the nuggets that stood out to me:
One of the patterns she found in her research is “people who described living a joyful life or described themselves as joyful actively practiced gratitude and attributed their joyfulness to their gratitude practice.”
“There is one guarantee: if we’re not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the inevitable hard times.”
“Neither joy nor happiness is constant; no one feels happy all of the time or joyful all of the time. Both experiences come and go. Happiness is attached to external situations and events and seems to ebb and flow as those circumstances come and go. Joy seems to be constantly tethered to our hearts by spirit and gratitude.”
Excerpts from her friend Lynne Twist’s book, The Soul of Money -
“For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.”
Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds race with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to the reverie of lack.
Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency…it is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.”
“Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something.” If I didn’t know any better, I would think Lynne Twist was writing this about me. If there was a competition to be Queen of Lack, I would certainly be in the running. Nothing is enough. I am not enough. And when you feel like you don’t have enough and aren’t enough, practicing gratitude is not what comes to mind first 😅.
It’s comforting to know that practicing gratitude is just that - a practice. You’re not born with the ability. It’s something you have to do regularly to improve.
I’ve also been heavily relying on happiness, so I appreciated the reminder that it’s attached to external situations and events. It made me realize that using it as a metric of success is an excuse for me to continue moping. I can’t control those outcomes - “SEE! The universe hates me AND there’s nothing I can do to change it soooo…I’ll just be here wallowing.”
These reflections are reminding me that I get to choose how I show up.
I’m choosing to practice gratitude and joy.
If you also find yourself caged in a cell of anxiety and overwhelm, I invite you to join me in practicing gratitude and joy.
What is one thing you are grateful for right now?
Essay 15/24 in Sparkle on Substack ‘s 24 Essays Club by Claire Venus
Love the way you structure these posts it’s very powerful and refreshing!
I got the “it’s ok to change” and felt very serendipitous ✨ can’t believe the comment you got…. Everyone changes! Change is fantastic, it means we’re growing and evolving 🥰
I'm grateful the universe put you on my path so you can continue to remind me that I am enough. If the US has a culture, it's that we are "never enough," so we keep trying to get the nicer house, the better car, the perfect spouse, the smartest kids, etc. It's a lot of wasted energy on external benchmarks that say nothing about the true value of our lives.