Has this ever happened to you? You spend your entire winter holidays brainstorming and planning for your business, with a focus on growing your podcast. You launch with a new season to kick off the New Year and.... you loose your voice for an entire month. Hello my friends, welcome back to Tarot Reflections. I have to say, it's good to have a voice again.
It's a new-ish year, still, which means a lot of folks have been reflecting on their life, habits, and goals, with the optimistic outlook they'll make one big change in their self-care routines and all will be different. In case you can't tell, I struggle with the 'New Year, New Me' mindset. I just find that it rarely inspires sustainable, healthy change. But I digress.
A self-care tool that a lot of folks may try to start as the year begins is journaling. It's a popular form of mindfulness, documenting life, and preserving memories. And it works for a lot of people.
Traditionally, it has not worked for me. In fact, I have begun new therapist relationships by flat out telling them if they ask me to journal I will not do it. Or I'll try to really hard, be successful for a day or two, then forget it.
I am no journaler. And for some reason, that used to have me feeling a good amount of shame.
I think that shame came from what I discussed last episode. That in the self-help, spirituality, mindfulness space, there are some folks who emphasise the importance of specific tools rather than the intended result of the tool. Folks that make claims such as 'five minutes of meditation in the morning will change your life for the better.'
Or that journaling is the key to being more mindful and more in-control of your emotions and mental health.
But I struggled with journaling ever since I was a kid. I've bought countless beautiful notebooks intended to change my life as a journal, only to have two or three pages written in it. Plus, as I was growing up, I had dreams of being a writer in one way or another. Heck, I still have those dreams. And the narrative that all good writers were journalers stuck in my mind early on.
Which is probably why I kept trying time and time again only to fail.
Actually, while I'm reflecting on it, that's not quite true. I had one journal that I used regularly. It was my secret boy book. I used it to document major milestones with my crushes from the time I had my fourth grade boyfriend right until I entered an abusive relationship and didn't want any of that documented. I think it's still somewhere and I'm pretty sure it even still has the preserved flower my seventh grade boyfriend gave me once on our walk home. I'm going to have to do some serious self reflection to figure out why my romantic side could stick to journalling at a young age...
Anyway, my point is, the traditional 'Dear Diary' style of daily journal writing never stuck. It never worked for me. I struggled to find value in it.
I thought the tool might just be broken when it came to me.
But here's the thing folks. Just like how not every tool works for every person, not every formula works for every person either. That method of "Dear Diary, today I did X, Y, and Z and enjoyed spending time with A, B, and C person" gave me back very little. It didn't, to quote Marie Kondo, inspire any joy in my life.
So I had decided that journaling was not for me. But this fixed mindset wasn't sitting well with me for a long time.
In listening to my favourite podcasts share tips and tricks for the new year, journaling for wellness was one that kept coming up in multiple episodes on multiple podcasts. Every time I would roll my eyes, but eventually I started to think about it. I started to realize it wasn't that the tool didn't work for me, it was that I didn't know how to work with the tool in a way that benefitted me. If I thought about why I might want to journal, what benefit I would get out of it, I realized I actually journaled all the time. I just didn't do it daily or maintain a record of it.
Journaling, for me, is about releasing built up emotions and expressing thoughts that maybe have gone unsaid. In my break-up last year, I wrote my ex at least a dozen letters. All detailing a mix of emotions, anger, and new understandings of the relationship. I, of course, sent none of them to him. In fact, I think I cathartically burned a letter or two in the whole healing process even. But those letters let me get out what I was feeling, release it from my body, and became a healthy expression of my anger and pain. Really, those letters were journals.
And I've done things similar to this since I was in high school. Sometimes it would be a long letter, sometimes it was just a few sentences on a scrap of paper or doodled in the margins of my university notebooks. Sometimes the writing was neat and pretty, sometimes it was chaotic and messy.
But this followed a similar pattern to your classic idea of journaling and was providing me with the same intended benefits. It wasn't necessarily Instagram pretty or following a strict methodology. But it worked for me. I adapted the tool to work for me.
Are you limiting yourself to ridged and prescribed methodologies? Is it time for you to modify a tool so that it actually works for you?
Now, let's dive into this week's reading.
Our general message from the Universe is from... the Star!
We are in for a rebirth this week friends. If you've been feeling down lately or like nothing is working your way and things have just crashed around you, this week will bring you the hope you've been looking for. Spend your energy and efforts this week in trusting yourself, have faith in your intuition, and surrender part of yourself into trusting that the Universe has got you.
And our mental health message from the Universe comes through... the Judgement card.
I know this sounds kinda scary if you're unfamiliar with tarot, but fear not. The Judgement card is really amplifying our Star here. It strengthens the idea of a rebirth to come, a new way forward. But the Judgement card here is telling us we need to do some personal reflection, some meaningful shadow work, to get there. We need to reflect on what we've done in the past — the stories we've told ourselves, the routines we've maintained, the boundaries we uphold or don't — we need to reflect on these and be honest in our evaluation of our self. This tough inner work, this sometimes painful shadow work, is what will lead us to our next path.
I find these two cards really interesting to be pulled at this time. I'm not an astrologer but I follow one and her episode last Friday dove deep into a thing called our Saturn Return. I'll link to the podcast — Cosmic Rx with Maddi Murphy — in the show notes so you cal learn about it too. But why this matters is because Saturn is about to move out of Aquarius and into Pieces. Saturn changing signs brings a big new shift to everyone, regardless if it's your Saturn Return or not. But Saturn Returns, from my understanding, can be a bit of a rebirth. As I have Saturn in Aquarius, and so will many people listening to this podcast based off the age demographics I see in my analytics, I literally, last night, wrote a journal entry of all things reflecting on my lessons from my Saturn Return. Maddi, I know you subscribed to the show so if you're hearing this, if astrology isn't real then why is this tarot pull so aligned.
Alright, that's it on another episode of Tarot Reflections. Pending no further life-complicating circumstances, I'll be back next week with more mental health love and messages from the Universe. If you've enjoyed Tarot Reflections so far, please do give us a follow and leave a rating and review. For more mental health magick, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at @meganmentally or on TikTok at @tarotreflectionspod. And don't miss out on your Permission to Thrive! Sign up to get your weekly permission slip for an abundant life at the link in the show notes.
Until next time.