from Maria Loren Oct 24, 2021
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Your tarot card for today is Strength.
Just as we would call for an air conditioning repair person to fix our AC in advance of a heat wave, this card is a reminder that you should open up and reach out for help before you face times of emotional strife.
The Strength card shows us a beautiful woman dressed in white and flowers with an infinity symbol over her head. She is outside in a natural landscape, and she bends over like she is caring for something. Her gentle hands are petting the head of a happy lion.
The relationship between strength and care is evident in this card. The woman on the Strength card has subdued the king of the jungle—a lion. But she didn’t fight it or trap it—she has cared for it.
She is such a strong person that her care and tenderness have tamed a wild lion. She is leading it on with a leash of flowers. The lion could break the flower leash if he wanted, but he wants to be cared for, so he stays. He looks up at her with adoring eyes.
Today, this card is inviting you to consider the connection between strength and care. It takes strength to care for others, like the lion, but it also takes strength to care for ourselves.
Mental Health Care in a Crisis Is Like Air Conditioning Repair in a Heatwave
We may neglect caring for ourselves because we feel selfish for focusing our efforts internally when we could be showing our strength like the woman on the Strength card and tending to someone else who needs it.
But what happens when we need care and our needs fall by the wayside?
To reflect on this concept, let’s consider an example of a heatwave. Imagine that you have an old broken air conditioner unit taking up space in your attic. You might neglect it for months—even years—if the temperatures stay moderate and you see no need to bring it out into the light and get it fixed.
But if a sudden heat wave hits your town, suddenly you are in dire need of air conditioning repair. You would wish that your air conditioner was fixed and ready to go, but you never got around to dealing with it, so now you have to suffer the unbearable heat while you figure out a way to fix the machine.
We can easily parallel this idea of a heatwave to a personal crisis, and the air conditioner to our mental health. If we neglect taking care of our mental health when we assume everything is fine, we could be in dire straits when a crisis hits and we realize that our mind doesn’t have a healthy foundation to deal with the new circumstances.
It Takes Strength to Reach Out
If you are receiving this card today, you are being encouraged to take stock of your mental health today. Right now. Even if you think everything is fine, you should check in and ask yourself if you are being as tender and caring with your mental health as the woman on the Strength card is with the lion.
If we need help with our mental health, we can reach out and ask for it. This can be easier said than done. Sometimes, it takes tremendous strength to ask for help—more than it would take to try to handle things ourselves. For mental health help, you can talk to your doctor, search for a local counselor for talk therapy, or try out a meditation or therapy app as a starting point.
Remember that it takes strength to care, and caring gives strength.
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 