Upright Keywords: Anxiety, uncertainty, self doubt
Symbolism & Meaning
A figure wakes from a restless sleep and can see nothing but the swords floating above her head. No matter how hard she tries she can’t shake the dark thoughts swirling around her. She needs to move on but she doesn’t know how. This card symbolises feelings of guilt, fear and anxiety that can take over our thoughts during times of uncertainty. We need to address these fears head on in order to overcome them and move on. Try and remember that these thoughts are usually self imposed and may not match reality in any way.
How The Nine of Swords is Relevant to Me
Today is one of those days where I wish I had recorded my thoughts whilst I was shuffling my cards. I just knew a tough one would pop up. I find that the cards are so accurate I often think people would never believe it! Many people don’t believe it and that is totally fine. The truth of the matter is though, this journal is forcing me to face my negative thoughts head on and process them. That is partly why I started pulling a card a day in the first place.
I find swords the most challenging suit in the deck, I think because I know that these negative thought processes are a genuine struggle for me, and it forces me to deal with them. I am pushing myself mentally in many different directions at the moment. I have this, something which I don’t think I could manage without, my silver which again, I love but it still takes a lot to focus on developing new skills and my recovery. I have also been back on social media for the first time in months. I am aware that going forward I am going to need social media. It is a great promotional tool from a business perspective. From a personal perspective, once I am up and running I will need to step back.
When I reopened Facebook it took a few attempts. For some reason, Meta kept thinking I was a bot and closed my accounts. Then, when I did get an account up and running, I tried to open two business pages but that was apparently way too much to attempt in one day!
So for now, I am playing the social media game with my personal accounts until I can get my business pages up and running. The last thing I want is to build some traction with a business page only to have Meta shut it down for no justifiable reason. The trouble is though, the more I interact with social media, the more negative thoughts creep in. I think it is easy to look at everybody else and think they are a living a much better life than you. The thing is, I think we all know that what we see is often nowhere near the reality. People only show what they want us to see. I am trying to be honest and show the bad as well as the good but it isn’t easy being so open. That in itself brings up a whole other load of challenges and gets my internal anxiety loop spinning again. I am trying not to default to my usual ways of just cutting people out dead when I feel they have gotten too close.
I think the most important thing I can take from The Nine of Swords is that yes, most of my inner turmoil is self imposed. I have always been my own worst enemy and unfortunately, I can’t change the way I am. What I can do though is change how I let these internal thoughts dictate my life. I have free will and I can life my life exactly how I want. I just need to believe that I can do it.