Jan 11 | 2023 — II of Pentacles
This morning was a bit of a rough morning with our kiddo. He’s 10 and has pretty extreme ADHD with almost zero impulse control. Needless to say, you can imagine how fun our mornings are until the meds kick in. We’re having a lot of talks about mindfulness and strategies to ignore distractions. But dear sweet baby Jesus: GIVE US STRENGTH.
As I’ve thought about things this morning, I find it striking that today’s card just happens to be the II of Pentacles. Traditionally this is a card about maintaining balance and priorities, trying to find balance in all things. In the original Rider-Waite-Smith card, the card is almost laughably exaggerated — the dancing, the crazy hat (hullo Pharrell Williams), the wonky sea. To me, I see my son reflected in this card with his daily struggles of trying to manage simple tasks but being bombarded by internal silliness and outside distractions.
Message of the Day: Our day-to-day lives are filled with various responsibilities: feed the animals, get the kid ready for school, shower and get your face on, do your job, meals, meals, meals, medications, grocery store, doctor appointments, homework, bedtime… I mean, where is the time? And after a week of all this… let’s just say I definitely get those old Calgon commercials.
We’re all busy with life and constantly distracted by the little things that pop up that need to be addressed. Shit, we’re great jugglers, aren’t we? But at what point do we decide “ENOUGH!” and put the orbs down and focus on things that matter that don’t make it in your rotation? Little important things like self-care, spending quality, one-on-one time with your spouse or kid or dog (I’d include cat here, but you know they aren’t remotely interested in you). If you don’t take the time to pause and be still, you’ll eventually grow tired and fatigued and then you’ll find you start dropping things.
Thinking back to my son with ADHD and distractions, I think we all sometimes become too distracted by the little things, and that keeps us from focusing on the larger tasks at hand. BIG tasks like positively managing our relationships and finding the resources to help us become better people, or socially important tasks like raising awareness of LGBTQIA+ issues, trans issues, racial equality, etc.
Another thing to consider is that perhaps part of what we juggle aren’t tasks but expectations. If we are too strict with ourselves and our expectations, that just increases the weight of what we are juggling or makes us more tense and less flexible. If we can relax those expectations and be okay with things not being perfect, perhaps we’ll find more energy for other things.
So the insight from the II of Pentacles: set your shit down and take a look at your priorities. Are you working too much? Are your expectations unrealistic or too tight? What can you do to limit the distractions in your life that take away from your priorities?
Decks shown above:
