Today's Tarot: Two of Swords (impasse, emotional stalemate)

Trust. In essence, this card is about trust. Wherever we find ourselves, we need to trust that we are seeing what we are seeing and more importantly that we are feeling what we’re feeling.

We have to trust that it is okay to feel what we feel. Sure, if we are experiencing emotions that are frightening or that leave us feeling out of our depth it can be a real challenge to stop, breathe, and allow ourselves the room to be vulnerable enough to feel what we feel.

If you look at the card, it is usually depicted by a woman who is sitting in front of a body of water. She is blindfolded and she holds two crossed swords. In the tarot, water represents our emotions. The swords represent our intellect and/or ability to think through or rationalize our current situations. So when we see the figure crossing swords to keep us from getting to the body of our emotions, we can ascribe those definitions to our lives.

Something intellectual might be keeping us from accessing, acknowledging and feeling our emotions. We might be staying in our heads (which often feels much safer) and “thinking” our emotions instead of feeling them. And the feeling of them is crucial.

That goes for our internal processes as well as our external connections to others. If there is someone in your life who is tweaking your emotional heartstrings, but with whom you don’t feel safe enough to be emotionally vulnerable, then attention must be paid. Either you need to find out if you can be emotionally vulnerable, or you need to remove yourself from the situation causing the risky feelings so that you can experience those emotions and eventually get back onto an even keel.

I’ve always loved how much water imagery is ascribed and related to feelings and emotions. Even keel, still waters run deep, drowning in emotions, are just three of them.

Today, it will be important to trust your feelings (both internally and in your interactions with others) and if you believe you can’t do that, then at least give yourself permission to feel them. By the way, please bear in mind that if you need, really need, to be vulnerable with someone with your emotions and either they run away or they turn you away, then consider that you are wasting your time on this person. Intimacy is a two-way street and ultimately fair-weather friends will only ever keep it one way. You deserve better. Please remember that.