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Summary: Eliminate destructive habit of negative thinking with a simple tool --- a deck of Tarot cards.

Total words: 750

Category: Motivation

Are You Too Negative? Positive thinking with Tarot cards

Copyright (c) 2002 by Angela Booth

Note: this article assumes that you own a deck of Tarot cards, and have some elementary knowledge of how they're used as a self- help tool. If you don't own a Tarot deck, this article may inspire you to discover yourself in cards. You can buy a deck at any large book store, or from Amazon.com.

The problem with negative thinking is that we accept our negative thoughts as reality. We don't realize that thoughts are distortions. I was a classic negative thinker: to me glass was not merely half empty, it was also chipped. I called my negativity "being realistic".

Tarot helps me to see positive. Because, no matter how black things look, there is always a positive.

If you've seen Tom Hanks movie, "Cast Away", you remember that Tom Hanks is Chuck, only survivor of a plane crash who gets marooned on a deserted tropical island. After years of solitary hardship, Chuck almost gives in to despair and commits suicide, but he tells himself to "keep breathing".

Finally a piece of wreckage washes onto island. Chuck creatively fashions it into sail of a raft. Later in movie, Chuck says you should keep breathing because "you never know what will wash in on tide". "Keep breathing" is cure for negative thinking. You truly don't know what will happen next.

A thought is just a thought

We negative thinkers tend to worship our thoughts. It takes us a long time to realize we're not our thoughts. Our thoughts come and go. If we don't cling to them, or follow them, they fade away and are replaced by new thoughts, pleasanter ones. Meditation helps with this.

Over time, when we can watch our thoughts come and go without becoming enmeshed in them, we can (occasionally) recognize a negative thought. For me, being able to label a thought 'negative' was a major achievement.

Of course, we were also taught to give that all up. “Act your age!” “Don’t be such a wild thing!” our parents told us. Grow UP. The list of unacceptable behaviors got longer and longer, until wild part of us just went to sleep.

But wildness is still inside of us, and we all need to make connection to it to be a whole, happy person. It is there for a reason, and when we can find it, wake it up and make it a working part of our psyche, we are all better for it.

The wildness holds our deeper intuition. That sniffing and tasting to discover what a thing was… it kept us out of a lot of harmful situations! We knew instinctively when something or someone should be avoided. As small children, that instinct was not fully developed, of course, but as adults we can use that wildness to guide us in ways that we need. When we allow our wild side to remain buried and asleep we are a lot more likely to blunder into situations and relationships that are not good for us!