“We try to change the hand we’ve been dealt just by shuffling the cards,” Sheila said with a sigh. “It doesn’t work. I know now we have to deal from a new deck.”
Sheila is a woman who suffered much from childhood wounds. She attempted to carve out a life for herself in lots of different areas, but her wounds got in the way. Her relationships, her career, her life satisfaction always reflected the same dysfunctional patterns and dead ends. After several bad marriages, she was distraught to see her own negative patterns showing up in her children’s struggle to thrive. She entered therapy.
We are each dealt a hand from the deck of life. Our family, the country in which we are indoctrinated, the tradition and values we’re given – these all influence how we interface with and receive life. Our wounds put us on a path, deepen our capacity to experience, as well as offer clues as to how to out-step the narrowness of possibilities we’ve inherited.
Repeating old patterns, carting around the same old expectations, hiding behind the same old self-talk and perspectives that colored our life until now, will not change our story. We have to “deal from a new deck,” as Sheila says. We have to change the program, the self-talk, the possibilities. We have to have the courage to let go of the old deck.
We have to let the happiness in. We have to envision ourselves and our life in new ways, with new opportunities, in order for new energy to transform us into new possibilities. Coming to that place where we finally realize all we’ve done is cycle and recycle dysfunctional patterns gives us the message we cannot do this by ourselves.
We must engage a new helper or assistant who reports to us we have a number of other sets of cards in us we don’t know about. This new energy, this new helper, is sometimes a dream, sometimes a therapist, sometimes an epiphany, sometimes a twelve step program, sometimes an affair. It’s something that captivates us, creates interest in us, because this “helper” knows something we don’t.
For some, realizing they have another set of cards within from which they can create a new life is difficult; they’re clinging so tightly to the hand they’ve been dealt. Only as one learns to loosen the grip on one deck can one draw another deck from within. This means taking risks, allowing oneself to be loved even when it feels too scary, taking on new creative opportunities even though we don’t think we’ll be any good at them.
“I’m holding new cards,” Sheila smiled one afternoon. “My cards are different now than they’ve ever been. I have to be willing to play them in ways I’ve never allowed myself before.” Sheila has learned to open herself to new experiences — a loving relationship with a man who wants to cherish her, new friends, a thriving career. All this feels scary when we’ve never before experienced it. It feels foreign, unpredictable.
We have to allow that part of us that is older and wiser than we are – our soul – to project on to the new cards whatever we need to create the kind of life that will open up those possibilities we haven’t “allowed” in our life before now. We have to pay attention to that other energy source – that spiritual helper – to allow it to show us what we really want, what is possible for us, what lies within. Our old wounds blind us to new possibilities. We ourselves block them by “just shuffling the cards,” by doing the same old things, responding the same old way, in each new experience offered us.
“I’ve got to start using my new cards – be open to my new relationship, my new creative energy, my new friends – if I want to grow,” Sheila reassured herself. She knew she had new opportunities, but, unless she activated and embraced them, they would only turn out like all the old opportunities she allowed to crash and burn in the past.
Sheila is creating a life. She’s trading in her tattered, used-up cards from her past and allowing in new energy, new cards. Her old cards have lost their freshness, their truth for her. She won’t be anxiety-free as the new energy enters her. New energy always brings anxiety at first, until the way we are becoming is the norm, the familiar, the way we are. But she has a vision of herself in her new energy and she likes it. She wants it. She’s done the work up to now to be able to allow it.
Life is always trying to deal us a new hand, open up new possibilities, but we have a hard time trusting ourselves. We don’t think we can handle the new experiences this new way of being requires. The old cards, the old ways of being, are so familiar and safe. We know we would lose too much of what we think we have to hold on to. We’re afraid of the new woundings that come with new cards, think they will be too much for us.
Can we get the blessing without the wounding? Can the new cards come without any adjustment? Do possibilities come only in one flavor? Probably not. Creating a life comes through the birthing of something not-yet, something freshly imagined, deeply desired. In the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “There’s more between heaven and earth than men dream of.” There’s more to be experienced, more to be surprised by than we can dream.