Worrying about the future has the propensity to keep us up at night. The recipe for worry is often equal parts anxiety and stress over not knowing an outcome. Resulting in the skin break outs, our hair falling out, and not eating enough, or eating too much. Our bodies do not thrive well with stress, especially over an extended period of time. Our system breaks down first mentally, then physically. The build up over time results in physical illness from a steady dose of increased levels of cortisol.

Answers and finalities are a blank state. Doing an action for a result which is unknown still can be a difficult action to do day in and day out. The constant what if spins round and round in our minds. Whether rational or not… it is apart of our thought process. Nobody gets out easily when it comes to worrying. Some get it worse than others. Getting stuck on the Merry-Go-Round of worry rarely gets anyone the answer they want or need. The Merry-Go-Round of worry is filled with illusion. Spinning round and round, we pause on our journey and are unable to proceed.

So what do we do when the worry is constant? When we are stuck. When we feel we have lost all hope. We draw a tarot card, and turn to stoicism… naturally.

The Tarot + The Tower Card

Drawing from the tarot, I get the tower card when thinking about worry. Ugh… I hate the tower card. Why? Well, looking at the tower card… their world has been flipped upside down. A man and a woman are seen falling from a tower after the tower has been struck by lightning. As if the lightning strike and falling isn’t bad enough… but the tower is also on fire. It’s crisis, trauma, and destruction. As bad as it gets. At least it looks that way on first glance.

!!Scary danger card!!

Stuck on the Wheel of Unforseen Events.

Round and round they go. Where they land, nobody knows. The opposite of the wheel of fortune card. We have an unfortunate landing is the tower card. We can’t seem to envision the sunny side of this ordeal. Instead, we are stuck in doom and gloom of crisis and destruction.

We wish for the best in unforeseen times. Although we know full well that sometimes life can be like a zit. Something is festering. It gets full of pressure and becomes painful. Once the pressure is released, we have the opportunity to heal.

Not as Bad as We Thought…

The tower car does not always as bad though. In the past, I would get the tower card during a move. It’s a sudden shift in your life. More anxiety inducing? Absolutely. The house has been packed into neat little boxes, and order must be restored. Who wouldn’t get a little anxiety from upheaval.

The lightning Strike of Sudden Revelation.

The tower card isn’t always as destructive as it might seem. On the positive side of the tower, we have a sudden revelation. A light bulb goes off. An ah ha moment. Getting the answer you need. A missing piece of the puzzle. A change that can be disruptive, but once the dust settles everything is okay.

I like to think of this as a good time to remember that yes you were off track for a moment. However, you needed the pause in order to get back on the right path. You were missing a part of the puzzle. Without this piece you couldn’t continue on your path to where you would be able to succeed.

Which Side of the Tower will you get?

The problem with worry, is there is no way to tell just how bad the tarot card, the tower, will be. The tower card in reverse may not hit you as hard. But, only in time will we see the true meaning of the tower card and how it presents in our lives. The tincture of time solves most things. Sometimes you just have to do what you can for one day, and then get some rest.

Stoicism on Worry

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.“

-Seneca

Stop Worrying about the Future

We cannot be happy if dependent on outcomes which are unknown. Seneca notes that we shouldn’t amuse ourselves with hopes and fears. A hope for the best and expect the worst thought process often is unproductive. We get what we put out. If we expect something bad to happen, then most likely something bad will happen. This idea lends itself to all hope lost once again. Instead the perspective with Seneca is shifted to what we have in the present moment.

What we have is Sufficient.

In the present moment, think about what is wrong. Usually it is nothing. Is your arm being gnawed off my a rabid dog as you read this? Likely not. Do you have food, water, electricity, and are your basic needs met? In the present moment, most people do. A perspective shift of resting with what you have, instead of where you are lacking will keep you satisfied.

Perspective Shift

“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it . . . because the anxiety was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.“

– Marcus Aurelius

More often than not the anxiety of what may happen is not actually what will happen. It’s all in your head. Changing perspective has the ability to shift the emotional state from anxiety to revelation just as we see with the tower card in tarot. It’s only as bad as you think it is.

Step off of the Not So Merry-Go-Round + Choose to get on the Ferris Wheel instead.

Shifting our perspective from the Merry-Go-Round (or not so Merry-Go-Round as I like to call it), we step onto the Ferris Wheel instead. The view changes. On the Merry-Go-Round, we were stuck in illusion. Becoming delusional, and unable to see the forest through the trees so to speak. We get lost in outer space from the busyness of our own minds. But on the Ferris Wheel, the view is much different. Our perspective becomes noteworthy. Sure, we spin round and round, but we gain new perspective. We are relaxed. We can see things we were unable to see before.

It’s all in Perspective.

A sudden message can be just as destructive as it can be enlightening. A change is needed on occasion for improvement in our circumstances. Without a winter in our lives, there is no spring. As Albert Einstein once said, “in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

-Keri