the hanged man reversed in work, career, life and business ✨
read about the hanged man upright, here.
themes: resistance, control, over-efforting, unnecessary accommodation, contortion, over-adaptation, premature action, avoidance of surrender, fear of change, delayed movement, self-sacrifice, endurance, toleration, limbo, waiting past the point of knowing
how this plays out:
you want to leave your job. you’ve known this for a long time (maybe even more than a year). rather than leaving, you keep switching teams, negotiating responsibilities, taking PTO, and finding new ways to make staying tolerable
you’ve completely burned out. instead of stopping, resting, being, you decide you just need a better morning routine, or stronger boundaries, or more discipline so that you can keep carrying your impossible load. maybe you’re even telling yourself that it’s temporary (“it’s not forever”). is it though?
you already know you want to make a change in your career but you’re “waiting for clarity”. you take another assessment. you talk to another person. you research yet another path (or maybe the same one, again, but different). you sign up for another course. you pull another card. but you’re not making any actual moves. (sometimes staying undecided, uncertain, or hanging in suspension feels less scary than doing anything).
you accept work that requires you to undercharge, overdeliver and accommodate what is no longer working for you, again. because technically, you can. and right now your ability to make it work keeps obscuring what isn’t actually working for you.
you know you’re relationship isn’t working anymore. instead of confronting what that might mean, you lower your expectations, try a new method for communicating the same things, you ask for less, and you ultimately become more independent. you do what you know how to make it keep working.
your life is looking pretty good on paper. you have the house, the career, the relationship, the children, the car, the dog, the white picket fence. but something in you is saying “this isn’t me”. so instead of meeting that knowing, you redecorate, plan another vacation, start another new hobby, take on extra responsibilities at work, practice gratitude and keep trying to become happier in whatever current circumstance exists.
Note: in all of these examples, nothing is forcing you to stay where you are — suspended in mid-air (for far too long now).
invitation: the hanged man in reverse invites you to stop trying to make it work. last week’s newsletter touched on this theme, offering a Turkish proverb for support:
No matter how far down the wrong path you’ve gone, turn around.
And maybe the answer isn’t always to turn around. Perhaps it’s to just stop all the effort to keep whatever circumstance you’re in right now, tolerable. The medicine is to notice when you are efforting so hard to adapt, to endure, to accommodate, problem-solve, or make it what you need it to be to continue. Instead, the hanged man in reverse asks you,
what would happen if you stopped forcing an outcome?
what becomes visible when you stop trying to fix, optimize or manage the situation?
what would happen if you questioned why you’re tolerating what you’re tolerating? (just because you CAN carry something, doesn’t mean it’s yours to carry)
what if you noticed what you already know? (if you’re waiting for clarity, ask whether clarity is actually missing, or if maybe you’re afraid to act on what you know instead)
what would happen if you released your attachment to however you thought this would go?
can you just let it work itself out?
And finally, what would you have to admit if you stopped trying so hard to make it work?
Remember, nothing is forcing you to be here right now. Can you take a deep breath, exhale, and pause the mental gymnastics, the justifications, the reasoning for your actions, and can you just let whatever is there (underneath all of it), guide you?
You don’t need more clarity before you make a move. Even if the only clarity you have is “I don’t want this anymore” (about the job, the company, the career, the business, the relationship, the morning routine, the friendship dynamic, the whatever isn’t working fully anymore). Can you let just that knowing be enough to inform just you’re next right action?
Maybe the next right action isn’t getting more clear on what comes after we choose X. *I know, I know, it would be really great to have guarantees that go with each decision we make, so that we know what would absolutely happen after we choose X.*
But trust and faith and co-creation with the universe, with our souls requires us to surrender to what we do know when we know it. And can that be enough to move you?
Book a session if you’re spinning out on what it is that you already know. And consider coaching if you need a bit of a nudge to take action.
Read more about The Hanged Man and the Major Arcana here.
