three of swords in work, career, leadership and business ✨
at the end of the day, the most powerful tending comes from the self
💔
themes: heartbreak, betrayal, feeling wronged, grief, emotional suffering, intellectual suffering
how this plays out:
[work] getting passed up for a promotion (meanwhile someone less experienced or qualified gets the promotion)
[work] getting laid off after dedicating yourself (sometimes at your expense) for a company
[work] getting constructive feedback during a performance review, and experiencing it as a personal attack (whether or not it actually was one)
[entrepreneurship / biz] finding out that your business partner made a major financial decision without you
[entrepreneurship / biz] spending 5+ figures on a business coach and getting nothing out of it (+ feeling majorly taken advantage of)
[entrepreneurship / biz] finding out that a long-term client of yours secretly hired a competitor after ghosting you
[leadership] feeling deeply betrayed after your board voted against a strategic initiative that you spent 3 years developing, that you believed you had support and buy-in for (and now you aren’t sure if you trust the people running your company)
[leadership] you had to lay-off 20% of the workforce almost a year ago. even though so much time has passed, employees are still angry and morale is at an all time low in your organization. you feel misunderstood and resentful that no one recognizes the position you were in
[leadership] finding out that your organization lost a major contract to a competitor because a former executive shared confidential information that helped them win the business
[leadership] employees are feeling deceived about promises made before and during a contentious acquisition. in this scenario the betrayal is felt by the people in the organization and it’s up to leadership to navigate broken trust, resentment and an increasingly spreading us vs them culture
the invitation: in every instance I have pulled the three of swords for an individual or a business, there has been either a very real or perceived betrayal of sorts — where, the individual or entity that I’ve pulled for, is the one who has been (or feels) betrayed.
Sometimes there was definite wrongdoing. Sometimes it’s a bit of a gray area. Sometimes, there has not really been a wrongdoing, but there was definitely a perceived and felt experience of something or someone betraying them.
This something or someone could be a friend, a business partner, a colleague, a boss. It could also be an entity (an organization, an institution, a business, a corporation, an idea). And, it could be a situation. It could be learning new information and feeling betrayed by an entire industry or philosophy.
Whatever the scenario, and whoever we believe wronged us, the card most represents the feeling and experience of being betrayed. A good example would be the feelings that you might feel if a really good friend of yours told one of your deepest, darkest secrets to someone you don’t trust (or to the world over instagram live). It is grief, but it’s also anger, inner turmoil, conflict, resentment, heartbreak, regret.
This card represents the intellectual and emotional suffering that we go through when we feel we have been wronged.
Now, when this card comes up, it does not mean that we have been wronged or that someone is about to betray us. Rather, the three of swords serves represents three distinct experiences (happening all at once):
The wound itself. Something has happened that has violated your trust, expectations, values or sense of self. Note: this can also include self-abandonment, where you have put the needs of someone/something else above your needs and now you are paying the cost.
The attachment to the wound. Here, you find yourself swimming in the pain of it all — replaying the injustice; reliving the conversation again and again; imagining outcomes or additional discussion that hasn’t happened yet, but that you believe would make you feel better.
The outsourcing of resolution. This is where you believe that your healing depends on this one person, entity or situation that hurt you. This looks like, thinking that an apology, an acknowledgement, or validation will make you feel better. But, in hanging your healing on this, you inadvertently give that thing continued (and heightened) authority over your inner experience, peace and wellbeing.
* Therefore, the three of swords usually shows up when we need to look at and understand the relationship that we, ourselves, develop with our own suffering after a perceived or actual betrayal. **
Now, I want to validate you a bit. The betrayal may be VERY REAL. The injustice may be VERY REAL. The person who hurt you may genuinely owe you an apology, acknowledge or some form of accountability. All of that can be (and maybe is very) true.
AND. AND. AND.
None of those things guarantees relief.
And sometimes we become so invested in having our pain acknowledged that we start to organize our own identity around being the person who was wronged.
So, the invitation isn’t to deny the wrongdoing or the pain, but it is to recognize that the wound is not the entirety of who we are. We get to choose where we go from here. And most importantly, we get to choose who we want to be through this.
& the reminder is that your ability to tend to yourself is not contingent on any outcome.
And one more reminder: choosing how we respond, doesn’t mean we can just as easily choose not to feel the pain of whatever happened. Sometimes (usually) the pain remains even after we’ve made the healthiest and most loving choice for ourselves (or our teams and organizations). And that’s also a part of the healing (being able to hold, sit with, honor and tend to the pain).
about the swords: The swords suite represents our intellectual realm — specifically how we work with the brain, to bring it along in the journey of the soul. In general, the thinking self likes to be safe. Safety looks like familiarity. So, when something is new, the thinking self likes to launch us into old thought patterns and familiar scenarios to quell the fear around the newness. Now, our souls want us to expand. In order to expand, we have to move through the discomfort of newness and change. The swords suite teaches us how to work with our minds and our thinking selves, to do just this.
If we look at the cards that surround the three of swords, we have the two of swords and the four of swords. The two of sword represents a sort of stalemate or avoidance. It’s almost an unwillingness to confront a truth. The three is swords is moving out of that and into the experience of truth breaking through. And then comes the four of swords, which typically invites us into rest and withdrawal — which is often the fertile ground required for integration and recovery. The four of swords can then become the space we create to tend to ourselves.
So coming back to the three of swords, the question I leave you with, is:
what is the most loving thing you can do (for yourself, for your team, for your organization)?
Regardless of whatever happens with the other party or situation, staying in your own integrity will never, ever lead you astray.
♥️ Need a little support navigating your own three of swords moment? Book an intuitive strategy session here. ♥️
