I’m reading Gretchen Rubin’s new book, The Happiness Project, in which she applies various formulas to create more happiness in her daily life. A lot of these ideas involve bringing something new in: new friends, a new hobby, new gestures of kindness and generosity toward her family. Others involve letting stuff out: closet clutter, rules about fun, expectations that others will recognize and praise her hard work.
I would define the changes Rubin attempts as “life-tweaking” (as opposed to the more violent-sounding “life-hacking”), and they overlap with my tarot practice. I coach my clients to release behaviors and patterns that they don’t need any more, and to invite in whatever’s been missing or depleted.
Bringing in, and letting go, are themes I've been working on myself lately. As a kind of early-2010 experiment, I’m trying some dietary tweaks to improve my digestive health. The latest attempted tweak is going gluten-free — that is, not eating anything with wheat in it. It’s really hard, especially socially. So many of our metaphors for friendly togetherness involve bread: breaking bread together, our daily bread, the staff of life, etc. Flour is comforting. Unfortunately, my insides aren't happy when I eat it. So, I’m giving it a rest.
So far, surprisingly, the largest consequences have been not digestive but mental. My mind feels clearer and calmer, measurably so. This happens quite a bit when people do a life-tweak: it may have a positive effect in a completely different area from what we were expecting.
How do we know what to usher out, and what to welcome in? Usually, one of three sources will give us a prompt: our head, our heart, or our gut. Tarot helps us get those three on the same page — or, at least, enables us to see where they’re having their differences. In fact, a useful three-card spread for the New Year is a Head-Heart-Gut spread, where one card is chosen to represent each of those three areas and to show what’s going on there.
What are you ushering out of your life in 2010? What are you making room for?
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6 comments:
I'm ushering out envy (poking it with a broomstick, really --it doesn't want to go) and making room for true commitment.
It's hard.
Love it! You can do it!
Love the head heart gut spread, I'm going to try it out. I'm working on an investigation of healthy sleep for myself, moving out old habits and stuck energy, and making room for very nice sleeping. Also making room for learning excellent communication skills.
Amy, sounds great! Sleep is good for head, heart, *and* gut. Please let me know if the spread reveals anything interesting!
I saw the nice mention of my book, The Happiness Project, here. I very much appreciate those kind words and you shinning a spotlight on my work. Thanks and best wishes,
Gretchen
Gretchen, thanks so much for reading! I enjoyed your book and will let you know when my review is posted on "Inkling" (the online science journal).
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