My Accidental Awakening

From to-do lists to tarot cards: thwarting career burnout and midlife meltdown…with a little help from the universe.

I got where I am in the most practical way imaginable. Study hard. Climb the ladder. Accumulate advanced degrees. Produce consistent results by grinding it out. Week by week: wash-rinse-repeat. I built a successful career and created a comfortable life for myself by following the rules of the game.

At least until recently.

I woke up one day in my early 40’s with a case of cognitive dissonance. With all I’d accomplished, why did “having it all” not feel like having much of anything? I was living my values, working as a nonprofit executive for some mighty fine causes. The stress and long hours had purpose and meaning….didn’t they?

So why was I having trouble sleeping? Why were my relationships fractured and unsatisfying? What were these panic attacks and recurring fantasies of running off to a remote monestary all about?

Disconnection. From myself. From the juiciest parts of life passing by all around me. From that kid I had once been who daydreamed, listened to the trees, and had faith in things unseen. She’d totally fled the scene… years ago, as it turned out.

But I wouldn’t figure that out until much later.

First, the Band-Aid: Therapy.

I’d put in a decade already, in a navel-gazing adventure that took me on a circular ride to nowhere. Medication to mask the symptoms; to make the grind more bearable.

Next up: Mindfulness.

And because I’m nothing if not rational, let’s go with a research-based, eight-week program straight out of MIT. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. It’s legit alright. And life-changing, as it turns out.

Just one problem: This Type A, hard-charging taskmaster had a substantial amount of trouble sitting still on that cushion. Meditating for all of 49 seconds before cracking from the restless torture contained in that vast stillness. Peeking at the timer on my phone, wondering how five minutes could possibly take so damn long?

If I hadn’t before, I recognized in those squirming moments that the most profound source of my dis-ease began and ended inside that busy brain of mine.

So I kept sitting. Five minutes a day became ten. Ten became 20. Off and on, in and out, I dabbled in mindfulness. And life as I knew it started shifting- subtly at first.

Fast forward a year or two and those 20 minutes a day walked me right into a two-day silent Buddhist meditation retreat. Terrified.

And this is where my mind gets blown.

I encounter the stillness. The white void. That place all those books I’d been reading had told me about. The self/no-self zone. Just one moment of it, but it was enough to change everything.

The next week, I started thinking in pictures and metaphors. I started noticing vibrant details in the world around me, and the signs they held. Beyond words. The answers to vexing puzzles at work started to emerge in creative new ways. I was producing bigger results with less consternation, strain, and brutal effort.

A newborn understanding emerged: I am what I “be”, not what I “do”.

But of course, being Type A, I wanted to map this awakening of my intuition. Study it. Contain it. Direct it. Control it.

I got myself some tarot cards and a bunch of books like the good student I am. I set out to consciously play with imagery and symbols. To find new pathways for communicating with my inner guidance system.

And I’ll be damned if it didn’t work, but not in the ways I expected it to. At first, it was academic, an intellectual understanding of codes. Reading. Interpreting. Applying. And then one day, I started to feel into the cards. Intuit their meaning.

Suddenly I became (or I was) conversant in a language I’d never spoken before. I began laughing at the jokes those cards were telling me about myself, about my life. Shaking my head in wonder (and sometimes irritation) at the information they were offering. Listening intently when they called me out.

In working with the cards, I’m not seeking to tell fortunes or predict the future. Just the opposite. They show me how to come into flow with the things I cannot control instead of resisting. They are a tool for insight and self-inquiry, with more practical application than all those years of therapy combined.

Say what? How is that now? It’s simple:

The cards connect me to my own internal authority.

Therapy provided me with the compass perhaps, but now I’ve learned how to draw my own maps.

The cards show me how to recognize patterns and learn how to break them. To understand the archetypal themes at work in my life, and the impulses that drive my choices. To show up fully accountable and to release what isn’t mine.

Most of all, tarot taught me to embrace mystery and play this game of life with my heart open wide.

I’ve told almost nobody about this. It feels too vulnerable, too tender, and too…well…wacky. I couldn’t imagine how to publicly reconcile the Serious Professional persona I’d cultivated with this whole other Buddhist Tarot Girl thing.

But that was the point all along, wasn’t it?

The internal dissonance, exhaustion, and desolation that initially set me on this quest is a modern epidemic.

Of course, the Buddha would tell us that this is nothing new. The buzzing state of mind flourishes behind our false fronts: The perfectionist. The high achiever. The pleaser. The go-getter. Analytical. Logical. Reasonable. Contained. Safe. Predictable. Addicted to illusion, trapped behind the masks.

Be who you are, the cards told me. In all your contradictions, imperfections, and messed-up beauty.

That’s all it was ever about, really. Hearing myself. Knowing myself, intimately. Just sitting still long enough to finally reacquaint myself with that divine child inside who knows intuitively just how to plug into truth. I ask this higher self for advice all the time now, using the cards as one of many tools to quiet the chatter in my head long enough to hear the voice that counts.

The world needs more of this.

Not more hard-charging warriors who burn themselves to the ground. So here it is. No more trading out vitality for martyrdom in internal wars nobody even knows we’re fighting.

And I’ll tell you what. Awakened intuition looks and feels mighty sane, both inside and out. I haven’t retired my task lists. I haven’t quit my job, joined the circus, or shed the trappings and responsibilities of my everyday life. What I have done is get happy by becoming exceptionally clear about who I am, thanks to meditation, mindfulness, the cards, and a whole lotta sitting still. Most people don’t even know I’m doing any of this. But they can feel a difference…and so can I.

Tapping into intuition has taught me that there is another way to show up in the world.

Another way to live, love, and lead. One that is wholehearted, joyful, creative, sustainable, and real. And I ain’t going back for nothing.