What a Tarot Card and a San Francisco Driving Instructor Taught Me About Feeling "Stuck"
I was recently at a Creative Tarot Play class. We were instructed to journal based on prompts given and cards pulled. Straightforward enough, right? As someone who knows next to nothing about tarot, I wanted to try this in the name of fun and as an opportunity to journal. To my dismay, I pulled out the card ‘Stuck In Lack’ about halfway through the class. It felt like someone had called me out on a blind spot—something I both needed to see but didn't want to. It felt familiar, though, and offered some insight into where I’d been spending mental and emotional energy lately.
Whether it’s your finances, your body size or shape, your aging body, your partner, your lack of a partner, the amount of time or energy you have, or how supported and connected you are, it’s easy to notice what is lacking. Put a different way: noticing what is reality, how you'd like things to be, and how you feel about the gap between the two.
To observe lack is to be human. It can be a catalyst for change and help us work towards a life that is more meaningful and aligned. We don't want to stay stuck in lack. Staying stuck in lack can negatively impact our nervous system and can have us operating in survival mode; it also opens us up to unhelpful thoughts, including judgements that can make our experience even worse.
So what can we do when you have the awareness you might be stuck in lack?
Step 1: Name It
Get curious about your experience, including thoughts and feelings. These might look like:
“I wish things were different”
“It will always be like this”
“I brought this on myself”
“Other people have or look [insert a word or words meaningful to you]”
Try to remain curious about your experience, observing what is really going on for you. Fact-check what comes up. Do you really wish everything was different or just some things? Is that true about other people? Is there another perspective available to you here?
Step 2: Find Your Agency
What can you do about what you are observing right now? This requires you to be very honest with yourself. Let’s be clear on agency. This isn’t fixing or taking a problem away. This is you being able to act and be at choice.
Step 3: Practice Acceptance
Sometimes there isn't anything you can do about your situation. Perhaps where you can most impact your situation is focusing on how you are 'being with' the lack. Can you practice acceptance around what you can and can’t control right now? Can you accept the limits, lack, or restriction? Can you accept the emotions that come up for you because of it?
Acceptance doesn't mean that everything is okay, or that you are giving approval. It also doesn't mean resignation. It may mean that for now you can accept that you cannot influence change.
Caution: Sometimes we tell ourselves a story that we have absolutely no agency. If we look closer, we can usually find something we do have a choice over. When exploring your agency, check your feelings and thoughts, but also check the narrative. Are you telling a story, or is this real? The better question for most clients is: what is story and what is real here? That is so much harder to answer! But you can change a story.
Step 4: Offer Self-Compassion
This could look like acknowledging a difficult or confusing situation. For example, if you’ve been injured for six months and you are used to exercising to feel strong, take care of your mental health, and sleep—that really sucks. Or it could mean recognizing that anyone who values planning like you do would absolutely feel overwhelmed by the shifting landscape and diminished control you have experienced at work.
Self-compassion can offer a healthy distinction between the situation and who you are. Look at these examples:
“I don't have a partner, which must mean there is something wrong with me”
“I have not felt on top of things at work in over two months, so I am doing a bad job”
Self-compassion is basically what a really awesome friend—someone who knows you are awesome even when you can’t see it—would offer you. Yes, most of us are terrible at offering compassion to ourselves, which is exactly why we imagine a friend!
Step 5: Shift Your Perspective
Experiment with a different perspective or focus. What do you have right now that is meaningful or that you are grateful for? How have you handled yourself up to this point that you would like to acknowledge?
A challenge with all of these practices is to know when to apply each. Pressure off, you can experiment with trying them all to see what might support you this time.
My driving instructor gave me some wonderful advice that I often recount to people. I was in my 30s and pregnant when I was learning to drive in San Francisco. I was very concerned / terrified about crashing into another car on the other side of the road. She told me to focus on where I was going. Focusing on what I didn't want was going to take me there.
"You are going where you are looking."
If you are focused on lack, you are not focused on where you are going.