Healing is the opposite of hustle

Ever since I started going to therapy back in 2018, I’ve fallen in love with the healing journey. I used to think that I was just inherently broken and something was wrong with me. And now all these years later, I can see that that was never true.

I wasn’t broken. I just went through stuff that broke me down.

Healing is the opposite of hustle

Doing healing work is powerful. But there’s a mentality that comes up often in spirituality circles. We want to heal so badly that we spend a ton of energy trying to fix ourselves. We believe that if we could just be better, if we could be more spiritual, or meditate more, then we’d heal our wounds. And I’m definitely guilty of falling into that trap.

I use the word trap because spirituality is so different from normal life.

Normal life is about doing. It’s about the grind. The hustle. The single-minded pursuit of your goals. But spiritual growth isn’t like that. It’s not something that you check off a list. It’s not something you set your mind to and make happen.

It’s actually the opposite, I believe. The harder you try and force it, the harder it becomes to achieve.

Spiritual healing asks us to tap into a different source of power. Not the aggressive, go-getter power that we’re used to tapping into. The other side where we admit that we’re scared a good percentage of the time, and we need help to navigate being human in this world.

It’s a different type of power because it asks us to stop living in our head. To stop fantasizing and wishing things were different. It asks us to do the hard work of grounding back into the earth, into reality, into how we’re actually feeling in the moment.

The cards

Card 1: the situation

When we are at a point in life where we want to attain greater things, but don’t necessarily have a proportionally greater supply of energy at our disposal, it’s time to work smarter rather than harder – Alana Fairchild.

The painful truth is that we don’t all have the same energy levels. And one of the quickest ways to feel shitty about yourself is to compare your energy to someone else’s.

We can’t all be a bright blaze of fire. Some of us struggle to even just light a spark. So the question becomes, how do you navigate living in a body that has limited energy, but still wanting to pursue your goals?

I’m sure everybody has a different answer to this question. But my answer, based on my personal experience of course, is spirituality. When you believe in a higher force, you automatically have access to support and guidance. And by ‘higher force’ I really do not mean God. It can be the universe, your ancestors, spirit guides, nature, your highest self.

It can be whatever you decide it is. That’s the beauty of spirituality... and why I’m probably never going back to Abrahamic religions.

But whatever you believe in, that is such a great source of strength. You can totally call in and ask for support whenever you need it.

And for a lot of us, that’s where we crash. That’s where we give up and walk away. That’s where we believe that we can’t do it.

And I’m saying that you can do it. If that vision was given to you, it was given to you for a reason.

It doesn’t mean that it’s going to manifest exactly the way you want it. It doesn’t mean you’ll get exactly what you’re dreaming of.

But I believe there’s something there for you. And you’ll only know what it is when you start doing the work of making it a reality.

Card 2: healing

I find it so beautiful that the card I pulled for Healing follows the theme of calling on spiritual support, instead of us trying to fix the problem ourselves.

And really, I think that’s what this card is all about. It’s emphasizing that not all problems can be fixed by aggressively rushing forward to fight them. If this was back in my religious days, I’d say that some battles are won on your knees, rather than on a battlefield.

Again, that doesn’t mean you have to pray to a deity you don’t believe in. And it doesn’t mean you have to meditate either. Spirituality is not about following what someone says you should do. It’s about finding practices that fill you up when your cup gets empty.

Card 3: the process

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really feeling this card when I first pulled it. Sayings like ‘trust the journey’ sound so pretty, but don’t really give you any guidance on how to do that.

So I went to the little booklet that the cards came with and read what the creator, Jo Isabel Klima had to say about it:

Following your true path and finding your true north is not about knowing what’s coming, but trusting what you feel, and following the subtle messages and insights you receive in each moment. Your deeply held values become your internal compass.

I absolutely love that.

Trusting the journey isn’t about just sitting and letting things happen to you.

It’s work. It’s determining what values you want to live by, and then making those such a high priority in your life that they become your compass.

So even though you’re not where you want to be, and even though you’re not exactly sure how you’re going to get there, you’re guided by your values. And that’s how you can be sure that you’re on the right path — because you’re letting your spirituality lead the way. 🌙