What to do with rage

I did a reading recently for a woman who just had some severe betrayals in her life - her husband slept with her sister.  But she didn't want to talk about him or even her.  She wanted to talk about what to do with her feelings of rage, which feel all consuming to her. 

Of course she is right to be enraged.  Anyone would be in her circumstances.  But it is also right that she sees that being consumed by rage is not helpful to her.  So in the first instance I said she has to stop focusing on them,  and on their actions, and just focus on her,  on what she is going to do.  

But the second thing I said to her was far more helpful (as she said to me.)  I said that anger/rage is just energy and as she knows what caused it,  it's like an alarm shrieking, making her unable to think clearly,  so now it's time to turn off the alarm and deal with the issue.  

But how to do that?  If  anger/rage is energy,  she has to dissipate that energy.  Go to the gym,  do some kickboxing,  do some anger workshops (beating a pillow with a soft bat,  I've run those workshops,  it really does help)  Don't try to calm yourself without letting go of the energy.  Do furious dancing,  leaping,  running.  Let the energy out.  And then,  only then,  can you think of the next steps. 

She said I was the only one who gave her something she can use.   So I'm happy for that.  I told her to come again in 6 months and we'll see what the future will bring.  In the meantime,  we have to deal with the present,  and get that energy out, so she can fight for herself cleanly and sanely.  

Privacy and Secrecy

 

I’ve been reading about the Ashley Maddison hacker scandal – where a website that is designed for married people to meet in order to have affairs - has been hacked and the names and details of its users made public.   Some of my clients have used that website.  Sometimes people come to tell me of affairs they have been having or affairs they wished they had had, or (most common) affairs they suspect their partners of having.  The cards are usually very accurate at finding that truth.

I think there is a big difference between privacy and secrecy.  There are things about my life that I don’t want splashed across the internet,  because they are private,  and I hold them close to me,  but they are not secret – other people in my life know about them and it would not devastate anyone to find them out. 

 

If I meet a couple who has chosen to have an open relationship – they both know that Thursday night they go out separately and have sex with others – then I have no problem with it.  That is their private business. But I often meet couples where one person is going out and having sex with others and flat out lying about it to their partner – and that causes a lot of problems. That is not privacy; that is secrecy – a piece of information that can be devastating if it were to come out.   It has been my experience that secrecy is almost always harmful to relationships.  So by all means keep your privacy,  but beware of keeping secrets…

Was he unfaithful?

One question I find the tarot can always accurately answer is ‘ is s/he having an affair’ 

However recently I did a reading where a woman asked,  ‘did he sleep with other people while we were together?’ and she drew 

King pentacles / 9 of swords / 6 cups R / 4 cups. 

She felt he could have been a good boyfriend/ but also felt huge anxiety/ she needed to see the situation very clearly, without rose tinted glasses or being overly romantic/ and she was getting lost in her own thoughts.

That is not a clear answer and I was puzzled.  Usually the cards are really specific around this question.

6 of cups

 

So I asked more about the relationship.  Turned out her big fear was that he would be pressured by his family to have an arranged marriage.

Now I can understand the cards. They indicate that he did not sleep with anyone else while they were together, but he was emotionally unfaithful; he did let his family introduce him to other women.  There was no sex, but he did think about marrying them…   

The second I said that she nodded vigorously, that made complete sense to her.

4 of cups

Those cards, they are so subtle...

Infidelity

I like Nerve Magazine,  (not just because they did a small piece on me once  )

I was reading them recently and they had a terrific interview with Ira Glass,   and he said something so interesting,  that I really believe, about infidelity:

“For example, before people begin an affair, before they cheat, the real transition begins when they confide in someone else. That’s where the betrayal begins…And as soon as he starts having truths that he doesn’t tell to her but that he tells to someone else…that’s the beginning of the end for them.”  

I see this all the time in the stories people tell me. When you are confiding more to your friends than to your lover/spouse, if you are being more intimate with others than with them, that’s when trouble starts.  It’s not that you can’t be intimate with other people, it’s just that you can’t have stories you withhold from your lover but share with others, especially others you find attractive; that is a tiny crack between the two of you, which can easily grow if you put enough pressure on it.