How a Tarot Reading Led Me to Drop Out of College
Hey! It’s Natalie here with a story about seeing and reintegrating my own shadow side.
In 2007 I was in journalism school in Chapel Hill, NC, and I won a grant to do a photo project in New York City for the summer.
Late into the summer, August 8th to be exact, I was woken up super early by my housemate who came into my room all frantic and afraid.
Rain was coming down sideways, and wind was shaking our house.
We didn’t know it at the time, but tornadoes were ripping through our neighborhood just a couple of blocks away. The subways were flooded out, and no one could go anywhere. Everything came to a stop in the city that never sleeps.
It was a day of reckoning.
A few hours later that same housemate found out that her favorite tarot reader was in town and had a couple of spots available. We jumped at the chance and found a way to get there.
It was my first professional tarot reading.
She turned over the cards, and they didn’t look good. They looked terrifying.
Staring me in the face was the Tower Card with its images of lightning striking a tower and people falling over the sides of the tower.
And then the tarot reader started talking.
She started talking to my depths, to my spirit, to my soul. Right there, with tarot as her guide, she called me out on how I’d been living someone else’s dreams.
I’d been living in someone else’s “shoulds” and expectations, and I was ignoring the parts of myself that most wanted to be seen.
At that time I was so repressed that I had no idea how to even begin seeing the sides of me that begged to be seen and to step into the light of my awareness, acceptance, and love.
I had ignored my true desire to be an artist and to delve into the depths of spiritual studies.
At the time I couldn’t see how either of those had practical purposes in the world, so I didn’t think they had value.
I repressed them, shoving them down, as I did the “right” thing and went to school for a skill I could turn into a reliable job. I forced my creativity and my love of photography into a box called “photojournalism”.
Warning! I will tell you the rest of this story as an example, but be aware that your experience doesn’t have to be as extreme! I’m EXTRA AF and used to have to learn everything the hard way. What I’m about to share isn’t necessarily what will happen to you. Drastic change CAN happen gently and one small step at a time. It took me many years to learn how to be gentle with my growth, with myself and with my truth, so this is an example of past me before I knew what I know now. End of warning!
I resolved right then and there to drop out and not go back to school.
It was sucking my soul dry, sucking away my creative energy and power, and leaving me feeling wrung out and tossed aside.
It wasn’t my own fire of desire that was keeping me in school, it was my fear.
It was my fear that if I didn’t do what I was “supposed to do” and go to school to get a practical job, then my life would forever be a total failure.
I won’t say it was all rainbows and butterflies from that point on. In fact, it was very tough and sent me into a spiral of unlearning and drifting that lasted for years as I walked this path alone. I often wondered whether I was going crazy, as I had no one to talk to who understood this experience.
However that clarity, that truth, and that choice allowed me to shed a great big old chunk of baggage that I didn’t need.
If I were to do that day over again, I’d make the same choice AND I’d also immediately find a mentor, coach, community, or guide to support me in accepting and expressing the truth of my being.
No one in my life understood or could help me. They all offered advice that echoed the conditioning and limiting beliefs of the patriarchy.
The lack of understanding or support from my friends and family sent me whirling because I had no clue how to navigate this new way of being where I reclaimed my power and led my own life according my my deepest inner truths.
My upbringing simply didn’t prepare or condition me for this way of being, where I honored myself and the earth as living, conscious expressions of nature and spirit.
I know now that finding support and like-minded people who get you is invaluable in stepping into, embodying, and expressing your truth in your everyday life. I wish I knew this back then!
Even though my years of unraveling were a lonely, confusing time, I still gained so much.
My reintegration of deeply suppressed and banished parts of myself began with that Tower moment in my tarot card reading where I was willing to admit that my spirituality and creativity were important despite their apparent lack of “functional utility” in our consumerist society.
This willingness to acknowledge and accept these parts of me (and they weren’t that scary after all, were they?) enabled me to continue to explore my power, to explore my ability to create my reality, and to be honest with myself that creative self-expression and spirit are my life!
This acceptance of my inner truth also helped me through some of the toughest times of my life because I knew that what I was going through was all for something that I truly cared about deep inside. I was motivated by my inner fires of loving truth wanting to burn away all that is not aligned.
It’s been cyclical, and there’s always new layers to peel, but I keep at it, and now I stand here, in my power, producing a podcast about nature and intuition and supporting a vast community of people who are helping each other to see, accept, and express the beautiful truth of their beings as nature and spirit.
You, dear one, have inner seeds of truth that are waiting to be embodied, and expressed by you in the fullness of your being.
The choice is yours whether you’ll call forward those hidden parts of yourself that want so badly to be seen and shared, or whether you’ll continue to deny them, leaving them to watch as you live according to other people’s dreams, desires, and expectations of you.
You may want to invest in support from mentors, coaches, or community resources, or you may want to do it alone. Once you’ve made the choice to call those parts forward, all paths lead to evolution.
My best advice is to start now and enjoy the journey, ups, downs, and all! You don’t have to be “extra” like me and throw your life away to start anew.
You can take smaller steps and take your time.
Remember to play. Have fun. Rest. Give yourself time and space to explore and be curious.
And learn to recognize when shadow shows up, so you can welcome it knowing full well that there is a gift hidden in its depths.
I just admitted to you that I dropped out of college because of a tarot reading that revealed inner truths that had been hiding in my shadows!
Now what can you admit to yourself that you’ve been trying to hide?
xoxoxo
Natalie
PS - Our Earth Speak Collective is a supportive community that offers a safe space, sacred container, and boatload of resources to help support you in embodying and expressing the truth of your being. Plus our live weekly ritual calls are the perfect place to fill your cup after a week of being “out in the world”. Come join us and be seen by a community of like-minded people who get you! Learn more about the Collective here.