#tarot bits

And help you take care of yourself, deal with body issues, anxiety, and improve your self-confidence.

Tarot cards are not just for love readings! Actually, they work at their best when we allow them to answer empowering questions that can really put the spotlight on matters of self-love and self-acceptance.The first topic I would like to touch on in this series of posts is body issues. It's not just a women's concern as popularly believed, everyone more or less goes through these stages of not feeling good enough and I can assure you that I had a lot of questions related to insecurity about one's own appearance asked by men during tarot sessions. The subject also popped up when doing some shadow work for clients as some of the cards discussed below called attention to the relationship with the body in the "shadow" position, as I will observe next.

When talking about body issues in tarot, the first card that comes to my mind is the Ace of pentacles. We all know that the pentacles suit relates to everything material and earthy, so they have a lot to do with the physical realm, including health. When we draw the Ace of pentacles as a piece of advice in a tarot reading it definitely puts the focus on the need to nurture our body and take care of it. The card highlights that we should consider starting a new fitness routine or that have made the decision recently: the aces are all about beginnings, so it looks like a moment in our life when we are making our well-being a top priority. It's time to do something for ourselves and to feel good in our skin. This includes eating proper food, possibly counting macros, and being more aware of what we put in our bodies and how we fuel it. When we take care of the vessel of our soul, we work more efficiently in our everyday activities; there's a link between nutrition and the energy levels that allows us to perform our "duties" or work, that is what pentacles are also about. Basically, this card is a call for awareness, realizing that our body is the "temple of the soul", a vehicle to manifest abundance in our life and key to our overall well-being.When some time ago I had this card appear in the "shadow" position during a reading for a client, I really thought this person had to take more care of his body; interestingly, it turned out instead that he was a fitness addict, and that he was already exercising a lot. He was really concerned about his body shape since he was turning fifty. So I realized that the message of the card was even deeper: it was a call for self-acceptance. That little belly sticking out we seem never to get rid of no matter how much we train? We may at some point reach that goal, but for now, it's part of who we are. The Ace of pentacles tells us to embrace our "abundance" in every sense, even - and especially - the parts of the body we reject. For this to happen our mind needs to be okay with it and we should develop more tolerance for our imperfections, even though this doesn't mean we should not try to improve our body shape or give up our fitness goals.

The core lesson of the Ace of pentacles can be summarized as: "embrace your abundance". It addresses body positivity. By putting in the work you can implement some changes but remember to be grateful for what the body does for you and that every change is a process. Having a healthy relationship with our body doesn't mean that we don't have to join a gym necessarily, we may just need to remember that the body needs a little movement and to pay attention to any issues with overeating or restricting our diet too much, or other bad habits that do us harm. Pentacles are also about stability and I personally think that, apart from feeling motivated to achieve a certain body goal, they speak of the importance of maintaining a stable weight, since too many fluctuations can damage our health. On the other hand, it's a reminder that our worth doesn't change with those fluctuations, and here's another lesson of the pentacles suit. These cards are all about value and worth, often specifically relating to the sense of self-worth. Balance is the keyword, and by this, I mean balance of body, mind and soul, which opens the way to achieve self-healing and have a feeling of personal wholeness.The Ace of pentacles reminds us to exercise, sleep enough, hydrate, and ground ourselves. Since it's an earthy suit, enjoying the earth barefoot and taking walks in nature are also a way to keep the body moving and breathe some fresh air that will make us feel better and renewed. When it comes to addressing our physical wellbeing, we shouldn't forget that this suit points to the healing benefits of nature as well.