Welcome to the last blog, When Losing is Winning, in The Five of Swords series. This card represents the true meaning of learning how conflicts are lost and won—and when you should walk away from a hopeless situation.
Sometimes, the choice is between being on the winning side or the morally right one. (If you need a quick refresher on the card, check out my short video here.)
For example, if someone has hurt you—or you are the one inflicting the hurt—why is this?
Might there be wisdom in realizing nothing to be gained from a conflict and walking away instead? This allows you to maintain your dignity in defeat and grace in victory.
Sara’s Story
Sara, a client of mine, recently had a revelation. She discovered that she always needs to be right and that this is quite an unattractive quality. She feels like now, in her late forties, her need always to be right was a massive part of her identity in her thirties.
“I knew everything, and no one could tell me differently,” she shared, “but I no longer want to be that way.”
She described how, even at home with her husband, she carried an attitude. “If he offered to cook chicken for dinner, I’d tell him “I know how to make chicken better than you do!”
Sara previously had a job that tasked her with making many important decisions, so being right was part of her professional identity.
It’s Exhausting to Always Be Right 🥱
Working as a solopreneur since the pandemic, she doesn’t get that kind of validation from a team of people she can tell what to do and then bask in the glory of success. She’s figured out that it’s exhausting always to be right. Sara doesn’t want to be so rigid in her approach that she has to prove everyone else wrong. She is used to being right, so at first, it was difficult for her to recognize why.
Through introspection and coaching, she realized it was her way of compensating for feeling lost and untethered—like she had little control over the rest of her life. That caused her to grip so tightly on the notion that she always had to be right. And as a result, Sara over-identified with being right all the time. Once she realized this wasn’t who she was, the question became, WHO was she?
Realizing that making changes in her life is neither easy nor quick (in fact, it’s quite difficult), Sara is aware that half the solution to any given potential conflict is to stop when she feels the urge to be “right” and ask herself: Is this something worth fighting for? If not, what is worth fighting for?
A New Way Forward
Just as the Five of Swords suggests, Sara’s finding a new way forward, and now when she approaches people differently, she gains a different and better result.
I look forward to seeing you in November! But before I go…
Don’t miss a special 🕷HALLOWEEN🎃 edition of Spirited Away TODAY, Tuesday, October 25th, from 6-9 PM at Barrow’s Intense, Industry City, Brooklyn. If you can make it, drop in for a drink or sign up for a tarot reading. For more details and to register, visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sasha-grahams-spirited-away-psychic-paranormal-night-tickets-158670047383
Ever upward,
