226. Healing Imposter Syndrome with The High Priestess Rx
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Our Anchor Card for the week ahead is The High Priestess Rx, offering us some deep and much needed love and healing care around the cracks we have in the foundation of trust in our intuition.
Air date:
May 8, 2023
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About the Episode
Whew! We made it through the Eclipses!
Our Anchor Card for the week ahead is The High Priestess Rx, offering us some deep and much needed love and healing care around the cracks we have in the foundation of trust in our intuition. Together, we dive into the medicine of the High Priestess (both reversed and upright) and talk about ways that we can work with this card in the week ahead and beyond.
Plus, we answer a listener's question about how to deal with feelings of impostor syndrome and intuitive fuzziness while reading for clients.
Lindsay’s Links:
Download the FREE Ultimate Soul Tarot Card Guide here!
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Support Iran:
Thank you to Ariana (@azadi.times.three) for sharing these with us!
1. Center for Human Rights in Iran (based in NY, provides news and in-depth reports on human rights abuses in Iran)
2. How to Talk About Iran (a living document from the Iranian Diaspora Collective on Instagram)
3. Persians With Purpose (Educational content, news translated to English, and other Iran resources on Instagram)
Land Acknowledgement
Honoring and acknowledging that this podcast episode was recorded on the unceded land of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, currently called Portland, OR, with the deepest respect to the Kalapuya Tribe, Cowlitz Tribe, and Atfalati Tribe.
Please Note
CW Tags: mentions of childhood trauma, parenthood, birth, colonialism, cultural appropriation, organized religion, patriarchal structures, hospitals, loss, and grief
The content in this episode contains references to mentions of childhood trauma, parenthood, birth, colonialism, cultural appropriation, organized religion, patriarchal structures, hospitals, loss, and grief. We have done our best to identify difficult subject matter, but the labels may not be comprehensive for your personal needs. Please honor your knowing and proceed with necessary self-awareness and care.
Transcript
[Introduction]
[0:00:00]
Welcome to Tarot for the Wild Soul, a podcast that explores the Tarot through an inclusive, soul centered, trauma-informed perspective for growth, healing, and evolution. I'm your host, Lindsay Mack.
—
Hello, Wild Souls, and welcome back to the podcast. Lindsay here. And as always, just such a joy, and a true delight really, to be gathered with all of you in this virtual shared space. Thank you so much for being here as always. Okay. I mean, we survived Eclipse season. I do feel like there are—which is very normal for Eclipse season—I do feel like there are still some pretty strong aftershocks. We're still in Mercury Retrograde for about a week. This episode is dropping a little early. You know, I… It's interesting. My episodes used to drop on Friday. They just dropped… We just shifted over to Thursday. And I don't know. I mean, this is literally like the number one thing. If you Google how to have a successful podcast, the number one thing is: do not switch around the days where you drop your episodes because you're going to confuse your audience and whatever. So I do apologize for any confusion or any disruption that this brings. But now that the flow of the episodes are more like card-of-the-week readings for the week ahead—which I'm enjoying that format that has just sort of organically happened—it makes more sense for these to drop on Monday. So this one's dropping on Monday. And because my beloved team member Valerie is not in office right now, and because this one got recorded very close to its drop date, we don't have our transcript yet but we will, definitely within the week. So, apologies for that. And also, happy early episode. (Lindsay laughs)
There's a lot to talk… we have a very powerful Anchor Card for the week ahead. And before we get to that, a teeny bit of very relevant business: which is that, as some of you might know if you listened to our Monthly Medicine episode that came out just about a week ago, I was so excited to launch this kind of new community-based live Q&A called Soul Tarot Together for this community, for the newsletter, for whomever wanted to join, where we could really just like shoot the shit. I could offer up a little lesson, I could answer questions. And it all felt great. And I realized over the weekend, or over this past week, that I accidentally double booked myself and landed the live call at the same time as my readings that I have booked that day. I've just started to wade back in the water of a couple of readings a week, which has just been amazing. But because I booked the readings before this live call, I canceled it and refunded everyone, and let folks know. But just in case you're like, “Wait, where did that go?” That's where it went (Lindsay laughs) is just me constantly doing those things; double booking myself and not realizing.
[0:03:48]
So I guess I will reschedule it. I don't really know when, but we will. And I just want to say thank you to everybody who wrote with such enthusiasm. The other week I mentioned at the end of the podcast, like, “Would anyone like a subscriber model or whatever Patreon style thing?” We had a couple of just really lovely, enthusiastic responses about kind of all of this, and so thank you for that. And yeah, more to come on that front. This is just… You know, I try very hard not to inch… It's tricky, right? Because as somebody who has the privilege and the honor of kind of feeling into the collective, now as a parent to a young kid and working like full time, I want to say that we're living in particularly spiralic times where things flow in and then they change, and they feel really clear and then they don't. But I do want to say that I think some of that is my own journey with parenting a child where there just is a lot more apparent spiralness, I think, to the day-to-day and the flow and whatever. And yet also this beautiful rhythm that has created such gorgeous predictability through the days, at least in my house, which is quite nice. But I do think even… So I just want to offer that as a caveat and say that I think that these times are very all over the place. And maybe not for everyone, but it's not just me. It does seem like, “This is happening. It's not happening. This is a go. It's not a go. This feels like a great idea. Ooh, double booked myself,” you know? So I just appreciate y'all being on the ride with me. And if you're going through that too, let me know because it's just a very interesting time to be here. That's for sure.
So we're still coming down from Eclipse season. The Full Moon Solar Eclipse in Scorpio basically just happened and, whoa, was it a big one. I mean, any Scorpio Full Moon is huge. This was a very specific Eclipse season in that the two moons, new and full were not on their usual axis point. In other words, typically, we have signs in opposition working with each other, right? So typically, we would have a new moon in Taurus, but we had a new moon in Aries. So this Eclipse season has basically been defined by the energy of Aries and Scorpio. And I talked I think two weeks ago about how in my opinion, in my practice and my relationship with both Eclipse work and with the Tarot, I really view the Judgment card as being sort of the ultimate Anchor, ultimate mirror for what Eclipses do, right? They're very Plutonian regardless of the sign they're in. They excavate. They reveal. If we let them, if we're willing to let them guide us, they can really blow open a lot of… They can really blow off a lot of blinders that we might have that we might not even be realizing are over our eyes, so to speak, metaphorically, right?
So for myself, it was such a strong… I mean, my only commitment during Eclipse season is “do with me what you will, show me what you will, and clear away what's ready to be cleared.” It’s basically me being like, “Go for it. You do your job, and I'll try hard not to block it or get in the way.” And they're… Sometimes Eclipse seasons can be a little bit more subtle for me. This one was truly like endings/beginnings occurred. Like, actual deaths and rebirths. And new people are in my life, people are out of my life, people are on their way out, people are on their way in. And no hard feelings. Just so much change and structure, and also lack of structure. And so it's been a bit of a wild time, and we're still… That's going to be moving around in us for the next, at least, week. Mercury is still in retrograde for about the next week. So again, be really gentle. It's a big time, very big time.
[0:09:00]
So our Anchor Card for the week ahead is The High Priestess reversed. Any time The High Priestess shows up in a reading, be it for the moment for us personally, for the week, for the year, whatever, it's a big deal. It marks and lets us know that the week ahead, while it might be full of our regular comings and goings and anything external we might be doing—that the central focus and the core, kind of the North Star or the forest, the ecosystem of the symbolic forest that we're going to be walking through and finding ourselves in is very lunar, very High Priestess. Very watery. Inner. The High Priestess is all about what occurs in the inner world. Right? So it's not about… Although it can be about, of course, conjuring and creation, that is a little bit more of what The Magician embodies. And if The High Priestess is in that space of creation and output, it really rules over the journey that has to happen, that must happen, that does happen internally so that that external creation can take place.
So there's something really powerful about that. In fact, if I was maybe to ever have the kind of playful task of reordering the Tarot, I might go from The Fool to The High Priestess, and then to The Magician. Because really, if we're thinking about The Fool as sort of in the world, not in the world; more of an embryonic symbology. Now having raised a newborn, there is something really profound about The High Priestess being a symbol for all of the kind of internalizing that happens in the fourth trimester. I think there's also something to be said about The Magician being a great symbol for what happens in the fourth trimester, where it's all about bringing what was in, out. So really, either way is great, but I think there's something to be said for The High Priestess coming before The Magician because I do think—growth spiral of a young child notwithstanding—I do think for all of us, that is usually the rhythm that things go. We work with something very deeply internally and then there is the external kind of shift where it can actually come through us and be created in some way. The process starts really internally.
So this week ahead is a really, really clear and big time where our… Because remember, this is a Major Arcana card, so this is not about us making certain things happen or checking things off. This is about following the wise guide in front of us and letting it lead us through the path in the forest that wants our attention, where there are gifts and medicine. That's really what working with a Major Arcana card is, and that's sort of how we can look at it through the flow of the week, right? Is just remembering all the way in the back of our head that we're watching, we're waiting, we're letting ourselves be led, and then taking action accordingly.
[0:12:39]
So any time we're working with The High Priestess, especially when reversed—and I'll get into the specifics of the reversal in a moment—we're looking at working with intuition in a personal, deeply-felt, helpful way. In other words, intuition that is personal. Despite what you or I or collectively we might think we know about intuition and the way it behaves, the way an intuition…or rather, the way an intuitive or a psychic person looks, behaves, acts—it's not true. There are literally countless, infinite examples throughout time, throughout history, cross-culturally of what an intuitive, a helping person, somebody who had healing hands or helping hands, someone who had second sight, somebody who was a part of particular traditions. This is a highly cross-cultural experience and one that is meant to be experienced, expressed, embodied, and exuded completely personally and differently, depending on where we are inside of that diaspora, inside of that spectrum of people who work in this way, who are in touch with their intuition and who allow it to guide them or however that means.
Which means that in a way, when we find ourselves caught in the trap that many of us find ourselves caught in at least once if not every day, if not constantly, the belief or the thought like, “I'm not intuitive,” or “I'm not intuitive enough,” or “If I was intuitive, it would look like this, this, this.” The High Priestess is actually your number one ally, helper, Anchor in rewiring and reframing that belief. Because it's not true. Intuition doesn't look like anything. Intuition is, again, cross-cultural and completely holographic, meaning experienced and felt and embodied, again, so differently by so many people. So, The High Priestess is really the teacher that reminds us, that teaches us that intuition behaves and moves in a spiral.
Intuition is a spiral process. It is not a linear process. So when we find ourselves saying like, which I have this week, and I've had a couple of my dear friends and a couple of people that I've been of service to this week being like, “I was called to do X but it fell through. I was called to do this thing but it completely crumbled apart. I was called to do this thing but it was wrong.” And that's an example of intuition being highly spiralic, meaning when we are in touch with our inner High Priestess, it is about honoring and following the thread or the spark of that inner knowing, and letting it take us on a journey. There's so much—and I don't say this to be… This isn't a judgment call. This is just a fact that there's more ego in a lot of the standard, even very good intuition modules or trainings. It's a lot about how to be correct, to be right, to get it right, to… And in my experience, intuition is really of and from the moment. We know what we know in this moment.
[0:16:54]
And it might be that I am off base for you, and that is such a strong contrast to your own knowing that you're like, “Well, fuck what Lindsay has to say. This is what I know to be true.” Sometimes that's important, the contrast that helps us to move from one side back to our own center. Sometimes it's just like jiggling something out of place and then it clicks, right? There are other times where it's very, very important. Like, you can think of the Oracle in The Matrix, right, telling Neo exactly what he needs to know in that moment to find his own way. That's very much a…and it's a cheesy example, but there's something to that because that is very much the way our spirit helpers work. This is a free will experience, which means that our Guides, our angels, our spirit helpers, our beloved dead are not going to…
Now, do I have times where Spirit will say, “This is your task. Go to it”? Sure. I can always say no. The no might come with some consequences. The no might come with some…not consequences like I'm being punished. But our Guides are here to help amplify, turn the volume up on, and reconnect us, keep us very close to the soul, right? And our brains have evolved to be very, very loud. So it's really challenging sometimes to sense into the difference between the two. And that's why sometimes Spirit can come in very strongly around something. And it can feel like we're being told what to do. But we're never… We can always say no. But again, we're not punished for saying no. There's no punishment. There's no punishment in the spirit realm. We're not getting punished ever. Nor are we really getting rewarded ever. It's really just about us saying yes to ourselves, and Spirit being an extension of that; being part of the support system that realigns us with that inner voice and that inner knowing.
And there are plenty of times where Spirit will be like, hey… So I want to go back to—and this is all in service of the week ahead, of course—but I want to go back to what I was saying before about this past week. There being a lot of examples about Spirit kind of guiding me or other people that I know to do something, and then it all crumbling apart. And you might be saying to yourself, like, “Lindsay, how can you ever trust your intuition if you're following it and then it all kind of breaks apart, or splinters apart, or doesn't come together the way that you were kind of guided or hoped that it would?” And this is why I think it's really important to remember that intuition is a spiral.
So for example, if we're called to… I'll offer another pop culture example, one of my absolute favorite TV shows. The Other Two is back on HBO Max. I'm obsessed with it. And if you like comedy, which I do, it’s very, very funny. And spoiler alert for the new episodes: one of the characters is given a task, right? And she is struggling with really feeling like her job doesn't have meaning. It's not very important. And she's kind of threatened by other people around her and their job having more weight or meaning or purpose. And she's been bristling at that. So she is delighted to kind of have this big task, which is to drive a FreshDirect truck cross country from New York to Los Angeles, with just a flash drive in the back of the truck that contains this very valuable photo. And so she goes all the way across the country. And again, spoilers for the new episode of The Other Two. But she goes all the way across the country and like gets into all of these hilarious scrapes and situations, finally arrives at the place where she's supposed to be, hands in the flash drive, and the kind of security person tells her, “Oh, you were just carrying one of the dummy drives. Like, one of the fakes. And we had five trucks, one real one, and the rest of them were all fake, and you were one of the fake ones.” And the character, understandably, having put so much into this journey and really making it about the importance of it and the task of it, really kind of loses her mind, and at the end of the episode quits her job.
[0:22:00]
So who knows where the adventures of our characters will be? But I would actually say that that's a very good example of intuition being more spiralic, because I don't know where that character arc is going. But let's just say that happened to you, to me, to any of us, right? That sucks. Just plain and simple. We don't need to create meaning behind it. We don't need to be like, “Oh, that happened because…” That just is a shitty situation. It sucks. It hurts. It's difficult to feel like there's purpose and meaning, or to be put out by something like that and then realize you weren't even carrying the flash drive with the actual photo on it that you were supposed to deliver. That's real, right? Incredibly valid. And just for the purposes of this conversation and understanding a little bit more about the medicine of how intuition is a spiral, if we were really guided to do that task, and if we found out we didn't even have the image in our truck, how else might we truly come to the heart of our real longing, which is to leave our job? Which I do believe is at the heart of this character, is that this job is not working for her.
Sometimes we do have to go all the way to the end of something to really understand this is a no. And this is the thing that's tipping this over into understanding that. And so that's why sometimes we can get guided to do certain things that crumble. Because it's not about getting to the end result of something. It's about moving through the experience and understanding, like, “Whoa, I was supposed…” You know, whatever. There are times in life where things go so awry, where things are so confusing or so heartbreaking they don't really have that sense of purpose or meaning, and they might not ever. There are certain moments where, especially if we tune in and especially if we're like, “Okay, I got a yes to do this,” and then we realize we've double booked ourselves. A lot of doubt can come up around that because it's like, “Did I not hear the way I should have? Did I do something wrong?” We make it about us, right?
And the opportunity for me inside of realizing that I had double booked myself is that I had actually sort of been feeling like this month was a bit stacked, and I didn't really know how I was going to manage. I'm doing readings now, a little bit. But even still, course creation and book proposal writing and… It's a lot, you know? I’m not complaining, but it's just a number of different things happening at the same time. I really didn't know how it was going to feel to do a live call in the middle of the day alongside all that. So a lot of contraction came up for me; a lot of stuff about how…a lot of stories and beliefs about how I can't get my shit together. This is old programming from as a child who was very much on the spectrum and did not have the kind of support, was really shamed for that and really shamed into masking and not… Just all kinds of things. So, me double booking myself allowed some of that old shame, some of that old conditioning to bubble up so that I could nurture that part of my inner kid, reframe it, reparent her, reparent them so that I could take care of myself, and so that I could forgive myself, and so that I could offer myself some compassion. So I could move through using some new systems, like figure out the systems and how to refund people myself because my team member is on vacation. There were a couple of gifts alongside of the lameness of it, but most of all, I'm happy that I got a chance to give it a shot and just see like, “Well, I tried something and it's not gonna work for when I tried it.” It doesn't mean that I did anything wrong, or that I heard wrong, or that I was off. Intuition is very, very spiralic.
[0:26:43]
And that's kind of just a long-winded way of saying that and offering a number of examples to go back to my original point, which is that it's very, very easy to doubt in our intuition. We also don't want to go the other end where nothing…where we're completely unwilling to hear different perspectives, a different opportunity; where we've become too rigid, right? We've become too enmired in that, and maybe it's become a bit of a feedback loop. There's a lot of, again, a ton of ego. It's very easy for ego to slip right into our intuitive work, because we assume that if we're not doing…if we're not getting what we want and if we're not getting what we are trying to “manifest”, or if we're not “doing the right thing”, or things aren't working out, we must be doing it wrong. And The High Priestess says hell no. The High Priestess is ruled by the moon. The moon is—I've used this analogy a million times on this podcast—but the moon is always the moon. We see it differently almost every night because of whatever phase it happens to be in. The moon doesn't change. What we see and the embodiment of it, the visualization of it does. The moon is obviously intimately connected to the tides in the ocean. The ocean is always the ocean, however there is a full cycle every single day where there's high tide, falling tide, low tide, rising tide, every day, over and over.
It is crucial this week, and even beyond this week, to really lean into that idea and that concept, and that visual because intuition is exactly the same way. There are times when intuition is more in low tide, is more in a New Moon phase. It's not as perceptible. There are times when it's very much at a Full Moon phase, or very much in a waxing or waning phase where it's quite loud and present and times where it's very murky and staticky. And that's not because we did anything wrong. It could be where we are in our cycle if we bleed. It could be where we are if we're not bleeding and there's different hormonal changes going on. Did we just increase the dose of our medication? Did we just go off of medication? Are we in recovery? Have we been up all night with a baby? Like, are we in the hospital? Things are going to change as a result of that. We're humans. We're not static. We're not linear, period. It doesn't mean that that cord of connection and intuition isn't there all the time. It is. The High Priestess reminds us it's supposed to change because it's spiralic. You’re spiralic. Nature is spiralic. It’s cyclical. It is. It doesn't disappear. It might get very, very quiet but it's still there. Just because we can't see the moon or it's a New Moon doesn't mean that it's not there, right? And with a cycle, with some time that'll change, right? That will change.
So the medicine for the month of May, the theme is Reclaiming. And this has to do… There was a lot that came through during the monthly medicine around intuition, around time, around wisdom. There's been such a weird, swirly, fuzzy time. And now there's a little bit more of a clarity that wants to come through. What we get to do this week, if we're open to it—and again, it's going to show up differently for everybody, for all of us—we get to untie and identify some of the knots around our relationship to trusting our intuition. The places where we really want or believe that our intuition should be a straight line when it indeed is a spiral. And that can be very hard and can… That juxtaposition or that paradox can be really discouraging when we're on kind of a path of trying to trust our knowing. How do we do that? So this week has to do with those knots, with that wounding. Where did we learn, where did we feel, where did we see maybe not even the first time, but where was a really strong or recent experience where we just thought, “Well, fuck it. I don't trust Spirit. I don't believe in this. I'm non-intuitive,” or “This doesn't even exist,” you know?
[0:32:06]
Really, whenever we get The High Priestess reversed, it's always a chance to let some of those stories bubble up so that we can tend to them, so that we can witness them, get curious about them rather than identify with them. So the other piece about The High Priestess reversed that isn't always true for everybody, it's not always true in every given situation—it's a good reminder for me, whenever I get this card reversed, to remember that a very big part of a connection with the inner channel, with our inner knowing, is just being there. It's just showing up with whatever is arising. That's it. Just being present with some part of ourselves that longs to be heard, longs to be witnessed. And sometimes The High Priestess can show up around some part of us that really wants to be in that space of being witnessed by us, but we're not aware of that, we’re bypassing it, we're trying to avoid it. The High Priestess reversed can also come up when there's some need, some reason to get a lot quieter, and get a lot more still, and be way more in a space of listening rather than doing or attempting to figure out.
So, there's a lot here for us. But the biggest piece that this card is really coming up to be of service around is kind of offering a healing, warm hand right on the heart of our impostor syndrome wound because every… I guarantee you. I mean, if you're not in this population, we look to you as our teacher and guide, and I think it's great. But I'm gonna bet very confidently that every single person listening to this experiences doubt and impostor syndrome about their intuition, about their Tarot practice, about their own magical ability. And I would say that there are a lot of root systems to this that have nothing to do with us personally. It absolutely has to do with colonization. It absolutely has to do with patriarchal structures, certainly the influence of religion and how religion has woven itself into colonization and patriarchal structures. It has to do with cultural appropriation. It has to do with the way that we interact with, and benefit from, and perhaps profit from, folks’ practices and cultures, and how it's essential that we divest as much as possible. For some of us, impostor syndrome is truly, I think, a protective mechanism that tries to keep us from the essence, the depth of power within us, which is what religion was so afraid of, organized religion, which is the root of a lot of fear.
So I have really spun into some (Lindsay laughs) offhand topics today. But I do think when we're talking about the themes of intuitive reclaiming, and clearing up of imposter syndrome, and using The High Priestess reversed in our work this week, it's impossible kind of not to acknowledge the more systemic root systems of where these tender points come from. And again, I'm probably not even scratching the surface. So hopefully, I've been… It's always my intention to be as respectful and as inclusive as possible. Hopefully, I have been. It's a very heavy, major thing. And it really is just a very, very powerful rite of passage to work with The High Priestess in this way. The reversal doesn't mean we're off base or whatever. The reversal actually indicates, when have you stopped? When did you stop believing that you're the natural wellspring of how intuition wants to flow through you is somehow better or worse than someone else? Or that you did not have a root system to your own magic, or your own knowing, or your own gifts? When did you believe that just because something that you were guided to do didn't go A to B to C, but went A to D, to A, to Z, to L, to N, that that was a problem? It might not be what we prefer. It's just Spirit is very swirly, and sometimes that sucks. And also, there are times when life happens and it's really hard and really shitty, or really great and really fortuitous. And it has nothing to do with “Spirit” because there's not some grand commander in the sky making things happen. Spirit is the guidance system that helps us to move through all of it—in my opinion, again. So with The High Priestess reversed being our card for the week ahead, we're really looking at all of these just kind of tender themes, really, really tender.
[0:38:06]
And just quickly, it's kind of an incredible coincidence that this card came forward because it was completely randomly pulled. Because actually, next Monday, I'm launching this brand new little mini course that's under 100 bucks called Intuition as a Spiral that is actually centered on The High Priestess, and consists of three completely original prerecorded audio modules all about reclaiming intuition, being able to see it as a spiral, letting your own innate intuition come up, sensing into the seasonality of your own intuition (note from editor, Intuition as a Spiral has been postponed to Autumn, 2023. Please join the newsletter for updates here). Just very strong, practical, expanded information that I've talked about a little bit on the podcast, but I've never really dived into in course form. And it's actually a closed container because the folks who participate in it will get to do a live Q&A call with me around the end of the container. So the early bird for that offering opens up on Monday, May 15th and runs for a week, and then enrollment will be open for about another week and a half, I believe. And so if you want to… The early bird is only for newsletter subscribers. So if you'd like to get the course for a slightly discounted rate, you may do so by signing up for the newsletter. And if you want to hear more about this course, or if you're hearing me talk about this and you're like, “Man, that sounds great. I'd love to know more,” this is what you're gonna get from it. And you can click the link in the show notes both to sign up for the newsletter and separately to learn more about the course.
I also… One of my main goals with the course that I'm doing is to make it very robust, but very digestible. So, there's nothing super heavy. There's no heavy-duty workbooks. There's really rich, I think, really delicious audio lessons, like modules that you can just listen to wherever you are. And then there's worksheets that are really more like fun sheets because I don't really… Who the fuck wants to do work, more work, more fucking work? So I think the class, it's all centered, again, on The High Priestess being this beautiful Anchor and teacher for intuitive reclamation, and honoring the fact that the planet literally never…never before has it needed all of us to be rooted into our own sovereign knowing, our own intuitive flow, because we're all meant to do completely different things with it. So this course is a humble offering in that direction. And if you want to work with me live, it's a great way to do it. And, yeah, I hope to be of service to as many people as possible. And again, all that's in the show notes.
So yeah, I'm gonna get to our listener question too, which oddly was… This always happens with this podcast. It’s like I'm thinking about, talking about something, and then a card pops up, or I pick a question and then the card is completely complementary to it. And so that's a lovely thing about this. But you are… The High Priestess reminds us, you have access to magic. You are intuitive. There's nothing you really even need to do. It's just a gradual process of building that muscle and turning the volume down on the mind and on the ego, and letting intuition kind of bubble up the things that need to be cleared. I've said this before—it's hard to explain it—when you start leaning more into an intuitively led life, or day, or flow, or whatever, it's almost like your way of working with yourself and what comes up, what you create, it's on a completely parallel track to what you were doing before. It's not so different and yet…
[0:42:44]
So, I know a lot of people sort of on the path to helping themselves or tending themselves, there's a lot of digging-up work. Whereas I think a soul led life and an intuitively led life is a lot about the work bubbling up for you, based on what you're choosing to say yes to. So it also takes quite a bit of pressure off the need to try to unblock that blockage or clear that thing because when it's ready, it will unblock itself; it will let you know. It might not always be easy, but it will let you know. So yeah, this week, just I invite you, because all of us… That's the beauty of the High Priestess is that all of us have completely different relationships with this archetype. So I would just say, notice how this archetype shows up for you. If you've always been like, “The High Priestess isn't for me,” or “It's more aspirational,” how can you get more down to the ground with it and be like, “This isn't my card”? Like, “The High Priestess belongs to me. I belong to them. I am them,” right? Because we all are. We all are. So, there's a reclaiming of that, that's possible this week, and this card wants to help us do it.
So hopefully that was helpful. And now I'm going to speak to our listener question of the week, which is very much about these same themes. And it's from Anonymous. And Anonymous asks,
Hi, Lindsay, longtime listener and student here. So nice to connect with you. After many years, I recently achieved my goal of being a professional Tarot reader/psychic as my main job rather than a “side gig”.
Congratulations, Anonymous. That's amazing.
I'm working at a popular shop in LA (safely double-masked) and for the first time since the pandemic, I’m giving in-person readings. However, now that I'm not recording readings for clients in the comfort of my own home, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to connect to my psychic senses, as I'm no longer getting intuitive downloads as easily, if at all. And I feel like I'm overly reliant on my knowledge of the cards rather than blending my knowledge with intuitive insights. I feel so disconnected, discouraged, and confused. Having clients at the shop comparing me to other readers they've seen only makes me more self conscious, giving me extreme impostor syndrome. How can I call forth my intuition in my new surroundings to avoid being over reliant on what I have learned, so I can give the best readings for my client all while avoiding the pitfalls of impostor syndrome? Thanks for all you do.
[0:45:20]
Thank you for trusting me with this question, Anonymous. I'm going to try to pull as many pieces out of this as possible. And as always, with all of my answers to your questions, I'm monologuing. And in an ideal situation, we'd be dialoguing. So let me know via email what landed for you; if I misunderstood anything. I always appreciate y’all's responses because some of you do write me, and it's always awesome to hear from you.
Okay. Impostor syndrome is brutal, and I don't know that we can avoid it because it comes up all the time. Imposter Syndrome tends to come up the most when we are in a very expansive situation, right? So if we feel like something's very big or like, holy shit, it's a protective mechanism, essentially, to keep us from getting hurt. And so rather than us potentially in—and obviously, all this is subjective—but maybe tripping and failing or… Yeah, just our perception of whatever “failing” is, or making a mistake in front of someone that we're really hoping to impress or we want to do a good job. But it's like a bigger expansion, a bigger widening or dilation of whatever threshold we're in. It's scary, right? So it makes total sense that you're experiencing that impostor syndrome.
And, and, I wish you were here because I want to know more about this place that you're reading in that people are comparing you to other readers. I don't like that. And I don't feel like that is a very… I have no doubt that where you're reading is wonderful. But something about that didn't sit well with me because you don't deserve to be compared. That's not a yes for me. (Lindsay laughs) You know what I mean? It feels like a no to me for you to be compared with other people. That's happened to me too. Reading in a shop—I get the sense you've done it before—but reading in a shop is very different. And you're also getting back into it post-pandemic. There's a lot of different things. I used to read in shops in Brooklyn, and I've certainly done readings in various places, parties, whatever. And there were environments, days, situations, where it was hard to do. It was hard to tap into the person's Guides. It was hard to trust what I was hearing. It had nothing to do with the vibes being off or anything. It was just really hard, and it wasn't my fault. It wasn't the client’s fault, either. It wasn't the shop's fault. Just sometimes environment plus reader plus client doesn't quite sing, right?
[0:49:04]
So I feel like I want to ask you: does it feel like a yes to read at this shop? I think that's my big question to you. My sense is that it is an accomplishment and an achievement for you. And that, I think it is excellent that you're reading it at this shop. And I think reading at shops are great, as I've said. But I'm wondering what's happening that you don't feel Dropped In. And I'm wondering if it's—and now I'm getting into the nitty gritty—is it an environment thing? Are you doing it in a private space? Is it more public? Do you feel like you'd be served with different anchors around you? Like, I work better in kind of a cave vibe. I always do my best work when I'm in a room with someone and the lights are down or dimmed, whatever. I never did great out in the open where people were shopping and could overhear. Not that I… They couldn't overhear. It was just, I don't know, I didn't always feel great. So I'm wondering… I want to know what you need. And I would say that if I was the owner of this shop, I would be really welcoming of you just saying, “Hey, I'm just realizing what would feel more supportive for me is this.” So yeah, I'm in my Virgo Rising checklist mode where I'm kind of like, what's going on that these clients are in a space of comparison with you? Do you have everything you need? I want to know, so definitely write me and let me know how that lands. And I do understand that it's now starting to kind of snowball, right? It's a big deal to read at this shop, but you're not feeling connected. And people are comparing you, so it’s only increasing that sense of impostor syndrome.
Here's what I would say—and I'm going to go to the heart of your question in a moment—which is that I just want to encourage you to think about, number one, is this the most aligned environment? Like, if you think of yourself as a flower, are you in the right soil and the right conditions for you to be blossoming? Not all conditions are right for all flowers. So that doesn't mean that you're… There's not a judgment call on it, right? Like, some flowers don't grow well in clay soils and some do, you know? I've been through that a lot in my career where the big thing, the fancy thing, the exciting thing would come and I'd be like, “I cannot. I'm not… I can't rise to meet this. This is really not what I want.” And then other things fit great. And so I just would invite you to think about that because inside of your question, I'm really feeling how hard you're working. And I want to acknowledge that and also say that I think you're exactly where you're meant to be. You should fucking go for it at this shop. I think it's great. And I’m not in any way suggesting that you should leave. I just want to know more about, did it feel better for you to do recorded readings for clients at home? Would it feel better to go back to that or to increase that? Is there something about this particular shop? I just want to know more about that, and those are the questions that I have for you. Because I'm getting this sense that this isn't your fault; that something's going on that maybe if it was adjusted a little bit would really help you.
Also, and I was starting to say this, just to be really patient with yourself because it takes a long time to get to a point where it feels comfortable to run through people in that way, to be face-to-face after years of not doing it. So just again, it sounds like you're doing awesome. Just be really patient with yourself. And I also want to give you a ton of permissioning that as you are adjusting and getting yourself to a place where you feel more comfortable in this new environment, your readings might be a little bit less full and rich. There might not be as much cream on the top of your milk, you know? Because it's like we're feeling into it. You're feeling into it. So lean into your own insights about the cards. Lean into the overreliance on your knowledge of the cards. It will not always be like that. So I would just say that.
[0:54:47]
So how can you call forth your intuition in your new surroundings to avoid being over-reliant on what you've learned so that you can give the best readings for all of your clients? Okay, I'm going to be really annoying. How do you know that you're not giving the best readings to your clients? Because there have been times… I mean, I'm not the reader for everybody, but I'm a damn good reader. I might not be the best reader for you. I might not be the right reader for you in the moment. But I mean, I can read Tarot. That's what I can do, (Lindsay laughs) you know? And I have had, at the height of my career, people be basically very politely like, “What the fuck is this?” And “This person told me differently,” or “This person…” whatever. And while those things are challenging and they do sting, it does say a lot more about the other readers that they're working with that they're expecting the things that they are from my readings. And that really isn't… If you are presenting part of your… over-reliance or not, you can give an excellent reading by being a little bit more “by the book” with your cards. There are times where that happens, where you're nervous, where you're not feeling as centered and so you're basically just talking about the card. I believe that those readings still have impact, I really do, as we're getting more comfortable, as we're working through something.
So I just really want to name that. And I don't know that just because these people are bitching and comparing you doesn't mean you're not giving very good readings. It just could mean that you're telling them things that they don't really want to hear. Or that you're giving them information that maybe is very impactful, and they're having a big response to it because they wanted to hear what they wanted to hear. Or they wanted to hear something different. Or they came in with different… And you can't control that, you know? So, again, not everybody's vibe is our vibe. Not every shop's vibe is our vibe. Not everyone's… There have been times I've read for other readers' clients and I'm like, “No disrespect to them, these are not my clients.” And that is cool. Different strokes, you know? So it's not to say, again, this shop isn't right for you. I just I'm feeling a bit defensive of you. (Lindsay laughs) I’m finding myself just being like, hey, I don't know if you're the problem here. I really don't. And I want to know more. So I trust that you'll write me if you feel right about it.
But all you can do, the only thing you can do in the moment that you're in, is offer yourself a very rich and full and spacious drop-in before you read. You don't need to feel it all. You don't need to feel connected. You don't even need to, honestly, feel good. Not that we want to feel bad, but you don't really even need to feel good. Before you go into your day at the shop, what I would say is offer yourself a little time. Be very, very tender to yourself. Be really tender to the part of you that's maybe dreading it a little, maybe worried. Talk to that part of yourself. Do a really nice, big, spacious, full maybe five whole minutes before you leave or before you get out of your car, however you get to the shop. And just say, “I'm calling in my entire spirit team, my spirit helpers to be with me, to help me to deeply be connected and collaborate with my intuitive knowing, to be of service to every person who is aligned for me to be of service to today. May I really get to read for my most ideal clients. May I be of service in the best way that I can today. And may I really come forward and offer that service knowing that they don't have to like it.”
[0:59:24]
So that's what I would do. And that's what I have done before I've gone into things that I'm a little nervous about or shaky about. And then before you read for each person—and I assume you're doing that already—I would just say… I’d really drop in for them. And again, when I am in a position where I have a headache, I'm feeling very nervous, very shaky, very nervous to read for someone for any given reason, whether it be a little stage fright or whatever, I lay that on the table in my drop-ins silently. So when I do my additional drop-in before each client, calling in their Guides, calling in my own, I'll say like, “I'm so nervous and I want that to be silently, internally named here so that it doesn't overtake it,” you know? The other thing I would say, and this is not usually my bag, but I wonder if a part of the themes for some of your clients has to do with impostor syndrome, and you're picking up on it. That's not usually my thing where I'm like, “Oh, you feel anxious because someone else around you is anxious.” I think we feel other people's energies, but I think we're all ultimately responsible for our own internal experiences. And just because you're anxious with me doesn't mean you're clouding me. In other words, people are allowed to be anxious around other people, right? As a very anxious person, I feel like I have the right to exist, you know? I can keep my experience as a part of my experience, and it doesn't have to rock anyone else, right? So I'm sensitive about that but do feel like that might also be something to think about as well.
So in concrete answer to your question, I would say deepening and expanding and lengthening your drop-ins is probably going to be really helpful. And if you've worked with me—as you said, you're a longtime student—I talk a lot in my courses about the myth of “feeling it", meaning we can do a drop-in, call in Spirit, ask to receive whatever's in highest and best for the client and not feel anything, but kind of have it all flow. Or not understand until we pull the cards and we give ourselves time to see them all together, really singing. Doing shit in person is different than having the space to do it away. It is different. I think it's much harder. Because when you are doing pre-recorded, you're just in a quiet, sacred dialogue with that person's Guides. Or you're in dialogue with them over Zoom or something. Or if you're in your own home or a really intimate space, it's just so different. So you're working with really different, not even barriers, but you're working in very different conditions right now. And it sounds like you're doing fucking great. It's just a transition.
So I would say what I'd leave you with is number one, I don't know if you're the problem. And I want you to really reflect and think about: is this shop a yes for you? And if it's not a yes, that's not failure. It's just an understanding that maybe you'd be benefited by a different environment, and it has nothing to do with you or the shop. It just could be that they're different. Like, I remember I read in a shop in Brooklyn and had some of what you were talking about, and then pivoted over to Maha Rose. And my first experience being a reader for them was unbelievable, the connections that I had with people. It was like totally different people were coming to Maha Rose versus this shop that I was reading at, and I was really blown away. And they weren't better or worse; they were a lot more aligned for me. And then it wasn't aligned. And then I went and read for people in my own apartment. And then that wasn't aligned anywhere, (Lindsay laughs) you know? So it's not personal. There's nothing wrong with that shop I was reading in. It was great. It just wasn't where I shined. So I would say, is this environment feeling good, supportive? Is the owner giving you a hard time? Are you feeling pressured by that? What's going on in the back end, and how does it…? How are you feeling with all that? Because that could tell us a lot.
[1:04:18]
Number two, have a lot of grace with yourself because it's really hard to find our way with a new place, as you are doing. So give yourself a little time. And then third and final, I would say again, lengthen, strengthen, deepen your drop-in, and let yourself kind of hang in that energy. And I would say do a drop-in before you even go in and name all the things that you're feeling. “I'm nervous. I'm worried. I'm scared. I'm feeling like a total fucking impostor.” Because the truth is, Anonymous, you're not. You're not an impostor. You can read Tarot. You're a beautiful reader, I can tell. You're very aware. This is a super different environment. It's really tricky to find our way into it. And not all environments are where… Again, that flower analogy. The soil could be right, but we could not be getting enough sun. Again, there's all kinds of different things when you're reading in a space that someone else is curating. It's not for everyone. So yeah, let me know how you feel about this. But again, the impostor syndrome piece I think might have more to do with that than it does with some kind of block or issue with your intuition. It might just be something to untie around like the environment or… I don't know. And I do think regardless of the environment, you will eventually settle into a place where it feels really familiar and a little bit more known to you, and then things will flow. Or they won't, and you'll decide like, “Oh, another place is way better.”
So that's what I've got for you. Thank you for trusting me with this. Would love to hear from you on the other side of this question. And I'm just really rooting for you and cheering you on. And I think it's wonderful that this is now your main gig, and definitely am bowing with a lot of solidarity and a lot of empathy because I've been there many times myself. So keep me updated and send me a response if it feels good.
[Conclusion]
Okay, thank you so much, all of you, for being here. I’ve loved it. And it's always such a joy to connect. Check out the show notes if you want to know more about my upcoming course/if you want to take advantage of the early bird discount that's happening next week. Our very, very last Spiralic Tarot, I think the last one, is coming out pretty soon in just a couple of weeks for the summer solstice. And I say pretty soon because I may be transitioning the format to another thing. So the format of the Spiralic Tarot offering might be happening, just absorbed into a different offering. Although it might keep happening. Who the fuck knows with me? So yeah, lots of summer offerings happening. And if you want to be the first to know about that, obviously listening here is a great way to know, and you can subscribe to the podcast or you can subscribe to the newsletter. So, thank you so much for being here again. And until we meet next week, please take exquisite care of yourselves.