Do you uplift or destroy with your logic? The Ace of Swords

Today's card is all about the kind of clarity we derive from rational and linear thinking and the danger of being too rational in ways that disrupt relationships and cause alienation.

Sometimes, holistic thinkers are all over the place, and it can show itself in their environment and in the way they conduct ourselves. The office worker whose desk is always a disaster can actually manage quite well for a time, knowing what is where on his desk almost by intuition. An employee who thinks holistically might make a proposal to her boss in a roundabout manner, because she sees the big picture and has trouble communicating in a linear fashion. This can drive a linear thinker crazy and make them impatient.

The office worker needs to take time occasionally to tidy his desk. Both parties in a discussion need to understand how the other communicates. Rational thinkers need to give holistic thinkers time to get to the point, and holistic thinkers need to structure their communication better so as to be heard by rational thinkers and not try their patience.

When our homes, offices or lives are in disarray, applying a linear strategy is often the most expeditious way to get the problem solved. Make a list of things to tackle. Start at one end of a room and clean to the other end. You'll feel better and more organized afterward. The new year is a great time to start off with a clean slate, so use the holidays to tidy up and get organized for January.

On the flip side, we need to be careful not to be overly rational when facing an emotional situation. Sometimes, we can escape into our heads when our hearts feel overwhelmed. It takes courage to be truly present when a loved one is hurting or when we ourselves are upset. When we get together with friends and family over the holidays, we can avoid conflict by trying to understand our different communication styles and being patient with someone who may say their piece with more emotion or in indirect ways. We can keep our heart open as well as our ears.

Rational thinking has its place in terms of organization and helping complete tasks efficiently, but it must be married to the softer, intuitive side of our nature so that we maintain our compassion and humanity in all situations. When that balance is struck, we move forward in our lives in harmony.

Growing Up: The Final Stage

When we're young, it's part of our growing up process to adapt our behaviour to the expectations of our parents and other authority figures. Rebelling, we discover, makes our lives more difficult, so many of us begin to govern our behaviour in order to win the approval of the people with the power.

This adaptation becomes such an intrinsic part of our behaviour that it can carry over into our lives as adults. While to some degree, this adaptation is a good thing - ensuring that most of us adhere to laws and use cultural cues such as manners to get along with each other - it can also become a stumbling block to our own development.

The final stage in growing up is to truly become who you are meant to be, and that of necessity means basing that evolutionary process on your intuition and not others' opinions of how you should behave and what goals you should pursue.

This stage of development is extremely difficult for many of us who have family responsibilities and work obligations. Still, it behooves all of us to the best of our ability to listen to our intuition and recognize when we are needlessly limiting ourselves because of our concern about how others may react.

We've forgotten who we were as children, before we got overly concerned with the opinions of adults. We've forgotten to be silly. We've forgotten to take chances. We've forgotten to trust our initial feelings about things and people. We've forgotten to listen to our intuition.

Several times a day, try to catch yourself altering your behaviour based on how others will respond to your actions. Decide whether you really need to take their opinion or reaction seriously. If the choice you're making doesn't affect that person directly, ask yourself if you really need to take their viewpoint into account on this occasion.

It's unsettling when we strike out on our own, doing what feels right for us despite people who disagree with our choices or who want us to conform to a particular view they have of the kind of person we are. It's unsettling to stand apart from the herd and trust an inner voice that may ask you to be a maverick from time to time. Yet, in the end all you leave this life with is you - and the choices you made.

2012: The Attunement

Please log on to www.bonitasummers.com and read the section on my upcoming book, 2012: The Attunement. Please let me know by way of email if you'd like to be on the advance notice list so you can be informed when we have a release date for the book.

Thanks for your support.

Bonita

Trusting that Still Small Voice

It's not always easy, listening to our intuition. One of the reasons that people often don't pay attention to the still, small voice within is that it will tell them to do things that counter decisions the rational mind has made.

It's the ego-oriented mind that tells us to play it safe, go along, compromise - even when it's not ultimately in our best interest. The ego wants to preserve what is, since the status quo is where it has anchored its identity. The ego is all about maintaining itself - often at the cost of our well-being and happiness.

The intuitive mind lives in the moment, ignores the ego's suppositions about what is known, and occasionally acts in ways that confound egoic logic. Our intuition has access to information that the rational mind does not, which is why it can demonstrate knowledge without derivation.

If we listen to that inner voice, we may find ourselves making choices that seem illogical in the present or to the rational observer. Yet, it is the intuitive mind, tapping into universal consciousness that will take us to our ultimate happiness.

Anti-chaos theory suggests that there is no chaos - just a pattern too large for us to see close up. Intuition shows us the piece of the pattern most pertinent to us in the moment. If we have faith in our inner voice and act on the information it provides, gradually we will see the logic behind that information and the pattern into which we fit. It is only in retrospect that we will understand why it was correct to follow that hunch and trust our instincts.