Every so often, I pull Tarot cards in the morning to see what wisdom the card may bring for the day. Today, I pulled a card from the Osho Zen deck called Politician. This card is about the true and false faces that we put out into the world. The political and false face is the one we use to manipulate the environment around us, and the true face is our deepest sense of Self.
As my day continued, I went into a deep meditation and a client’s dilemma showed up. A slightly different form of the Politician card came up again. It showed a bunch of compartmentalized boxes filled with all the big stuff in our lives: work, family, friends, community, self, and money. The visualization for my client’s life included many disconnected boxes all locked up and not integrated in any way. This disconnection causes suffering and unhappiness for my client and manifested itself as a sense of being disconnected with life itself.
This image could have described my life many years ago. There were many faces of myself. I was often told, you are so different at work(hard core, maniacal, demanding), then out of work (funny, caring, laid back, light-hearted). But really, it was a symptom of a problem. My life was disconnected, and not integrated at all. Like a politician, I wore many faces and put on the face that suited the situation.
Over the years, I have worked at regaining my wholeness and connection to all of my various selves and buckets, and started filling in my “Self” bucket. Sadly, my”Self” bucket was empty thirteen years ago. Sure, I had multitude of tests (Meyers- Briggs, Conflict Style tests, Enneagram, etc) telling me who I am according to a standardized test. However, I never did my own self-assessment or made any true progress on discovering who I am and filling my “Self” bucket. For me, the “Self” bucket goes hand and hand with my spiritual path. In retrospect, I realize that the Self bucket that was missing from my equation ended up being the most critical bucket of all . The core bucket is my “Self” bucket. The Self bucket is where all the other buckets (work, friends, community, etc) plug into like planets orbiting around the sun. The “Self” bucket in where all of our power and energy resides.
As I drove in my car today contemplating how this fun intuitive game ended up so rich in meaning for me, I had another insight about the Politician card. As we move to integration with our Core Self, becoming whole, and filling in our Self bucket, the next part of our spiritual journey becomes recognizing that we have disconnected ourselves from the big WHOLE; the universe, God, or whatever you may want to call it. The false face or False Self (Political) is the part of us who looks, feels, and sees the world as separate. The False self is the part that thrives on competition and differences. The true Self sees that we are all connected and the stranger’s face that I see across from me is my own. Now, that’s the BIG Ahaa….
