NAVIGATING THROUGH NUMBNESS TOWARD WONDER

This week, our resilience focus is the heart remedy WONDER. How can we engage with the world around us with wonder? What might this look and feel like? And how might this change our experience of the world and aid us in navigating through difficulties? How can wonder help to remind us of our own strength and goodness?

But what if feeling wonder seems impossible? What if we are finding it hard to feel anything at all?

Below is a card spread to encourage and support you toward wonder if you feel numb and exhausted. As with all resilience readings, keep in mind that your interpretation of any card will be unique and may deviate wildly from mine! The words I offer are only suggestions meant to get your mind moving and help you make your own radical and magical connections. You are the Resilience Alchemist in your own life.

And please remember—there is a certain sort of openness and vulnerability in feeling wonder. Be compassionate and kind to yourself as you work with this remedy. Remember that the openness of wonder is good openness. Finding and feeling wonder will not harm you, nor invalidate anything else you may need to feel.

Note: if any question seems irrelevant to you, feel free to skip over it and work only with the questions that feel helpful. Likewise, only use this card spread if you are struggling to find a sense of wonder within yourself.

1. Why does wonder feel so elusive?

2nd Heart Remedy OPENNESS

What an appropriate card to appear, especially coming so soon after what I wrote above about openness! I think allowing ourselves to find and experience wonder requires a great deal of bravery, a great deal of openness. Perhaps because in some way we equate wonder with naiveté. Does it feel uncomfortable or silly to exclaim and swoon over something wonderful? Do you worry that others will judge you in some way for finding joy? But oh, what a colorless, uneventful world it would be if we could not find joy! Remember this. Remember how important it is to remain open so that goodness can find you.

What other ideas occur to you when Openness comes in answer to this question?

2. How can I gently coax myself toward feeling wonder?

7th Gift INTERDEPENDENCE

Everyone and everything is connected. Every one of us is part of some greater story—a beautiful, glorious interconnected tapestry of experience. This alone is cause for wonder and awe!

But let’s go deeper. How can your interdependence with others in some way lead to feeling wonder? I think wonder most lovingly lives in the places where we all connect—in the stories we tell, the histories we have, the work we do, the grief we share, the love we share. Wonder can be (and often is) experienced alone, but perhaps in this instance it is important to seek out wonder with others? What do you think?

What other ideas occur to you when Interdependence comes in answer to this question?

3. What can help me navigate through other, more difficult feelings in order to find wonder?

12th Head Remedy ACCEPT

What have you been pushing aside? What have you been reluctant to think about? The Accept remedy comes as a reminder that even a difficult or painful experience must be acknowledged. We gain nothing by attempting to hide it from ourselves, or by brushing it aside. We cannot use wonder to replace something painful, only to exist gently alongside it.

May we accept the difficult feelings and sit down with them while also allowing room for wonder to sit down with us as well. There is no either/or.

What other ideas occur to you when Accept comes in answer to this question?

4. What potential cause for wonder can I pay special attention to this weekend?

12th Heart Remedy GRATITUDE

Oh, I love this card. It feels like a gentle hug. Whenever I pull this remedy from the deck I think of it as an invitation to give gratitude to myself: my body, my heart, my eyes, my voice, my clever mind. I say, thank you for taking care of me.

I think we can often be trapped into thinking that gratitude is about obligation or instruction—like, it’s our duty to feel gratitude for certain socially constructed reasons, and that makes gratitude a chore and a conduit for misplaced guilt. But let’s remember that gratitude is a gift. It is a softness that we explore in whatever way feels right and comfortable.

What other ideas occur to you when Gratitude comes in answer to this question?

5. What is wonder?

1st Place Remedy HAVEN

Sometimes when asking a question I like to ask an impossible one—a question that has no true, concrete answer. I enjoy seeing what card comes up and seeing how, in some magical way, the card still inexplicably answers the question I asked.

And isn’t that just the case with Haven? Isn’t wonder in some way a haven? A safe space where we can find comfort and weather the storms of our lives? If you are struggling to feel wonder, remember this. Let wonder be your safe haven, your soft cocoon, your hushed and quiet inlet where you can put down your burdens and rest easy.

What other ideas occur to you when Haven comes in answer to this question?