Building a safe energy environment

The city we live in. The street we take to walk back home. Our kitchen and our bedroom. Our habits, our belief, our debts and our hurt. Even the coffee mug we drink from every morning.

All this creates the environment which fills us up with energy every day – or "sucks" it out non-stop. Following perfect scenario, we should feel good and be full of energy and optimism. Perfect is none. In reality we often feel yearning, irritation and fatigue. Let us analyze where our energy drains off. These might be a toxic or simply boring relationship with our partner, apathy from failed job hunting, tiredness after a meeting with a girlfriend or female relative, who exhausted us with their complaints, feeling in indebtedness to our children, irritation with a crowd on the subway or pain in the neck from sleeping on a bad pillow. If you feel that "something is wrong", it is important to analyze where the source of irritation lies. We are so used to bottling everything up (we were all taught to be polite and never demonstrate irritation) that even the tiniest, minuscule, stress is something we want to put on the back burner and forget about it if possible. And it does go to the background of our subconsciousness, we get used to living with it, not noticing how this exhausts us.

Let us analyze what we spend our energy on. Let us start with the basics. How do you sleep at night? Who do you sleep with?  What do you eat? What do you read and how often do you go for a walk? These questions might seem dumb and elementary and as polite people who were brought up to be always "up and running", we, unfortunately, often leave them aside. Good night sleep, a healthy diet and clean air can do miracles and prevent you from spending money on depression treatment. People might think you are a nervous paranoid person, when what you really need is just to get enough sleep. The second level of life pyramid is the place where we live.

Let us start from the beginning – the city. None of us chose where to be born. And often we rely on circumstances when choosing whether to stay or move – choice of college, job offer, pursuing a relationship, meeting parental expectations or even by chance. It's great when our own rhythm coincides with that of our city, when we are compatible in "spirit". Unfortunately, it is not always like this.

What do you do if you don't like your city? Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is "move". But if work, studies – your own or that of your children, relatives and habits don't let you go, you can think of moving not cities but neighborhoods. Kyivans know that living in the Golden Gate neighborhood is completely different from life at Podil and moving from Podil to Rusanivka or Obolon changes the rhythm of one's life, their habits and the environment. Even in New York, which never sleeps and constantly makes its residents keep up with the crazy rhythm, there are neighborhoods with low-rise buildings, green narrow streets and quiet squares, where time follows a different rhythm. Find a neighborhood which is right for you.

The third level is information we get and psychological comfort. "Don't read Soviet newspapers at lunch". Or better don't read any, as one Soviet classic suggested. At least, limit the amount of information and social networks in your life to 2 hours a day. Follow the example of Silicon Valley employees. You will see how much additional energy you receive and how the world flourishes. Abundance of information, simultaneous flow "on everything and nothing", politics, new arrivals in cosmetology, self-development courses, quarantine newsletter and exacerbation of relations between the USA and China in the Southern Sea and a Zoom conference in 15 minutes,  actually blur us and we get lost in the stream coming at us, while simultaneously los-ing our energy.

What does Tarot have to do with this? Tarot is here because it is tremendously hard to stop and give ourselves time to analyze what is wrong. We are all in a need of  a perceptive calm confidant who will be impartial when telling us how to live and what to do, where we are carried away, where we don't see the cracks through which energy drains out and, quite often, simply refuse to see them.

The best hiding place is in plain sight.