Summer 2000 - News in Psychic Counseling

 

MYTHS WE STILL LIVE (OR DIE) BY

My office provides the most wonderful vantage point for me.  I'm not speaking of my newly remodeled home office that sits up high in the little town of Mosier and overlooks the Columbia River as it cuts its way through the towering walls of lava.  I'm speaking of the vantage point I have dealing with such interesting people in psychic readings and coaching.  My little office is a microcosm of the world's ideas.  A Petri dish, if you will!  All kinds of things start growing and fermenting in my mind from little bits dropped off by each client.  Lately I've been noticing how my clients sometimes reinforce old myths I have lived with, and probably more often how they destroy old beliefs I have grown up with.

The myth that started this thought process has come up several times in just the past few days.  It's something like “que sera sera.”  I'm frankly surprised at the number of people who believe it.  I think I used to believe it until I spent 22 years studying the Tarot and ancient wisdom.  Many clients firmly believe that “if it's meant to be it will be.”  “If God wants it to happen, He will make it happen.”

Man.  It's all I can do not to wince at that one.  To me it's purely a myth to think there is some Person, usually a Man, or some knowable Force 'up there' that is in charge of my life.  All I have to do is sit here and wait for Him to reveal Himself.  I frankly think this myth and its variations cause much of our angst.  And our laziness.  I know numbers of clients who are literally sitting and waiting for instructions from on high.  But the unexpressed corollary to that kind of thinking is, “Since God has not revealed my path to me, I'm excused.”  I would be willing to bet that for numbers of unfulfilled people, there is a little secret part of them that doesn't want to hear from God.  They want to be excused from full participation.  It's better than a note from home.

In the Tarot, this concept is shown in the Wheel of Fortune card where a figure is strapped to the outer rim of the wheel.  People like this are at the mercy of  “God” or the wheel or whatever force they believe in.  They do not determine their lives.  Other forces do.  They are vulnerable to having other people run their lives, direct their fortunes, 'make' them happy or sad.  But there is another position on the Wheel of Fortune, and this is being at the center of the wheel where we are not affected by the movement of the wheel.  In fact, we are at the center TURNING THE WHEEL where we consciously choose it to go.  I see hundreds of clients living this kind of life.  They feel deep inner urges, often called God force by them, moving them in the direction they know they want to go.  They leave marriages, quit jobs, refuse to do what they were 'supposed to do' in order to experience what they want to do.

And the quality that I have noticed that distinguishes them from the unfulfilled people, is HARD WORK.  Frankly, it's much easier being tied to the outer rim of the wheel.  Decisions are made for you.  Being at the mercy of outer forces is at least easy.  Having to drive yourself where you want to go takes energy, enthusiasm, and plain hard work.  As my favorite poet Mary Oliver says in a poem, “The hour of fulfillment is preceded by years of patience.”  People who have chosen to live by their choices and not by the myth of outer ruling forces, know of what she speaks.

IT'S GENETIC is another favorite myth of late.  I remember a newspaper photo of a particularly unattractive family member of mine which I taped to the refrigerator with the words “DEFEAT GENETICS” scrawled across it.  I do not accept this gene pool!  I certainly don't deny that genetics will play a role in my being, but I can't use it as an excuse for my failures.  I should use it as a challenge.  I often go to bodybuilding contests where I have certainly seen huge men who with a particular set of genes and $100,000 in steroids have made a name for themselves.  But the ones I admire are the average men who take an average body and turn it into an extraordinary sculpture.  Or the obese person who takes the challenge and totally changes their body into a show piece.  Instead of simply giving in to something, some people have the courage to acknowledge it and evolve past it.

But my favorite myths have to be the sexual ones.  God they're good!  And most of them are secrets, so don't tell what you heard here or where you heard it.  Clients tell me the most intimate details of their life so I have lots of raw data to support my conclusions here.

The Great Myth is that men only want sex, can't get enough of it, and if they don't get it they will somehow implode in the middle of the shopping mall, fall to the ground writhing in hideous and obvious pain, and everyone will look at their partner accusingly knowing it was their fault for not giving him enough sex.

The corollary to this, fostered I'm afraid mainly by men, is that women don't like sex, put up with it as an obligation or duty to the male, and are forced to 'close their eyes and think of the Queen' while enduring it.

Well…  you ought to listen in with my clients.  Granted, this is no scientific sampling.  The people who go to a psychic are not your average.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Most of my female clients are woefully unsatisfied sexually.  Especially the married ones, God help them.  Most complain bitterly that their husbands are not interested, too tired, or have a headache.  Many have long lasting affairs on the side just for satisfaction.  Two of them even have the same 'stud' and I'm the only one who knows it!

This myth of women not being sexual began with the western church where women were either viewed as virgins or whores and nothing in between.  With women's liberation we know the truth I'm afraid, and these women will not be denied!

But pity the poor men too, having to live up to an image that never was true.  These are myths perpetuated perhaps in the locker room, but nowhere else that I know of.  You would weep, as I have, to hear some of these men.  “I can't find a woman who sees sex in the same deep, spiritual sense that I do.”  “I just want to find a woman I could hold and touch for hours and maybe not even have sex at first.”  “We're going camping and I'm afraid she will want to have sex and I'm not ready for that kind of deep intimacy yet.”

What's going on here?  None of this fits the myth.  All of this is topsy turvy.  Women openly wanting and discussing sex.  Men longing for intimacy.  I didn't learn any of this out on the streets or in any books.  I only hear it in my office with the door locked.  But now you know the truth too.  So, perhaps you too will reexamine some myths you live by.

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