Look For The Best, not the Worst

Hi All!

Hope your week's been going well.  It's been kind of quiet over here -- well, kind of.

We're dogsitting for my son.  "Nala" is a medium size lab/shepherd mix; she's a real sweety ... but is pretty young, wild, and untrained.

She ate a couple of dozen of my grand-daughter's toys her first day with us.  Next, she ate some books the second day -- pulled them off the shelf and chewed them up.  Next day, she ate the TV remote conrol thingy.  Yesterday, she ate a stack of catalogs.

She has plenty of dog toys available -- but doesn't seem to care for them.  Am dreading what I'll find when I get home!   Am anxious for the dogsitting to end!

Let's get an early start on this weekend's reading -- we'll again pull two cards.  The first suggests some positive attribute; the second offers tips on how to best realize or utilize this attribute.

Our first card is ... the Six of Cups.

We began with this card just a couple of reading ago!  Prior to that, I think it had been many months since we had seen this Six.  Pulling it twice in near-adjacent readings suggests that we may want to dig deeper into how we might realize the positive aspect of this card.

I said in that earlier reading:

"The Six of Cups suggests the feelings and wants we had as a child.  When you're a kid, you don't worry about jobs, or taxes, or crime, or foreign affairs -- you just want to be loved, to be comfortable, to feel secure.  The yearning for that sort of security is what the Six of Cups is about.

We all want it -- but most of us have to work to get it.  I have friends with really lousy jobs -- they'll complain constantly about them.  Whenever I suggest "Why don't you look for a new job?", they're full of excuses about why they don't do so.  I figure if you have a problem -- but choose not to try and solve it -- then you've accepted the situation and shouldn't complain about it. 

You ALWAYS have options -- you just have to decided to make the effort to look for them and implement them.

Want security?  Want to feel safe and comfortable?  Then determine what you need to do in order to gain that security -- then do it!"

 Hasn't changed -- this card strongly suggests that the need to feel comfortable and secure is something special we want to realize.

Let's look at our second card -- perhaps it'll help us a little more this time -- the Queen of Cups.

This card suggests patience, caring, and empathy.  This card tends to see the good in people -- rather than trying to assign blame to them.  I usually say this card will always believe you when you say "The dog ate my homework" (or book -- or remote control -- or toys -- or catalogs -- or whatever I'll find when I get home!) ... even when she knows it's not the truth.  She believes it because she wants to believe in you --- she cares about you. 

That's the strength of this card -- and also the weakness.  Because she is so caring, ill-meaning folks can easily take advantage of her.  But -- she doesn't take exception when they do!  She'll give them the benefit of the doubt and will expect that they'll learn from their mistake and become better individuals.

Bottom line -- this person doesn't get upset when people don't perform as they should.  She doesn't take it personal.

So let's put these together -- we want to feel safe and secure.  Perhaps if we expect the best from people -- rather than expecting the worst from them -- we'll feel more secure.  We won't worry about getting abused or mistreated -- because we'll always interpret people's actions in a good light.  Instead of assuming people have bad motivations -- we might look for less sinister interpretations.  This could help us see that folks really aren't "trying to get us" -- they're just being people with the same innocent and honest faults and weaknesses we all have.

Wish me luck with Nala today!  (I'm really dreading what she'll have eaten this time around!)

Woodsong