If you needed more reasons not to shy from conflict

I’ve been fighting with myself a lot lately. I’m stuck in a pattern of indecision and second guessing myself, unable to decide to go all in on my ideas, or forget them and put my energy into some other idea. It’s exhausting, and frustrating. I find myself ruminating on un-helpful trains of thought, trying desperately to play out every scenario so I can pick the one with the guaranteed positive outcome - the outcome that offers me all the things that will give me the safety, love, admiration, (continue list of successful and pleasurable outcomes) that I want; that I feel I need. 

I pull a card. The Five of Wands. The card represents conflict, competition and challenge. I feel that everywhere around me and within me at the this time in my life. I have felt a challenge to take some sort of next step in my life, to step into some new unknown and reveal a part of myself that has been hidden, even from myself. And as I do I have entered new competitions, with myself and others. I used to think I wasn’t a part of the competition because I wasn’t very competitive or I because I never won, not on purpose anyway, not at anything skill-full or contested, but I see now, I just didn’t have anything to compete at. I hadn’t really allowed myself to truly want anything, so I had no fear of someone getting it first, or doing it better. And now I’m fighting with myself about how to compete. Its exhausting thinking this much, but I don’t think this card is unsupportive of this type of conflict. 

In my paws tarot deck, there are four cats and a rat in the image. The cats are dressed as the ninja turtles, with turtle shell capes on and each with a different colour mask over their eyes. For those that don’t know, or don’t remember, the colours represent each character: red for Raphael, orange for Michelangelo, purple for Donatello and blue for Leonardo. The rat of course is the Sensei. This is fun for me because I loved the teenage mutant ninja turtles as kid and so far, its the only pop culture reference (that I’ve recognised) in these cards. Sensei and each ninja turtle cat holds a wand which is represented by a long staff, they are in a sort of group conflict. In this depiction, the sensei rat is jumping and so is higher than the rest of the characters but I believe in a classic tarot deck all the figures are on equal footing. The scene is a little chaotic, everyone appears to just be striking their stick wherever at whatever and maybe just hoping for best. It is what conflict can feel like sometimes, our strengths or knowledge flung aimlessly; hoping its enough for the win. There isn’t even a clear idea of what a win would be in the picture, there is no prize to be seen. Other than the cats, rat and wands there is only sky and grass in the rest of the image. 

I don’t think this card is telling us about resolution, or offering solution. I think it is telling us to look at ourselves when we are in conflict, whether with ourselves or others. 

How do we behave? Conflict and competition often bring out ‘the worst’ in us, the parts of ourselves we hold a lot of shame over, the parts of ourselves we find excuses for and promise we’ll be better at. So few of us really know how to enter conflict well, how not to lose ourselves to our emotions and actually find the roots of any issues present. Many of us don’t handle true competition well either, we can become overly aggressive, mean or cruel, obnoxious and selfish, again letting things come out of ourselves that we deem, and can be, ugly or harmful. Sometimes the expression is wrong, other times its the environment that gets it wrong. Its an enormously beneficial skill to know when its which.

What do we want to happen when we argue? What does winning mean to us? In competition or if we are challenged with something it is obvious that we want to win, to overcome but do we always know what we are fighting? I think many of us have realised in our lives that we didn’t necessarily care about the topic of our argument or disagreement, at the heart of it there was some kind of imbalance, a need not met, a boundary crossed, a promise not spoken or unfulfilled. We won the fight but lost the war is a phrase most of us understand. This is especially true in our close relationships but also with ourselves. We strive and compete and challenge ourselves only to end up somewhere or with something that was never what we truly wanted, just like in this card, there was no prize at the end, unless you wear endurance as a crown. 

How do we face challenges? I have always faced challenges with a ‘lets get through it’ attitude. If I can make it to the other side then I did it and its done. But that’s not what challenge really is, its not just about getting up the mountain or accomplishing the task. It is really is about the way through. Cheesy as these kinds of sentiments are when they make their rounds, life is the process of living, there is no culmination of it all when some form of perfection is achieved. We culminate at our death beds, the sum of our lives measured only when we are no longer here to measure it ourselves. 

Sadly, I’ve mostly been a conflict avoider in my time. I say sadly because by being afraid or worried about it just means missing out on a part of life. The way we have labelled so many experiences as good or bad has stripped us away from experience itself. We are all so determined to feel good, or be entertained that we shrink at the parts of life that reveal to us parts of ourselves that are unknown or ‘undesirable’. 

This card today has granted me a lesson I didn’t know I needed at this point in my life. That conflict doesn’t always need a resolution. This card shows none. There are five sides in this fight, with no clear winner, no visible advantages to any side and not a prize in sight. It is pure chaos. 

For now I think I’ll take this card to mean that I need to give space to conflict and competition, to struggle and challenges. Not to focus on winning or achieving but to finding myself in that chaos, finding my voice, some peace, maybe a connection amongst all the confusion. I could learn to love conflict, approach it and myself with love. It is in these types of thoughts that I arrive at ‘love really is the answer’ because love doesn’t need happiness or positivity and even though I believe in the power of joy, love doesn’t ask for joy, love gives it when it can and when you ask but love also lives in pain, it lives everywhere if we want to see it and I hope this little piece has given me a little key on how I can continue to compete for my creativity in this world and how I can continue to confront myself, adapt myself and never, ever give up on myself.