The Strength of Your Inner Wildness

Strength is the 8^th card of the Major Arcana and traditionally depicts a woman with her arms around a lion. The symbol is one of tamed power. This card is about harnessing your power and making friends with your wildness.

Your strength lies in your ability to have faith, let go, and work from the inside out rather than the outside in.

Strength lies in authenticity and honesty with yourself and others. It’s time to stop playing roles for other people. It encourages you to move through the world with solid, grounded footsteps, take good care of your body, be truthful with yourself, and aware of your emotions.

When you tap into the powerful, fiery energy of Strength, you feel courageous. Your passions come alive, and you have the power to act on them. You’re not working hard to create force, you are harmoniously allowing your energy to flow through you. Ultimately, it teaches that true strength lies in wholeness, and the way to wholeness is through self-compassion.

How does this wildness show up? In the negative, it shows up when we’re weak-willed, numbed-out, or addicted. In the positive, it brings about passion and inspiration.

The Strength card is about realizing that you need to be awake and aware of both your physical reality and your spiritual truth. It’s time as Mary Oliver puts it, “… to let the warm animal of your body love what it loves.” This will lead you right into knowing where you belong in the “family of things” (from the poem “Wild Geese”). Strength wants you to integrate all your scattered pieces through deep and abiding self-compassion. You don’t tame the beast by beating it down, you tame it through love and acceptance.

Notice where you’ve been checking out. Let your honest and authentic self show up in the world. Strength is about reclaiming self-esteem and channeling that energy into your true passions. When you’re embodying this lesson you won’t have to go to battle, defend yourself, and fight to be strong. You’ll know that your strength resides in your authentic nature. You have accepted and lovingly tamed the parts of you that seemed wild, unacceptable, or out of control by loving them - a bold and courageous act.

Here’s a checklist to help you check-in with your 4 bodies:

• Physical Body: Are you rested? Do you have aches and pains? Do you need to eat better, get more exercise, or maybe slow down? Check in. The first thing you think of is the place that needs your attention.
• Emotional Body: What are you feeling? If you feel sad and need to cry then allow the tears to flow. If you’re angry, take a look at your boundaries and imagine sending fiery energy into a bright protective barrier all around your body. Notice how you’re feeling and sit with that emotion so the energy can be released.
• Mental Body: Are you scattered, confused, or locked in a noisy inner world of endless mind chatter? Are you processing too much information? Do you need to rest mentally or do you need to learn something new to stoke the fire of your inspiration. Take a moment and just breathe slowly.
• Spiritual Body: Do you feel overwhelmed or inspired? Do you feel like you can trust life or are you frozen? What does your soul need most right now? Rest, movement, creativity, silence… whatever you think of first is your answer.