“You must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can’t give.”

―C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The Wizard’s Reflection

The Weight of the World

Burdens are a persistent occurrence in life. Facing challenges and cultivating will are essential to good living. Burdens play a natural role in coaxing us to be stronger, more patient and when all else fails to learn our limitations. Sometimes our burdens can overwhelm us, however, and if we don’t make the space to recover and reorient to them, they not only intensify but tempt us to take on the shadow perspective of “my troubles are greater than yours.”

In any given comparison of burdens, one’s troubles may, in fact, be more or less than someone else’s. Such comparisons can help us work out who needs help and how we can collaborate to find it. When we try and use our narrative of how burdened we are, to get sympathetic attention, to feel special, we cause the inverse to happen. By proclaiming we alone bear the true weight of the world, we push those who might otherwise help us away.

Suggested Divination Meanings

Am I engaging in negative self-talk, limiting what I can hear from others or my intuition?

Am I longing for a kind of support from others that I am unwilling to learn to give to myself?

Do I use a narrative of suffering in my conversations to elicit attention and the feeling of being special?

Do I lament my struggles and then turn away any offers of help?

Am I making my choices around the feeling of being rejected by others?

Do I disregard what others are offering me to return to my litany of complaints?

Am I making more trouble for myself and others by giving negative attention to things in my life that don’t truly matter?

Do I keep allies away by reciting my list of how they really wouldn’t be of real help?

Do I rely on there being challenges in my life to feel important or even relevant?

How can I give the attention to myself which I did not get from others when I most needed it?