The Magician: Trust and Creating a New Reality

What is trust?  What does it mean to have trust?  What does it mean to distrust?  Why do we stop trusting?  Is betrayal the opposite of trust?  Where does fear enter into the equation?  

When the question of trusting others comes up in our lives, the question of trusting ourselves is brought up.  Most of the time when we stop trusting others, we have also stopped trusting ourselves, telling ourselves that we are responsible for allowing the "bad" situation into our lives. 

It is the same with trust as with self-love and self-worth.  If you do not trust yourself first, you cannot trust others and you cannot expect trust from others. If you do not love yourself first, you cannot extend love out to others and you cannot accept love from others.  If you do not value yourself, then how do you value others and how do you accept that you have value?  You simply cannot.  It all begins within you.  

Our "stories"  - the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about others and about life - may be the most important factor in how we experience life. A "betrayal" of trust can be as simple as not being conscious enough, or able to communicate well enough, around expectations and perceptions and unspoken agreements.  But then, because of the pain we carry from these past hurts and betrayals, we decide that the world is this way or that way and people are this way or that way and relationships are this way or that way and we build walls up around ourselves with these decisions that close us off from the true experiences and connections we want.  (Our minds generalize as a protective mechanism - this is common, but not necessarily appropriate.  If we had one painful emotional experience in relationship, would that really mean to avoid all relationships?  If a black widow is poisonous, are all spiders deadly, or even harmful?  Of course not.  And, as human beings, our skills of situational discernment are oh-so-powerful.)

Our attachment to our past negative experiences, our stories around that, and our feeling righteous and justified in our resulting lack of trust is a form of resistance that keeps us locked in a prison of our own making.  

Letting go of our past hurts and having the courage to trust can free us. Trusting that things can be different - that things are different - is a huge part of how we create a new reality for ourselves, in every moment of every day.  Do you think you can withstand the unknown, the chaos of creation, that is necessary to reach your desires without trusting yourself, loving yourself, valuing yourself?  If you do, think again.  Those things - the trust, love and value of self - are THE core ingredients to creating the life of your dreams.

I. The Magician, from the Shadowscapes Tarot; Artwork by Stephanie Law

The second card in the Tarot after the Fool, is the Magician.  The Magician holds in his hands the power of creation.  "He knows what he wants, and he knows he can make it happen with conscious exertion of his will and his knowledge of how to manipulate the world." (Barbara Moore, The Shadowscapes Tarot)

​The Magician cannot create from a place of fear.  He cannot create if he allows stories from the past to limit his possibilities in the present.  He is a force to be reckoned with.  He does not wish something to be a certain way and then say maybe it will or maybe it won't, or I was hurt in the past...the Magician stands in courage, power, knowledge and trust and he wills what he wants into being.  ​