Practice: Tools For Transformation
Oracle Cards & Journaling
Journaling is the practice of keeping a written diary that explores your thoughts and feelings about the events of your life. When practiced in conjunction with Oracle Cards, journaling can also facilitate access to your inner guide or Spiritual Self.
Oracle Card decks are cards which are used to provide an insight and positive outlook for those seeking answers to their most inner questions. All the answers to your current problems and issues are within you and oracle cards help you to access that knowledge.
The concept of oracle cards comes from pre Egyptian culture and was designed to allow a physical means to tap into the metaphysical. For centuries, people have used oracle cards to help them gain access to spiritual knowledge and explore universal truths.
There are a number of different types of oracle cards available. Some of very spiritual in nature. Other oracle cards, like the cards below are very practical.
    
Each card within an oracle deck typically contain an image and represents a concept. As you pull cards from the deck, you interpret the card's image and concept based on your current situation. It is often recommended and helpful to ask a question before drawing a card and then use the card to interpret an answer.
Journal Reflection Exercise
You will draw three cards. Before drawing the cards asked that:
1. The first card be about a challenge that you need to overcome;
2. The second card be about what you need to do to overcome that challenge;
3. The third card be an insight into what is stopping you from overcoming the challenge.
Draw three cards from a deck and then reflect on cards in your journal.
An Example: Sarah Marie
Sarah Marie is going through a challenging time at work. She has just been promoted into a management role and she is feeling discouraged and losing her motivation as she struggles to transform herself from an individual contributor into a manager of people.
She asks for guidance and draws three cards. Sarah Marie reflects and writes in her journal:
Card #1: The Challenge
I am usually highly motivated. Lately though I have been feeling less motivated and a lot less excited about going to work.
The things that used to motivate me, like getting things done or being noticed or recognized by my boss no longer seems to get me excited. Instead I am frustrated and discouraged. I am not the one doing the work anymore. Now I am supposed to get things done through others. I don't know how to motivate myself anymore.
Card #2: The Solution
I think I need to focus more on my team as a source of motivation for me.
I need to consciously remember that I really do love helping people to realize their potential and this is my job now.
I also like that I can make a greater contribution now because I am a manager and I do have the power of my team behind me.
Card #3: The Block
I think I need to spend some time re-thinking my motivation at work.
I am a manager now and my job is to get things done through people while simultaneously helping them to develop and grow as individuals and as a team.
Being a leader is my new motivation. I think this means I have to think more long term when it comes to my own motivations. I also need to re-think how I measure my success. At one level, I can measure my success by the success of the team. At another level, I can measure my success by how much growth I see in the members of my team. All these things will take time and so I can not expect to look back over a day, week or month and see what I've accomplished.
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Trials that move you closer to your future are trials that ask you to make a choice:
When you are certain about the world around you, you feel that you understand things, that you can predict what will happen, and that you are in control. The truth of the matter, however, is that there is no certainty in life. The routine and stability in your life just made certainty appear as a reality. Certainty is an illusion that collapses on the path to transformation. The challenge is to see through the need for this illusion. To see through an illusion, you do not look at the illusion itself, but at the source of the illusion. That is to say, you look at why you need certainty in your life.
