Within minutes of meeting the therapist I’ve been working with since November of 2023 I labelled myself. I experienced intense anxiety as I talked through how anxiety often feels in my body— chest tight, forehead ringing, hands fuzzy. Honestly, I just wanted to purge all of the background info this new therapist would need to understand me. Disclosing everything felt pathetic, and I cringed to hear myself list all of the familiar pain points: alcoholic dad, a rupture from my place of origin, intimate partner violence, etc., etc. I could hear my eyes rolling as I talked, this feeling of bitch, get OVER it right at the surface of my consciousness.
This, actually, is the strongest symptom of my anxiety I think. I feel a feeling (let’s say it’s disappointment over a friend not reaching out as much as I feel I try to do) and then within milliseconds of said feeling I feel guilt for having the feeling (the inner voice mocking me, ‘everyone is busy, it doesn’t mean it’s about you you narcissist’). This happens so often that it sort of startled me to hear myself say it aloud. TBH it kind of feels like this when I have anxiety:
The first feeling (let’s use the example above), disappointment, exists as a chemical reaction in my brain. Then, almost instantly, shame floods my system. Shame as a feeling brings its own powerful fist to the scene and rushes to conquer the original feeling. Disappointment and shame then lock arms, tug-of-warring for hours, neither emotion really winning. But the power both emotions bring to the struggle leaves me exhausted, like Goku after his Beerus fight. That great light at the center of the struggle is what destroys me.
The term ‘black sheep’ came about innocently enough— in flocks of majority white sheep, every now and then a black lamb would be born (this is due to genetics or something, IDK). Black wool was impossible to dye, which encouraged the perception of black sheep being ‘bad’ i.e. worthless to consumerism. Naturally the metaphor evolved into what we know it as today: to be a black sheep is to be alienated from normalcy, from community. The black sheep does things differently, sticks out.
This is the image I gave myself in my first meeting with the therapist. I was talking about my positionality in my immediate family, specifically as a girl growing up: while my parents and brother dribbled a basketball together in the driveway I sat far away in the grass, reading; while they readied themselves for skiing I burned mixed CDs, planning out playlists for all of the hours alone. Being alone was something that felt good to me, even as a girl, but I got the message from my family and my community that liking being alone was somehow weird, off, bad. To enjoy separating yourself from others was a sign of something wrong. This messaging tinged those beloved bouts of aloneness with fear, worry, and above all, shame.
There it is again, that Goku Beerus tug-of-war— enjoyment as a first feeling flooded instantly by shame, a second feeling. I vividly remember feeling ashamed about how much I read, shame for how I longed, often, to be alone with a book or my CD player. And the more my brother (an idiot I love) or whomever made fun of my desire to be alone the more I longed for the sanctuary of aloneness. Yearning and shame locked in their endless dance.
The therapist asked me how it would feel to come up with a second image for myself, one to place alongside that of the black sheep. I’d told her I’d been perusing a Taschen book about ancient symbols and leaning hard again into utilizing tarot cards for my journaling practice. I thought about two of my favorite cards in the Rider-Waite deck, The Empress and The World:
A few notes about these cards.
They are both depictions of solitary women.
The sky is important in each card— The Empress exists under a golden sky and The World exists flying amongst a clear blue sky.
What the women are wearing (or not, lol) serves a purpose— The Empress, in regalia, asserts herself; The World, almost naked, floats in supreme confidence.
While both of these cards are beloved to me, I chose a different card for the image to live alongside the black sheep:
To me, 9 of Pentacles speaks to this specific feeling I get when I’m alone and truly in tune with myself. There’s a feeling of luxuriousness, of luxury as a verb: luxuriating. There are grapes ready to fall off the vine with ripeness; there are curious animals (a bird and a snail) as witness; there’s a golden sky and a halo-like glow around the woman; and in the background, small, there’s signs of community: a home or castle, there if you squint.
The Pentacles suit in Tarot is about taking stock— where are your finances, your home base? Do they feel safe? The 9 of Pentacles feels not only safe but celebratory. It’s a card that calls for celebrating what you’ve achieved, what you’ve grown. It urges you to look at what you’ve planted, to let the joy of abundance have its place in the sun. This card personifies pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Pleasure as something worthy of spending time on, worthy of celebrating.
To experience pleasure free from shame.
I’m able to look at the shame I feel for enjoying, let’s say reading, and note that the shame doesn’t belong. That the feeling is just residue from past messaging, messaging I’m ready to shed. When talking this over with the therapist I realized that all of my beloved hobbies are coated with this kind of sticky residue unless the hobby achieves something. For example: if I’m able to rationalize my reading as a part of my Goodreads challenge, if I’m able to commit to a 40-minute yoga video as a part of a 30-day-yoga invitation, if I can create something tangible for others with my tarot cards. IF. If the joy brings something else then I’m allowed to feel it. Enjoy it.
This feeling comes up a lot for me around weed. I’m a stoner, but more than that I’m passionate about what the medicine does for me. Smoking opens me up creatively, makes me playful and imaginative; smoking makes me feel embodied, makes touch feel real; smoking encourages me to laugh and be silly, connect with my husband or my friends in playful, childlike ways; smoking helps me sleep; smoking while drinking coffee makes me dance around the apartment with headphones, scream-singing Kacey Musgraves and feeling unstoppable.
But there’s shame too. I don’t think the shame is coming from me, but it’s hard to parse out exactly where it’s coming from. I think maybe I can’t rationalize its usage because there’s no clear achievement or challenge to win from it— if it doesn’t win me something, shouldn’t I spend my time elsewhere? There’s so much messaging I’m ready to shed about pleasure and enjoyment. I realize now that as a girl I really didn’t see the prioritization of pleasure from women. It was not modeled for me. Free time was meant for further caregiving or for complete obliteration of the brain (I’m thinking here of my mother and her mother watching General Hospital).
Growing up included watching a quiet but powerful policing of pleasure that was gendered; while I never saw my mom sitting under a golden sky reading I constantly saw my dad drunk-swaying to Pink Floyd, smiling as he cruised Tappan Lake with his shitty tugboat. Men in my childhood were always enjoying themselves without shame. Their pleasure was always priority.
Random moments when I’ve felt aglow with 9 of Pentacles energy:
Reading the last paragraph of a 5-star book
Discovering a hummingbird’s nest in the orange tree outside of my house
Singing along to Sway by Kacey Musgraves in noise-cancelling headphones
Pressing my head lightly into my cat’s body and hearing his purr begin
Making myself a latte
Repotting my plans into bigger pots
Writing a sentence that sings off the page
Stumbling upon a shock of colorful flowers during a walk
Inhaling and exhaling from a joint
Lying down in soft grass
Stretching my body into a hip-opener
Hearing a bird’s call and then trying to find the bird in the trees
I wish the women of my life had more opportunities to just exist by themselves under a golden sky. I wish I could completely eradicate any feeling of shame from the experience of pleasure, forever.
Being a black sheep is what made it possible for me to find 9 of Pentacles. I’m not comfortable yet saying I completely embody 9 of Pentacles but I aim for it. I want to be this woman in her garden, completely rapt by grapes on the vine and a bird, celebrating all she’s accomplished, all she’s manifested. There’s an energy in the card of pleasure not being awarded but gifted, a divinely-bestowed right that the figure takes as fact. Both of these images are solitary, but while the black sheep mourns for its seclusion the 9 of Pentacles celebrates it. Cultivating moments of divine aloneness is not something to be hidden or ashamed of; it’s powerful and life-sustaining.
I told the therapist that I can see the black sheep existing inside of the 9 of Pentacles. I can imagine its little fluffy body in the background or foreground of this card, belonging in this garden of gold. Maybe the black sheep is only one part of the image; maybe if I zoom out the black sheep is frolicking in a field of pleasure, enjoying itself so much it swears its brushed the divine.
<3 <3
i have never thought about how pleasure was modeled in men vs women in my childhood, that is sooo interesting. i have realized i actually fear pleasure that lasts longer than a second, like if it's too intense for too long, that's scary to me. i always figured that was a Catholic thing lol. i see 9 of pentacles energy in you from the way you notice & find beauty in the light hitting your books or cats or partner in just the right way, and in the warm, easy manner you receive me and others.
love to witness your journey of self-discovery <3