Who will you be tomorrow? Play cards to answer!

It can be slowness, resentment, a tendency to daydream, complain or take everything as a challenge. It can be ingenuity, empathy, diplomacy… In any case, our shadow side is a quality that we have more or less consciously learned to hide from ourselves and others in order to conform to what seems to us the norm. And also out of fear: we are afraid to disappoint, we are afraid that they will stop loving us or reject us … And there are many such shadow sides in our unconscious, says psychoanalyst and hypnotherapist Lise Bartoli, author of the book with a set of cards “Light Maps” (“Cartes Lumière “, Le Courrier du livre, 2014).

Read more:

• Psychoanalysis: dialogue with the unconscious

We don’t know about them, but that doesn’t make them any less active. Each of them, explains the psychologist, “loudly demands recognition, imposing themselves on us or tormenting us in various ways, for example, a feeling that something is wrong with us, or psychosomatic signals (fatigue, migraine, high blood pressure, illness). And all this can go on for quite some time. What are our shadow sides striving for? So that we finally recognize them.

Recognizing them means finally deciding to meet a very significant part of yourself. Thus, we give ourselves the opportunity to remove the blocks and clamps that prevent us from moving forward, to stop the endless repetitions that spoil our existence. The goal: to bring our shadow sides to the light and, moreover, to turn the shadow into light, a force that pushes us up, and does not block our movement.

The language of the unconscious

How can we get to know our shadow sides better? Liz Bartoli, a Jungian rather than a Freudian psychoanalyst, answers quite definitely: “We need to learn to speak the language of the unconscious.” And this language, she reminds us, is made up of images, symbols, what Jung called “archetypes,” these figures that have inhabited the collective unconscious of humanity for millennia. She came up with the idea to develop a set of special cards in which the shadow and light sides – the most common, judging by her clinical experience – are correlated with archetypes, so that they can more easily enter into a dialogue with our unconscious.

Read more:

• Carl Gustav Jung, man-institute

The full version of the set includes 12 Shadow cards and 12 Light cards, as well as 12 emotion cards (linked to the Shadow cards), 12 resource cards (linked to the Light cards), and 12 transformation cards (these are the final states we are aiming for). In the magazine version, we decided to limit ourselves to four Shadow cards, to which everyone will attribute the emotions they experience, and four Light cards, to which we propose to attach the resource of success, that is, to revive the experienced success in memory. As for transformation, here we offer the most obvious to all: deliverance.

Here are the details you need to get started playing…and take the step towards a radiant transformation.

Instructions

Before you begin, think about something that is extremely important to you, about a problem that is troubling you, about a behavior that is characteristic of you that you would like to change, about a recurring situation that you would like to stop. Examples: “Why do I always come across married men?”, “How could I stop criticizing others?”, “I’m tired of feeling miserable”… The idea is not to achieve a final answer, but to try to clarify the situation . At the moment it is about getting into a “state of perception”: our goal is to listen to ourselves in order to stimulate our intuition.

Stage One: Draw a Shadow card

Draw one Shadow card from the deck (or randomly point your finger at one of the above cards), without hesitation or reflection, obeying your unconscious. Consider it: what is it called, what is depicted on it … You may be disappointed with this choice, which did not touch any strings in you. It does not matter, accept this card, trust your unconscious, because it did not stop on this card by chance. Accept your feelings.

What impressions does this archetype spontaneously evoke in you? Allow the appropriate images, sensations, tastes, smells, sounds, words to emerge without judging or rejecting them. Slowly move forward in a “movie” that runs freely through your imagination: who is this character? Is it a man or a woman? Where is he located? What is he doing? What is his main emotion? Does he feel sad, tired, angry, guilty, ashamed, wary, anxious? This archetype embodies one of your more or less dominant shadow sides, and its feeling speaks to your feeling associated with this part of you, which is the cause of your block. But you will be able to see the connection between your shadow side and your question only after you come into close contact with everything that this archetype causes in you, with everything that you imagined in connection with it, deeply felt and let it in.

Step Two: Draw a Light Card

By drawing a Light card (in the same way as a Shadow card), you are addressing that part of your unconscious that “knows everything”: both how your shadow sides formed, and that you are capable of more than you think, and that you can develop some of your qualities to bring back the smoothness and regularity that is lacking in your life today. Just as with the Shadow card, allow the images that this new card evokes in you to surface: feel, visualize this “higher being”. Who do you see? What is it? Where is it? Resonate with it, knowing that it is a positive, benevolent force. When the connection is established, talk about your Shadow card, what it reminds you of, about your difficulties, about the changes that you would like to see in yourself. But don’t expect anything definite, the goal is still to be sensitive to what comes, to perceive without controlling. The main thing at this stage is not to find a specific solution, but to enter into a relationship with this bright side, to be in interaction with it.

Third step: refer to the resource

Before moving on to transformation, ask your Light card character to go look inside you for a resource. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll choose the resource of success here: remember a situation where you succeeded at something. Maybe, for example, you performed well yesterday at work, or thirty years ago you were praised by a dance teacher. No matter what comes to your mind: accept this image, even if it seems anecdotal to you. Enjoy the feeling of success, appreciate the joy, pride, confidence that it gives you. Reviving this state in memory, you strengthen it and bring it to the forefront of your “mental performance”. This resource is not an invention: it has already been present in you since the day you first lived it, but then you underestimated it. Now that you know you have the ability to succeed, you can make the transformation happen.

Step Four: Transform Your Shadow into Light

Imagine a balloon for flights. What size is it, what color? You are sitting in the basket, and he begins to rise, but with difficulty: he is pulled down by bags corresponding to various elements of your shadow side that you identified earlier and would like to get rid of. For example, for a warrior it could be his armor, his sword, his helmet… Throw them one by one overboard to get rid of the ballast. Listen to yourself, feel this relief every time. Until you finally feel freer and rise higher into the sky.

Reach out to your Light card, show it how it and the confidence the resource has given you have made you feel better. Thank her. Thank also the Shadow for what she taught you, and invite her to live her life from now on: now she is free. But you can leave it with you, because it will behave differently. So you can keep the qualities of a warrior in yourself, but he can sometimes weaken his vigilance; and a nurse, for example, will be able to take care of herself …

Step Five: Let the Transformation Happen

The transformation process has begun. Now we need to let him go. After a few days and weeks, you will notice changes in your behavior. The very fact of entering into a dialogue with the unconscious is already positive, because it sets our psyche in motion and makes us feel that we have the means inside to solve our own difficulties. And what if this isn’t enough? Play again!

Liz Bartoli advises to wait at least a month before asking the same question again to allow the transformation to take place. But there’s nothing stopping you from changing the story. The more you play, the better you will learn to listen to yourself and see obstacles as opportunities to discover new abilities in yourself.

8 cards

Each card is interpreted differently, not only for different people, but also depending on time and circumstances: the same warrior card can represent a winner today, and a defeated soldier tomorrow. But at the same time, each archetype is a carrier of universal and timeless meanings, which we recall below.

Warrior

Free, bold, it expresses the strength of resistance, exactingness, powerful energy. He is well armed. He fought so much that he turns life into an eternal difficult battle.

Nurse

She spends her energy to please and help. She is nourished by the gratitude of those she cares about, but she risks getting hooked on the recognition of others and forgetting about herself.

Victim

“This only happens to me”, “I always get it” – these are her typical remarks. Because of her humility, she feels like an object of attack or a target pursued by evil fate.

Prisoner

A symbol of that part of us that lives in captivity of a vivid memory or fixed idea. He waits to be released, while he can only free himself, because his prison is internal.

Fairy

She has the power to lead and light the way, but also to transform with her magic wand, and it is always transformation into something better.

Angel

Protector, full of benevolence, he connects each of us with the divine principle. His mission is to deliver messages that come from afar.

Old

Embodies universal knowledge and ancient wisdom that allows you to get out of any impasse and solve all mysteries.

universal mother

This is enveloping love. She is the ideal of a mother who, without reasoning or setting conditions, gives the love that everyone dreams of receiving.