Here’s today’s journal writing prompt along with my corresponding journal entry. Read more for details!
Knight of Cups
How do I give and receive love?
I see so much on social media about how we need to be paying attention to how people are making us feel and how they are giving love, etc. but very little about the way we are giving love and even less about the way we are receiving love. This isn’t to say the issue is never with the other person. What it means is that we need to check in with ourselves first before addressing it with that other person.
When we know for sure we aren’t blocking the avenue to receive then we can discuss how to repair the matter. Because it is so easy to blame someone else. It is so easy to deflect and defend. This is what the ego is exceptionally good at. The ego doesn’t want to look or feel bad. Doesn’t want to be defective in any way because this means we’re not loveable and don’t belong. It means risking rejection and abandonment. So this aspect of vulnerability is incredibly frightening.
So when it comes to giving and receiving love, many of us – myself included – have this tendency to want certainty behind it. To need this knowing that we won’t be betrayed, rejected, or abandoned as a result. But the reality is, we can’t ever really know. We can’t ever control the outcome. We can only control our own effort and investment.
Since we are genetically hardwired to be interdependent as human beings, there is this delicate balance between independence and dependence so each of us need to learn how to control the amount of our efforts and investments based upon the actual returns we receive – not what we hope, expect, or feel entitled to receive. This is the lesson that I’m just now learning and mastering.
So yes, give the love you feel you deserve or want to see in the world, but do not judge others for not doing the same as you. Each and every one of us can only work with the knowledge and resources we have in the moment. And if you find yourself in a situation where it is not an equivalent exchange and you’re not able to rebalance it, then it’s time to reinvest elsewhere – however painful it may be.
So I’m going to bring today’s question back to you. How does it apply to your life right now? How do you feel about it? What’s happening around that to make you feel this way? What would you like to do about it?
Write the answers in your journal in detail.
If for some reason this prompt is leaving you stumped, that’s okay, you can either write about something else or just allow the image of the card inspire you instead. The entire point of this is to get you started, not to confine you in any way. Happy writing!
~ Legacy of the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marchetti (Illustrator and Author) © 2009
~ Credit for 3D model and assets used in this rendered image can be found here.
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