Taking the Fool's Leap...

(Originally posted: February 23, 2019)

I bet you didn’t believe me when I said my blog was officially launching this week! Quite honestly, I didn’t know if I believed myself this time, either, considering I’ve been posting about it for a year. But I’m taking the Fool’s leap, and beginning this scary new journey….

I’ve always wanted to write.

Since as long as I can remember, I’ve been writing - jotting down story ideas, filling up the pages of journals, dreaming of someday sharing my story, my truths, and even my hardships with the world around me.

The hardships were maybe the part I wanted to share most. Over the years, writing has become a source of catharsis for me, and as I pour my emotions and struggles onto paper, I find myself being able to reach others best through words. “I could talk about my life story someday, let others know that they aren’t alone in their struggles,” I thought to myself as a little girl. Even when I was little, it seemed like the greatest mission on earth to share my story and make others feel a little less alone. Always treasuring empathy, I wanted others to know I could put myself in their shoes.

But for some reason, though I’ve been trying to do so for a year, every time I sit down to start a blog, I can’t write for the life of me. The posts I create don’t sound like they’re really coming from me, but instead from some cheap watered-down version of myself that I think is more palatable than the Summer not everyone understands. I try to keep things “PG”, censoring my thoughts so that they can’t be misinterpreted or taken the wrong way, and I try to write things that I think people want to read, instead of writing the things that are true, and the things that I feel.

But that feels inauthentic to me, and that’s not in line with what I want this practice to be. I have to be honest if I want this to work, right? If I want people to read this blog and really resonate with what I’m saying, don’t I have to go all-in?

When I shoot for authenticity, however, then I just end up pushing off writing altogether. I’ll do it when my life is in order, I think, when my car actually has a back bumper, and I’m not thousands of dollars in debt, and I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to do with my life after college. When things are comfortable, then I’ll feel ready to dive into the deep stuff and bare my soul to the world, basically. When things are steady, then I can rip off the Band-Aid and get to work on the dirty stuff.

So I realized… that is a really stupid idea, for someone like me! Because my life is never going to be in order, and there’s always going to be something new giving me an excuse to avoid getting uncomfortable. I’m probably never going to have a back bumper on my car again. I’m probably always going to be worried about how I’m going to pay the next bill. So why not just lean into that feeling of uncomfortableness? Why not see where it can take me, putting one step forward with faith that wherever it is, it will be better than feeling like I’m frozen in place, chasing my dream? Why can’t I just take the leap?

In the Tarot (you guys didn’t think this post was going to be all about me, did you?), the very first card of the deck is the Fool. In fact, the Fool isn’t even the one but the zero card because he’s the absolute beginning, the moment we decided to leap into the unknown and begin a new journey. You can probably see where I’m going here: he’s the card that teaches us to do the uncomfortable is to invite growth, to take a leap is to invite opportunity, and the lessons he carry have a lot to do with the reason I’m finally ready to release this blog.

But aside from leaping into the unknown, there’s another important lesson the Fool taught me that I think is important to share now, a key point I want to make while I’m at the beginning of creating something so new and immensely important to me...

The reason why the Fool is called the Fool is because he simply doesn’t give a damn what other people think of him. And if I want to start a blog, I have to be ready to embrace that kind of mindset. His intuition is so strong, his faith in himself so great, that this man doesn’t care what people think of his outfit, his attitude, or the fact that he’s about to jump off a cliff. Nobody has to understand him, so long as he understands himself. Just like the Fool, I understand now that no one can no what’s better for me than me.

For a while, I felt like I was kind of battling with imposter syndrome, wondering if people thought I was crazy or a fraud, but the Fool has helped me to get over that. Leaning into my intuition, recognizing who I really am without regard to what other might think of me, I remembered just how special I am, and how powerful my readings are when I give them my all. I can work with the angels, receiving messages in both the cards and in my regular life. Not only that, but I’m also a two-time sexual assault survivor and an empath - a powerful combination for helping to heal the trauma of others. McSpiritual Healing - scratch that, Summer McSpirit is one-of-a-kind!

Anyone who knows me in real life knows I’m emotional; anyone who reallyknows me know that I’ve got a damn good reason to be, that I’ve been through quite a lot for a woman my age (not to mention I pick up on the energies of others way more than I care to, but that’s another story for another time…). In the future, I’m excited to share with you what I’ve learned through those experiences, and I look forward to sharing with you what makes me who I am. I hope maybe it can inspire you all to do the same kind of soul-searching, and at the same time, I hope to teach you a little more about Tarot and the practices that have brought me to where I am today.

Thank you so much for being here with me on this journey. I’m so looking forward to getting started.