I’ve spent decades making peace with people who don’t deserve it. Or at least, I thought I had.

How much grace do you offer people who have been abusive? In what circumstance? Because I’ve had many different answers, each one being my “finally I’ve made peace with this” moment. But sometimes they stop feeling like peace.

I’m not talking overt abuse — black eyes or broken arms. I’m talking narcissistic abuse: manipulation, guilting, gaslighting. People who claim to love you while making that love entirely conditional upon obedience to their particular delusional system. Emotional abuse.

For years, I took out the sting by reciting their rationalizations — painting the behavior as sincerity, calling blind adherence to a cult “integrity,” slapping a feel-good label on the whole thing and doing a little spiritual bypassing sleight of hand. I’m pretty good at it.

But when the people start resurfacing, moving this from the theoretical backstory category to my actual front door — and of course, pretending nothing ever happened? Well, I’m being reminded exactly how much energy it takes to keep lying to yourself.

I often say I’d rather be happy than right, and I mean it. I consciously choose the most generous interpretation of others’ behavior — not as a favor to them, but as a favor to me. Anger and bitterness are toxic, and if I have a choice, I don’t choke down toxic.

But at some point, denying an ugly reality becomes far more toxic than facing it. Gaslighting yourself is the worst kind of gaslighting there is.

These cards are speaking directly to this.

Coming Up in the Cards

This week, we’ve got the rich, saturated hues of the Star Tarot bringing the message home. Both cards actually arrived in reverse, but I turned them over for photos because this deck needs to be upright to be properly appreciated.

Outlook: Six of Pentacles, Rx

The way we read other people’s motives right now has more to do with our own emotional needs than with any clear perception of reality. The balance is off — we’re either giving too much rope or not enough.

You might constantly make excuses for your mother: she had an abusive background, she’s not emotionally mature, she’s doing the best she can. That’s a lot less painful than acknowledging she simply isn’t capable of the same kind of affection you feel — that she may be fundamentally broken. So you keep explaining her.

Or you might expect your partner to instinctively understand exactly what you’re feeling, and read any lapse as evidence they don’t care. Maybe they don’t — I’m not them. But maybe they just can’t see it, or they’re so buried under their own struggles right now they’re oblivious to yours.

Either way, the scales aren’t balanced. Be conscious of where you’re putting the weight — and ask yourself whose needs it’s actually serving.

Advice: Queen of Cups, Rx

The Queen of Cups reversed says feel your feelings. Don’t hide from them, because the only person you’re fooling is yourself. Pressure that builds over time eventually blows — and then you’ve got a mess to clean up.

So cry your tears. Allow yourself to be vulnerable and irrational and a little crazy, at least with yourself. It’s those feelings that don’t make sense — the overreactions, the out-of-proportion-to-reality waves — that give you the most insight into what’s going on underneath. And what’s going on underneath is exactly what you need to understand.

For me, I’m realizing that going along with the “let’s pretend nothing ever happened” scenario requires me to minimize myself — and to not even ask whether the people who hurt me have any regret about it at all. That’s a steep price for keeping the peace.

When someone tells you to “be the bigger person” — or you tell it to yourself — what it’s really saying is to ignore your own feelings and needs. It’s not just asking you to excuse abuse. It’s asking you to shut up and sign up for more. It’s self-invalidation dressed up as emotional maturity. And it’s not right.

So yes, name it. Feel it. Let yourself be upset about it. Then decide what you want to do with it. That’s not wallowing — that’s how you make sense of it.

Your Turn

Where are you being asked to make peace with something that doesn’t deserve it? Where are you paying a higher price than you’ve admitted to yourself? Sit with it. Feel whatever comes up — irrational, ugly, out of proportion, whatever. Don’t tell yourself you shouldn’t feel it. Just let it be what it is, and see what it’s trying to tell you.

Over the last several days, I’ve been waking up with dream hangovers.

I don’t remember any of the actual dreams, but I know exactly what (or whom) they’re about. The mood is there, even if the details aren’t. The feelings are messy, inconsistent, and foggy.

And the story of what this all means (or more importantly, what I can do with tit) is nowhere to be seen.

But it’s okay. That’s where I’m expecting a lot of people to be landing right about now.

In the Cards

Don’t let the playful kitties of the Meow’s Tarot fool you. They still mean business!

Outlook: Knight of Cups

I often read the Knight of Cups as positive emotion, especially when he arrives upright. But really, he heralds quickly shifting feeling states for me more than any specific emotional tone. All the Knights move fast and are prone to impetuousness and sudden changes of direction.

If you’re having a bad day, hang on—it might not last very long. I’m expecting a lot of “emotions in motion” incoming. So if you don’t like what you’re feeling, take a beat and wait it out, because it isn’t forever; it’s for now.

Just remember: when feelings move this quickly, it’s also easy to talk yourself out of what hurts instead of letting hard truth register. So good, bad, or indifferent, acknowledge your ‘now’ state without assuming it has to be your ‘forever’ state.

Advice: Five of Wands

So once you’ve recognized what you’ve got going emotionally and you’re being honest about any mixed feelings, what do you do with all that?

This is Five of Wands’ domain—where your thoughts, blind spots, defenses, and old stories start vying for top spot in your ‘this is what’s really going on’ list. Ride it out. Don’t deny, don’t bury, and don’t try to outrun it.

Let yourself feel the feelings and notice any contradictions, in particular anywhere that you’re tempted to burn yourself down to keep someone else warm.

Taken Together

This forecast more or less screams “mixed feelings.” Some realizations may be comforting; others will be unsettling. But overall, it’s almost always better to know, even if you don’t like the truth. Let any discomfort point you toward areas of unresolved or unacknowledged conflict.

Like someone who’s been hoping they were wrong—maybe the person insisting their spouse isn’t cheating, despite a persistent gnawing feeling to the contrary. When the truth finally comes out, it will be both devastating and a relief at the same time. They lose the fantasy, but they also stop gaslighting themselves and can deal with what’s actually on their plate.

Maybe you’re the one who always minimizes your own pain: “They did their best,” “It wasn’t that bad,” “I should be the bigger person.” That’s low-bar love and the energy we’ve got going is going to highlight these types of emotional imbalances.

The truth may or may not be exactly what you wanted, but once you stop arguing with it, you will be far more effective in managing it.

Now for You

Where are you quietly talking yourself out of feelings? This week, pay attention to any sort of “dream hangovers,” foggy feelings or emotional cocktails of any type.

Instead of arguing yourself into a particular storyline, just let it all flow and sit with it a while. Slow down. Accept what you feel. Allow yourself permission to let your perception gradually unfold and see what doors it opens.

So much of my life has felt out of control recently. Enough that it’s been hard to keep up. (Anybody miss this column last week?)

I haven’t magically “fixed” all the anxiety or overwhelm or stress. But I have been clawing back ground. Little by little—organizing, note-taking, creating systems, doing the hard stuff even when I don’t feel like it. And it’s adding up. It’s not perfect, but it’s significant progress.

I think the main difference is that I’m feeling some optimism. Not white-hot, not all the time, but still there. I actually believe I can get there! And it’s kind of a shock.

The cards this week are about exactly that: putting yourself solidly back in the driver’s seat, on purpose, instead of letting life’s distractions run you into a ditch.

In the Cards

More angelic illustrations from the Kingdom of Heaven Tarot.

Outlook: The Emperor

Finally, we get some solid structure. This is “I’m not caught up, but I know what I’m doing next” energy. We’re talking less fairy godmother, more a decent project manager moving into your head.

Upright, the Emperor understands that leadership starts with self-control. He’ll make the unpopular call, set the boundary, cancel the nonsense as needed. He does it because it’s his job, not because he wants drama.

That’s the vibe to lean into: not so much “how do I feel about this?” and more “what needs to happen and what’s my role in making it happen?”

Advice: Five of Swords

The Five of Swords is not about playing nice. It’s about deciding which hill you’re willing to die on, what battle you are determined to win and then refusing to back down.

Sometimes the “foe” is a person. More often, it’s the pile of crap in your head and on your desk: the shame spiral over what you should have handled differently, the chaos of a thousand half-finished tasks, the story of why it’s so hard for you, instead of the thoughts that might actually help you keep going.

This card asks, “What exactly is beating you down right now? And what would it look like for you to win instead?” Not in theory. In practice. Today.

Once you’ve got a basic handle on things, you start slaying specific dragons between where you are and where you want to go. One overdue phone call. One hard conversation. One scary mess cleaned up. One clear battle at a time.

Now for You…

Where are you feeling some authority? Even if the rest of your life feels like a dumpster fire, where have you been making progress? Ask yourself what stands between where you are and leveling up? (Not the reasons why it’s hard. The obstacles themselves.)

Pick a single, concrete, measurable step to chip away at those obstacles. Not for someday, eventually, when things calm down. Pick something you can do now that will matter. That’s how you actually make a difference.

I have a raging inner perfectionist. She has big, imaginative, wildly unrealistic standards, and I almost never live up to them.

I’m wired to see possibilities, connections, and weird but wonderful ways to put things together. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that. The problem is, left unchecked, that energy creates a lot of shiny, half‑finished messes and not much that actually hits the potential I’ve dreamed up for it. It’s disheartening.

I’ve been trying to focus less on the glitter and more on the base underneath the glitter. Because the structure does matter and it can make all the difference between fantasy and reality. These cards are very much addressing these tendencies—for me and maybe for you, too. So let’s take a look.

Coming Up in the Cards

These celestial images are from the Kingdom of Heaven Tarot.

Outlook: Empress Reversed

The Empress reversed has a bad case of “shiny object syndrome.” Her enthusiasm is there in spades, but she may not consider all the angles. In trying to give birth to something new, sometimes she overreaches without thinking it all through or taking advantage of what other people have already figured out before she got there.

Maybe she’s putting together a 37‑steps‑a‑day, full‑blown healthy eating plan when you don’t even like to cook and have considered Little Debbies a food group all their own up to this point. Maybe she’s been brainstorming the perfect household organization system and gleefully price‑comparing bulk containers while the dishes in her sink are busy growing their own ecosystem.

The point is, there is a danger of becoming enamored with the glitter and perfection of the end goal while skipping over both reality and where you’re actually starting from.

Expect plenty of people to have great ideas this week, but struggle with execution and practicalities. They may also overburden themselves and underestimate what, exactly, they’ve signed up for. Not that I would know about that or anything…

Advice: The Hierophant

Sometimes, you really can stand to look at how things are usually done and more importantly, the why. “It’s always been that way” is not enough reason to keep a system, but it’s also not enough reason to pitch it.

Here, actually understanding why things are usually set up the way they are—what problems the structure may solve, what needs it actually meets—is going to be the most helpful. You are absolutely free to throw out conventional approaches. But you’ll get a lot further if you first understand where the conventional wisdom comes from and how you might create those same benefits in a way that actually fits what you want to create.

Taken Together

Don’t abandon your exciting, glittery and incredibly creative notions if you’re hitting snags—but also don’t reinvent the wheel just because you’re over seeing wheels. Let your “fresh take” be genuinely fresh, but also on purpose.

You can still shoot for the shiny, but start with the foundation. Maybe work a little healthier eating into a few meals a week at first, or just organize one corner of your kitchen and see what actually happens with it.

Small, manageable steps, combined with a quick look at how other people have done it (and why) will get you a lot further than dramatic, overreaching wannabe perfection.

Now, For You

Where have you been designing the fantasy version of reality and not questioning what you’ve actually got going on now—and what’s one small, practical step you can take to build upon what’s already there?

How long have you been carrying that low hum of dread? It could be weeks, but it feels like years.

It’s like trying to read in a dream — the answer is right there before your eyes, almost in focus, then gone. You know you’re close but still, it keeps wiggling out of your grasp.

The cards this week are reflecting that exact feeling back with some insight on how to get this under control, and honestly? It’s worth paying attention.

In the Cards

These lushly illustrated angelic cards are from the Kingdom of Heaven Tarot.

Outlook: Four of Pentacles Rx

The Four of Pentacles reversed is the card of white-knuckling it through. Upright, this card signals an uneasy but holding-steady kind of energy — not perfect, still scary, but stable. Like you’ve escaped the monster but you’re still panting from the chase. Reversed, the anxiety is cranked up and the feeling is more one of teetering on the edge of a cliff than catching your breath.

But here’s the thing: a reversal can also mean energy in motion, actively shifting into place. A lot of people right now are scared and shaky — but they’re working on it. And that work? It’s probably already making more of a difference than you think. That’s genuinely good news.

Advice: Queen of Pentacles

Pentacles as advice always means the same thing: come down to Earth. Get practical, get physical, get in the now.

The specifics of what this looks like depend on where you are — physical safety first, then basic body needs: food, shelter, warmth, sleep. Once those are handled, then you can deal with your emotions and make your longer-term plans. Not before. The Queen of Pentacles doesn’t do things out of order.

You know that AA acronym HALT? Don’t get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired? She invented that notion. And she would absolutely scold you for skipping lunch while you spiral about next week. But at least she’d bring you a plate while she did it.

Putting it All Together

Most of us have at least one place in life right now where we’re clinging hard and hoping it holds. The fear is real. The instability is real.

But before you can fix tomorrow, you have to shore up today. Oxygen mask goes on yourself first — always. Get your physical footing. Handle the immediate. Look at where you are at right now, today. Then, once that’s settled you can effectively begin to look down the road.

Now for You

Where’s the fear loudest for you right now? Are you running on empty — short on sleep, eating little or junk, stretched too thin? What’s one concrete, ground-level thing you could do today to feel a little more stable — before you even think about what comes next?