Man, lemme tell ya, there was a time, not too long ago, when I was just coasting. You know the feeling? Nothing really bad happening, but nothing really good either. Just… existing. Work was okay, home life was okay, everything was just… fine. And “fine” is a real sneaky word, isn’t it? It just sits there, looking all innocent, but really it’s just a placeholder for “I’m not happy, but I’m not unhappy enough to do anything about it.” Yeah, that was me.
I remember this one evening, I was doing a quick little personal spread, just pulling a few cards to see what was up. Nothing heavy, just a casual check-in. And then, there it was. The Tower. But it was reversed. I remember just staring at it for a good long while, my brow furrowed, trying to make sense of it. I knew the upright Tower was like, BOOM! Sudden, massive destruction, everything crumbling down. A complete shake-up, usually externally driven. But reversed? My brain just kinda stalled out.
The Clues Started Piling Up
My first thought was, “Okay, so the disaster isn’t happening? Or it’s delayed?” I really didn’t know. It kinda baffled me. But I didn’t just toss it aside. Something about it nagged at me. It felt significant, even if I couldn’t pinpoint why. I put the card back in the deck, but it kept popping into my head.
Over the next few days, I started journaling. Not about the card specifically at first, but just about my general feelings. I started writing down all the little things that annoyed me, the things I wished were different, the stuff I was just tolerating. And man, that list grew. It wasn’t about big, dramatic problems. It was all the tiny, accumulated frictions. The messy corner in my office I always meant to clean. The weird vibe I had with a certain co-worker I just kept ignoring. The feeling of wanting to learn a new skill but always putting it off for “someday.”
I wrote down how tired I felt sometimes, not from physical exertion, but from the mental effort of just keeping things status quo. Of pretending everything was cool when a part of me was just… blah. I started noticing how much energy I was putting into maintaining things that weren’t really serving me anymore.
The Lightbulb Moment
And then, it hit me. Like a soft, quiet realization rather than a thunderclap. The Tower reversed wasn’t about avoiding an external collapse. It was about an internal one. It wasn’t that the disaster wasn’t happening; it was that I was the one preventing it. I was holding up my own crumbling structures, brick by brick, trying to keep everything from falling apart, even though those structures were old, rotten, and suffocating me.
It was like I was stubbornly clinging to the foundations of a house that needed to be torn down, not because it was inherently bad, but because it wasn’t built for who I was becoming. The “change” part of the title clicked right in here. The Tower, for me, meant that a big change needed to happen, but because it was reversed, it was telling me I had the power to make that change on my terms, to dismantle things consciously, rather than waiting for life to come in with a wrecking ball.
Putting It Into Action
So, what did I do? I didn’t suddenly quit my job or move to a different country. That wouldn’t have been me. My path to change was much more deliberate, much slower, almost surgical.
- First, I started with that messy corner in my office. I didn’t just tidy it; I completely cleared it out. Threw out what I didn’t need, organized what was left. It was a small thing, but the feeling of accomplishment was huge. It felt like I was physically removing one of those metaphorical bricks.
- Then, I tackled those vague feelings of wanting to learn something new. I didn’t sign up for some expensive course. I just started looking up free tutorials online. Dabbling. No pressure. Just exploring.
- I began consciously saying “no” to things that drained me. Social invites I didn’t really want to go to, extra tasks at work that weren’t my responsibility and I didn’t have the bandwidth for. It felt awkward at first, but with each “no,” I felt a tiny bit lighter.
- I even addressed that co-worker situation. Instead of just avoiding, I tried to have a genuine, open conversation. It wasn’t perfect, but it diffused a lot of the underlying tension I’d been carrying.
- I started looking at my beliefs. Not just about external stuff, but about myself. What stories was I telling myself that kept me stuck? What was I holding onto, not out of conviction, but out of habit or fear? And for each one, I asked, “Is this still true? Is this still serving me?” If not, I decided to let it go.
It was a process of deliberate deconstruction. One small brick at a time. It wasn’t a dramatic earthquake, but a mindful renovation. I was basically taking apart my own old house, carefully deciding what to keep, what to throw out, and what to rebuild, exactly how I wanted it.
And the outcome? It wasn’t a sudden burst of sunshine and rainbows. It was a gradual clearing of the fog. The feeling of being “just fine” slowly faded away, replaced by a sense of quiet purpose. I felt more in tune with myself. The resistance to change that the reversed Tower initially pointed out became the very lever I used to engineer that change myself. It taught me that sometimes, the most profound transformations aren’t about avoiding a crash, but about taking control of the demolition, and rebuilding stronger, bit by deliberate bit.
