Uh-oh, this doesn’t look good. Whatever will I do? I’d better protect myself. I’ll prepare for the worst. And I’d better take something to settle my nerves. Oh, I just don’t know what to do. I just know it isn’t going to turn out well!
There’s the 9 of Swords for you. It sends us scrambling to hide under the bed, even if the very big noise was just the vacuum cleaner on the other side of the house. Especially if we just did something somebody somewhere sometime told us wasn’t a good idea.
9 of Swords is often called the “nightmare” card. You can see in the Rider-Waite-Smith illustration that someone’s being kept up at night through sorrow or worry. Dark night of the soul, eh?
What we really need with 9 of Swords is a safe place to retreat for a rest, so we can think straight. Hiding under the bed can be a useful short term strategy (if you’ve got fewer dust bunnies than I do!); eventually, you’ll want to find someplace a little more comfortable.
We want to use our thoughts to make sense of our experiences, rather than to spin endless replays or worst-case scenarios. We need to accept the truth of what got us to where we are, and climb that ladder of swords to a better place. Remember, swords indicate communication and ideas, as well as concerns. We can talk with others about our dilemmas, and educate ourselves about possible solutions. Being alone with our thoughts is not a bad idea, but torturing ourselves with them definitely is. It’s time to face our fears.
Our way of thinking got us into our perceived tight spot; a new way of thinking can lead us back out.