Build a Boundary, Not a Wall

Or, the delicate dance of protecting your peace in the World

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I was a member of my middle school drill team and a cheerleader in high school, so the figure at the center of the World tarot card always reminds me of a majorette twirling her batons at a homecoming parade. I can just smell the hairspray and hear the marching band behind her. The four corners of this tarot card are even populated by a variety of onlookers, wanting to catch a glimpse of the home team. Our majorette slash beauty queen has all eyes on her and she is loving it. She is proud, victorious, and does not mind the well earned attention one bit!

So yesterday when I asked my tarot deck how I could set myself up for success and it showed me the World, I was unamused.

“Yes, success. That’s what I said. But how do I get there?”

I put the card back in and re-shuffled.

The World card came out again.

(This is a tarot deck’s way of looking you dead in the eyes and replying, “Did I stutter?”)

My intuition wanted me to go deeper than a mere tarot keyword obviously. So I let my gaze float around the card as if it were a painting I was seeing for the first time in a museum, and I noticed the figures in the corners of the card: a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. (Fun fact: These are the same figures in the corners of the Wheel of Fortune card, my new nemesis apparently.)

Why these animals? Where do they come from?

In astrology, the lion represents Leo, the ox is Taurus, the man is Aquarius, and the eagle is Scorpio. That’s one sign from each of the four elements: fire, earth, air, and water, respectively. That means all four elements of the Universe - the World, if you will - are in the four corners of the World tarot card. That tells me this tarot card is named not for the figure in the center, but for those figures in the corners!

Furthermore, those aren’t just randomly selected zodiac signs. Leo, Taurus, Aquarius, and Scorpio are the fixed signs of the zodiac. The fixed signs indicate a sense of strength and stability and are known as the workhorses of the zodiac. This creates quite a contrast between the ephemeral, care-free dancer we see in the center. She’s no work-horse. Certainly not dressed like that! She seems to be reveling at most. In fact, the contrast is heightened by the separation of the dancer from the four creatures by the laurel wreath that surrounds her.

And that’s the start of the message I’m getting from the World at this point in my life:

The dancer - authentic, free-flowing, relaxed - maintains a boundary between her Self and the constant demands of the World around her.

So to answer my original question, “How can I set myself up for success?” the answer seems to be to set better boundaries.

I’m an open book. It’s the writer’s curse. This tends to make those around me think I am constantly open to unsolicited advice about how to live my life. And while I’m getting pretty adept at selecting whose opinion I actually trust and care about and ignoring the rest when it comes to strangers on the Internet, it’s still really hard for me to do this in real life. Especially with family.

A simple “Thanks so much, but I’m confident with my choice, so I don’t actually need any advice right now” doesn’t roll off my tongue easily.

My therapist loves to tell me I live in extremes, and I am starting to see how this may be true when it comes to the World card’s lesson on boundaries.

My first extreme reaction happens when friends or family members start chiming in on how I should live my life, or do my job, or run my business or my social media accounts. A lifelong people-pleaser, I often just sit there and take it. I waste precious moments of my life making sure to smile and nod and even thank them for their concern and their help so that they feel comfortable and gratified. That’s a people-pleaser’s number one concern.

Later that night or perhaps the next day, I will invariably tip into the next extreme, which is to feel utterly enraged at the disrespect and arrogance of those around me and then berate myself for not setting a better boundary and belittling myself just to stroke the ego of whatever know-it-all, meddling busy-body happened to victimize me that day. So, to (over)compensate for my failure to set up boundaries, I vow to cut that disrespectful good-for-nothing person out of my life forever, avoid their texts, phone calls, emails and build a wall between us with each brick of my rage and resentment.

But none of this is necessary.

The World tarot card tells us to build a boundary, not a wall.

We certainly can’t find success by trying to be everything to everyone. Trust me, I’ve tried. But neither can we find it by encasing ourselves in an impermeable shell and refusing to let anybody through.

The World, at the victorious end of the Fool’s Journey, represents the delicate dance of letting others in and also protecting our energy. In the World card, we have learned the lesson that vulnerability and boundaries can and in fact must coexist.

If protective but permeable boundaries don’t always come easy to you either, below is a tarot spread to help us get there!