Wounds Can't Heal if We Keep Picking at Them

Or, when the Queen of Cups says enough is enough

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I had two devastatingly embarrassing relationships in college.

One was with someone who, I realized later through stories and information from mutual friends, was a sociopath. I remember how he stood in front of me casually tossing his sunglasses up and catching them repeatedly as I broke up with him. He also, I would learn later, told all his girlfriends that he was a virgin and that each of them was his first.

The second was with an emotionally abusive man-baby of an alcoholic who I humiliatingly did not have enough self-esteem to leave for years. I remember flying out to Oakland by myself to meet up with him and his friends over New Year’s weekend one year and him berating me for doing so because it meant he and his friend had to waste an hour of the weekend picking me up from the airport.

(Fun fact: That’s also the weekend I met my now-husband even though we wouldn’t get together for at least another year.)

This one-two punch of toxic romance has been a blessing as well as a curse.

It’s been a blessing because boy oh boy did these two idiots set my now-husband up to shine as the emotionally mature and responsible adult that he is. I don’t think I would have appreciated the security and joy that came with a partner like that had I not still been reeling from years of the opposite experience.

It’s also been a blessing in the way I now prioritize expressing my truth, recognizing my emotions, and making space for myself, not to mention requiring that those who claim to care about me do as well (if they want to stay in my life, that is). I simply didn’t have the self-respect or self-esteem to do this in my early twenties. My entire identity was negated as I became a mere accessory for some guy who was simply not interested in perceiving me as a complex, imperfect, three-dimensional human being. And instead of realizing I deserved better, I did whatever it took to keep the peace and make sure the arrogant and uninteresting five I had decided was the center of my world would still let me spend the night.

Since those years, it’s taken a lot of work to, among other things, reconnect with and honor my emotions. To realize that I have a wild and funny and beautiful and authentic self inside of me that has been hiding, endangered, for years deep inside me.

That work is essential Page of Cups work.

In the words of Meg Jones Wall in Finding the Fool,

When our emotions are something that we celebrate rather than suppress, we tap into the power and wonder of the Page of Cups.

In tarot, the suit of cups takes us into the realm of our emotions. And the pages of tarot are curious students and explorers. The Page of Cups, then, invites us to tune in and become more mindful of our inner world and to observe our emotions with curiosity and compassion. In the Rider-Waite-Smith version of the Page of Cups, a fish pops up from the cup in the page’s hand. That fish represents the feelings and emotions that swim inside of us and pop up every now and then (sometimes discreetly, sometimes with quite a bit of gusto) to say hi. “Rather than fearing or avoiding our depths,” says Wall, the Page of Cups presents “an opportunity…to explore our hearts with curiosity and wonder.”

Therapy is also classic Page of Cups work. In fact, every time someone in therapy is able to answer the question, “And how did that make you feel?” a Page of Cups gets their wings.

But as if often the case in life, too much of anything can circle back onto itself and cause a distorted, almost mirror-image version of the original problem we were trying to solve in the first place.

As humans, we often tend to overcorrect - usually out of strong and difficult emotions like shame, fear, or pride - before truly healing and settling at a more optimal equilibrium.

That’s where the Queen of Cups comes in.