I've been doing a wonderful Yijing / I Ching class with Hilary over at I Ching with Clarity. If you're remotely interested in divination, I encourage you to go and check out her site. She has the most amazing profound, erudite and intuitive grasp both of the I Ching specifically and the nature of divination in general, and her site is packed full of useful ideas – and there's a free members area with even more useful ideas and info.

I've been divining in one way or another for almost all my life, but I've just been blown away by the conversations I've been having with the Yijing, which, following Hilary's affectionate term, I'm starting to think of as just 'Yi'. Yi means change, apparently.

And it's come at a great time, as it looks like I'm heading into a period of big change myself. I'm realising that I need to make some significant changes to my business. Which are going to require some significant changes within myself, in old, dark, dusty parts of me.

I asked Yi the other day about a difficult decision I was considering regarding this. What would happen if I took it? Yi replied: 25, Without entanglement, moving to 51, Shock.

Without entanglement is all about shedding unhelpful illusions. Shock is all about, well, a sudden shock. A shock to the system. A wake-up call.

Disentanglement's shock. If I did this difficult thing, I would be shedding my illusions, the illusions which have kept me from making the changes I knew were necessary; and naturally, that would feel shocking.

One of the moving lines read:

‘The affliction of disentangling.
No medicinal herbs, there is rejoicing.’

So, that's 'Disentanglement's affliction' – an illness born out of losing my illusions. But I mustn't try and treat it – I'll be glad if I don't. 'OK,' I thought, 'I guess I'm going to feel crappy for a bit. But I don't need to treat it, because I'll heal naturally.'

So, today I made the hard decision. And it seemed to trigger the start of a wave of change which had just been waiting for me to admit it. Over the course of the day, things popped up in front of me, one by one, showing themselves as they are, and one by one, I started to shed delusions.

I also started to feel crappy. Queasy. Just kind of wrong.

Tonight, I couldn't sleep. After a couple of wakeful hours, I started to feel the first stirrings of those old visitors to my guest house, Anxiety and Depression.

Ah. Yes, ok. I know from long experience that this feeling, the anxious-depression, appears often when I'm so scared of something that I can't bear to feel it. So having lost my delusions, here I am, face to face with truth, and very scared.

My old and trusty emergency toolbox for the anxious-depression contains a lot of distraction-based remedies. (That's not as shallow as it sounds – distraction is actually an invaluable tool for dealing with anxiety and depression, when used in the right way.) But as I started to consider which one to apply here, I remembered line 5's clear injunction not to 'treat' this affliction in the usual way, the 'medicinal' way.

So, instead, I tried an approach I learnt from Hiro and Havi – to take the discomfort into your heart. I put my hands on my heavy heart, and said hello. Sat with it for a moment. And pretty much instantly, I could feel the fear (which at times like these is usually hidden behind a thick veil of depression – the depression's just trying to protect me from the fear, really). It felt small, and panicky.

'Oh,' I told it, 'of course you're scared. Of course you are. That's ok. It's natural.' And I wrapped it up in a duvet and held it close, and told it it could stay there as long as it wanted to, and emerge as soon as it wanted to.

And I think perhaps this is the thing. This 'affliction', right now, is a natural response to the work I'm beginning. I don't need to shove medicinal herbs down its throat, I don't need to try and fix it or make it go away as quickly as possible. Instead, I can engage with it, hear what it's telling me, and be guided by that. I expect that, as I go about trying to work out how to change my business and myself, it will be able to tell me all kinds of things about what I want and need; and what I don't want and don't need, which are just as important.

And Yi is there to help me translate, deciphre, and generally make sense of it all.

Definite cause for rejoicing.

'May God bless our food,' said Wicca. 'We are all sailors on an unknown sea; may He make us brave enough to accept this mystery.'

'But you're a Teacher of the Tradition of the Moon,' said Brida. 'You know the answers.'

Wicca sat for a moment, absorbed, looking at the food. Then she said:

'I know how to travel between the present and the past. I know the world of the spirits, and I've communed with forces so amazing that no words in any language could describe them. I could perhaps say that I possess the silent knowledge of the journey that has brought the human race to where it is at this moment.

'But because I know all this, and because I am a Teacher, I also know that we will never ever know the ultimate reason for our existence. We might know the how, where and when of being here, but the why will always be a question that remains unanswered. The main objective of the great Architect of the Universe is known to Him alone, and to no one else.'

A silence fell.

'Right now, while we're here eating, ninety-nine percent of the people on this planet are, in their own way, struggling with that very question. Why are we here? Many think they've found the answer in religion or materialism. Others despair and spend their lives and their money trying to grasp the meaning of it all. A few let the question go unanswered and live for the moment, regardless of the results or the consequences.

'Only the brave and those who understand the Traditions of the Sun and the Moon are aware that the only possible answer to the question is I DON'T KNOW.

'This might, at first, seem frightening, leaving us terribly vulnerable in our dealings with the world, with the things of the world and with our own sense of our existence. Once we've got over that initial fear, however, we gradually become accustomed to the only possible solution: to follow our dreams. Having the courage to take the steps we always wanted to take is the only way of showing that we trust in God.'

'As soon as we accept this, life takes on a sacred meaning, and we experience the same emotion that the Virgin must have felt when, one afternoon in her otherwise very ordinary existence, a stranger appeared to her and made her an offer. "Be it unto me according to thy word," said the Virgin. Because she had understood that the greatest thing a human being can do is to accept the Mystery.'

After another long silence, Wicca again took up her knife and fork and resumed her meal. Brida looked at her, proud to be by her side. She wasn't bothered now by the questions she would never ask, about how Wicca earned her money or if she was in love with someone or jealous of someone else. She thought about the greatness of soul of the true sages, sages who had spent their entire lives searching for an answer that did not exist, but who were not tempted to invent an answer when they realised there was none. Instead, they carried on humbly inhabiting a universe they would never understand. The only way they could participate was by following their own desires, their own dreams, because that is how man becomes an instrument of God.

From Brida, by Paulo Coelho

For a long time, I've thought faith was a feeling – that feeling that you're being looked after and all is well. Which, I figured, was why faith isn't something anyone can be talked into – you've either had that feeling or you haven't.

But it's just occurred to me that perhaps, like love, faith is not a thing you feel, but a thing you do.

However much you love someone, you're not in love all the time. You don't even feel loving all the time. So, if we want our relationships to last, we work to feed or to recreate the love. We make time to talk to our partners. We do things with them that we might not choose for ourselves. We make those small gestures that signal to ourselves, and to them, that this matters to us.

And even at those times when we just can't feel it, we try to keep acting lovingly, and we keep choosing to be where we are.

And I guess faith is like that, really. We can't feel that warm glow all the time, that blissful mixture of love and trust and joy. (In fact, if we've felt it even once, I think we can count ourselves pretty lucky.) Because that's a feeling, and (as a very wise woman once told me) all feelings pass.

So, in between those moments of feeling faith, I need to keeping choosing it and acting in the direction of it, as much as I can. I may not feel that sense of guidance right this minute, but I can choose to keep believing it's there and act accordingly.

And I think this is liberating, too. Sometimes I'm self-critical when I don't feel spiritually inspired. When you're starting a new practice, or have just experienced one of those little daily miracles, it's easy to feel inspired, enlivened. When I don't feel that, sometimes I tend to think that I must be doing something wrong.

But I can see now that that's crazy talk. Of course I get complacent. Of course the flame goes out. It's a feeling. And all feelings pass.

So instead of beating myself up about it, I can do the spiritual equivalent of making time for a long chat, or cooking a special dinner. There are a million ways to refresh and spice up your relationship with the godiverse.

If I'm really smart, I won't just wheel these out when things get dire, either; I'll build them into my life in some kind of repeating fashion. A daily prayer; a weekly ritual; a monthly divination session with friends*. And gradually I will learn that there's no need to panic if I'm feeling like throwing my toys out of the pram today, because that feeling will pass too, and soon one of these built-in things will refresh and reinvigorate me.

I mean, I know Rumi was all afire with passion for the Beloved, but I bet he did a whole lot of whirling to stay that way.

* Worked brilliantly for my lot a few years back, when we were all in the same town. It was a great way of what Havi would call 'staying in the process'.

My ex is getting married. This is absolutely fine, I'm happy for him, we're still good friends. But I spoke to him today, and he told me that he'd decided not to invite me to the wedding, as he thought it might be a bit odd for his fiance.

I understand, of course I do. But that doesn't mean it didn't upset me.

My sister happened to be online, so I told her the news. 'Well,' she said, 'it's understandable.'

'Of course it is,' I replied, 'but I'm still upset.'

She pressed on, arguing his case. It didn't need arguing – I understand it. And I pressed back, trying to get her to understand why I was upset.

'Ross invited Rachel to his wedding,' I pouted. (Holy fuck, I thought, Did I seriously just reference Friends to validate my argument?)

'It's really not the same thing,' she said.

'Why?'

'Because this isn't a soap opera.'

By now I was getting really quite annoyed. 'No,' I said, 'it's worse. It's like if Amanda didn't invite me to her wedding.'

'Woah,' she said, 'I'm stepping away from the angry sister!'

So we went our separate ways, each significantly more annoyed and upset than we were beforehand.

I called a close friend, then, and told him. 'Hm,' he said, 'I guess that's understandable.' My brain started gearing up for battle. 'But still,' he went on, 'it must be upsetting.'

'Yes,' I replied, 'it's like if one of you lot didn't invite me to your wedding.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'That sucks.'

And with that, I was fine. I'd been heard. That was all I needed; someone to acknowledge that it sucked. No more upset, no more cross. All was well.

The pressure's off

I noticed these exchanges because I've just finished reading How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk, as recommended by the lovely Havi. It was very quick. I read it on the plane.

It really is a great book. I highly recommend it for anyone who interacts with humans in any capacity.

The authors observe that when someone is feeling some strong emotion – pain, fear, anger, whatever – a lot of the time, all they really need is for someone to acknowledge that. To simply name that feeling. 'You must be really angry.' 'It's disappointing when things don't go as planned.' 'Sounds like you're really frustrated.'

This is really a revolutionary idea for me. Being a sensitive flower, I find it hard to be around people in pain. I tend to want to fix things. I tend to want to engage with the problem intellectually, offer advice, reason, something that will 'help'.

I can now see that, most of the time, it's not helpful. Advice can irritate and patronise. Reason, as I discovered with my sister, can just make us more and more annoyed and upset as we fight to get our pain recognised.

This idea is actually liberating. Turns out, there is no pressure to 'fix' anything. I don't have to take responsibility for the other person's emotional state. It's enough for me to recognise it. Revolutionary.

The evil of leading questions

There's all kinds of useful stuff in the book. (And cute little cartoons.) Another piece of advice for parents which I particularly liked is 'Don't ask too many questions.'

I loathed my parents questions. Still do. The more they ask, the less I want to tell them. It creates a really primal reaction in me.

The most evil kind of question, in my opinion, is the leading question. And the very worst of these is 'Did you have fun?'

A friend threw a party for me recently. Later he asked, 'Did you have fun at the party?' I wanted to yell, 'No, it sucked!' And maybe slam the door.

It didn't suck, of course, and I did have fun, though not in a simple 'That was a blast!' kind of way – parties are never simple for me, too many issues. But the fact that he had put that label in the question made it really difficult for me to answer, let alone to answer shortly.

If he'd asked, 'How was the party?', and I didn't want to talk about it, I could just say something short and neutral – 'It was good' – and change the subject.

But 'Did you have fun?' Horrible to answer.

You can't say 'No', obviously, and that in itself creates resentment – that your words have been dictated for you.

But for me to say 'Yes' didn't feel truthful either. And I didn't want to go into a long exposition about my issues with parties and how I enjoyed it mostly but it wasn't easy for me, either. It really didn't feel appropriate for me to burden someone who just threw a party for me with my many issues with social interaction. So I had to say yes. I was put in a situation where I had to agree with a statement that I didn't fully agree with (that option being less evil than the other), which made me feel resentful.

What especially made me feel resentful in this case was that the fact that the question was phrased in this way made me feel as though what my friend was interested in was validation, rather than hearing my thoughts or feelings. It felt like fishing. It felt like he was using me as a praise piñata.

I suspect I react more strongly than most people to this stuff – when I talk about how I feel about it, people sometimes think I'm being a bit crazy.

But if you think about kids in this context it doesn't seem so crazy any more.

We want kids to have a healthy relationship with their emotions, right? We don't want them to judge themselves negatively for feeling unhappy?

'Did you have fun?' makes a kid feel she has a responsibility to have fun. That if she feels something else, she's failed in some way. That other feelings are not acceptable. 'Did you have fun?' tells a kid what she 'ought' to be feeling. It makes her feel that her real feelings doesn't matter, that she's just there to smile and be pretty so that other people don't feel uncomfortable. (I'm going to stop here before I go off on a long rant about it, but I think it's appalling that little girls are told that they're pretty when they smile and ugly when they don't, or told that they 'should smile more'.)

To answer 'No' to 'Did you have fun?' makes a very strong statement – probably stronger than a kid wants to make. 'No' is going to be followed by concerned exclamations – 'Why not? What went wrong?' – or angry ones – 'Don't be so rude,' 'You're in a bad mood,' 'I only asked!' 'No' creates a big fuss. 'No' is not a socially acceptable answer to this question. And if you want to hear about a kid's actual experience, limiting their available answers makes it pretty difficult for them to tell you.

So, you may remember that back here I realised that I'd been using the wrong bit of me to keep track of my finances, and that my mind was a more appropriate part of me for that job than my gut.

Well, last night I had another lesson in using the right bits for things.

My lovely landlady was doing a spot of taoist healing on me, and started talking about the tantien. That area crops up for me often – it's key in tango, as I've found that when I use it as the centre of my movement then I'm much more balanced and stable, and it's come up for me regularly in the context of 'home' and rooting. That's all the same stuff, of course. (I do find my tango issues tend to mirror what's going on in the rest of my life.)

Anyway, one of the things she said was that the tantien is the place where you know who you are. (Which of course, is the same thing again, with a different slant.) The place where things are simple. And that you can use place this for dealing with all kinds of things.

For example, for authentic self-promotion. If you speak from your tantien, she said, then you're stating simple truth about who you are. That embarrassment we feel at the idea of 'promoting' ourselves – we can avoid that by speaking from our tantien, because then we're speaking our truth without agenda, without puffery, without shrinking from it. It's simply true, and so we will never feel or sound conceited or awkward.

The problem for most of us, she said, is that we try to use the mind to create a sense of self-worth; and this will never work, because the mind loves to argue. And the ego has a vested interest in our feeling inadequate. Whenever you tell yourself that you have done well, the mind will want to argue the point. So give up on telling yourself you're good enough, she said, and go to the tantien instead, where you know what you're worth.

It made perfect sense to me. I do, in most situations, try to use my mind to solve the problems going on in my mind. Historically, I over-rely on my intellect. And while I have learnt many useful mental techniques for this stuff, ultimately I feel like I'm chasing my tail, trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps.

And you may remember that one of the things I've been wanting to develop is greater confidence and self trust, and I've been frustrated, because I can challenge the negative thoughts as much as I like (cognitive behavioural therapy – you figure out what the negative thought is which is the root of the painful feeling, then consciously challenge that with positive, loving, realistic self-talk), and it does work, but it's just like eating – you're constantly filling a hole.

So I love the idea that there is a more appropriate part of me for this job, too. I've experimented a little today, and it feels promising. If I bring my attention to my tantien, I feel more rooted, more secure – more in my inner 'home'. More centered, I suppose. It makes perfect sense to me that this could be the place where I know who I am and what I'm worth. And if I can bring myself to that place when I need to, then it will make a huge difference in my life.

So, I just realised that I'm so used to relying on my instinct for general life stuff that I also use it for keeping track of money. I look at my bank accounts and either I feel that everything's fine and I don't need to worry, or I feel that I'm about to go broke and dear-god-something-must-be-done.

And maaaaaaybe, instinct isn't the best bit of me to use for keeping track of my finances. Just saying. Maybe, you know, reason and, like, maths and stuff are better suited to this job. Maybe I can deal with actual facts, rather than relying on a feeling of general freaking out to mobilise me.

FFS.

A tiny but important makeover for this blog today – it has a name now (and a shiny new header image.)

'The Universe' is the name for card XXI in the Thoth tarot deck, and it's a card I particularly love.

Card XXI is the final card of the journey of the major arcana, and represents, among other things, completion; a state of self-perfection reached after passing through trials; a state of synthesis where everything flows in the ideal, easy way, because you are in harmony with the universe.

But to me, in the Thoth deck, this card especially represents limitless potential – our limitless potential. We are all part of the universe. Part of an ensemble cast, brothers and sisters to worlds and stars, animals and angels.

'The universe' is also my default term for the divine. I believe we are all god. Little sparks of divinity. With limitless potential.

I'm trying very hard to really feel this potential at the moment. The cards have been telling me again and again that this is a time of limitless potential for me, of boundless opportuities; but I feel hemmed in on all sides by limits. I want very much now to dissolve these illusory, self-imposed boundaries and run free.

And dancing? Pretty obvious, really. It's no secret how I feel about dancing. For me, life is very much like a tango with the universe, with each of us gradually learning how to move in harmony with it: how to follow its lead while still being responsible for our own balance, while still expressing ourselves, while taking the steps that are led rather than waiting to be dragged into them. The better we become at this, the more often we experience those blissful moments of perfect harmony.

Resources and recommendations

That was the change; now for the addition. I reckon we all need all the help we can get with this life business, so let's share the things that help! I'm compiling a collection of things that have helped me over the years, on this new resources page. I would love to hear what your favourite resources are: do please comment over there and tell me! Or start your own resources page, and leave a comment with the link!

All you Julia Cameron fans out there must see this. Well, anyone who does anything creative must see it.

It's Elizabeth Gilbert making her own, warm, funny case for the approach I associate with The Artist's Way – the liberating and sanity-preserving idea that creativity comes from god, and our job is just to show up with a pen for god to write with.

I found it over at Nick's blog Rensense. Thanks, Nick!

Number five in my series of songs that make me feel that all's right with the world.

Ay, Pink. It takes me back to a very specific time and place, and for that reason is a little poignant for me.

But even through that, I find it deeply soothing. Musically, it feels to me like being rocked in the arms of someone you love. Add to that the peak phrase of the chorus – 'everything is going to be alright no matter what we do tonight' – and I sink into warm, marshmallowy relief and acceptance.

Happy Valentine's Day, my lovelies. And especially to those of you who are single. Let's have a love affair with ourselves today, Sark stylee.

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Number four in my series of songs that make me feel that all's right with the world.

So apparently it's girly singer-songwriter day today. You were going to get something else entirely, but then I realised that would make a nice valentine's day song, and then Sheryl Crow popped in to fill the gap. And then Natasha Bedingfield followed her.

OK, Sheryl Crow first – Every Day is a Winding Road. This song gives me a sense of solidarity, of the universal experience of humanity. And it's a kind of anthem for growth and self-discovery – even on the days that feel crappy, there are clues for us, and even when it feels like we're going backwards, we're actually getting a little closer to where we want to be.

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Natasha Bedingfield – Unwritten. This song helps me feel motivated to keep questing, and to see life as a grand adventure. 'Noone else can speak the words on your lips' reminds me of the value of my unique contribution. 'Noone else can feel the rain on your skin, only you can let it in' – reminds me that it's better to actively choose to engage with my experiences, rather than passively 'suffering' them – and that even the ones I expect to be unpleasant can be beautiful if I stay open to them.

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