Why Do We Keep Finding Ourselves Here?

How tarot and old stories can help us understand familiar patterns—and give us room to choose differently.

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “How did I end up here again?”

You’ve changed jobs, but somehow you’re still the one who takes on the extra work. You’ve made new friends, but you’re still doing most of the listening. Or you’d promised yourself a quiet afternoon, and now you’re spending it doing something for somebody else.

You’d told yourself it would be different this time. You know how this usually ends—with you feeling tired, disappointed or cross with yourself. So why is it so difficult to do something different?

Sometimes we say yes when we want to say no. Sometimes we wait for permission nobody’s going to give us. Sometimes we put off something we love until everything else is finished, which turns out to mean somewhere around the middle of eternity!

What if, before making another resolution, we paused to look more closely?

Imagine a woman we’ll call Anne. I’ve made her up, but you might recognise something of her. Perhaps you know someone like her. Perhaps, sometimes, you’re her.

Anne is the helpful one. She remembers appointments, listens to worries and can usually find a way to help. Her kindness is real. She loves the people around her.

She’s also tired.

One afternoon, just as she settles down to do something for herself, a friend telephones to ask a favour. Nothing enormous. Only an hour or two.

“Of course,” Anne says.

Afterwards she stands in the kitchen, cross with her friend for asking and cross with herself for agreeing. She decides she really must learn to say no.

She’s decided this before.

Anne probably knows the advice already. What she finds difficult is the moment between being asked and hearing herself agree.

What happens in that little space?

This is where a picture can sometimes offer a way into a conversation.

In the familiar Rider–Waite–Smith tarot, the Ten of Wands shows a figure leaning forward as he carries ten long staffs. Imagine choosing this card deliberately and asking Anne what she notices. No prediction is involved.

“He can hardly see where he’s going,” she says. Then: “I wonder whether all of those are his.”

That’s an interesting question.

What belongs to him? What has he agreed to carry? What might happen if he put something down?

Someone else might see perseverance in this image. Another person might wonder why he hasn’t got himself a wheelbarrow. We’re beginning a conversation. There isn’t a set of correct answers printed at the back.

For Anne, it might become possible to ask: “If I were less useful, would I still feel worth having around?”

The card hasn’t proved anything about her. Her response has offered a possibility she can consider—or reject if it doesn’t fit.

The psychologist, Carl Jung used the word persona for the face we present to the world. Our roles can express something sincere and valuable. But if I’m always the strong one, where do I take my fear? If I’m always agreeable, what happens to my anger?

Anne doesn’t have to become less caring. But maybe she might make room for the part of herself who enjoys an uninterrupted afternoon and has preferences of her own.

That person belongs to her life too.

This is one of the possibilities I want to explore through tarot, astrology and myth: how a picture or a story can help us notice what keeps happening and think about what we might do differently. You don’t need a deck, a birth chart or any knowledge of psychology to begin.

Over time, this may help us with what Jung called individuation: becoming more whole. That includes getting to know the parts of ourselves we’ve overlooked or never had much chance to express.

For Anne, a beginning might be quite ordinary. Next time someone asks a favour, she might say, “Let me think about that and get back to you.”

She may still help. But now her own needs have a moment to enter the conversation.

Not every difficulty is an ongoing inner pattern. Other people, circumstances and genuine responsibilities can limit our choices. Reflection about things should never become another way to blame ourselves, or a substitute for practical or professional help if those are needed.

But perhaps there is one small, familiar situation in which you could pause this week.

What do you usually do? What do you fear might happen if you responded differently?

And how might you test that expectation gently, without making a dramatic change?

You don’t have to put down every responsibility. You might simply begin by asking which ones are yours to carry.