Tarot Shadow Work- Inferiority

The third position in the star of discover is inferiority. This is where I lack most confidence in my abilities and plays a key role in my adult life as it is now. The card that I drew for this position was The Moon, among it's shadow attributes are times of doubt and confusion about my feelings...my indecision and passivity...my avoidance of intense feelings and the constant feeling of everything being clouded or vague.

The question that I find myself pondering is "What event or situation from my past has helped this shadow grow...did my parents play a role?" My answer would have to be a resounding "Yes." As a child I was never really aware of how the adults and events in my life might shape my future but now, as an adult it is clear that by my mother's avoidance and codependency about my father's alcoholism as well as his suicide, all set the stage for me to see myself as inferior. In my childhood, I watched my parents' examples and heard their critical language and worked out in my childish mind that my needs and my wants were not as important as the irrational need to maintain some semblance of peace in a volatile, alcoholic home.

When my father made the choice to commit suicide, it was again reinforced in my nine year old brain that if I had been important to my father, he would have stuck around to watch me grow up. I still feel that odd twinge of resentment now and then that his selfishness over rode the fact that I saw him as a hero...someone who could do anything and had an air of super human talent.

In my adulthood now, I am able to confront these issues that I did not understand then and I realize my father's suicide and my mother's complacency did not have anything to do with me at all. The very nature of addiction can make perfectly rational and sane people act just as crazy if not more so that the person with the addiction. I had never even linked my inferiority issues back to my chilhood and how it might have made me who I am today but through examination of my shadow I can let all that misinformation and incorrect conclusions go. I can choose not to let that shadow control me anymore and that indeed is a very liberating feeling!