Three Of Swords as New Career

So I'm between careers at the moment and have given myself 6 months to find a new purpose in life and embark upon it. I'm not limited to seeking employment, I have the option of self employment too which is the preferred option for me. I've asked this question many times and time after time I keep drawing....

Three Of Swords - well that doesn't seem too inspiring. It often turns up as the central card in a celtic cross. I drew a more information card and got Ten of Cups. The rest of the spread was mainly about new foundations in life, the spiritual work I'm presently engaged in and my own growth.

Three Of Swords - in it's broadest sense would be unhealed wounds, trauma perhaps, or just deeply embedded pain.
Ten Of Cups - work to do with emotional fulfillment, development?

I'm reading this is work that involves helping people to recover from pain and find fulfillment in life. But that's incredibly broad. I'm not at all interested in the typical helping professions, like counselling, social work or the like. I actually have terrible one on one skills in that regard and spent the last decade trying to develop this lack in myself and failed at it. Working directly with people just isn't what I'm cut out to do. So I need to think of find a way to be of value to people without subjecting them to my persona and lack of in-person communication skills.

Does anyone have a different take, or even just a different slant on what these cards could be pointing to?

I find that people often get hung up on the darker meanings of the 3 of Swords. It doesn't necessarily mean that life is out to teach you a lesson. I believe it's a very introspective card, relating to personal progress and self-realization. The price of enlightening and facing the truth is often one that involves sorrow, but things don't have to be tragic.

Regarding your situation, it could be that the cards are telling you that your preferred situation - self employment - may lead you towards emotional fulfillment, as expressed in the 10 of Cups. However, the 3 of Swords may indicate the amount of effort you're going to have to put in face of adversity. In short, the best decision is not always the easiest one to go through with.

I tend to ignore the RWS version of the illustration because I think it "hijacks" the broader meaning. It can help to use a different deck that doesn't slavishly follow it. I like the interpretation that all of the Threes are about progress, growth and expansion (the line transforming into the plane); the 3 of Swords just applies the idea of "growth through adversity" (aka "no pain, no gain"). It could mean something to do with psychological trauma therapy, such as working with battered women or the like. Or how about something in the line of "animal rescue?" They won't look at you funny if you're awkward. If you don't do well with one-on-one, maybe something impersonal like writing up case files in a psychiatric office would neutralize the anxiety. Or perhaps working on software installations for hospitals (my DIL did that for a while) or selling medical hardware (maybe surgical equipment, deribrillators or pacemakers) to care-giving professionals. It doesn't have to be hands-on, down in the trenches; the "trauma" angle could be peripheral.

I don't use clarifiers, so I won't comment on the 10 of Cups.

I like the growing through pain aspect so far that both you have mentioned.

So I'll put this down to personal growth field which does open things up to a much broader and inclusive idea than my initial one. And actually that also ties in with both cards mentioned. Yep, personal growth is something that have interested me for a long time.

Maybe there's something you have to face?

You may be viewing this card from the wrong perspective (i.e. too literally as "new career"). 3/Swords is often about a painful truth that must be faced or expressed so that you can move on. If it remains unsaid or unrecognized, then everything remains status quo and never changes.

Perhaps the card, coming up again and again, is trying to tell you that you need to admit something to yourself. Something you know is true but may not want to be true. Something that brings you pain, but one you have admitted it...THEN you'll know what to do.

For example, I knew a guy who was very much into sports and was pretty good at it. But though he did all right in elementary and high school, and wanted badly to be a pro-athlete...he had to finally admit he just wasn't good enough. His dream of being on a team wasn't going to happen. That was painful, but once he admitted that he was able to say, "What am I really good at? And what else might I want to do?" And he moved on to have a really great career, still in sports, but instead in the marketing branch.

I don't know if this is the right interpretation for that card, but maybe what the card is telling you is that you need to admit something about what you're hoping to be, trying to be, or do that may be hard to face. Your 10/Cups (emotional fulfillment) is behind that truth. It's like saying "I love this person, but I know I'm not right for them and so i'll let them go..." and in doing so, you find someone who loves you, so that you both can be happy. Maybe?

Thirteen said:

You may be viewing this card from the wrong perspective (i.e. too literally as "new career"). 3/Swords is often about a painful truth that must be faced or expressed so that you can move on. If it remains unsaid or unrecognized, then everything remains status quo and never changes.

I don't know if this is the right interpretation for that card, but maybe what the card is telling you is that you need to admit something about what you're hoping to be, trying to be, or do that may be hard to face. Your 10/Cups (emotional fulfillment) is behind that truth. It's like saying "I love this person, but I know I'm not right for them and so i'll let them go..." and in doing so, you find someone who loves you, so that you both can be happy. Maybe?

Click to expand...

Could be. The thing I've ommitted is that I left my job in order to immerse myself into a deep emotional cleansing process. I am doing this full-time at the moment and am almost finished what has been a massive 10 week journey. It basically involves stirring up childhood trauma (of which I have plenty) facing one's demons and integrating them. I'll be honest, the process has at times been horrendous emotionally and extremely personally challenging to get through. This is only the first of three journey's it involves. Now that I've almost completed the first pass I am so thankful I wasn't trying to hold down a job at the same time. As I've need a lot of space to process this.

This is the very first time in my life where I have had no intended career dream to follow. I am actually empty on that as I've lived all that I wanted to from my younger years. Neither did I have anything other than healing in mind when I left my last career. My personal situation had become urgent and I made the decision to attend to it. Now that I'm almost through the first journey, I'm getting the urge to contribute to society again. But still empty on the exact what. All that I'm really clear on is that my previous job was incredibly damaging to my body in the first instance, and not at all supportive of my desire to integrate this trauma either. It was a very busy, high stress job that I took up to distract myself from my own pain.

So I'm not negating what you are saying, I'm just confident that I am indeed facing my painful truths. In a very real way I've been living them these past 2 months.

Then perhaps the 3 swords is saying 'do this work, the 3 cleansings (3 swords=3 cleansings), first then you'll be in the space to work out what you need to do next'. The 10 cups kind of confirms that it will all work out, in the end. So stop trying for now to work out what to do cause it will come to you once this big work is done. It's as though your heart and mind don't have the space to think/move any further, as yet.

I won't repeat what thirteen said, I totally agree with this interpretation,

Well given this process is going to take a whole year, I doubt I'm doing to sit around twiddling my thumbs for that entire period of time. Boredom will set in, guess I'll have to just think something up myself then. And wait for this supposed big revelation. Whatever it is....

You are very concise with words, so perhaps something related to editing/written communication?