FIVE OF SWORDS
The Five of Swords as interpreted by Kirstin Wu and Reana
The Five of Swords isn’t a light card, even by this suit’s standards. Like the other Fives, it represents a kind of crisis point – in this case, we’re working with the mental aspects of difficult emotions. As with many of the Swords, the Five really shows us how tricky our relationship to our own minds can be. It’s often when something goes wrong and/or we feel hurt that we’re most prone to getting tangled in the noise of our more unhelpful thoughts. This card connects to moments where we’re moving through difficult feelings – disappointment, shame, defeat, pessimism, etc. Sometimes the wounds come from an external situation where we’re struggling, we feel let down or may need to let go of something. Sometimes they come from us, from the second (and more) swords we drive in trying to maintain control when something goes ‘wrong’.
With the Five of Swords, it can be easy to get in all-or-nothing thinking. Rather than acknowledging our efforts and the many layers of emotion involved when we’re suffering, our brains want simple narratives where things are all bad or all out of control. This can look like isolating ourselves, being self-critical, and making choices that affirm the negative beliefs we have about ourselves, for example. There’s a sense that we’ve failed or been failed somehow, so we resign ourselves to ongoing struggle. Once we’ve driven that second sword in, we may as well keep going, right? If pain is familiar and expected, maybe that’s just the way things are.
We can ease out of the Five of Swords by being gentle with ourselves and creating enough safety to acknowledge our feelings, however ugly or uncomfortable they might be, beneath the hurt and reactive thoughts. This means taking the time to listen – are we feeling angry or ashamed? Do we need to grieve? What’s the real source of the pain? We have to break down the shame and lack of compassion for our experience, because that’s often what traps us in self-sabotaging or self-punishing behaviours. So instead of fighting our way out of the thorns, can we accept help or move slowly to miminise damage? With this card, as with most of the Swords, it’s about small steps. Working on nourishing connections, finding the middle ground in situations, taking a step back from our thoughts – small steps towards healing.
Artist’s Interpretation of the Five of Swords by @rkivean_______
The Five of Swords card was pretty straightforward, it was simply expressing mundane feelings. I thought Yoongi would be a perfect fit since he’s spoken about his struggles with depression before and how it can completely take over the mind of the individual. I think it also kind of shows the beginning of the process of giving up and just surrendering to that feeling of being trapped and not knowing where to go or what to do.