What the 8 of Swords Taught Me About Self-Limiting Beliefs and Denial
Some years ago, I was reconnecting with my tarot journey after a hiatus in which I had tried to suppress all the wonderfully witchy parts of me that I thought others would judge or reject.
At the time, I was going through a very emotionally abusive relationship and a lot of interpersonal lessons of who to trust and especially learning about boundaries for the first time in my adult life.
Cracking open my long-neglected tarot decks, I would draw a daily card or two and looking back over my old tarot journals (do you keep a journal of your readings? If not, I highly suggest you start. It’s a goldmine for seeing how wonderfully and messily you have changed for the better), I can see a pattern of the 8 of Swords coming up quite frequently.
In fact, if I did a quick analysis, it came up in approximately 40% of my daily readings. If you don’t read tarot, just know that’s a lot. That’s statistically very significant to see one particular card come up that frequently for one person over a period of time (this was over the course of around a year).
So why is this particular card so important to a journey of ownership, boundaries, and growth and why did I mention ‘Self-Limiting Beliefs’?
Tarot is such an excellent tool for sparking deep introspection and if you really commit to it as a method of personal growth and intensive emotional and psychological therapy, you will be amazed at how you begin to thrive.
You thrive because you begin to see how you are standing in your own way.
And the 8 of Swords is the card of standing in your own way without consciously realizing it. It is limiting beliefs, self-doubt, and self-denial of the scale that is life-altering (and not in a good way).
The traditional imagery of the 8 of Swords is of a woman who is blindfolded and her arms are tied to her sides or behind her back. She is standing in a circle of 8 swords stuck into the ground around her, yet there is a gap in the circle through which she could walk.
Let’s break down the elements in the traditional image to examine all the messages this card holds for us: her dress is red to signify passions she holds, the blindfold indicates she is blinded to her surroundings or situation as well as cannot see the way out, the swords relate to the element of air which represents thoughts and communication of all kinds, the puddle of water she is standing in suggests there is an emotional element to her captivity.
The Thoth Tarot calls the card ‘Interference’ alluding to someone who wants to move or progress but something is interfering with their freedom to do so. The swords in the Thoth card also represent an array of choices faced by the subject, and many choices yield distractions rather than action, or the phrase I like to use ‘paralysis by analysis.’
Thinking about a problem so much that you do nothing (which, interestingly, is also an element of the 2 of Swords in which the subject is also blindfolded, but cannot make a decision between the swords she holds in each hand).
The overthinking element is strong with the 8 of Swords, as those swords/thoughts are truly what are keeping the subject in place. And if you need any further reinforcement, the 9 of Swords following the 8 in sequence represents anxiety and depression. If the subject in the 8 of Swords does not free herself of the cage she’s created, she faces a psychological prison of her own doing.
The card on initial glance gives the impression that the subject is held captive, however, upon further inspection, she could walk out of the circle of swords but for the blindfold. In some versions of the card, her arms are not bound and she is free to remove the blindfold, but chooses not to.
In all cases however, her cage of swords is one reinforced by her mind - her beliefs. She believes she cannot escape so she does not. In some versions, she is even placing the swords around herself.
At the time in my life that this card started showing up in my daily draws, I believed that I had no choice but to stay in a relationship that was literally chipping away at my soul and breaking my very resolve to live.
I believed that I could not do everything on my own, because I had always believed that. I believed that I would not do any better than what I had because I had always believed that. And so I stayed where I was, surrounded by the swords of my beliefs, standing in the puddle of my codependency, self-doubt, and victim mentality.
Until one day, I thought a little deeper about this card I kept seeing. I am sure my spirit guides were hairless from pulling their spirit hair out every time they popped that card into my draw, only for me to nod and say ‘yes, self-limiting beliefs,’ and then move on having made no tangible change.
That day, I decided I was actually the one in control. I decided I would no longer just believe things about myself without any actual good proof. So I pushed back and set a boundary. And then another. And another.
And gradually, those swords began to disappear. And over time, years in the making, the blindfold fell away, too. I could see that I had been the one allowing that prison to take shape by my inaction and passivity when my boundaries had been challenged (or simply never setting boundaries in the first place) and committing to remaining within it only because I could not see that it was all a construct.
So when the 8 of Swords comes up for you, the best question you can ask is ‘What do I believe about this situation/person/myself and why do I believe that is true?’
You may be surprised to find that underlying most, if not all, of your beliefs about yourself is absolutely nothing. They are built precariously on the words you heard from someone as a child or in an important relationship when you were younger, and you believed them only because there was not something more believable you already had in place.
These days I try to ask that question most mornings. And the things I put after the statement ‘I believe…’ are now very carefully chosen words because those words choose my reality. I can choose to put more swords around myself or I can choose keep my path clear of the debris and obstacles I had previously put there.
So smart to see the percentage of readings this showed up in, and I really enjoyed seeing the different imagery and breakdown!