Happily ever after comes when we accept ourselves for who we really are.

Chances are you grew up with a skewed notion of what “happily ever after” is supposed to look like. Most of us grew up on a steady diet of Disney films plus some kind of out-dated religious ethic. Then, of course, there are those of us who grew up in a single-parent household, the product of divorce. Either way, most likely, we never heard the straight truth about what happily ever after could look like. One way or another, we were brain-f*cked. Like the little sponges we once were, we absorbed some toxic view of relationships—whether the ever-present poison of a Disney royal romance or the mundane monsters in our own home.

Luckily, I have discovered a new way to get the truth about what my own happily ever could look like. I have discovered that the ordinary deck of playing cards is actually the ancient book of life. It’s been hidden all this time, right before our eyes, masquerading as a game, when in fact these cards are used to play the “game of life.”

If this is your first time hearing the reality of these cards, look back at my previous posts on elephant journal where I give more background information about the cards. Suffice to say, the cards are based on the mathematics of our calendar. There are 52 cards in the deck just like there are 52 weeks in the year. There are four suits in the deck just like there are four seasons. There are 13 cards in each suit just like there are 13 weeks in each season.

Based on our date of birth, we have a birth card plus 12 other cards in our life path. There are 52 different cards that could potentially be your birth card, plus the joker. That means there are at least 52 different life paths. I say at least, because each of the 52 Cards has a different ruling card as well. Someone born with the same birth card as you may have a different ruling card.

Anyway, the point of telling you this is to get you to realize that your life path and your happily ever after is in the cards.  It’s not what you learned from Disney, your religion or your parents.

You may be trying to force-fit your life into the mold you learned and feeling quite miserable in the process.

It might even be a benign attempt, nothing malicious, but you just can’t make it fit.

Think about the versions of happily ever after we were sold as children. If you boil it down, I only really recall one version of that story and it involves one man and one woman in a romance for life. Now we’ve expanded that to include one person of any gender with one person of any other gender, but it’s still a limited view of happily ever after. It says nothing for how to live happily ever after no matter what kind of relationship we choose.

Consider this, if you are born as the ace of diamonds, for example, you find your happiness in your successful business ventures—relationships come second. You might even prefer to be alone, but you feel guilty about not wanting to share your personal time. So, you judge yourself as selfish and attempt to force your life to fit the romantic paradigm. Your version of happily ever after looks very different than someone who is born as the two of hearts, for example.

What really gives us the opportunity to live happily ever after is to re-frame the entire discussion of what happily ever after could and should look like.

It’s only our beliefs about it that really make us unhappy. It’s only because we believe we have failed according to the model of happily ever after that we measure ourselves against.

But, there are at least 52 different models of happily ever after and we certainly haven’t been taught all those different possibilities of happiness. So, what are we measuring ourselves against? Happily ever after comes when we accept ourselves for who we really are.

I know of no better tool to find out who you are than the ordinary deck of playing cards, the ancient book of life. If you want to find what your birth card is, you can do it for free on my website. Just plug in your date of birth on the widget on the right hand side and voila.

And here’s to living happily ever after.

Alexander Dunlop is a Life Priest. From an ordinary deck of playing cards, he can show you your true purpose, your gifts, your challenges, your keys to financial abundance, your greatest lesson to learn, your relationship patterns, your shadow side, your lifetime reward and much more.

Alexander is the founder of the Center for Spiritual Nutrition. He created this Center to offer real nourishment for the life journey we are all on. He has worked as an Evangelical Protestant minister and been trained as a Roman Catholic priest. He is initiated as a swami and is practicing shamanic healing in the Lakota tradition. He is a Harvard graduate and former Wall Street Consultant.

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Editor: Maja Despot

 

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