Tag: serotonin

How to Lighten the Fuck Up by Fooling Around with Magic

A Quick Look at the Playful Nature of Magic.

Magic.  

What is it, anyway?  We talk about magic a fair amount.  We say that something, “felt really magical,”  or we, “feel a lot of magic,” when we’re with another person,”  or a solution to a problem appeared, “just like magic.”  But what, exactly, is it?  Is it just a feeling, or is it a real thing that exists in the world independent of our feelings?

In The Magician card, we see a person channeling magical energy from, “above,” into the material plane.  He’s using his concentration, his will power, and his skills to pull that energy into what he wants to manifest.

Which, of course, is a major clue.  Magic is an energy, just like light, sound, radio waves, or solar flares.  What’s more, it is it’s own energy, meaning that it’s distinct from other energies.

We tend to get it mixed up with other energies, because it appears coincident with them.  When we’re madly in love with someone, it feels magical, and so we tend to mix magical energy up with being in love.  When we’re joyous, it feels magical, and so we tend to mix magic up with great happiness.  But magic is it’s own energy that appears with joy and love, but isn’t just joy and love.

We can see an analog of this with emotions and brain chemicals.  When we have a lot of serotonin in our bodies, we feel happier.  When we have a lot of cortisol and adrenaline in our bodies, we feel more stressed and anxious.  But . . . happiness causes serotonin to appear and serotonin causes happiness to appear, so it’s a definite, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” situation.  They’re not equivalent – they just appear at the same time.

Reductionists would have us believe that serotonin = happiness, but it’s not true.  Antidepressants, which increase serotonin levels, can be a very effective band aid for depression, but they pretty much have to go along with good therapy to deal with the underlying problems.  If we don’t build in the therapy, the happiness goes away when we stop taking the antidepressants because – guess what? – the things that were making us unhappy are still there.

In very much the same way, magic appears in our lives coincident with love and and joy, but the love and joy don’t cause the magic.  Nor does the magic cause the love and joy.  They just appear at the same time.

There are some other clues we can find that point to what magic actually is.  Two major markers that appear in our lives when we’ve got magical energy flowing through us are synchronicity and serendipity.  Synchronicity and serendipity are really just short hand for, “life is easy.”  Solutions to our problems appear out of nowhere.  People, places and things that feel like gifts from the universe manifest with no effort at all.  

And, “life is easy,” is really just short hand for, “life is light.  Life is playful. Life is fun.”

Which are some more major clues about what magical energy really is.  In the same way that magic tends to appear when we’re joyous or in love, magic tends to appear when we’re happy and playful.  It’s almost as if the universe is saying, “You know, you really need to lighten the fuck up if you want me to play with you.  I get that you’re all sad and dour, but it’s a drag and I can find someone else to hang out with.”

So magic is an energy that tends to appear in our lives when we’re loving, joyous, happy and playful.  It doesn’t cause them and they don’t cause magic, but they definitely appear at the same time.

Which brings us to another card, The Fool.

The Fool is FULL of magic.  He’s dancing along at the edge of a cliff and he really doesn’t give a fuck about the danger because he’ll just float right off into the air and keep dancing.  His little dog is picking up on his joy and dancing right along with him, in just the way that dogs always will.

Now, the interesting thing about The Fool is that he’s the Zero card in the Tarot deck.  Every other card has a number, but The Fool is Zero.  Which means that he doesn’t belong anywhere and he belongs everywhere.  We can literally take any card in the Tarot deck, drop The Fool on top of it and things will start to get better.  Even extremely bad cards like Death and The Tower start to improve the second that we bring in magical energy.  

There are people in the world who will tell us that life is insane, tragic, and brutal and that there’s very little to be optimistic about.  And, when we look at the daily news, it can be hard to argue with that view.  Believing in love, joy, playfulness, happiness and lightness can seem downright . . . Foolish.   

But that’s the point.  No matter how bad the situation may be, if we start to drop The Fool on it, if we start to increase the magic in our lives, it will get better.  

Magic brings love, joy, happiness, playfulness, easiness, and lightness with it.

Yes, please.  I’ll have some of that.

My e-book, Just the Tarot, is still available on Amazon at a price that’s SO reasonable that it would be downright Foolish not to buy a copy.

The World Card, Rebirth, and Designing Your Next Body


The World seems to be the only Tarot card that deals with birth, which is odd because you couldn’t find a more archetypal, universal experience than birth.  As I noted in my book, “Just the Tarot,” the wreath in The World card strongly resembles the shape of the birth canal and suggests a totally new beginning.

We all associate birth with that initial entry into the world, that first thrust through the placenta and into a whole new universe.  In reality, though, we’re being reborn constantly. It’s fairly well known that ALL of the cells in our bodies are completely replaced by new cells about every seven to ten years but many cells are constantly dying and being regenerated.  Red blood cells are replenished about every four months. White blood cells every few days. Fat cells, of course, last the longest. Wouldn’t you know it?

And here’s an interesting slant on all of that.  While the molecules in your body are busy whizzing around and making sure everything that’s supposed to stay inside doesn’t fall out and everything that’s supposed to come out doesn’t stay in, they’re also making these amazing substances called neuropeptides.

I don’t know about you but I totally suck at science and math and just a word like neuropeptides makes my brain freeze with anxiety.  Nonetheless, it’s important to know about them and here’s why.

Neuropeptides are the physical correspondents of our emotions.  They come and go together. Adrenaline is one of them. If you get a big spurt of adrenaline it totally triggers your fight or flight reaction.  Your heart races, your fists clench, your eyes dilate – you’re ready to kick some ass or run like a rabbit. Adrenaline doesn’t CAUSE the fight or flight reaction, they just always occur together.

Same deal with another neuropeptide, serotonin.  If you have a lot of serotonin in your system, you’re happy.  If you don’t have enough, you’re sad. Serotonin = happiness and happiness = serotonin.

The kicker is that our bodies manufacture neuropeptides to MATCH the emotions we’re feeling.  So, if you’re a very happy, positive person, then you’ll have a lot of serotonin being pumped out.  If you go through a sustained period of stress and unhappiness, then your serotonin levels drop like a rock in water and your adrenaline levels go up.

Kicker number two:  we have receptors for these neuropeptides in cells ALL OVER OUR BODIES, not just in our brains.  So if you’re pumping out massive amounts of serotonin, it’s attaching to molecules throughout your entire system and your body is basically happy.  Massive amounts of adrenaline and your body is basically stressed and unhappy.

Where it gets really interesting is when we consider that our emotions are actually dictating what types of molecules are going to make up our bodies AND we’re constantly replacing and replenishing those molecules.  We’re literally remaking our bodies all the time based on our emotional states. We are – right now – designing the types of bodies we’ll have in a couple of months when all of those cells get replaced with cells that match our current emotional state.

To put it another way, if you’re chronically negative and unhappy, your body is going to manufacture molecules that are negative and unhappy.  Serotonin = happiness and low serotonin = unhappiness. It can turn into an endless cycle of misery. Crappy emotional states CAUSE crappy body and brain chemistry which CAUSE more crappy emotional states and on and on.  

That’s where visualizations and affirmations come in.  When we do them, we’re interrupting that repetitive cycle.  When we do affirmations we’re rewiring the Deep Mind and telling it that we’re happy and successful people and – guess what – happy and successful people have oodles of serotonin.  When we visualize being happy and successful, we FEEL happy and successful and happy emotions MAKE serotonin appear.

It’s a very odd phenomenon.  We are literally giving birth to . . . ourselves . . . all the time.  And we have a choice as to what kind of a body and person we’re creating.  Happy thoughts = happy cells = happy thoughts. We choose our World every single day.

* If you’re interested in learning more about this, look up Dr. Candace Pert, who pioneered the research.