A figure swings from a tree suspended from a T-shaped wooden cross. For someone hanging upside in such an uncomfortable positions this hanging man seems rather serene despite the precarious position we’re finding him in.

There’s a strange wisdom to this figure and we see he has a halo around his head/crown indicating he’s reached a powerful state of enlightenment from seeing the world from a new perspective.

This is the hanged man, our pull for the week here to teach us a little something about the act of surrender.

So let’s get into it, cause I got a few things to say about this latest draw.

The Hanged Man Keywords:

✷ Sitting in the Stillness

✷ Surrendering to what is

✷ Letting Go & Giving it up to God/The Most High

The Hanged Man Guidance

Phew.

This card.
This card right here.
(Insert that old meme of Arthur balling up his fist.)

I swear it’s the only one out of all 78 of these cards that’ll give me a damn eye-roll. I don’t fear none of them not the Swords, not Death, not the Devil, matter of fact I’ll meet em all with a grin.

But the Hanged Man is the one I actually dread the most, because I can’t stand stagnancy, or that feeling of being stuck in one place, suspended in mid-air with your hands tied behind you’re back.

Because you can’t do anything.

And that’s kinda the point of this card. You can’t do anything because you’re not supposed to.

I remember seeing a post years ago, it was during a late-night perusing of Pinterest or something, it was a Tweet from way back in the day when we still called it Twitter (which is a whole other-other thing but I digress) it was something around the lines of this:

“When life feels slow, that’s just God giving you permission to rest and plot for the next chapter”

And that is the medicine of the Hanged Man.

If you’re someone who has to constantly be in go-mode, always checking off boxes, always chasing progress, always on your Ps and Qs, taking names, bitches, and numbers surrendering to a lull in momentum can feel excruciating.

Who likes that sensation of being paused, not by choice, but by force?
Or worse—when you want to move forward but don’t know how? When the clarity hasn’t landed yet, and you just sit there like a relic frozen in time.

Pause is hard.

Especially when you're aching for movement, for direction, for resolution. But the Hanged Man asks something critically of you.

It’s a card of surrender at the end of the day. A necessary moment of stillness designed to help you shift your perspective. The figure in this card isn’t being punished, he’s deliberately chosen to hang up there. He’s suspended himself on purpose, because there’s a way of seeing the world he can’t access from the ground. And that’s the invitation here:

✷ To see what you haven’t yet seen.

✷ To look at your life from a completely different angle.

The Hanged Man often shows up at an impasse—somewhere between what was and what’s trying to emerge. And if you try to bulldoze your way through it without slowing down, you’ll hit nothing but resistance. It’ll be like trying to move through quicksand where the more you struggle the deeper you drag yourself into the mud.

For me a great example of this is when I do Yoga practicing my asana’s the physical poses/postures of Yoga.

When I’m on the mat, especially in those deep, still postures that are designed to work work deep into the hips + groin (funnily the place where the most trauma and unprocessed emotions are stored in the body), I feel that resistance immediately.

It’s not comfortable.

In fact, it’s straight-up unpleasant to sit in those poses for minutes at a time, focusing on my breath while my body fights me. But over time, something opens up. The tension softens. The breath deepens.

The discomfort becomes ease. And resistance is replaced with freedom.
Rigidity with softness, etc.

That’s the Hanged Man.

That deep stretch into the soul that dissolves struggle and replaces it with tranquility. That necessary discomfort you have to sit with to find your next level of clarity, your next ah-hah moment.

So this week?

Sit in the stretch. Perform this gentle exercise of breathing into the tight places and settle into the quiet spaces while giving the rest up to God/The Universe/Spirit/ Allah/ Yawheh/ Oldumare/ Nature—whatever name you attribute to the most high and let the stillness in.

Just… marinate.

Let yourself be here, in the here and now. And trust—trust deeply trust that the insight you need, the light-bulb moment, the puzzle piece you’ve been looking for, will click into place.

Maybe not today.

Maybe not tomorrow.

Hell, maybe not even the day after that.

But it will come. It always does. And when it does? You’ll finally see the path forward.
And it’ll feel so obvious you’ll wonder how you missed it before.

But I will give you a hint before we part.

Bright ideas come from unexpectedly high places. 

Reflection Prompt for the Hanged Man

Feel free to revisit this prompt throughout the week or towards the end as you reflect on how The Hanged Man’s energy has guided, manifested, and inspired you.

✷ Embracing the Pause: Where in your life are you being invited to pause, surrender, or shift your perspective—and can you allow yourself to lean into the stillness long enough to receive the insight it holds?