You may feel like a trapped animal when the 8 of Swords appears in your reading. This card depicts a figure standing amongst eight swords that form a sharp prison around them—if the figure moves in any direction, they are likely to be cut, but they are in even greater danger because they cannot see which way to go due to the blindfold they wear. Therefore, not only are they surrounded by difficulty, but they cannot see any way out of it. You may identify with this figure right now, and have found yourself surrounded by complicated and stressful situations, but you have no idea how to move forward or how to extricate yourself from these circumstances.

You may have been trying to use the same methods to make progress for some time now, and this card is telling you that you need to change up your approach to these issues, because your current methods are not working and they are not going to yield results just because you want them to. Remember what they say about insanity? That it is trying the same thing over and over again but expecting different results? Don’t make your life more difficult than it already is by limiting yourself and your approach to the problems surrounding you. Only by finally doing something differently will you begin to see the kind of results that you have been hoping for.