Rather have some cake…
Every now and then, the cards falls in a way that feels less like guidance and more like a gentle nudge to the ribs. Recently, I pulled a card whose message was simple but annoyingly wise: take no offence (Sonia Choquette, The Answer Is Simple—love these).
At first, I rolled my eyes. We all know this. We teach it to our teenagers (three girls on this side). It also felt like a weird card to write about. So I shuffled again… and drew another card. The same one. Take no offence. The Oracle had spoke (Bright light breaking through the clouds with appropriate sound effect…)
I started to ponder this card while making packed lunches, and again in the car on the way to work. And something that came up is, first of all, is that knowing something and living it are two entirely different things (we all know this one as well). The oracle has a way of highlighting the lessons we think we’ve mastered, only to reveal the places where we’re still tender.
“Take no offence” doesn’t mean “don’t feel.” It doesn’t mean “accept disrespect” or “let people walk all over you.” It simply means:
Pause. Step back. Don’t turn someone else’s moment into a story about your worth.
Don’t make their monkey part of your circus
The thing is often when we take offence, the sting isn’t from the words themselves but from the meaning we assign to them. Someone else’s tone, mood, or rushed comment can hit the exact bruise we’ve been protecting (usually an old one).
When the oracle says take no offence, maybe it’s an invitation to lay down the armour and approach the moment differently. A reminder that:
- Not everything is about you.
- People speak from their own weather systems—their storms.
- A rough edge in someone else doesn’t define a flaw in you.
- And sometimes the most powerful move is to simply… not absorb it.
It’s a kind of emotional aikido: letting the energy pass around you instead of through you. Like a wise old tree in a storm.
For me, hearing “take no offence” felt like being asked to stay in my center, even when the world brushes past me with a sharp edge. To hold my ground without bracing for impact. To stay soft—not because I’m weak, but because softness is a form of strength I’m learning to claim.
And maybe that’s the real medicine of the oracle’s message:
Choose peace over the drama your mind can invent in three seconds flat.
Choose clarity over the story.
Choose yourself, not the wound.
So today, if something rubs you the wrong way, consider the possibility that you don’t have to pick it up. Let it fall. Let it pass. Let it be theirs, not yours. But you can declare it a wine day, even if it is in the middle of the week.
The oracle rarely wastes its breath.