In our first discussion of the Lord of Disappointment, we said that none of us look forward to this card turning up... but since turn up it will, I thought perhaps it would help to have a discussion about how to reduce levels of disappointment in life, how to improve our chances of contentment and how to deal with disappointment when, inevitably, we have to face it.

First and foremost, it's important to realise that, whilst our disappointments often come from outside sources, the reason that we experience them is because of internal beliefs and expectations. We are disappointed when the company refuses to offer us that job we wanted and hoped for so much. We are disappointed when friends, lovers, family let us down and fail to treat us in a fashion we had believed they should. We are disappointed when something does not work out the way we had hoped.

Yet we cannot go through life without expectations. And we cannot protect ourselves by holding negative expectations. Hope is a fighter.no matter how much we try to squash it down, it pops back up again.often in the sneakiest fashion.

So... perhaps we simply have to be brave enough to hope, honest enough to assess our expectations realistically, and courageous enough to accept that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we are going to be hurt by disappointment. Maybe we have to make the choice to risk ourselves, and accept that, sometimes, we will get let down...

So on a day that is ruled by the 5 of cups, don't go looking for disappointment... rather, spend some time assessing your expectations. Look for imbalance, or lack of realism, in your expectations of people and situations. If you find any, then be true to yourself, and adjust those expectations till they serve you better.

Look for negative expectations (nothing good ever happens to me; I am always going to be lonely/miserable/unhappy; I am too weak/inadequate/uninformed to achieve what I need) and tackle these with gusto... they create darkness in your life, and serve no earthly purpose. Drive them out of your head with determined use of the affirmation, and agree to go after them every single time they surface.

And finally... expect a nice surprise in every single day you live. Expect to find something that fills your heart with joy and gratitude every single day. Go looking for these things... make it part of your daily routine to discover something which makes joy arise within you...