Surrender, Stillness, and the Power of Letting Go

The Hanged Man marks a strange and jarring moment on the Fool’s journey. After the forward momentum of the Chariot, the fiery conviction of Strength, and the moral clarity of Justice, everything suddenly stops. There’s no more striving, no more control. Everything is suspended. The Fool finds herself caught midair, hanging between who she was and who she’s about to become.

And it’s not exactly comfortable. This moment doesn’t arrive with peace or clarity. It often feels awkward and disorienting, like someone yanked the emergency brake and left you dangling in the in-between.

A note on my illustration

In my deck, the Fool is a woman. So when she arrives at this card, she isn’t seeing herself reflected back. She’s looking at a man, suspended and restrained, caught in an unfamiliar moment of surrender. This is a contrast I wanted to explore.

Throughout the deck, I’ve played with gender. Many of my figures are reimagined outside traditional roles. But a few archetypes remain distinctly male: the Kings, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man. Not to elevate them, but to preserve something specific about how these figures have historically functioned. The Hanged Man, in particular, represents someone shaped by systems of control, authority, and performance — the kind of cultural pressure that still clings tightly to masculinity.

Some modern decks have renamed this card “The Hanged One” to reflect a more inclusive, less gendered reading. I respect that choice. But I chose to keep the original title and image, not as a fixed statement, but in homage to Pamela Colman Smith’s iconic deck. The design of the title text of each card in my deck is pulled directly from her illustrations.

I like thinking of this guy as a middle manager in some nameless corporate system. Someone who was taught to lead and provide, and who now finds himself powerless. Just hanging there.

The Hanged Man belongs to anyone who has ever felt held in place by expectations they didn’t consciously choose. The image might be gendered, but the experience is universal.

My Interpretation: A Modern Kind of Crucifixion

When I created this version of The Hanged Man, I didn’t want to show a glowing figure with spiritual serenity. I imagined a man who might have been on his way to work and found himself now dangling from a rope with no explanation. It’s like an awakening of existential dread.

Echoing the structure of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, he’s suspended from a rough, T-shaped wooden branch and his free leg bends into the shape of a number “4”. (I think it’s cool how this position is reflected in the dancer’s position in The World.) His arms are behind his back, reinforcing a sense of restraint, but I stripped away the man’s halo and other religious symbolism. He’s not a saint or a mystic…he’s just some guy caught in a moment he didn’t choose.

What’s important to me here is his necktie. For years, the red “power tie” has been a symbol of ambition, masculinity, and corporate dominance. It’s a costume accessory worn by a certain breed of man taught to lead, win, and never stop hustling. A tie is also sometimes referred to as a noose. Here, it’s dangling…limp and impotent. It’s a result of the silent pressure of performance, responsibility, and cultural expectations. It’s a symbol of the things that bind us such as work, identity, image, and duty, and how those things can strangle us. This shift is the heart of this card.

He’s held in place by two kinds of ropes. One binds him physically by the ankle, stopping his forward movement. The other wraps around his identity: a social tether, knotted by years of duty, image, and expectation. The actual rope suspends his body. The tie suspends his role. Together, they hold him between who he was and what he might become.

This isn’t a peaceful pause. It’s the moment you stop pretending everything’s fine and start asking real questions. Who tied your noose? Why are you still hanging here? And what would happen if you let go?

The Shape of Surrender

There’s something surreal and bizarre about the whole scene, especially since the man isn’t suspended from his neck. Hanging upside down by one foot isn’t a method of punishment we recognize. It’s not logical or practical. The T-shaped beam is not a cross. Why is he suspended from only one foot? Why does he look so resigned to his predicament? Everything about the image suggests that we’ve stepped out of conventional space. The Hanged Man is a moment that doesn’t play by the rules. It doesn’t belong to progress or punishment. It just exists in stillness, but something is starting to shift.

This card invites you to pause and reconsider your direction. Not with urgency, but with openness. What if you stopped trying to move forward (or in all directions) and just stood still, even if the position is uncomfortable? What might you see from an angle you’ve never considered before?

Insight doesn’t always come through motion. Sometimes it comes when we’re forced to stay exactly where we are.

Voluntary... or Not?

The man’s intention is ambiguous. In some many versions of this card, he looks peaceful, like he chose this suspension as a form of meditation or spiritual discipline, but I’m not satisfied with that conclusion. Because sometimes we don’t choose the pause. Sometimes we get hung up by burnout, heartbreak, confusion, or a total loss of momentum. Life pulls the rug out, and suddenly we’re left hanging. Not forever, but long enough to feel the discomfort of being out of control.

This card often shows up when you're being asked to stop pushing. To quit solving and to sit with something you don’t fully understand yet. That can feel passive, but it’s not. Something is coming undone in a way that allows new meaning to take root. This isn’t about surrendering to failure, it’s about transformation and surrendering to the truth, even when you don’t like what it reveals.

The power of this card lies in its ambiguity. Sometimes surrender is a conscious act, while other times it’s the only option left. Either way, transformation begins the moment you stop resisting what is.

The Transformation Beneath the Stillness

The Hanged Man looks like he’s just casually hanging around (lol). But something is happening just beneath the surface: a quiet unraveling. In the Fool’s journey, this card comes right after Justice. She’s already faced her reflection in the mirror. She’s weighed what belongs to her and what she’s been carrying for someone else. But knowing the truth isn’t the same as becoming it. This is where that process begins.

In The Hanged Man, there’s no more movement on the journey. Just the long, silent pause after a realization about an aspect of your life where you want to cling to everything old, but you’ve outgrown it. You can’t rush this part or reason your way out of it.

The quiet warning here is that something in you may be preparing to die. This hanging is not a punishment or a threat, just a subtle pulling away from everything that used to define you. It’s not surprising that Death is coming next. And the only way to meet it is to surrender what (and who) you think you are.

When The Hanged Man appears…

Love & Relationships: This card often speaks to emotional limbo. A relationship may be stalled, undefined, or stretching into situationship territory: all chemistry, no clarity. You might be hanging on to the possibility of something deeper, or caught in a push-pull dynamic that keeps the tension alive but never resolves.

Sometimes we stay in the in-between because the slow burn is intoxicating.The way desire feels sharper when it’s just out of reach. But The Hanged Man asks what it’s costing you to keep hanging there. What are you sacrificing for the thrill of almost?

Career & Work: If you’re feeling overworked, uninspired, or stuck in a job that doesn’t reflect your values, this card might be calling that out. Think about the necktie in my image as a signal. You may need to take a step back from your usual efforts and examine what you’re sacrificing for success, and whether it’s worth it.

Spirituality & Growth: The Hanged Man is a spiritual pause. An in-between space where insight comes slowly and only after surrender. You’re being invited to see your own life from a new perspective, but you can’t force it. Let the discomfort be part of the process.

Family & Emotional Life: This card often appears when you’re carrying too much emotional labor in your relationships. You might be the one keeping things stable, fixing problems, or holding space for others. The Hanged Man asks what would happen if you stopped and allowed others to step into their own responsibility.

Closing Thought

The Hanged Man reminds us that transformation doesn’t always begin with movement. Sometimes it begins in suspension. It can be an awkward and uncomfortable feeling where nothing makes sense and nothing moves. It’s possible to stop long enough to see the world and ourselves from an entirely different angle…even upside down.

Tarot Card Gallery

Select a suit to explore the collection