We’ve all experienced it.
You turn over the Tower, or the Devil, or the Ten of Swords and you have that little (or, OK, sometimes big!) freak out.
Your heart starts beating, your head starts spinning with possibilities about what this means, what bad thing is going to happen, and from that place it’s virtually impossible to bring yourself back into an empowered state where you can look at your cards from a higher perspective.
Recently I’ve had a number of people contact me about readings they have done for themselves which haven’t felt good.
And because I know this is a thing that happens to many of us when we read for ourselves, I thought I’d sit down and let you know some of my thoughts on this.
My work is all about helping you to tune into your own guidance and so I hope this post can help you empower yourself and use your cards as a tool to help you move into the life of your dreams!
Your intuition + guidance is never going to “scare” you
Most of the time when we get that scary feeling during a reading, it’s not our Higher Self, Guides, Angels or inner knowing we are connecting with. It’s plain old ego-fear.
It’s thousands of years of conditioning that make us see images like the Devil (which is an image of the Pagan nature God Pan that the church made “evil” BTW) as evil, bad, negative and scary. We’ve been conditioned to fear Death. We live in a society (here in the west anyway!) where we rarely talk about or think about what happens after we die. We put it out of our minds and go about our days ignoring our own mortality. So it’s no wonder that when Death comes up we freak a little! Other cultures and people who are on the spiritual path find the Death card less scary, some people have no problem with it all! But generally, we fear change and we fear the unknown, this is deeply ingrained into us on a collective level.
So if you find those images scary, take a deep breath, you’re just the product of thousands of years of control, manipulation and disconnect from the spiritual.
OK, where was I? Yes, your guidance isn’t going to scare you.
If you are working with Angels or Spirit Guides or Ascended Masters or any other beings of light, they are literally never going to give you any guidance through a reading that would make you afraid. They are here to support you, to help you move through your physical human life with as much ease, grace, love and abundance as possible. Why the heck would your guardian angel pop in and freak you out? If it’s scary, it’s not from them. Same goes for your Higher Self and any other beings you work with.
Scary = not from your Guides and Angels
Usually the fear stuff is created in our own mind. Those cards bring our subconscious fears to the surface. We can choose to look at this as an opportunity to learn from and move through those fears when this happens. Or, if you’re not ready for that, or if you’re too freaked out in the moment, put the cards back, go do something else, smudge yourself if you like, and try again later.
Very occasionally negative energies can come through in our readings. I had this happen once and it was kinda creepy, but a good learning opportunity! You can avoid this by learning how to ground, clear and protect your energy.
Death from the Cosmic Tarot
Remember you have free will and create your own fate
We have been so programmed to believe that tarot and other forms of divination are “fortune telling tools”. But the only future the cards can show us is a potential one.
I only ever read for potential outcomes. In a reading I will say to you - this is potentially how this could go. But you have free will, you have the power to make changes to this if you don’t like the way things are looking.
You don’t need to be a psychic to work out how things are probably going to go. If you keep messing around with that guy/gal who’s treating you badly, what do you think is going to happen? If you hate your job, but you make no attempt to make things better or get a new job, what do you think is going to happen?
Most of the time predictive readings give us an opportunity to consider the path we are on, and they actually can, if we let them, empower us to make better choices for ourselves.
Predictive readings do however have the danger of becoming self-fulfilling if we don’t see them as simply one potential outcome.
There are of course some things in life we can’t control. It’s at those times we are called to look within and make our own choices for how we handle those things.
An empowered version of the Nine of Wands from the Moonchild Tarot
Reading “negative” cards in positive ways
This is something that comes up a lot for people. I had someone just last week ask me about a card in a reading using the New Year Spread. This person had pulled the Five of Swords as her theme of the year.
You can look at this in two ways - first off, that this is going to be a shitty year. There’s going to be lots of people around who want to take your stuff, take advantage of you, you’re going to lose, be a loser and end up crying on the beach. OR you can look at this is a message about standing in your power, not taking any shit, having strong healthy clear boundaries. That’s much more empowering right? This could be the year you begin to stand up for yourself, speak your truth (swords are all about truth!) and really stand in your power. Boom!
You can do this with any of the cards you feel are “negative”. Flip them to the positive of that card. Ten of Swords? The worst is now over! Two of Swords? Surrender and trust! Five of Pentacles? Finally see the truth of your financial situation, paying off debts and getting your money stuff sorted! See how that feels different?
Those are just some examples, make up your own! It may be a fun activity to go through your deck and write down a positive word or phrase for each card, especially the “negative” ones.
From the gorgeous Guided Hand Tarot
What to do next
So if you’re having a freak out, or feeling like your reading is negative and feeling bummed, here’s a couple of things you can do:
Journal. Journal out all the feelings your having about this reading, you may find that actually it’s helping you see something really important or that it’s not so negative after all!
Ask a friend for a second opinion. If you have card slinging friends send them a WhatsApp. Or come into the free Spiritual Journey Pitstop group and share your reading for some advice from a bunch of high vibe souls.
Put the cards back in the deck, shuffle and pop it on your altar, under a crystal, out in the sunlight, moonlight or whatever feels good. Give it and yourself a smudge or a spray with some essential oils and go do something else that will lift your spirits. Watch your fave TV show, play some peppy music or make tea.
If you are reading on something quite big and it’s knocked you for six, get a professional reader to take a look. You can get a reading with me or any other reader you vibe with and see what they can pick up for you. Sometimes we are just too close and too emotionally connected to see clearly.
Give yourself a break. I’ve been reading professionally for years now, but there are still moments I turn over a card and gives me that moment of “urgh, whyyy?” But the more I’ve worked with my cards, the more I know now how the universe speaks to me. Most of the time when I pull the Tower it means clean the office, sort out your closet, get to inbox zero. When I pull the Devil it can just mean I’m not eating well enough or checking my phone too much!
It’s time we started reading our cards in a more empowered way, take back our power and create our own fate.
I hope this post helps you to feel more confident in reading for yourself. Let me know in the comments if you have questions, I always check these weekly so I will get back to you. :)
With so much love, light and empowered reading,
Vix
x
And if you’re looking for Tarot Spreads to practice with they are all around this blog, and you can also check out my free e-book Tarot Spreads You Can’t Live Without! :)
