The Wisdom of the Cards: A Deep Dive into Therapeutic Tarot Reading and Self-Understanding
Using TAROT AND ORACLE CARDS TO SELF REFLECT, MAKE DECISIONS AND MOVE INTO POWERFUL LIVING.
In a world brimming with noise and chaos, it's easy to lose touch with our inner selves. We often seek guidance and clarity outside of us, ignoring the vast reservoir of wisdom that resides within. Tarot cards and oracle cards are often misunderstood as mere tools for fortune-telling and divination. However, they can be potent instruments for self-reflection, helping us embark on a journey of personal insight and intuition development.
The Art of Introspection
Intuition is like a soft, flickering candle in the darkness of uncertainty. It's the quiet voice that guides us when we're at a crossroads, unsure of our next steps. It is, and will always be our only source of truth. Before we can even begin to nurture this inner wisdom, we must explore our own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, which on the whole can feel a bit overwhelming! Where do we start? What do we ask? What do we investigate vs ignore? With so many options and unknowns we are all to likely to abandon any attempts and inner work and grab the remote for a Netflix sesh instead.
Enter, Tarot and oracle cards! They serve as mirrors that reflect our inner world, illuminating what lies in the shadows and revealing potential pathways forward. And let’s be honest, they are fun to play with, beautiful to look at and can make the whole act of doing some internal excavating feel more like a game
Something to note: before delving into the realm of self-reflection, it's important to distinguish between tarot cards and oracle cards. Tarot cards, with their rich history and symbolism, consist of 78 cards divided into the Major and Minor Arcana. They often follow a structured system and are renowned for their depth and complexity. Oracle cards, on the other hand, come in various forms and are typically more loosely structured. They offer a wide range of themes and imagery, making them ideal for personalized interpretation. What do I use? Both! I feel they have distinct strengths and by combining them we are able to get a really detailed picture of what’s what and identify some ways forward.
Shining a Light Inwards:
When we use tarot or oracle cards for self-reflection, we are essentially turning our attention inward. We draw cards not to predict the future, but to gain a deeper understanding of our current circumstances. Each card serves as a unique perspective, inviting us to explore our emotions, beliefs, and intentions. There is so much to consider when getting started, below I’ll highlight some of my favourite tips and tricks to get you started.
Asking the Right Questions: To use these cards effectively for self-reflection, one must ask open-ended questions that encourage exploration. Questions like "What is the lesson I need to learn from this situation?" or "What emotions are hidden within me?" are more likely to yield insightful responses than a question such as “Should I take this job?”
Trusting Your Intuition: As you draw cards, trust your intuition. Your initial emotional response to a card often holds valuable insights. Do not rush to find interpretations in guidebooks; your intuition is the compass on this journey. As a starting point go with what comes to mind initially as you explore the card. Then, supplement this knowledge or guide further thinking by what comes up in the guidebook.
Reflecting on Symbols and Imagery: Both tarot and oracle cards are filled with symbolism. Take your time to explore the imagery on each card. What resonates with you? What memories or feelings does it evoke? What do the colours, shapes and symbols make you feel? If you were to create a story based only on what you see, what would that story be?
Journaling Your Insights: Keep a journal to record your card draws, questions, and personal interpretations. This practice can help you track your progress and gain clarity over time. You can jot down notes in a paper journal, or create a digital file on your phone. I like to use the notes app on my phone to include a photo of the spread and whatever came up for me: a-ha moments, questions I have or guidance I received.
Illuminating the Shadows & Pathways Forward:
Tarot and oracle cards act as a flashlight in the dark corners of our subconscious. They help us confront aspects of our lives that we might otherwise ignore. Through self-reflection, we can face our fears, address unresolved issues, and understand the complexities of our emotions. The ultimate purpose of using tarot and oracle cards for self-reflection is to find pathways forward. These cards do not provide definitive answers; instead, they offer possibilities and perspectives. As you become more attuned to your intuition, you will discover the power to make informed decisions and take actions aligned with your true self.
In a world inundated with external distractions, it is crucial to take the time to explore the uncharted territory within ourselves. Tarot and oracle cards are not mystical crystal balls, but powerful tools for personal growth and intuition development. By using them as mirrors of self-reflection, we can unlock the wisdom that resides within, illuminate what's hidden in the shadows, and pave our own unique pathways forward. In the process, we discover the true magic lies within us all along.
GET SUPPORT:
If you're inspired to embark on this journey of self-discovery through tarot and oracle cards, I invite you to consider my Therapeutic Tarot Sessions. These 90-minute sessions combine a personalized tarot and oracle reading with a deeply meaningful spiritual coaching experience. The coaching that follows the reading is an integral part of the process, ensuring that you are fully supported in taking the insights gained forward to create lasting and positive changes in your life.
To learn more about these transformative sessions and how they can illuminate your path to self-discovery click here.
It's time to explore the wisdom within and begin your journey towards a more authentic and intuitive life.
THIS IS SOUL THERAPY, EPISODE 6:
-
Mind, body, spirit. This is Soul Therapy, and I'm your host, Jen Hully. We are diving into the world of tarot and oracle cards and having a conversation about how these tools can actually become incredibly life-changing in terms of developing our self-awareness, our intuition and learning to live mindfully. Tarot, tarot, tarot. We're finally doing the tarot episode that I keep saying we're going to do an episode about tarot and then I keep not doing it. There's a reason, I think, when you you know the things we were saying last week that you avoid are actually the things you need to lean into, and I guess I'm like outing myself as a tarot reader right now and just saying like, hey, this is what I do and I've been doing it for over two years now, reading tarot cards on a daily basis. I was having a conversation with somebody recently about like how my self-care routines are always changing and in flux and there's nothing I do every single day, and then I was like that's not true. I read tarot cards every single day and I read them for myself, and sometimes I read them for my friends or family and sometimes I read them for strangers. I have taken them to restaurants and read for the server serving me and my friend and I just sort of have been doing this in secret, but it has been such a life changing process for me and I believe so firmly in the value of these cards. A Teracle cards, tarot or Oracle cards, teracle oh my God, can I invent something like a card set and call it my Teracle set? That's amazing. I love it. Yeah, so this week we're talking about how you can start using tarot and Oracle cards. I'm going to share my journey over the last two years and what I believe they can do and can't do, and maybe we'll look at a couple cards in depth. This is probably the first of a few series or a few episodes in a series. There's so much tarot is. I believe that it's like a topic that you'll never know everything Right. Last week we were talking about the books sparked by Jonathan Fields and my types. I am a maker Maven, which means I have a fundamental need to create and take ideas and make them manifest, but the, you know, the channel that I need to do that through is through like this insatiable quest for knowledge and learning, and tarot cards are like the only thing that you're. There's always more to learn, there's always more to learn, and I think that's been a big barrier for me in terms of like stepping out and saying this is what I do, this is how I believe they help people and this is how I want to work with them. And work with people is this belief that, like I have to know everything before I can do it, and that's bullshit. It's bullshit in any area of life, but, like specifically with tarot cards, because there's just so much in them. There's so much you can like, link it up to astrology, and then there's imagery that looks, you know, that reaches across different religions as well as gods and goddesses and mythology. There's so much. There's Freudian, there's Jungian, there's oh my God, color theory, like there's just a lot in them. But it all started I was going to say it all started when my friend gave me a deck for my birthday, but really it started before that, because she had a deck and I was like so jealous Somebody gave her one. I was like I want one, I want one so badly and I don't know why I didn't go buy one. But she is connected to me quite intuitively, so I think she picked up on my vibes and showed up with one for me on my birthday two years ago a bit, but I say that's when it started. But, like, my obsession or fixation with like fortune telling goes way, way back. It goes back to when I was a child and you'd make those, like those little things that go on your hands. You know they're. They're like four squares, it's paper. You fold fortune tellers right and you would go like one, two, three, four and you would open it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I apologize and if you do, thank you, because I don't think I can describe them any clearer. But like that and mash and horoscopes and all those things, as a kid I was just fascinated with this like concept of magic and that there's this mystery and there's these forces that can tell your future and whatnot Do I believe that they tell your future now? Yes and no, I don't believe. I feel like they can give you a hint as to what's coming up and they can give you a little bit of a tap on the shoulder and be like this is something to just like be aware of. But I believe that there's so many moving parts in life for ourselves in terms of free will and action and choice, as well as all the infinite people that we're interacting with. That like. Your path is constantly shape shifting and changing, so it can give you a snapshot of like what is possible right now, but little micro movements and decisions you make the next day can completely alter your course. What I feel like they're most beneficial for really is to develop conversations with yourself and to get a real deep understanding and awareness of what's going on, how you're feeling, things that you want and don't want, and they can guide you to have these like excavating type conversations with yourself or with the people that you're reading, in a way that we dance around things. We dance around certain issues, our brains really good at avoiding stuff that's uncomfortable, but the cards do not do that. The cards just pull you right into the center of what needs to be discussed and like. So I said like I started with myself, as I was learning them, just reading a card a day and I slowly built up to reading friends in depth with my own intuitive spreads, not using like a spread from a book or anything. And the biggest thing that I've seen yes, they're great at developing intuition and helping us make decisions and living mindfully and making sure that we're like on the road to the path that we want to be going down, but they're also great for hang on. My dog is just barking like crazy one sec. I don't know if you can hear that, but I, like one hundo, cannot converse, conversate, I cannot concentrate or have a conversation when my dog is going bananas downstairs and it was probably like a leaf that just blew by the window. Anyways, what I was saying was, yes, they developed this depth and this relationship and this really deep knowing. But they also set the table for challenging conversations, and I firmly believe that change is always on the other side of discomfort. So I don't feel that tarot cards will sit down and be like this is you know, this is painful and this is that and this is happening and where are you doing? You know they're not going to give you all the answers, but they're going to put the plates on the table and they're going to invite you to sit down and look at what's on those plates or what you could put on those plates. So I say, yes, it sets the table for a therapeutic conversation and introspection, right. So let's just start at the beginning. Let's start at how Tarot cards helped me develop introspection and what you can do. If you would like to get started reading these, go buy a deck. Like, don't wait for someone to buy you a deck. I was really lucky. My friend bought me like the most amazing beautiful deck where the pictures are all collage art and really like surrealist looking. I just I freaking love them. I use the Muse Tarot deck by Chris Ann. It follows like the traditional setup with, like, it has the major arcana and the minors We'll talk about what that is and it has a little book. Every deck always comes with a book right. That gives you some insight into what these cards mean. And there's tons of books that you can buy right, like traditional Tarot card reading books. I have two that I've been using over the last few years, but the one I use, the Muse, takes a little bit of a different interpretation of some of the cards. So I've always felt that having these more traditional books to sort of supplement it have been quite helpful. But yeah, let's just. Let's start with how you get started. Okay, you get yourself a deck, you get yourself a little book and you shuffle the cards and you pull one every single day that's how I got started was just one card every day. I always asked what do I need to know today, what do I need to be made aware of? And shuffle them. I can't shuffle like those people on TikTok where cards are flying out. My hands are small, I got bad grip, so I shuffle in a way that feels good. A little side note when you get into Tarot, there's all these things in books and recommendations that are like you have to sit it out in the moonlight or cover it in salt or blah, blah, blah. Clear your deck, do you or don't you? I don't know. You'll know if you need to do those things. I don't believe that. There's rules, hard and fast rules that you must do step one, two, three or will never work right. So you take what resonates and leave what doesn't right. But there's nothing wrong with going and buying your own deck, not sitting it out in the moonlight and just literally like opening it and getting going with it. They always say people always say like, take time to get to know the deck, go through all the cards, read the book. I don't work like that. I don't read instructions when I build things. But if you are one of those people that likes to do that, look at all the cards. I mean I looked at them because the artwork was beautiful and I was like I wanna know what these are. But I didn't sit and read every single card when it first came, because there are 78 cards in the deck that's a lot and each card has an infinite number of like questions, prompts, things to think about, storylines, possibilities that like if you sit down and you're like I'm gonna memorize this book before I get started, you'll never get started. So do what you need to do to feel comfortable. But I started by just reading a card a day and I always read it at the end of the day, and the reason I did that was like I didn't wanna put a lens on my belief for, like what might happen. Like I didn't wanna pull a card that was about like grief and sadness and then be like, oh my God, I'm gonna have a day where, like something bad's gonna happen. Like I have like a healthy dose of paranoia and anxiety in my own personality. So like I didn't wanna be using it to force shadow. I wanted to be using it to self reflect at the end of the day and look at like okay, how did this concept affect me today? Or how is this affecting me at this point in my life? And I would just shuffle, ask the universe and be like what do I need to know today? What do you like? What needs to be brought to my attention? And some people cut the deck three times, pull one from the top. I spread the cards out and I feel pulled. It's almost like a card makes eye contact with me, and I do this when I'm reading people. I don't shuffle, cut and then just pull sequentially from the deck. I pull one and I look at it, I ask a following question and then, like, get pulled to another. It's weird to say like the cards make eye contact with me, but that's the only way I can describe it Is that like it looks at me and I'm like that's where I'm going and I would do that. I just sort of spread them out and look and be like, okay, that's the one that's calling my name. I have a friend who just will run their hand over it and she'll feel like which one has heat or energy coming off of it? There's. You have to develop your own language with your cards and that, I think, is the crux of how these tools are so important and effective because you have to develop your method. What happens or what do you feel inside your body to let you know that that is the card that you're going to Not like? What sequence of shuffling and rearranging and tapping do I need to do to know that the card that I pick is the right one? It's immediately gonna ask you to go inward and be like what does a yes feel like for you and what does a yep go this way, like a direction feel like for you? So my method was like I said, I would wait for a card to make eye contact, which you're probably like what the fuck? Cards don't have eyes, but that's what it feels like in my head. It's like one of them's looking at me and I would pull the card and I would go to the book Immediately. I would go to the book and I would read the keywords about the book, the prompt and the little blurb that was in there and if, initially, I would then go online, like there's a website called Biddy Tarot and then Labyrinthos, where I would just read about what that card looks like in terms of love, money, career, health, finances, and get a little overview of what that card represents from a lot of different viewpoints, and then I would self-reflect and be like, how? How did that theme come into my day today? And there's always a way. There is always a way, and Sometimes things would come up and you'd be like, oh, I don't know, like I don't know what that is, or that didn't impact me. That's the invitation to go a little deeper and to really think about it, and Sometimes nothing comes up right with the meaning, and so then you just look at the cards and you go like what is this picture? What do I see in this picture? What am I being called towards? Maybe it's not what's in the book, but maybe it's the look on the person's face or something that the person's holding in their hand. It reminds you of something you know that's happened in your day. The process is to, like I said, build that secret language between yourself and your cards, and there's no right or wrong way to do this. But you know the wrong way I mean that's not true. There is the wrong way to do this is to like do it once and then like, leave it again for like months and then be like I'm gonna do it again. You need to do it consistently and, like I did every single day. I think I did this every single day for a year Before I started reading for other people, and even when I started reading for other people, I would only do single cards, which is baby stepping it, because it's there's so much that can be really overwhelming, being like different spreads. And how do the cards relate to each other? You know, relate to each other. The card deck, for those that are unaware, is like split into what they call major and minor. Major Cards major arcana are cards that are like the lovers, the tower, the chariot, the moon, temperance, like they're one word. And then the miners are the ones that have like a number and there's four suits. There's wands, swords, cups and pentacles and depending on your deck, they may have different words but they cycle like a deck of cards. It goes like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten page Night queen king. So there's like the little people cards. I don't know what those are called, I don't play card games, but you know what I mean. The minor ones have those numbers and those things associated with them in the four suits and the big difference between the two is that the major cards represent big life themes and changes when the minor ones are more like the day-to-day things that are going on in your life. So if you pull a card like the lovers, or the tower or the chariot, it's like this is a theme that's probably impacting you across your whole life and right now and will be for the next little while, and some of them look scary. Like there's a card in there, it's like the tower and it's literally like Lightning crashing into a tall building and people jumping off the building and you're like they look, like they're like plunging to their death and there's a card called death and there's a card called the devil. Right. So there are cards that are scary but they're not actually scary. Like there are no negative cards. There are just cards that deal with challenging Experiences and challenging emotions, and we shouldn't be afraid to pull a card like the death card, because In the, in tarot, death just represents endings. It can be like leaving a job, leaving a relationship, letting go of an old idea of yourself or a goal, and nobody exists without that. You can't be a human without engaging in that kind of dynamic. So there are no bad cards. There are just challenging emotions and experiences that it's asking us to focus on, and you know we like to avoid those things. That's why I say tarot cards and oracle cards are so effective at guiding us. Side note right now I'm just talking about tarot. I will explain what oracle cards are, maybe in another Episode or later, depending on you know how long we ramble on about this. But tarot are those traditional cards that have those numbers like the fool, tower, chariot, temperance, empress, the emperor, and then the suit cards. Oracle cards are cards that are a little more. They can be abstract, there's a little bit of creative interpretation. They don't follow the suits. They might just say things like happiness, freedom, flow, like they're more about, like just themes, and there's a lot of wiggle room in terms of how those are, you know, applied or just not described, depicted in the cards. And I have both. I have one set of tarot cards, I have two sets of oracle cards one that's like a really deep dive life lens look and one that is more like I need an immediate solution, immediate recommendation. And then I have a fun one that I picked up about called the success oracle, which is kind of Just for shits and giggles. But I don't use that one as much, but I do, you know if we're talking specifically about work. But, as I was saying, they are such a good tool if you want to develop introspection, because there's some magic about them too. Right, like, yes, you're going to pull cards. It's a little bit random, but you may find, especially if you do this every day and I don't mean you may you will find that you will pull like the same card over and over and over. It doesn't matter how many times you shuffle, and that's like the universe being like hello, are you listening? Like hello, hello. Like they know they, they will bring out what needs to be brought out. And I said that recently when I was reading for some friends on like a girl's night. I said do not ask for a reading if there's something going on in your life that you're not comfortable talking about with me or in front of the people at this table, because we were all sitting around, because if there's shit going on, it will come up. There's no way to dance around it. So, like you have to be aware that that's, that's a potential right and that's why, like practicing in the safety of like your own space, like just having that conversation with yourself, can be helpful, or getting a reading from somebody, one to one versus in a group is really a way to sort of like dip your toe into that. But so they're good at introspection, they're good at asking yourself questions, like I said, and looking at it and I would just like I would pull a card every day Like how is this impacting my life? Okay, death, like what am I being asked to let go of in my life right now? What has died off and disappeared and what role has that played? Like, how has that impacted me? And it's, they're great for journal prompts, even right, if you want to. Or art prompts you want to sit down and make a piece of art. How has this theme been represented in your life for the last you know, six months or a week or a day? Or writing, like I said, journal it out Like right, you know really good talking points and if you're reading yourself, that conversation is with yourself. Or if you're getting a reading with someone like me or someone else, it's that conversation with that person and that sort of leads into. My next point is like where I'm at in my life with them right now is that I so see the therapeutic value in these cards because I mean, like I'm like, how can I explain this succinctly without talking for an hour? But they set the table for challenging, sometimes difficult conversations and they ask us to look at things in ways that we may not have been looking at them in the past. And they may ask us to look at things that we may have not been looking at at all. And they ask us to self reflect. And they can be relentless and they can be honest and raw, but they are always guiding us forward to a space that we need to be in. And I'll use an example of the conversation that I had with my friends recently. We sat down and I was doing readings for people and, like, I cried at one point. Sometimes I get really like emotional feedback or body feedback. I'll get like goosebumps, or I will like feel the emotion of the person that I'm reading, as I know I'm getting to like, okay, I'm about to say something that's going to hit home and it's like really important for them. And it wasn't crying because, like I said, terrible things were happening. It was just this release of emotion and experiences that needed to come out, and the conversation that followed was incredibly supportive and just launched into this whole depth of talking about our experiences and our existence and our hopes and dreams, and like realities in a way that wouldn't have happened without the cards setting the stage for us, and these moments of like discomfort or emotional release. That's the shit that changes the game for us. That's the moment that, like the wound is exposed, the air can come out to cleanse and heal and repair it. And I think we often shy away from these. You know, we shy away from our shit because it's sometimes painful, right, but if we don't actually look at and talk about what's going on in our lives, we can't make any changes, we can't make any different decisions. We're just going to keep going on autopilot. And whenever somebody comes to me for a reading, it's never like, oh, just tell me what's going to happen next week. It's usually like there's something deeper going on. I will say like oh, ask me about my relationship or talk to me about work, and it's there's like a hidden request in that request and it always comes out. And it always comes out in a way, like I said, that facilitates a conversation, that highlights things that the you know the receiver of the reading might be ignoring or not seeing or not considering, and it provides solutions too right, like the way I read. I said I don't do you know six cards, this, and that I just we ask questions. We pull a card, give me clarification, give me another card. What does this person need to know? What is the, you know, the barrier between them and where they want to be now? What are the solutions? What are the suggestions? It's very personalized. Sometimes a reading can be three cards and the message is out and that's all that we need to get the conversation flowing. And sometimes there's like 16 cards because it might be complicated. So it's very personalized and intuitively guided. And I think I've only got to that point of being able to use tarot intuitively because I've been practicing for two years and sort of practicing in a way that has helped me develop my own intuition, right, like the initially, like what card do I feel pulled to? All those little micro learnings have brought me to the space where I am now, where I know that I can read somebody and get to the crux of what they need to hear. Sometimes it's challenging because stuff will come up and I'm like, ooh, I don't want to say this, not because it's mean, but because I'm like this could. This will be hard. This will be a hard conversation to have, but the thing I have learned, specifically in the last six months, is that there is such a breath of fresh air after that hard conversation has taken place and it just opens up so many possibilities. I remember reading a waitress. Once went to a restaurant with my friend and I was like I'm going to bring my cards. I've never done that side note. I just heard in my head bring your cards, you're going to read the waitress. And I was like what? And I was in this phase where I'm and I'm still in this phase where I'm working on intuitive obedience If a thought pops in my head that I'm supposed to do something, I do it, even if it doesn't make sense. And we were reading each other, my friend and I at the table and the waitress came over and she was like oh my God, do you read tarot? And I was like, yeah, do you want me to read you? And she was like yep, and I have like a full body blackout at this point. I don't really remember what happens, because when I read, I kind of am there, but like information is coming into my head. I feel like it's downloading or channeling I'm not too sure what word to put on it but the information it's almost like a tap has been opened and it's just like stuff is flowing into my head that consciously I'll be like this doesn't make sense because I don't know this person. So I'm just sort of saying it and I'm telling this story based on these cards that are in front of me and making these recommendations and saying like I think this and this and this, and all I remember at the end was the woman saying like thank you so much. She was like I so needed to hear that today. You have no idea and I don't know what I said, I can't remember because it's like gone after, but she was just so fulfilled and like almost like she had been given an energetic hug because whatever came through was exactly what she needed to hear in that moment. And that is the power of these cards is that you're only going to get what you need to hear in that moment, and sometimes it's easy information, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's challenging, sometimes it's reassuring, redirecting, affirming whatever, but you will get what you need through these cards if you're open to considering the questions that are coming forward. And so, for me, tarot cards is not so much about predicting the future right, they're not a divination tool for me. Some people will say they are. They're like predicting. Like you're going to meet this guy at the coffee shop next week, is going to offer you money and you're going to like you're going to go on vacation, like. For me, that's not what they are. They are a deep and profoundly therapeutic tool that we can use to heal ourselves and move forward, and I am so excited to be offering this type of work with people. Now I've got a link on my website where I'm offering therapeutic tarot sessions. If anything we're talking about in this episode sounds like something you'd like to dive into, where, yes, we do a reading and it's personalized and you get like a combination of tarot cards and Oracle cards and we dive into something that's going on in your life. But it's paired with this very deep therapeutic conversation where we hold space together for this issue to come forward, for this crossroads or this question that you have, and talk about it in depth and move to a point you know, move through the issue so that we come to a point where there's personalized recommendations for you at the end and personalized resources and you go away with a plan, so to speak, on how to move forward. Not just this like read and dump room like this is what's happening, okay, bye, go figure it out. Because I've had readings like that multiple, where they just tell you all this shit that's going to happen in your life, but then don't give you advice on how to work through it, and I feel like that's only addressing half of the issue but also only stepping into like half of the power of these cards. So, with therapeutic tarot, I hope to have, you know, therapeutic talking conversations, creating, like I said, a safe space, a container to work through these issues. But using these cards, these tarot cards and these Oracle cards to give guidance and to guide the conversation, I really believe it's like pulling on a higher power, whether you believe in, like Yoda, santa Claus, god, the universe, gaia, whatever you want to call it. I believe that these cards open up the telephone lines right to receive some sort of wisdom and insight that that person needs at that point in time. Like I said, I still read my own cards every single day for this reason, because they know, they know, they know, they know, they know, they know what is in your heart, they know what is in your soul, they know what is in your mind and they have this way of like pulling it all together and it's nothing to be scared of. Like I said, no one's going to read, you know, I mean not no one. There are bad readers out there like side notes. Stay away from tick tock. Stay away from the tick tock cards where, like readers, where the cards are coming out so fast and they have their message prepared before they're actually looking at the cards. That's something that I see happening a lot and I'm like you're not even reading the cards that are up there. You're just telling this story that is got a hook and it's emotional and it might be about love or money, and then people are going to follow. So be a really conscious consumer of your content. When you're online and I say this because, like I remember getting so hooked onto these like tarot readings that run tick tock I was like, oh my god, they're saying this and this, and then I was like, hold up, I can read my own damn cards. Like, what is this? You know? Low and slow, I think, is the way to go with this. Right, it's not about like cards flying out of the deck. Sometimes that happens shuffling, one of them will fly out, and that's where you know, like, yes, a card is meant to be read, but, like when there's a lot of like fanfare and explosions and visual distractions with the readings online, you have to kind of question the intention of the reader. And for myself as a reader, like I said, my intention is always honesty, creating a safe space and creating a container to guide a conversation that is going to move you forward in some aspect of your life. And I think that might be a good spot to stop today, because there's so much that we could talk about. Maybe one will do an oracle like an oracle reading, or an oracle not a reading, like an episode about oracle cards and how I use oracle cards on top of tarot. I use them as like clarifiers or like strategies. I'll just like give you a little little blurb about it now. I use the tarot cards to give the reading and to set the table and to be like this is kind of the map or the overall storyline, and then I'll bring in the oracle cards to provide like an overarching lens that has more of advice on it. Okay, like what energy or strategy does a person maybe need to lean into what bigger picture could be operating those kind of things? I use them to dive a little bit further and I think, maybe, like I want to do episodes where we talk about each card and what can be learned from the cards and maybe that'll be next week Like, maybe we'll talk about, we'll go through the major arcana cards and talk about, like, not even an order, talk about, like what the chariot means. You know, we could talk about the fool. In fact, let's do that, let's talk about the fool before we go, before we wrap up, because the fool is the beginning of the deck and if you're listening to this episode, perhaps you are the fool at the beginning of your journey with what tarot can do for you in your life. And it's number 00. It's a major arcana card. Funny enough, it's a card that I'm pulling a lot recently and I pull it like almost every day and I'm like, okay, okay, I got it, I know, I know. And it doesn't mean like you fool, like you're stupid. It doesn't mean that at all. The fool is. So there's a storyline, I guess that goes through Tarot, that I didn't mention All the cards when you put them in sequence tell this story of this main character going through life's trials and tribulations. And that's why, when the cards come out together, they tell a story and they set the table of your life, because they pull in major elements that we all go through in human as a human existence. But the fool is the character right and the card 00 is like right at the beginning and it's this concept of like a blank page, like you're just going off into the unknown, and it's a complete fresh start in everything. And there's a lot to be learned from the fool, because there's always fear and there's anxiety and there's this need to like leap first, look later. Right, like, not recklessly. But this concept of like the leap in the net will appear on the card that I'm looking. There's this like little gap in her pathway. There's like these stairs going up and she's going off into the distance. It looks like sand. And then there's like a little gap where it's like if she fell through the gap she would fall down into the abyss. But there's on the other side there is more sand. But behind this gap is this like huge starburst of like the universe, like I've got your back and for me that's the message of the fool card is that there is such power in being a beginner and there is such freedom in being at the beginning phases of something because you're not restrained or constricted by rules, expectations, how things have to be. It's having so much opportunity and options and pathways in front of you but also that can be debilitating because if we have so much choice and so much ended you know, open ended opportunity, we can get into that choice paralysis state where we're like I'm not moving, I'm not moving. So if I, if we had pulled the fool card in a reading, I would be asking the person to look at aspects of their life where they feel like they're starting over, or they feel like they want to start over, or what aspects are coming up and say it was a career reading, what's happening in your career right now. That's making you feel like you're a bit on unsteady ground, that you don't have all the answers. But maybe there's a bit of excitement in that and there's lessons. Like I said, there are lessons to be learned with the fool. There are lessons and there are self reflection questions, like I just asked. But you know, we can sometimes gain a lot by saying like when we go into a scenario being like I'm going to be the fool, I'm going to embrace potential and new beginnings and freedom. There's almost innocence, too, because you don't know everything, like your brain is just this, or your experience is so open that you don't have beliefs that might be limiting, right and so and it's representative of this like infinite potential that's in all of us and it's this source energy. When we think of like the universe or how we exist, our soul, it's like that little apple seed that's in the middle of the core that has the potential to grow and become anything a tree and apple. Like all of that, right, it's this fresh beginning that is free from so many restrictions, expectations, and it's like the seed of adventure and change, right? So when we look at the fool, like I said, it's looking at like what would you do? It's like what is happening in your life that creates that space. But also like what would you do if you had nothing in your way, if you could wipe part of your life, you know the slate clean. Like maybe you're not experiencing it just yet, but like what would you do if you could have that? Where would you want to have that in your life and it asks us to be curious and to look at how we can embrace more curiosity and wonder in our life and how we can maybe look at things with eyes of like a child or somebody who doesn't have all the answers, because when we go into things with that mindset and that state of being, we're open to anything. Right, we're open to anything because we don't have anything to fear, because we don't know what needs to be feared. So the fool is a really amazing card to pull Again, one of those words where I was like, can we not call it the fool Like, because the word fool has such a different connotation now in modern life. But it's a very powerful card to be pulling and if I pull it for myself or someone else, I know I get excited because I'm like there are really really good things coming, all right. So that's it. I'm going to wrap up there this week, because I could talk for hours on tarot and just remind you that, yep, therapeutic tarot sessions are now a thing. They're about 90 minutes, they can be recorded if you like, and it includes a very personalized custom, intuitive reading using tarot cards, oracle cards centered around a theme in your life. You can get more details on my website. I will put the link in the show notes and your friendly reminder. If you're liking this podcast, please consider an energetic exchange by giving a rating, a review, subscribing or sharing it with somebody else. All right, I'll see you next week and I'll see you next week.
