The cards have spoken… Unfortunately
The Tarot deck can be the most delightful best friend in the world, a brilliant hype woman and exceptional life coach, until suddenly it isn’t. Until you get a card that is showing you something that you just don’t want to see. Perhaps your heart has already started tripping merrily down some path and you’re so excited for the potential of where it will lead, and you decide to check with the Tarot (just to see that the cards are just excited as you!) and they’ve come in with a card that is not what you want to see.. You know the cards I mean (*cough* they’re mostly swords) but they indicate that this path you already have a foot in the direction of, might actually be full of booby traps.
If you’ve been shuffling and pulling cards for about the same time as a lot of us (since the pandemic?) then I would place a bet that you already know this feeling. It happens to us all at some point. So, what do you do when the Tarot does not match your level of excitement for an opportunity or a decision you are facing?
Obviously your first instinct is likely going to be to reshuffle right? Because perhaps you weren’t clearly thinking of the question when you shuffled the cards? Or maybe you didn’t shuffle them the way you usually do? You can’t really be sure, so maybe it’s just best to ignore that one and start over, pull another? Being a bit more careful this time.
This option I think its extra appealing if you’re tired and don’t have a lot of time for sitting with the message of the cards. You were just stopping by for a quick hype moment. Wanting to say hi to your friends the Empress, Two of Cups, or The Lovers. You did not come for a ‘we need to talk’ with the three of swords!
Obviously our most enlightened selves knows that it’s best not to reshuffle the cards though. There is of course a reason a deck contains all 78 cards and not just our favourite handful, and if we truly value the source of information that the Tarot is then we need to respect the messages it chooses to show us. So, what do we do?
I think to begin with, let’s all just say its ok to feel disappointment. It sucks when the gas is let out of our balloon. So maybe you need to sit with that for a minute and if you don’t have the headspace to interrogate the message right there and then, leave the cards out, or take a photo of them, and come back to them later when you do.
When you are ready to look at the message from the cards then I would advise getting a pen and paper out and writing down what you asked the cards and the card you drew. Then below that start to write down the messages that come through for you. This will allow you to remind yourself what you actually asked and how this card specifically relates to that question. Most importantly it will stop you from asking the cards the exact same question again tomorrow!
My next tip is to ask for more information. Think of questions that will really help you to glean more information about what exactly the Tarot is trying to inform you about in this situation.
Here are some general suggestions of follow up questions that I find useful;
What are the pros and cons of this situation/choice etc?
What is out of alignment for this situation/choice?
How aligned is this situation/choice?
How am I showing up and how are they showing up in this scenario?
What is the best possible outcome for this situation/choice?
What can I do to improve the outcome of this situation/choice?
How will I feel if I pursue this situation/choice?
What will I learn from pursuing this situation/choice?
How will I grow from pursuing this situation/choice?
Asking more questions allows you to acknowledge the first card that the Tarot gave you, and then build upon it, to help give you a deeper understanding of the likely outcome. Let’s be very honest, you may still not like the answers that the Tarot is giving you, but it’s harder to ignore if you’re getting a consistent message across several questions and you are forming a more solid picture in your mind.
At the end of the day, the most profound advice I have for you if you don’t like the information the Tarot is giving you, is you have free will to do what you want to do, so you can take on board that information and then follow your own heart/gut/intellect as you desire. I have to say I have done this plenty of times. Have I looked back afterwards and said oh yeah… the Tarot did warn me about this.. yes of course! Do I regret it. Honestly not really. Life is for living and the Tarot is an incredibly useful source of information but at the end of the day, you can’t give away all your power to an outside source.
I remember getting a Tarot reading in my early twenties where she very firmly told me my boyfriend at the time cared for me but did not love me. Brutal, especially because I don’t think I actually asked for a love reading! But in her defence I have no doubt it was the big energetic elephant in the room! I left there in tears and then proceeded to travel and move to the UK with said boyfriend, leaving all friends and family behind. Did it end it more tears? You bet. Would I change it? Absolutely not, it took me to London (my number one place in the world according to astrocartography!) and led me to start a clean slate and live out some of the happiest years of my life.
My point is Tarot is great, but so is living your life. So after asking some good quality questions and gleaning what information you can, if you think you are well resourced enough to deal with the consequences, then just follow your heart! Date that bad boy/girl/they/them, quit your job and move to another country (maybe not all three at once?).
Of course it is always a little difficult to remain unbiased when reading for yourself and especially on a topic you care a lot about. So, my other hot tip is to go to a professional reader for their take on the situation. I love to explore these types of questions and scenarios (I’m a pisces, I love love, and just living life for the plot in general) So if the cards have given you a message you don’t know what to do with, then please reach out or book a reading so we can get into the nitty gritty of what’s going on/coming up for you!