Reading for Yourself - Common Problems and Helpful Solutions
Reading for yourself is not only something you can do, but something that is an integral part of using tarot for our own spiritual
and personal development. When you can lay a spread for yourself, and recognize how all the cards relate to you - positive and negative - then you really know yourself, and knowing yourself is a big step toward loving yourself, making the best use of your strengths, and being able to improve other areas of your life.
Yet, many tarot readers have difficulty reading for themselves. In this article we will look at some of the reasons why this may happen, and also at some solutions to these problems. There are several reasons why
readers may have trouble reading for themselves, and the solutions to these differ. Knowing why it is happening will help you figure out what to do about it.
First of all, the spread may be too large. The larger and more complex it is, the harder it can be to make sense out of things, particularly when you are first learning and when you are emotionally close to the subject. There's a kind of information overload that can make the other problems listed below even worse. Practice reading for yourself by starting small - pull one card for a week, and then when the week is over, spend some time thinking about how that card came into play in your life. Don't worry that you don't have any idea what the card means when you pull it - you'll know by the end of the week! If you do this continually and faithfully, eventually you will come to know which cards show up for you most often and what they are connected with in your own life.
If you see a neat spread that you really want to try, but it is bigger than those you are used to using, try simplifying it - for example, the hourglass spread could be simplified to a 3-card or 5-card spread.
This may be more manageable at first then jumping in and trying to do a large reading for yourself. Similarly, when reading for yourself, use a deck you really know, that feels comfortable and familiar. Save experimenting with new decks for easier situations.
A different problem is not giving ourselves the gift of a thorough and complete reading. Many experienced readers have a tendency to skim their own readings, click off the cards in succession - "yep, I know what that means!!", then sweeping the cards up and put them away. It may seem hard to justify the time in our busy lives, but by doing this, we miss the subtle messages in the cards that are meant just for us - the special symbol that may stand out, the patterns that we would see if we spent as much time on our own readings as we do for our clients. Some readers overcome this problem by pretending the reading is for a client, and then recording or writing it as if it were a paid reading. After all, we deserve the benefit of our own insight, don't we?
It is hard to be objective when reading for ourself. This causes several problems, one of which is something like going into shock. When you lay out a spread for yourself and see a lot of reversed cards, or difficult/scary cards, there's a kind of self-protective distancing that sets in and it becomes hard to make yourself work through it - you have to fight off the desire to shuffle all those cards right back into the deck and start over! This in spite of the "tough love" and words of wisdom that we are more than capable of giving to others in the same situation. This protective mechanism may be extreme enough that we convince ourselves that the cards make no sense or the reading is somehow confused or wrong.
If the truth be told, everyone has things that they hide from themselves, some more so than others. One of the "problems" with reading for ourselves is that these things have a pesky way of surfacing
:-).
If you are having trouble reading for yourself, it could be because there is something your subconscious is trying to tell you that your conscious mind really doesn't want to know. Like, you're really not happy in your marriage, or you feel like the last 6 years of graduate school were a total waste of time and you really want to quit without getting your degree. These are very scary and difficult things to face in any context, and if you are a tarot reader, they will come out in your personal readings. This can be very tough to deal with, and causes some people to avoid ever reading for themselves.
A very common problem among beginning readers is a lack of self-confidence or trust in their reading abilities. Just because you are not objective when reading for yourself does *not* mean that you will lay the wrong cards, or that the cards will be somehow biased or skewed. Trust me, the cards themselves will be fine. It's our interpretation of them that can be skewed or biased. So as you're doing the reading, trust that the Universe, or your guides, or your subconscious, will choose the right cards even if your conscious mind has no idea what they mean. Then give yourself some time and space to interpret them. This will keep you from worrying that the reading itself has something wrong with it - knowing that the cards are right is a liberating feeling and cuts through a lot of the possible confusion.
One last problem that contributes is pessimism and negativity. I don't know how many times I've seen good readers suddenly turn doom and gloom when it comes to their own cards. We all know that cards are neither inherently bad nor good, but all have aspects of both - yet when reading for ourselves, some readers take a very negative slant - cards are given the worst possible interpretation, and we don't see the positive messages these same cards can hold for us. This is a self-perpetuating problem, because someone who perceives that they always get bad cards will eventually become reluctant to do a reading at all, and frightened and worried by the readings they do attempt. We try our best to be honest yet positive for our clients, and it is important to give ourselves the same pep talks, and avoid unnecessary negativity. We counsel our clients to take their future in their own hands, yet sometimes become fatalistic or overly deterministic about our own readings. This is not saying we should sugar-coat our readings, just that being overly negative is also a form of untruth and equally harmful and unfair to ourselves.
The first thing to do if you are having trouble doing a reading for yourself, is to think about the various problems that may be listed above, along with the more typical problems like not really having or making a
quiet place or time to do your readings. See if you recognize any of these as possible contributors to the problem, and then you will at least know where to start.
Here are some ideas to help overcome these difficulties:
- Start with small personal readings - 1 to 3 cards that cover
a short period of time. This is both easier to process and less scary, because it's OK to have a bad week, but a bad year is a lot harder to handle.
- If you do have a large spread to interpret, or if the issue is unusually emotional, try some of the exercises listed in the article
"Analyzing Large Readings". These will help get you started on interpreting the reading objectively, by giving you a standard set of questions to ask about the reading, and will help break the reading down into manageable
pieces.
- Trust that the cards you choose will be right, and don't worry if you don't figure out what they mean right away. Struggling with difficult readings is one of the best ways to learn. Write the
reading down, and any meanings for cards that are clear.
Note which cards are confusing or unclear and commit them to memory, then give the reading time. It may be months before you understand what those cards were telling you, but when you finally know what it is, it will be an illuminating experience and much more powerful than having someone else tell you what they think.
- Before you start, commit yourself to following through on the reading, regardless of the outcome. Be sure you are really mentally prepared to receive an answer to the question you are asking - no matter which
way it goes. If you have a very strong stake in one particular outcome, it will be much more difficult to handle if you don't receive that outcome.
- Consider the positive and negative of every card, and realize that
more than one aspect of the card may apply to your situation.
Don't assume the worst, or the best, but try to take a middle ground. Imagine what you would say to a good friend or client if they received those cards, and realize that you are deserving of the very same interpretation.
- Pay attention to each card individually - try hard not to skip over any cards, as the ones you most want to skip over may be the ones with the important message from your subconscious.
Allow yourself to celebrate the good cards equally with worrying about the bad. Think of reversed and difficult cards as opportunities to improve your future or change something about your life that isn't working.
- If
you think you know what a negative card represents, try a followup empowerment reading that focuses on what you can do to solve that problem - this can be especially helpful if there is one card that comes up over and over -
you will keep getting it until that problem is solved. The empowering reading will give you a plan of action and a feeling of control. Remember that you create your future and your own reality.
Happy Readings!!
