Your own thoughts/feelings projected onto readings

tarotnewjerseyan said:

Hi All -

I'm pretty new here and I would like to thank everyone who's been so welcoming and has helped me interpret my readings. Logging on and looking at this board is getting me in the habit of reading everyday, which I need.

Anyhow - I found one of my biggest (if not my biggest) struggles to overcome as an inexperienced reader is solely trusting the tarot without letting my own "logical" thoughts and feelings project themselves on to the reading.

For example, I find that when I ask about someone else, it's because I want to know their feelings, their motivations, etc... however I always find that it comes back to my own thoughts or feeling on the subject, but the cards do give me a different way of viewing it.

I apologize if this is an ignorant question but I truly am new at this... I thought tarot is supposed to give you insight into the unknown... but each time I read I feel like it is just my thoughts/feelings as told by the tarot. And then I always feel like I am doing it wrong...

This is probably a loaded question, but in the simplest terms, how do you get past that? Are there any exercises or better spreads to help work around it?

Thanks in advance

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It comes with practice.

What you are talking about is the difference between listening to your thoughts vs listening to your intuition. We can only really hear our intuition once we turn off our thoughts first.

It can take some practice but it really does work. Tarot is a tool to improve your intuition and the more it improves the more and more trustworthy it will become. But you need to turn off your thoughts and listen inside.

The thing is that yes, most of us were brought up in a society that values rational thought and puts down/scoffs at the esoteric or anything that cannot be proven scientifically. So we systematically learnt to suppress that part of us growing up. We have been taught to do that. We all have that intuitive part to us as humans, but it's about connecting to that and learning to open it up again.

For now, just know that Tarot works for millions of people around the world. There must be something too it. And once you see it work enough times for you personally, then you will see it is happening too consistently to be coincidence and you are somehow connecting to the energy of life (or whatever we connect to as readers, no one knows for sure what it is)

And when you do get your intuition working for you things that are truly miraculous can happen. And when they do you will trust in them. Because you will then know them from personal experience.



Babs

Wow! Really, really excellent replies here

I do notice that as I read the cards more and more, I do not need to "look up" the meanings... I get my own "flash" of intuition, or gut feeling, or ideas surrounding that card.

I've always found that I have a pretty good sense of situations and people, but generally not the confidence to trust my intuition. Now that I've been reading the tarot more regularly regarding all sorts of issues in my life - it's been like a tool to dig up those feelings and confirm them, which has been both really cool and scary.

I also agree that I struggle with distraction, just all the time & in general. I think A LOT. Like the kid in class who would stare off into space. I have been really trying to always write down the questions and recite them as I pick the cards... this has been helpful too.

Last but not least - I love the way FLizarraga said it, that if you don't ask permission to read about someone, you only get what you already know, or what you feel about the situation.. I think that nails how I feel each time I read dead-on.

I did read in a few places, that as you shuffle your cards you should ask permission to read about the person in question - through their spirit guides... so I have been trying that. Seems to be helping.

And thank you Sunchariot - your words are encouraging... I think growing up having gone to tarot readers - I never felt like I had "the gift" or was special enough to do it on my own, but as you mentioned, it works for millions of people around the world, why not me. I juts need to keep working out until I see some of my readings manifest.