Couple of years ago i got 3of swords in a relationship and then a career reading
I was badly abused and thrown out
I fear 3 of swords like hell
I even get utterly depressed after it passes
Today a reader got 3of swords and death for me in my relationship reading
How to go about dealing with it
Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience
And for what it's worth, I've been there. I've been badly abused, but I was the one who left...in fear for my life at the time.
I think you have to be impartial as a reader and not have any expectations of what a specific card can mean before the reading starts. And that it's important to remember that any given card may not be saying the exact same thing in each reading. A card that showed you being badly abused in the past may be talking about something very different in a different reading.
There are no "negative" cards in my opinion. Sure as human beings some things happen to us that are hard. And the cards can tell us about anything at all that we ask. Including the hard stuff. But that does not mean a card that tells you something difficult is a "bad" card or will say something negative the next time. Tarot is just a system that can tell us anything. Anything at all. The same card can talk about very many different things and there is good and positive aspects to all cards.
To me, there are no negative cards. Death is not one either, it is a card of optimism in the end and tells of something good coming. It's meaning, for me, is that something will end and that it is good and necessary that it ends. Because that ending will clear the way for something better to come.
I can mean something as simple as finishing school/graduating so you can get out and get a good job. Meanings your days as a student are over. And that paves the way for something better for you to come. See? Not negative.
The Death card in a relationship can mean other things that the relationship ending. It can be a suggestion to do things differently. To stop doing the things that are not working, and start doing things in better more effective ways that will be more healing. But it depends on the question asked of course. And to me a lot of the meanings comes from the card image as well.
i think it is also very important as a reader to remember that what YOU see in a card is NOT the same as what another reader sees in it. There are a variety of different meanings that we can all have for the exact same card. You see this here on AT all the time. The cards really do talk to each of us quite differently. So you can't expect what the card means to you once in the past to have any connection to what it means to another reader in the here and now. There is no connection between the two.
For what it's worth, my meaning of the 3 of Swords is very positive. For me it;s about thinking and choosing to think about others and the world around us in compassionate and empathetic ways. As the 3s for me refer back to the Empress. SO let's say that I one day did a reading for you. And that old 3 of Swords showed up. FOR ME, your reading would be talking about choosing empathetic, caring sympathetic thoughts about the situation and people involved. That is ALL it would be about. It would not have the meanings that came up for you before in a reading that I did, for example. So you can't expect your meanings to carry on into the readings of others. The cards talk to all of us differently. That holds true for any card, imo. The best you can do is to trust the meaning the reader themselves see in the card and try to keep your own personal meanings out of it. (which can be easier to say than do for readers sometimes). The meaning they see should be the intended one, as the cards came up for them.
But that said, I understand that you have developed that association/worry connected to that card. And it's affecting your readings when that card comes up. That said, my best advice is to try to remember that what the card meant in a reading once, may not be what it will be meaning in a totally different reading, for someone else.
And if that does not work, maybe it could be helpful to retire that deck and see if a new deck might work better. Even though that new deck would also have a 3 of Swords in it, but because it would LOOK different, you may not carry the association over to the new deck.
Babs
