Over-Asking in Tarot

I'm new and I find that I sometimes ask a question, get the answer that I actually want, but then I continue to ask to confirm myself. At first it will confirm by telling me the same thing in a different way, and then it starts actually giving me contradictory answers from my first reading.

I know that I shouldn't be over-asking and I need to work on that. But when I overdo it and end up asking too many times should I just trust the first reading?

Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this - how do others keep themselves in check?

Desert Girl said:

I'm new and I find that I sometimes ask a question, get the answer that I actually want, but then I continue to ask to confirm myself. At first it will confirm by telling me the same thing in a different way, and then it starts actually giving me contradictory answers from my first reading.

I know that I shouldn't be over-asking and I need to work on that. But when I overdo it and end up asking too many times should I just trust the first reading?

Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this - how do others keep themselves in check?

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unless an issue comes up, I pre-plan my questions for the week. I allow one question a day. I have a brainstorm session on sunday, write them all out thoughtfully and carefully, and compare them with last week's questions. I try not to ask about the same subject for at least a couple of weeks to allow for the reading I gave to unfold.

Keeping a journal or spreadsheet will help.

That being said, I'm taking a tarot class and I'm supposed to be asking/journaling 3 questions a day, and I find I'm running out of material, so my method obviously has flaws in certain situations. :/

Desert Girl said:

I'm new and I find that I sometimes ask a question, get the answer that I actually want, but then I continue to ask to confirm myself. At first it will confirm by telling me the same thing in a different way, and then it starts actually giving me contradictory answers from my first reading.

I know that I shouldn't be over-asking and I need to work on that. But when I overdo it and end up asking too many times should I just trust the first reading?

Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this - how do others keep themselves in check?

Click to expand...

I've usually seen and heard about this in relation to when you get an answer you DON'T like so I find this very curious. When I think about it I might have done this thing too when I was a kid and got a pendulum from a comic book magazine called W.I.T.C.H. ? Like yeah, it swings one way but am I sure it's really really the correct answer? *pendulum ends up swinging all over the place, probably*

It sounds like you don't trust the cards or your interpretation of them. Maybe that is why they become contradictory after a while? I can't speak for which reading to trust when you've already done a lot of them on the same subject in one go, I can only imagine it as a mess, sorry

For me I always told myself (or read and took it to heart maybe) that even if I don't feel like I understand them the cards tell me what I need to know. So I don't think I've been over-asking because I thought that the right cards always come up + interpretation can be hard to put into words for me so I don't want to give myself more work and get confused by more cards.

These responses are helping me think through this issue, too.

When first learning runes and getting accustomed to the meanings, I could handle a lot of more daily readings for myself than I can now. It seems to me that doing lots of readings is more helpful when first learning a new spread, new deck, or new system.

I also realized then that I have a limited number of things that are truly on my heart:
work, home, realtionships, plans... I had a rune reading about work, for example, that I needed to stick with for half a year.

My rationale is this: "Little reading, little significance." So if it's a daily draw, I assume it's about passing feelings and temporary conditions. I toss the notes after a few days, too, as the reading should be stale by then.

If I have an important reading, it's worth keeping it before me for a longer time. But as I say, there can only be so many things that are significant for a longer season.

Tarot is about intuition and trust. You have to trust what you see in your cards. We all have that nagging doubts - that's why we ask questions of our decks. But it's kind of like asking a parent for the same thing over and over again - eventually they get mad and say 'no'. Part of the process of learning is learning to trust yourself.

If you read it and got a positive answer, awesome! Write it down, see how the event plays out, and then check back. If you want to keep reading, ask a new question, or post on the boards here to practice reading for others. Compulsively checking and rechecking your answers is like an anxiety thought spiral. It'll only lead you to a bad place.

Do a reading. Then leave it, and go do the real-world WORK that the reading told you needed to be done on the issue. Then when things have had time to change and evolve, read again.

Imagine you're a Mathematics teacher. Someone comes along and tries to get you to prove your skill by asking you what the square root of 25 is. You patiently say five, and move onto the trigonometry you were trying to teach them. But they don't believe you, and ask you what five squared is. You patiently tell them it's twenty-five. Then they ask you what five times five is. You say, twenty five. Then they ask what twenty-five divided by five is. You lose your patience, and tell them that it's 3,744.929681.

That's what your Tarot deck is doing. If you don't trust its first answer and act on it, there's not a lot of point in it bothering to give you accurate information, because you're never going to trust it anyway.

Desert Girl said:

I'm new and I find that I sometimes ask a question, get the answer that I actually want, but then I continue to ask to confirm myself. At first it will confirm by telling me the same thing in a different way, and then it starts actually giving me contradictory answers from my first reading.

Click to expand...

Sometimes this comes in from reader bias. You might really want an answer, so the cards give you that answer. But when you doubt yourself, the cards may reveal the truth or a manifestation of your doubts on a question. It's hard to tell. Your best bet would be to do one reading on a question, wait a while, and then see how it unfolds.

Desert Girl said:

I know that I shouldn't be over-asking and I need to work on that. But when I overdo it and end up asking too many times should I just trust the first reading?

Click to expand...

Yeah, over asking can cause an issue with the clarity of readings. Just do one at a time. Over thinking can definitely make something more complicated than it is.

Desert Girl said:

Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this - how do others keep themselves in check?

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I only allow myself to ask a question on a subject once a month. No more. It's important to let a situation manifest before asking about it again.

These are some great ideas! I think keeping a journal and limiting the number of questions I'm allowed to ask per day is a great idea.

I think I over-ask because I do a reading, but then I'm too impatient to wait it out before asking again, because gosh darn it, it hasn't happened in the 24 hours since I've asked. Patience is obviously something I need to work on...

page of ghosts said:

I've usually seen and heard about this in relation to when you get an answer you DON'T like so I find this very curious.

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Yeah, I've read mostly about it being done the other way around. I think that I'm just so uncertain and antsy about a certain question right now that I just want the cards to confirm over and over (just to be certain). What I need to practice is more patience, obviously.

nisaba said:

Do a reading. Then leave it, and go do the real-world WORK that the reading told you needed to be done on the issue. Then when things have had time to change and evolve, read again.

Imagine you're a Mathematics teacher. Someone comes along and tries to get you to prove your skill by asking you what the square root of 25 is. You patiently say five, and move onto the trigonometry you were trying to teach them. But they don't believe you, and ask you what five squared is. You patiently tell them it's twenty-five. Then they ask you what five times five is. You say, twenty five. Then they ask what twenty-five divided by five is. You lose your patience, and tell them that it's 3,744.929681.

That's what your Tarot deck is doing. If you don't trust its first answer and act on it, there's not a lot of point in it bothering to give you accurate information, because you're never going to trust it anyway.

Click to expand...

This is a great way of putting it! It looks like I'm getting on the cards' nerves.