"I don't understand what you mean..."

[Obsydian]

Okay, I had a reading that left me feeling less than confident. I felt really bad about it, that for some reason my messages weren't getting across and understood.

What's the best way to phrase things so the client understands? The tarot gives me feelings and ideas, not strong "this is going to happen" predictions, and I thought I worded things correctly. They just didn't understand me when I said that the cards were showing me this about the relationship and such.

Is this just something I need to work towards? I'm still a newbie professional.

 

[Barleywine]

Okay, I had a reading that left me feeling less than confident. I felt really bad about it, that for some reason my messages weren't getting across and understood.

What's the best way to phrase things so the client understands? The tarot gives me feelings and ideas, not strong "this is going to happen" predictions, and I thought I worded things correctly. They just didn't understand me when I said that the cards were showing me this about the relationship and such.

Is this just something I need to work towards? I'm still a newbie professional.

That blank stare (or quizzical e-mail) can feel like the "kiss of death," can't it? (But I suppose it's better than a shrug or a yawn.) LIke you, I don't make flat predictions about coming events, only probabilities and emerging trends. I let the querent fill in the specifics from their own knowledge and intuition about the situation. They usually have a good "hunch" once you've set their feet on the path. I learn toward the belief that the querent's subconscious knows the truth about the matter, it just ain't telling the conscious without a nudge. (Which is as good a theory as any about how tarot works.)

I've always found the biggest challenge to be trying to wrest sense from a reading where the querent just can't seem to see any. When that happens, I dig deep and come up with plausible alternative interpretations until I get even a partial "hit," then work that until I can see a way to weave it back into the original purpose of the reading. There's no harm in saying "Let's step back and look at it from another angle," then draw them out. There is almost always a thread that can be pulled. Having the querent sitting at the table with you to give immediate feedback makes this a workable solution (not so much by e-mail, I suspect), although not always an unqualified success. But even if you get only half-hearted agreement, you've given them something worthwhile to chew on, and garnered some useful practical information to file away.

 

[Mellaenn]

Great advice, Barleywine, and I agree.

I will also go right back to the cards and work towards helping to reframe the question to make the best use of the power of tarot and also getting the client to focus on the fact that we are looking for tools to help them create a solution, not a solution laid out on the table.

So let's say the client wonders why her career seems to have stalled and she asks something like "What do you see for my career?" I'll ask her to think of what her career goals are, say, and ask something like "What do I need to do to reach my X goal?"

As for getting them to focus, I might have them re-shuffle and imagine themselves pouring their energy field into the cards while visualizing the situation they are asking about. At this point I often find myself jumping from laying out cards in a spread to fanning the cards and having them choose 3, or choose 5, however long the reading is. The key is the energy and getting it into focus, at least for me.

 

[Obsydian]

Thank you both, those answers were very insightful.