Why You Want the Sure Thing

Why do people expect names, dates, etc. in a tarot reading?

“Yeah, but when is he going to come? What month?” She breathed as we poured over her cards. Admittedly, the prediction looked good. Knight of Cups was galloping into the Sun while Ace of Cups and 2 of Cups danced around him. This is what I call a home run reading.

My client had been single for years. Together, we built a relationship as we read past the detritus of bad men through her 20’s to finally land at the doorway to her 30’s. “Can you tell me anything more about him?”

The cards were decidedly mum on the details, “No, I am sorry, I cannot see anything other than what we already covered.”

“Do you know how I will meet him?” she asked, anxiety beginning to build.

I took a long, slow breath, “Again, there is no more information besides what is here, yet, it looks like your drought will come to an end and something loving is coming your way.”

About a year later she returned. She was still single. She had forgotten all of the details that the reading included about her: start getting out more, go online, stop fixating on that married coworker, work on your self worth, stop texting the toxic ex. She had just zeroed in on what she wanted to hear. The one piece of information that would make her feel better and not all of the attendant pieces of data that would lead to that very future becoming possible.

So why do people do this? Why do people want the date on the calendar, the full name, the exact and excruciating details without any thought about their place in making them?

In a word: anxiety.

When I get a client that overly fixates on the ‘final and complete answer’, when they are intolerant of ambiguity, grey-area, when they forget about their part in this, then I know it is anxiety talking and not really them.

But even when anxiety is presenting: spitting out rapid-fast questions one after the other in a frenzied pace, and looking at me expectantly; It is not my job to indulge their anxiety.

Tarot can be in fact be dangerous if placed in the wrong hands. It can be commandeered to act as a ritual for anxiety reduction which then just reinforces the pattern. We can see this whenever we have the urge to read over and over again about the same question, or if we feel like we need to see just one more psychic for a problem on our minds. If we allow anxiety to take over, tarot readings can in fact exacerbate rather than relieve.

Anxiety reduction rituals by their very nature increase the anxiety cycle.

Anxiety Cycle

Underlying belief: “I fear being alone.” (usually some trauma event where abandonment was in play)

Triggering Event: “He broke up with me.”

Anxiety is provoked: Intense discomfort, emotional chaos, i.e. the freak out. “I will always be alone. No one wants me.” etc.

Introduce a Ritual: Get a tarot reading, “Will he come back?”

Reading says yes- anxiety is reduced. Reading says no- get another reading.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

If we use tarot to speak to the fears presented by anxiety: the what, the who, the how, the why, and we do not use tarot to target the underlying belief, (so we can begin dismantling the anxiety cycle) we as readers are inadvertently making things worse.

And I am not here to make things worse.

But, I will play the difficult role of not catering to the temper tantrum 5 year old which is the anxiety presenting. My job is to resist the desires of anxiety so we can speak to the wisdom below. I work to dismantle the underlying belief-set and do readings that open-up the trauma that started all this in the first place.

So for you readers out there, when you get that tough client who is demanding, sharp and full of clearly unattainable expectations, I ask you to see that as the anxiety. That is the fear and pain from something deeper. Breathe into the difficulty, and dive deep. You don’t have to indulge them. In fact, it is better if you do not.

For you clients out there, be deeply suspicious of readers who are telling you what you want to hear. The walk in reader who doesn’t push back at all but redirects the problem to something outside of your control (curse, past life work, $500 candles, whatever) they are using YOUR anxiety as a manipulative tool to part you from your coin. Don’t give in to the discomfort that anxiety is forcing on you, sit with the discomfort, allow a good reader to take you on a journey that, if you do, can honestly shift your life towards what you actually want by giving you the tools you need to change yourself.

The other day I got an email from my love lorn client. It is her in a white dress with her family and friends around her. Her knight had indeed come, after she made the changes and was patient. And she is happier than any prediction I could have given her. But of course we know that the happy ending is rare. What we can get to are happy moments in a river of a life meant to be challenged, to learn lessons, and to evolve.