Finding your reading voice/ style

This may seem like an odd topic but it's something I've been thinking about lately.

I feel as if my personal reading style has grown staid. It's monochrome. I'd like to start reading in color!

Some readers have such wonderful, exciting ways of reading the cards. I'm not talking interpretation--but style. The first reader that came to mind when writing this up was our own firemaiden. Her reading style is witty, vibrant, and alive.

My question to her--and to others--is how did you find your own unique "voice?"

And another general question to readers: do you find your voice changes or is your style typically the same across the board?

My hunch is that part of my issue is needing to plunge in and take more risks as I'm reading. To use a singing analogy, I had a voice teacher who once told me to "Stop making pretty sounds! You have to be ugly first to be beautiful."

What she meant was that, although my voice was pleasant, it was all one color. It was interpretively "flat." She began to teach me how to squawk.

I'd like to learn how to squawk in Tarot...I think I need to.

Starlily said:

I'd like to learn how to squawk in Tarot...I think I need to.

Click to expand...

I need to find my squawk also!

Thanks for the thread.
ros

Just loosen up and use your imagination. Be willing to have some fun with it. Forget what you're "supposed" to do and just do whatever you can imagine might be cool or fun to do. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

Also, practice taking your cards and opening your mind to what each one could mean in the context of people's real lives. Don't just search your mind for what the book meanings or the meanings you've found here and on other websites have meant for other people or that others say they should mean. Look at the pictures and see what they remind you of that has nothing to do with the book meanings.

Then when your sitter is there and something enters your mind all of a sudden, say it even if you think there's no way it could apply. It might be the exact message the Universe wants you to deliver. It's better to take the chance than to let it get away. If your sitter doesn't respond affirmatively, no problem---it may be something they'll come back to you a week or a month or even a year later and say, "Oh my gosh! Guess what that was---yadda yadda" and then you'll be glad you took the chance on looking stupid by saying something that came at you out of left field. Or maybe you'll never know what it meant. We're not always meant to know everything, even though we think---and sometimes our sitters do, too---that we're supposed to be so psychic that we know everything.

Above all-----LOOSEN UP! Be open to whatever might happen. Don't be all tied up and anal about it. Just let it happen. Stuff your ego in your hip pocket and stifle it.

Oh, and did I say, "loosen up"?

What I have been doing lately to try and loosen up is a very simple little exercise. Shuffle your deck and then layout the three cards from the top. As quickly as I can I make up a story about the three cards, no matter how silly or foolish it sounds. Then I put down the next three, and do the same, and work my way through the pack. The key seems to be speed. At the very least I amuse myself!

As far as style and voice go, thats a great question. As I only read for a few friends at this stage, I'll have to ask them for feedback.

K

My opinion on this is that your voice is your voice.

Meaning, how you do a reading shouldn't be different from how you normally speak - unless that itself comes naturally to you - e.g., you're a bit of a performer. In which case, no doubt, you're sometimes dramatic and colorful in non-tarot-reading situations as well.

I don't think anyone needs to emulate anyone else, much as you may admire them. Everyone is unique. Just be thoroughly yourself, and say what you really see and think in your own words. If you're funny and flippant, or intensely earnest, or cool and analytical, or prone to storytelling, etc., etc., so be it.

And be kind and as nonjudgmental as possible. If that doesn't come naturally then yeah, work on it, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here. lol

Starlily said:

This may seem like an odd topic but it's something I've been thinking about lately.

I feel as if my personal reading style has grown staid. It's monochrome. I'd like to start reading in color!

Some readers have such wonderful, exciting ways of reading the cards. I'm not talking interpretation--but style. The first reader that came to mind when writing this up was our own firemaiden. Her reading style is witty, vibrant, and alive.

My question to her--and to others--is how did you find your own unique "voice?"

And another general question to readers: do you find your voice changes or is your style typically the same across the board?

My hunch is that part of my issue is needing to plunge in and take more risks as I'm reading. To use a singing analogy, I had a voice teacher who once told me to "Stop making pretty sounds! You have to be ugly first to be beautiful."

What she meant was that, although my voice was pleasant, it was all one color. It was interpretively "flat." She began to teach me how to squawk.

I'd like to learn how to squawk in Tarot...I think I need to.

Click to expand...

Your "voice" in Tarot, as in anything else, is a reflection of your true self: the you behind the Ego, what you have learnt from society and family....

Tarot, to me, is very much about finding and developing yourself.

To me, finding your voice, or your true self, is chipping away what is blocking it from coming out clearly. Like whoever it was who said (I don't remember now who it was) but that sculptor who said that the statue is already there in the piece of stone, all you have to do is to chip away the excess.

Your voice is a matter or being unabashedly yourself and enjoying it. The enjoyment of sharing the pure gift of you with the world is the source of the sparkle to me. First you have to realize as fully as possilbe who and what that umique person who is you is.

And even then so many times we are afraid to show who we really are deep inside because we are afraid of others' reactions, and so we hold a lot of who we really are in. So, imho, finding your voice is a matter of chipping away at (healing) whatever is holding you back from expressing your true inner self joyously and freely with the world. It's not so much developing something as trying to let go of things you've already developed along the way, like defense mechanisms...

If you admire firemaiden's style, that shows to me that it fits well with who you are and it likely reflects part of true self. That being said, there is a reason you are not reading that way now, and the answer is in eliminating whatever it is preventing you from being that person with others.

Your personal reading style is of course a reflexion of your values as well, and your courage to act on them lovingly.

Those are my thoughts for now.

Babs

I had loads of trouble finding my voice when reading too. I often found that I knew what the cards were saying but I couldn't vocalise what I was seeing. I got round it by doing pretend readings with a stuffed toy and actually speaking the readings

I have a stuffed toy mouse that I made 30 years ago in school and he has been renamed Tarot Mouse.
Tarot Mouse is my 'querant'. He sits opposite me, I ask him his question and visualise his answers. I shuffle and lay out the cards and I 'read' for Tarot Mouse out loud. I imagine his answers and I respond as I would to a real querant.
I think it's an exercise in visualisation - I read the cards as I would if it were a person sitting there with me and I actually hear his responses.

Nowadays I don't use Tarot Mouse with every reading but every reading I do, whether for myself or for someone else by email is spoken allowed before I begin to make notes or type.

Try it. It really does help you find your voice.

As someone who's taken loads of Creative Writing courses, it took me awhile to even realize what "find your voice" meant. My teachers would say things like "You need to find your voice' and "I can really see your voice" here,and I had no idea what they meant and wondered why my voice was so elusive when it seemed I could talk just fine.

Eventually, I realized that "finding your voice" just means being authentic to yourself. In CW, it means writing from yourself and not trying to emulate someone else's style. This comes from a lot of practice (often years of writing terribly) and self-confidence.

I think it's the same thing in Tarot. Just keep doing it and keep yourself honest. If you're not a flourishy person, don't do that in your readings. I'm a very straightforward, no nonsense kind of person and if I read Tarot like "The lore of the ages, handed down to me in delicate spirit's gloved fingers, in all trust and with ancient energy is..."..it wouldn't ring true.

The more you define what Tarot means to yourself, the easier it is to develop your own voice. This may be a writer's bias, but I also think that the more you write and journal about Tarot, the easier it will be for you to express yourself orally.

At any rate, this is a cool topic, and there's some really insightful advice in this thread so far!

My post, in retrospect, sounds more like a "how to read" rather than a "how to find your voice" but when you loosen up from doing what you think you're supposed to do and supposed to sound like as a reader, and forget worrying about whether or not you're going to do it wrong, then you do find your own voice. Like others have said, your voice is simply being who you are and being comfortable with that.

Thank you so much for all of the interesting and varied responses to my question.

Voice, I think, is difficult to define. Rather than the way you sound or speak, I meant it more in the sense of "tone" as in the literary sense: "the writer's [tarot reader's] attitude toward the material and/or readers [querent, spread, subject matter, etc]. Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc."

I agree that tone should always be authentic and genuine. As I contemplated it more, I don't think tone is static. It changes. But I do think we all tend toward a predominant style.

I love the idea of reading to "Tarot Mouse" and I am going to give that a try; it sounds like a great exercise for loosening up. I am also going to try KCB's exercise.

And Grizabella, your tips are great as well. Wonderful reminders of things I think all of us often forget or lose sight of, especially just looking at the pictures. Sometimes we get so blocked by pre-defined meanings that we don't see what's in front of us. I've put all of my Tarot books away for a while!

Again, thank you everyone for responding and for giving me much to think about.