reading for strangers

I know everyone is different, so I do not expect a 'right answer' here. This is just kind of a survey, so to speak. I have been studying tarot for 4 years. I have read for myself, family, close friends, and people here at AT (even though anyone here that I have read for in the past are strangers, this is still a 'comfortable' place to branch out a bit). However- never read for a stranger in face or online (outside of the comfort of AT). So to cut to the chase, here is my question:
How long did you study tarot before deciding you were ready to read for complete strangers? I would love to hear experiences and stories (as I am sure others would!).
Lysh

Lysh said:

I know everyone is different, so I do not expect a 'right answer' here. This is just kind of a survey, so to speak. I have been studying tarot for 4 years. I have read for myself, family, close friends, and people here at AT (even though anyone here that I have read for in the past are strangers, this is still a 'comfortable' place to branch out a bit). However- never read for a stranger in face or online (outside of the comfort of AT). So to cut to the chase, here is my question:
How long did you study tarot before deciding you were ready to read for complete strangers? I would love to hear experiences and stories (as I am sure others would!).
Lysh

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Personally, I always do my readings to complete strangers. I started off that way. And I feel great with it. I've always done it through the Internet and even if I was not especially close to the person in front of me, sharing a part of their lives with them felt really great. I felt like I was being close to them, even if I was not. I just love helping people so I felt happy whenever I could really really take some of my time to give advices and give my feelings on a situation.

I have never done readings for my family or my friends. I only have one friend who knows I do Tarot and fortune tellings and my mom knows it. And I have never done readings for them. I don't think I'd feel comfortable if I'd be doing readings for them, I don't think it'd be healthy for them to get into Tarot, I don't know, I feel like protecting them more..

I do fortune tellings since four years, after I went to a forum and they started telling me that I had "abilities". I started off with pictures that people would send to me and I'd guess their personalities and their past and eventually, I started to feel more and more things (images in my mind, physical pains or feelings, etc.) I've never felt uncomfortable with that and I feel more comfortable doing readings through the Internet.

Lysh said:

So to cut to the chase, here is my question:
How long did you study tarot before deciding you were ready to read for complete strangers? I would love to hear experiences and stories (as I am sure others would!).
Lysh

Click to expand...

If you're asking the question - you're ready. Take a deck, head out into the world and read!

Hi Lysh,

I read a quote the other day,cant remember the author or exact words:
"If everybody waited until they had mastered something we would have no teachers at all"
Go For It !

Umbrae said:

If you're asking the question - you're ready. Take a deck, head out into the world and read!

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This sums up how i feel really well. I would enjoy reading for strangers because i think it would be like reading for friends or family, just on a level where if the reading comes out really accurate, they cant turn around and say
"Oh but you know me so well and just used what you know about me in the reading"
Hope this helps a bit!

I don't think I "studied" at all. I certainly didn't do any classes (although I have taught occasionally, which feels a bit odd, knowing I never was on the opposite end of the equation). I bought books. I read a couple before I ever got my first deck. I got my first deck as a teenager, and I did less-than-satisfactory readings for myself, then just developed my own complicated version of Solitaire (Patience) that made account of the Major Arcana as well as the minors in my modified rules. I looked at images a lot. I read some more. A workmate did a reading for me, and I did one for her. They went well. I did more readings for people-I-didn't-know-very-well. Then a customer in my day-job, seeing a deck lying there, offered me money for a reading. I took it and did the reading. It was just brilliant - I remember it well, and it's the only reading I've ever done that I remember at all (back in 1981, too!). I suppose everything was just flowing because she needed it to flow, and I was innocent, adn hte time was right. I was using a RW deck, and the Two Pentacles had an image of her dead grandfather dancing on it for the occasion <smile>. It was years before I went and offered my services at a new age shop as a reader, but that first paid reading gave me the guts to do so and to do a number of other paid readings beforehand, also, and I've just always been really comfortable reading for other people. I suppose because I don't work with decks I don't trust.

i didnt decide i was ready, someone higher must have!

I was about 8-9 months into study when sitting outside a pub for our tarot circle a few people asked for readings, we ended up doing 5 readings for various people including the barmaid. it was fun and scary at the same time!

started from there, i dont charge so but i learn so much more face to face then i do online.

good luck

I don't recall deciding I was ready. Someone probably saw me with a deck and asked for a reading. I still don't feel like a "tarot reader." I doubt I ever will. Perhaps it started by reading for my friends and them spreading the word.

The most important thing for me is that I don't really care if I get something wrong. I'm able to laugh at myself and keep my confidence up.

If I waited until I felt ready, I'd never read for anyone!

I jumped right in when I got my first deck. I read whoever would let me. Then I studied a bit and really went out.... I took the deck to bars and the salon and work. I would read for clients and strangers galore.....then people wanted to pay me! Too funny! So just dive in! You will learn faster!

Lysh said:

I know everyone is different, so I do not expect a 'right answer' here. This is just kind of a survey, so to speak. I have been studying tarot for 4 years. I have read for myself, family, close friends, and people here at AT (even though anyone here that I have read for in the past are strangers, this is still a 'comfortable' place to branch out a bit). However- never read for a stranger in face or online (outside of the comfort of AT). So to cut to the chase, here is my question:
How long did you study tarot before deciding you were ready to read for complete strangers? I would love to hear experiences and stories (as I am sure others would!).
Lysh

Click to expand...

I've personally been reading for almost 5 years, and reading for others for almost 4 1/2 years ( make that only about 4 years if you don't count the AT reading exchanges) and I only read once for someone in person and I truly hated it so much I knew immediately it was not for me. But I LOVE reading for others online. I like being able to take my time and phrase things in the best way I can, and I am the type who doesn't like to be talked to when I am reading. I need silence to "hear" the answers inside me. It takes me a long time and a lot of inner focus to do a reading.

I don't know, but I think I just veered off track there, and that was not your question. LOL

That was an interesting question though about how I knew I was ready to start reading more for strangers.

I was like you, I only read for friends and in reading exchanges on AT, but how I knew that I was ready to read more for strangers...? In short, I didn't.

I myself was not the one who knew it. I did not know I was ready, adn I wasn't even thinking of it. But everyone whom I read for kept telling me over and over that my answers were "scary" accurate and that I shuold be a professional reader. I hope that doesn't sound conceited, but..well...that is the truth of how it happened for me. I knew when I was told by everyone around me. That's how I personally knew.

I had no real idea inside, I just kept getting told that over and over and over. And how it would be a shame and a loss if I did not go professional. One friend here on AT, who knows well who she is and how grateful I am to her , kept insisting I get my site up and going to read professionally. And finally, after long enough of that, I listened. Oh and it did also come up in a few readings, now that I am thinking back, that I was meant to be a professional reader. The cards also told me that as well a number of times , that it was part of my intended life path. I remember that now, when I think back.

But, for me knowing I was ready was not something I just knew inside. It came from outside....all the others around me kept saying over and over that that is what I should do until I listened.

Babs