How to share this private information with the querent?

I was asked by a friend of mine to do a reading about his next romantic relationship. This is a friend of a friend, actually, who I enjoy very much but don't know on a deep personal level yet. He asked me to do this reading for him when he heard that I was studying the Tarot.

The reading I did has turned up some very, very personal things that I feel sort of uncomfortable discussing with him. He is openly gay, but I know that he had a hard time coming out (his family is very traditional/religious). A lot of the reading seems to pertain to how difficult a time this was for him.

Is there ever a point where you censor yourself in a reading, in order to allow the querent their sense of privacy? I really don't think he would have a problem discussing any of this with me, but I also don't think he realized quite how personal a reading can be....

Any advice would be appreciated.

I think you could start by telling him the less personal stuff, and move slowly. And if it starts to get hairy, just say that you HAVE picked up some very personal things and ask him - does he want you to continue. You can tell him that it seems to relate to the difficulties he had at that time, and see how he reacts. I think - no, I don't CENSOR myself, but sometimes there can come a point where you can legitimately decided, based on your sitter's reaction - that you have said enough. You could say at that point that there is more, when he's ready.

Oh and of course remind him that ANYTHING you found will go no further; that it is TOTALLY confidential.

Will this be done face to face ? You can watch and see how it's going.

By the way - for someone with such difficulties finding people to just PRACTISE on - a few days ago - you seem to be doing pretty well ! Way to go !

Thanks for the advise, Gregory. That's very sound.

And yes! I didn't think anyone I knew would be open to this, but all I did was mention it to one friend and before I knew it, I had about a million people volunteering to be my guinea pig! I've been a busy girl.

You might also bring into it that you're new at reading the cards so that you could be mistaken about some of it but that you're willing to say honestly what you see provided he's okay with that. Even if we're not new readers, we're sometimes mistaken, after all. By prefacing it that way then you can go into the things you've seen, provided he says he does want to go ahead.

When we read the cards, naturally people often expect us to be seeing things that can get quite personal, so I don't think it's such a huge shock when we do see them. They expect us to do that, after all, so why else would they ask to have a reading? They expect the hidden to come to light.

Congratulations to you for diving right in and getting your feet wet. It sounds like you're doing great already. Keep up the good work!

To be honest, I don't see the information you've hinted at as being*difficult* in any way. If he's open about his sexuality what is there to shock? I'm sure he's worked through much of the pain and difficulty himself, or at least started to. And this is where your reading can be helpful.

Look at it this way, at least the info is in the past. Surely a reason to celebrate. I find I can deal with no end of difficulties in a reading if they're in the past!

Le Fanu said:

To be honest, I don't see the information you've hinted at as being*difficult* in any way. If he's open about his sexuality what is there to shock? I'm sure he's worked through much of the pain and difficulty himself, or at least started to. And this is where your reading can be helpful.

Look at it this way, at least the info is in the past. Surely a reason to celebrate. I find I can deal with no end of difficulties in a reading if they're in the past!

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I just mean they may be difficult memories for him, or private memories that he's not too keen on other people having insight into.

I just sent it to him (he lives far from me, and since I'm just beginning I find it easier to do it not face-to-face) and I think it will be just fine. I was just nervous about him feeling like I know too much, or something?

Melisandre said:

I just mean they may be difficult memories for him, or private memories that he's not too keen on other people having insight into.

I just sent it to him (he lives far from me, and since I'm just beginning I find it easier to do it not face-to-face) and I think it will be just fine. I was just nervous about him feeling like I know too much, or something?

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I agree on Grizabella..They come to a reading to be shown something hidden they are curious about to know..I do not think Divine shows you something to you about him he would not be able to 'deal with'.. Depending on his reaction, i would either tell him soon or taking more steps...

perhaps you should think about what your comfortable with and set that as an intention before you do a reading, therefore you dont get burdened with stuff you dont need to know for the purpose of giving a reading, perhaps ask whats relevant for the person to know....this way you know all the info you get you can give the the client directly without worry

Personally, I don't believe in censoring anything, including the things I don't quite understand, because I believe what ever was shown to me was shown to me for a reason. It isn't up to me to decide what the person is ready to hear or not, because even with people you know very well, you still don't fully know what is going on inside them.

That being said, it is important to know how to speak to people. If I raised something that the person doesn't want to discuss with me, then I won't push it. I would just say something like, "This is what the cards seem to be saying..." They may not want to talk about it further with me, and that's fine. They may not be ready to talk about it or deal with it right now, but need to go away and ponder things themselves. That's fine, too.

You said that you were sending the readings to him, since you felt more comfortable like that. With me, it's the other way 'round, I find written reading somewhat intimidating for that reason alone, I can't soften up bad news, can't get live feedback from the reader and it's altogether to disconnected for me.

In a face to face reading you can begin to allude to some topic or other and then see how defensive they are on the subject, and then soften it or avoid it altogether. There are some things that however much a person says they came to the reading wanting to learn about themselves, are too personal to touch; that's what I like about face to face readings. Writing them down seems ponderous and slow, lacking the dynamics between two people.

Also, like others have said, we are not always right, and sometimes we are downright wrong in our interpretation. Face to face readings can mitigate this a little, but getting instant feedback.