Most of the time I shuffle until it feels right.
Sometimes cards jump out (sometimes as single, sometimes in a stack of three or more), I read those too, since I feel that for some reason they wish to speak.
{my aunt, shuffles until the cards jump out and those are the only ones she reads. She does a lot of shuffling allowing the cards to fall out as they may.}
After shuffling, I cut to the left in three piles and place them back together, starting with the first pile, then the second and then the third until they are back in one single pile.
Then I place my layout.
My favorite is the CC, but I have used others for myself.
Sometimes I don't place a particular meaning for the layout position when I read for myself.
I always use the CC when reading for others and have always gotten very positive feedback for nailing the subject, except for one time here when i picked up on someone's friend rather than for the individual I was reading for, that reading was very strong, made me cry while reading it and very alarmed for the issue.
Sometimes I do fan out the cards and move my hand along them laying in the fan, I do pick up sensations of the cards that want to speak. It's kinda like an electric sensation. Sometimes it even feels as if the cards are moving up to reach out for me. I do this with my eyes closed, but do open them to see which card is giving off this sensation.
I have also just laid the cards on the table and just scattered them with my hands, round and round, mixing them up and then do the same thing as described above.
Cool question!
