How much do the cards influence you?

[crystalball]

I find it very difficult to do readings for myself; even though I am, by far, my most available subject (besides my dog). What usually makes my self-readings so difficult is whenever I have a vested interest in the results my ego will try to intrude and shout over my intuition.

I have found an easy way to get around this is to stick with small, one-three card readings. I can't tell you how many times I have laid out a small spread, not liked it, reshuffled and put down another!

What? Did you say cheater?

[Nan]

I pay attention to my intuition more closely. But the cards have been like guides to me. I am seeing things in a different light then I might have.
I am learning about me and those around me things that I saw differently and now make sense.
I have desparately wanted to sell my house and move on. My intuition said it was not the right time, the real estate market said it was not the right time, all the reading said not now.
Did I listen, no, not until I ask the question. Why are you asking if your not going to listen to the answer.
I am waiting, and have felt much more sane, not so much forcing my life to change as learning to live within my life.

[gregory]

I can't read for myself...... I cheat.....

I don't know how people manage not to !

[Starling]

I think I manage to read for myself because I'm not asking the kinds of questions that allow cheating. Right now I'm just pulling daily cards. But when I did real readings in the past I was very careful about the questions.

So cheating doesn't come into it.

[le fey]

Hee! But as long as you're aware that you're cheating, that's a message in itself. You pay attention to how you react to cards and follow that trail... *why* do this card mean that right now (because I want it to!). What else might it mean...what's the worst case (you start thinking of an actual situation it might point to and catch yourself veering away from that possibility because you don't want to go there!)? What advice does this card have - what would you say to someone else if this were their card?

To me that inner argument is the value of self-reading - the little kid me that wants every card to point to Christmas points to where my desires are. The stern voice that reminds the little kid that if you want it, you better be willing to do the work to get it informs me of my values about the situation. The voice of doom that that is wigged out at the mere sight of a particular card tells me where my fears are.

The cards present an opportunity for all those bits to have a little conversation... the truth is... all of it? Whatever agreement the various voices come to after debate?

In the end, the cards DO say 'what I want them to say'... but "I" am more than the little Christmas day kid and what I want most is to give all those parts of myself room to have their say. So, yes, the cards do influence me - they influence me to stop clamping down on parts of myself and give them room to speak, so that I can make an integrated, more whole choice without denying important aspects of my own role in that choice.

Just note your own body signals when you self read.... the groan when you see a card and the urge to go 'gee, I'm so confused what that means' while inside you're scrambling to stuff that voice that's saying "Oh crap, that's the result of what I did last week - I really screwed up and now it's going to bite me!" into a deep dark closet. The rush of delight when a card tells you exactly what you want to hear and confirms what you hoped for but are maybe afraid to believe it's possible.

I think I may approach my understanding of what Tarot is a little differently than some. I think pretty much everything they are telling us is something we already 'know' - we just tend to not listen very well to those inner truths, reasonable conclusions about where trends are taking us, etc, without a good focal point to spotlight them.

But if you feel yourself turning away from a card or blanking out as soon as you see it....follow that trail! Our minds play some pretty intense games to protect itself from dealing with what it doesn't like.

[Alta]

le fey, I am copying that out to keep!!! Well put.

Back when I was reading Jung he said much the same. Our neuroses are like psychic merde detectors. When they start setting off then we need turn and look in the other direction to see where they are coming from.

Well expressed!

[arcana17]

The cards give me some advise, but do not remove a free will. Ofter, they make me think on an aspect of the problem I would not have seen otherwise.

[gregory]

Another bump of an old thread. Free will ? Have we any ?