How do you do an effective reading for yourself?

Rhiannon

Here's a spread that really helped me learn to read for myself. It helped keep me objective. :p I'm posting a link to the post I did on it back in August. It's called the Mandala spread.

http://www.aeclectic.net/forum/UltraBoard.cgi?action=Read&BID=5&TID=20&SID=79026

Hope that helps. If the link doesn't work, just do a search on "Mandala" and it should come up.

Rhiannon :)
 

bec

The link does work,
otherweise I´ve gathered all the spreads from these boards I could find and put them on my HP, including worksheets. I´ve tried almost every my self now, and they work great. There´s a lot of homemades you won´t find in any book - check them out, you might some you can use :)
 

purplelady

I do readings for myself. "Ya know how some people say when they do this the cards tend to tell them what they want to hear as opposed to what is? Well I had the Opposite happen! The reading showed my dreadful fears and worries (I can be a real worrier) but they didn't happen . In fact the Opposite happened! Perhaps my fears and worries were just very strong and the reading was expressing that. I'd insert an emoticon here if I could but oh well- I kind-of miss the little round critters!
 

Persephone37

I read the most of the time for myself and use it mainly to listen into my inner self about my hidden fears and subconcious needs. The good thing is, I learned a lot of myself to know and with the years my cards an me grew together. I do also ask for other stuff like the relationships I started or hoped to start, but I never got a "wrong" answer once I was focused. Of course, I experimented in the past quite often and figured what I see on AT posted as well, that the event must have been through before I can lay another time for the same matter or I get "rubbish". But even this "rubbish" is no waste, its just a reflection of my desires, fears and hopes. Since I always write my readings up, I figure out quite easy if I just observed my own emotions or got an answer to my question like in the very first place.

For a while I was even concerned that after I read the cards and I change something, this would influence the outcome. But after years of card reading I can tell you at least for my readings - it comes out whatever I try to change or not, its quite fate. There may be aspects which make it a bit better or a bit worse, but the prediction comes to truth as far as I experienced. Its not always in the same way I thought it would come out though, but still.

So thats at least my experiences with reading for myself.

Regards
Petra
 

SunChariot

The Maiden said:
Hi all,
I'm brand new to Tarot, I got my deck from a big name bookstore that had a beginner's book and deck set on sale last year. Later I got a book on Tarot from a used book store. Anyway, both books said basically it's difficult to do an acurate reading for yourself because you are too knowledgeable for your own inner thoughts and that throws everything off. Can someone tell me how I might do more acurate readings for myself?

Peace all.

Reading for yourself is a funny thing. Some people find it easy, some people find it hard. I only read for myself for the first year and a half and I was fine with it, In fact I would have happily gone on like that forever if it had not been for some AT friends wanting readings.:grin:

Tarot books are certainly a necessary step in the beginning when you start as a newbie. I have over 30 by now, and the one thing I've found is that many of them contradict each other. There are many books devoted solely to those wishing to read for themselves. Two that come to mind are:

1)Tarot for Your Self-a Workbook for Personal Transformation, by Mary K. Greer

and

2) Tarot for Self-Discovery, by Nina Lee Braden

I loved them both.

Well, as for knowing your inner thoughts, that does not mean you know the answer to the question you are asking, or why would you ask. I may know the way I think, but I don't know if I will get that job next week, or why my sister was mean to be when I was 12... I don't know the answers to those questions (until I do a reading) any more than I would now the answers to these questions if they were for complete strangers.

IMHO, I think what people find hardest about reading for themselves is that they find it hard not to care which answer comes up, and not to want one answer over another. That objectivity is essential when reading for yourself or you could start to see things in the cards that are not there or refuse to see things that are there. Then what you have is an inaccurate reading.

I am able to get past that by telling myself that the future is not written in stone. Usually any future events given in a reading can be changed. So I don't care what comes up as long as it's the truth. The truth gives you freedom. Because only once you know it can you start to truly prepare,

If the cards tell you you are heading towards a specific future and it's one you want, then you can relax and be happy and even do readings to ask what you can do to strenghten it or improve parts.

If it's a future you don't want, that is when the cards have given you the ultimate gift. The chance to change and improve your life. Then you can do more readings and ask how you can change that future to one you want. You take the advice and if you ask again usually you have changed to a positiive future.

Think of how if you had not asked you would have been going along and BANG, this unpleasant thing comes along out of the blue and blindsides you. When you read for yourself you never have to have that. Bad news is the best because it lets you correct the path you're on. The good news would happen and make you happy even if you did not do the reading.

So that's attitude, I just want the truth of the matter, don't care if it's posiitive or negative. And as long as you don't care then you can read for yourself easily enough, in my experience...

Actually, I guess since I have so much more experience reading for myself, I feel much more comfortable reading for myself. But I do have an enormous respect for the cards and I truly believe that the right cards always come up. And that as long as you can remain objective you can read for anyone.

Babs
 

Persephone37

Hi Babs,

SunChariot said:
I may know the way I think, but I don't know if I will

Maybe true for you, I don't know my subconscious and the cards help me to understand myself.

SunChariot said:
IMHO, I think what people find hardest about reading for themselves is that they find it hard not to care which answer comes up, and not to want one answer over another. That objectivity is essential when reading for yourself or you could start to see things in the cards that are not there or refuse to see things that are there. Then what you have is an inaccurate reading.

Actually THAT was never an issue of mine. In fact my cards often tell me what I rather not want to hear and they insist brutally in that and what shall I tell - it comes to pass if I want or not. Only when I start to ask and ask every night the same question they just reflect my hopes and fears instead of the outcome and I get inaccurate reading of the question. But if I take it again as a true slap on my head for a warning that I am blocking myself by hoping rubbish, then this inaccurate readings can tell me a lot about my psychological problem behind the question.

SunChariot said:
I am able to get past that by telling myself that the future is not written in stone. Usually any future events given in a reading can be changed.

This is an interesting believe difference between you and me and we should discuss that in another thread if you like, since I think it could go OT in this newcomer thread. But I really would like to know how your life experience and Tarot understanding lead you to this believe. Its quite opposite to mine and a discussion would be pretty interesting. Give me a quick shout and we can open up a thread and discuss that, would you like?

SunChariot said:
Actually, I guess since I have so much more experience reading for myself, I feel much more comfortable reading for myself. But I do have an enormous respect for the cards and I truly believe that the right cards always come up. And that as long as you can remain objective you can read for anyone.

Babs

Indeed! I second that!!!
Regards
Petra
 

Gemini Rising

After months of not using the Tarot (I even forgot the password to my old screenname for Aeclectic, and the password to the email I used to register it!), I recently began reading the cards again with my newfound knowledge of astrology...hence my new screenname. So far, I'm only reading for myself, and I find it very useful. I like getting an outside perspective. I think it's all about HOW you read for yourself. I like getting a different perspective on my current situation, what I'm doing right or wrong, warnings, hidden things I should be aware of, guidance...the whole works.

Since when I first started reading I would deliberately interpret cards in a certain way to make it what I wanted to hear, what I do now is "pretend" I'm reading for somebody else in interpreting the cards.

There are some things I won't read for for myself, however. Mostly it has to do with relationships, or my future, since I can be a worrier, and nearly panicked one day when the Death card came up for a simple daily reading. (Later that night, a dear friend of mine attempted suicide...again...but failed, so I wondered if there was a connection. Also, one of my fish died. =P) When I was going through a rough period with my girlfriend a couple months ago, I thought about using the Tarot to see how it would end, but decided against it. It has now ended, but I would have been terribly upset to have learned that at that point. There are some things I just don't want to know, and sometimes the Tarot simply won't tell me...the cards won't make sense, I won't get vibrations from them, and I'll get the message that I'm not supposed to know.
 

le fey

I'm the kind of person who tends to analyze things to death, and I usually 'know' well before I've found words to put to it. For me, Tarot provides me with a vocabulary for turning those thoughts and understandings into something concrete enough that I can figure out what it is I'm thinking - in this context, it's a strength rather than a weakness that my own thoughts affect the reading, because that's what I'm trying to gain in the first place - an interpretation of where my thoughts, especially the buried ones, are heading.

I'm just not very good at conning myself with wishful thinking - I can tell when what I'm seeing in the cards is a reflection of what I'm hoping for, and for the most part they act as a stern yet supportive method of reminding myself to stay rooted in where I ought to be rather than where I want to be just then, or to stop exaggerating fears and stirring up internal drama when it isn't warranted.
 

Persephone37

Following partly SunChariots advice to ask for the reasons of my relationship problems and to test a new spread I found at Tarotmoon.com named removing obstacles, I got for an answer, my obstacles would be internal: Hope (out of beeing torn in two emotionally), external: Egoism (out of paralysing fear) and hidden Despair (out of probably one-sided love). The solutions were internal to work it through, external to stay loyal to the heart and hidden to keep going a path I am already on. The suggestion was confidence in myself, meditation, accepting the fate.

Well, thats exactly what message I got from cc the other night (but didn't trust to much since the outcome is just one card with no advice how to get there or to deal with it) and feel more and more that it is true for me. Btw. I like this analytic spread, its quite a revelation of my inner self and thats what is quite faszinating for me since I have some problems to listen to my unconcious without help of my cards.

In brief summary, I still agree with my former poster, there is no real choice, sometimes we have a little bit of a playground but the destination is fixed and we can reach it on the easy way or the hard. Well, I will try to get selfconfidence and keep up meditations and try to accept my fate whatever it will be and for what greater purpose it is meant.

Regards
Petra