??? reading for $$$

I have been at a crossroads this last week and found myself in need of advice. So, I did what I don't often do: I splurged on a reading for $$$ (well, not exactly $$$, but $$). I found a reader in a local shop and asked her whether or not a course I'm considering pursuing is worth pursuing, and she pulled out a bunch of cards, and answered no. I then came up with a couple of alternatives, and she looked into those with new bunches of cards, and again answered no. I racked my brain to think of more alternatives, and she looked into each option I came up with, and told me that no, none of these courses of action were likely to work out for me. I felt like she was scrambling, trying to come up with something to offer me, and I tried to help her with this. But no cigar. Nothing positive could be found.

Finally time was almost up. Knowing that leaving a client with nothing at all is not great from the perspective of the reader, I decided to help her out by asking a totally unrelated question. She managed to find a tiny thread of hope in response to this query, and the reading ended with that. She apologized for not being able to help me, and I thanked her for not sugarcoating and for answering my questions honestly. But I did come away with nothing: no plan of action, no larger perspective, no prospects. Nothing, at any rate, related to my main line of enquiry.

I've heard so many times from those of you on the forum who do read professionally that you feel you have a duty to the client to help find a way forward, that this is what readings are about. My question is: in tough cases, what is the difference between truth-telling and failing the querent altogether? Is a reading which does not offer hope a failed reading, or an honest one?

I'm not so much disappointed in my experience, as intrigued. I guess there are broader questions behind the ones I've articulated above, and these are philosophical in nature. Is it possible to find oneself in a position in which there are no grounds for hope? Or in which nothing, absolutely nothing, can be done? The reader kept repeating to me, as she turned over cards, "Oh--you're between a rock and a hard place. You're in a very bad position. You're really stuck."

I really don't know what to think about this. It was a bizarre experience.

You might have asked the Tarot to give you some alternatives worth pursuing, rather than asking 'Is this the right one?''Is this the right one?' It would have been interesting to see what cards might have come up.

Hmmn. I know I did ask her "well, what should I pursue?" but somehow this question came back at me. Come to think of it, she did generate some ideas but when she checked them with new rows of cards the responses were consistently negative . . .

Also, she threw down cards so quickly, and so many of them, that it was impossible to keep track of which cards they were. It wasn't like any reading I've seen before, where the cards stay out on the table.

In my experience the cards ALWAYS offer suggestions of how to proceed, what to adjust or even change in order to move forward.
I wonder, why/ how your reader could not see these.

punchinella said:

I have been at a crossroads this last week and found myself in need of advice. So, I did what I don't often do: I splurged on a reading for $$$ (well, not exactly $$$, but $$). I found a reader in a local shop and asked her whether or not a course I'm considering pursuing is worth pursuing, and she pulled out a bunch of cards, and answered no. I then came up with a couple of alternatives, and she looked into those with new bunches of cards, and again answered no. I racked my brain to think of more alternatives, and she looked into each option I came up with, and told me that no, none of these courses of action were likely to work out for me. I felt like she was scrambling, trying to come up with something to offer me, and I tried to help her with this. But no cigar. Nothing positive could be found.

Finally time was almost up. Knowing that leaving a client with nothing at all is not great from the perspective of the reader, I decided to help her out by asking a totally unrelated question. She managed to find a tiny thread of hope in response to this query, and the reading ended with that. She apologized for not being able to help me, and I thanked her for not sugarcoating and for answering my questions honestly. But I did come away with nothing: no plan of action, no larger perspective, no prospects. Nothing, at any rate, related to my main line of enquiry.

I've heard so many times from those of you on the forum who do read professionally that you feel you have a duty to the client to help find a way forward, that this is what readings are about. My question is: in tough cases, what is the difference between truth-telling and failing the querent altogether? Is a reading which does not offer hope a failed reading, or an honest one?

I'm not so much disappointed in my experience, as intrigued. I guess there are broader questions behind the ones I've articulated above, and these are philosophical in nature. Is it possible to find oneself in a position in which there are no grounds for hope? Or in which nothing, absolutely nothing, can be done? The reader kept repeating to me, as she turned over cards, "Oh--you're between a rock and a hard place. You're in a very bad position. You're really stuck."

I really don't know what to think about this. It was a bizarre experience.

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It certainly did not seem like a good reading.

One thing is IF the cards kept saying no to all the options you presented, she could have suggested instead asking the cards which avenue you could pursue that would be beneficial to you. I think that is what I would have done. Or asked what you can do now that will bring you to where you want ot be in the future. I would say she is open to suggesting questions too if what she was finding was not positive of helpful. She could have thought up a question that would be helpful and suggested it. Like `How about if we ask this?" You would of course be free to refuse, but she did not seem to even try to steer things in a helpful direction.

As for the questions you ask, a lot of them are philosophical in nature, so there is no one set answer. All I can do here is tell you my personal beliefs. Yes, to me a reading that does not offer hope or solutions is a failed one. To me any reading that leaves the reader feeling worse than when the came to you is a failed reading. That is my very definition of it, how you know that a reading has failed. We are hear to help, if we do not help, we failed.

Yes, I beleive personally that this is my duty as a reader. My honour and my priviledge, but also my duty.The thing is that there are ways and ways of telling any story. No matter what we see in the cards, we as readers get to choose the words we use, choose the tine we use, choose how we tell the story. We can use harsh blunt words or gentle caring ones to tell the exact same story. We can choose to tell an optimistic story or a pessimistic story from the exaxt same cards that have some up. We can talk to them caringly like to a dear friend or coldly as if we have no connection to them.

These are our choices and what we choose makes a world of difference. Telling a story empathetically is going to lead to a different feel for the querent that just a cold statement of the facts.

If we see something that the querent may not want to hear, do we just say here is where you are going, period. deal with it, or do we tell them we know how they feel and we've been there too and it passes.

Personally I am a pretty spiritual person and I believe storngly that our lives are guided and nothing can happen that is not in our best interests or is there to teach us what we need to knoiw to prosper and grow. So I tend to see that in the cards, the good in any negative situaion.

The thing, to me, is to remember that there is a basic duality in the cards, each card meaing contains its opposte as well,. Duality in the send that cold and hot are connected. And how ligth and dark are connected, part of the same thing, EF if you have coldness and take away the cold you have heat and vice versa. if you have light and take away the lgith you have darkness and vice versa. Because they are connected and part of the same thing,

I always have this at the back of my mind as a reader. Eg if the death card comes up I do not JUST tell someone that they will lose somethign. I look for the other side. that death leads to rebirth and how life brings beautiful new things every springtime after the winter and that the loss is necessary to lead to that. I don't make this stuff up of course, but I LOOK foir it purposely in the card image. Because I beleive the two sides of the coin are always present, And if you have to tell something hard then I believe in also finding the other side, the positive side and telling that too. My belief is that is is always there is you look. I look.

And btw, there is no real reason why you can't both be totally honest and offer hope at the same time. In fact is is my belief that you always can and it is desireable to do so. They are not at all mutually exclusive. There is always hope, at least in my world view, in any situation and that IS truth for me.

So those are my views,

Babs

Mi-Shell said:

In my experience the cards ALWAYS offer suggestions of how to proceed, what to adjust or even change in order to move forward.
I wonder, why/ how your reader could not see these.

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Yeah me too! I beleive they are always there if you look. If someone comes to you for help the cards will contain and give you what you need to help them if you look., That reader did not know how to look or even to know ti was there.



Babs

so, Punchinella - why didn't you just ask someone here to read for you?

I think a reader is not supposed to always find the silver lining for a person as some readers feel that is up to the querent to find their own silver lining. There are benefits to that way of thinking, especially in difficult circumstances.

If I understand correctly, you asked very direct questions, and got very direct answers. Maybe the return is not what was preferred, but it is what was asked for. I think some people expect too much from readings sometimes as not everyone's method is in sync with how the querent thinks all readings should be. There is no 'duty' in the sense that someone owes you a little extra when a straight answer just won't do. In some cases, a reader may not always be attuned to the silver lining in a situation or they just don't set up their interpretations that way. It could be just their preference that they choose to avoid that method altogether.

If she gave you 'no' and you were looking for direction, it is a direction. Although a course away from what you were considering. Maybe the reader felt it was your responsibility to ask the right questions, in which case, then you have to consider the financial benefit of having you return to ask more questions... personally I'd follow my own gut and try to temper it a bit with what was told to you by the reader. In that case, it'd still be something to draw from. I'd question if she was off the mark if the answers were confusing somehow.

Just food for thought

There are times when a reader just won't be able to find the answers for a sitter and in that case, they're right to be honest and just say that they're sorry they couldn't help. I think if I were the reader I'd have offered the reading for free or refunded money if I'd gotten it up front, though.

We don't always get answers for our sitters. It's my firm belief that the way it works is that we're sometimes not meant to be the one who delivers this or that message to a particular sitter and in that case, we just won't be able to. Perhaps the Universe wants the person to find their own way or perhaps someone else is the one who is supposed to give the guidance rather than us. The Universe is a Great Mystery that mortals don't understand because we're not meant to. If we could understand, then it wouldn't be a mystery, would it? We don't know what the tapestry of another's life holds, so we don't know why this is the case. It just is.

It's odd, I mean in all this quickfire of laying down cards, why couldn't she just lay down three cards; (1) the issue, (2) what you should do, (3) what you shouldn't do.

Surely something would have come to the surface with this approach?