Kelly, one thing I can strongly recommend right off the top is to stop using reversals for a while. I still don't read reversals, and I've been reading for many many years. I'm still learning the Tarot just like you even tho I also read for money.
Learning to read the cards is ongoing, it never stops. No two people are the same. The decks change, some people keep to the same deck for years, others switch decks like they change shoes!
The only hard and fast rule I can think of is to be willing to be wrong. We can't always be right. We can try to read the cards to the best of our ability and we can still miss something.
Strange things will happen on your Tarot journeys. You might use an expression, a turn of speech that you maybe never used before while doing a reading. And suddenly your sitter looks at you and says, "My Dad used to say that to me all the time." That is all it takes to turn around a reading. What happened. Did your study of the cards bring that expression to you? Are you suddenly a medium because you said the one phrase that Martha's father used to use? Who the hek knows. But you said something that clicked. Thankyou Angels!
Your commitment to bring the highest and best information possible to the sitter is what will carry you thru your readings. Don't be afraid of silence. NObody said that you are the reader so you do all the talking. Think to yourself, what can I say, how can I say it, what will help him/her, what will help him/her to heal?
Ask your angels what/how to say things.
Part of my shift into reading mode includes a series of prayers. I sort of clear myself, I ask for my vibration to be raised, I ask for Angels to be in attendance (I think they are there even when I don't ask) and I ask for the highest and best good of all parties involved be available to us. I ask for the highest and best information be available to us during the reading. And I do most of this in the car on the ride to the bookstore!
You may be dealing with folks who are in pain or in trouble, but you won't necessarily always get bad cards for them. I have continued to be surprised by the fact that someone whose cards I thought would be "bad" have been beautiful, and it shows me that even those humans who we might judge as a particular way are seen as lovable and beautiful by Spirit. The same love and light and positivity is available to all of us, regardless of the deeds we may have done.
I have learned not to pre-judge the sitter, but to accept the people in my chair as souls on a journey, just like me, and I am lucky enough to be playing the role of Tarot reader this time around. Who knows what might happen in the next incarnation. They might be the ones flipping cards for me!
Good luck on your journey!
