HeavensVault said:
The very first question she asked was, "What did your parents tell you about yourself as a child?" I knew then I was in for a theraphy session. One sure way to turn anyone off when you first meet them is to ask them about their childhood, unless of course your Marsha Brady.
I might ask this in a reading if I took a look at the spread and saw certain cards that were hinting at some past baggage the querant might be carrying around. If the Emperor/Empress were present, or the 10 of pents, I could think, "Hmmm...there's a negative thought (swords) issue here, possibly related to her parents/family of origin." To make sure I'm on the right track I will ask the sitter a question such as she asked you.
You asked why you keep running into obstacles, right? She may have seen a certain negative thought pattern or patterns (that's maybe what was up with all those swords) or maybe it had to do with your way of communicating (again swords). In any case, her method might have been to try and help you come to your own realization, as most people know those are the best kind, rather than simply say to you, "Ok, this is what you're doing wrong."
If her asking about your childhood was off-putting, as it sounds like it was, maybe you could have asked, "Why is that important to the reading?" If it had been me doing the reading and you asked that question I might have said, "Well, I'm seeing a certain pattern here in the cards and I just want to be sure I'm on the right track." It happened to me just yesterday. I was reading for someone who was asking about a long-distance relationship. Three cards, Justice Death and Lovers, seemed to be telling me that a divorce had just been made final. However, the sitter had not told me that the man had been married and frankly, I didn't know if she knew. (You never know!) So I tentatively asked her, "I just have a question before we begin...the cards seem to be showing me a legal commitment coming to closure on his end, does this make sense?" She confirmed that indeed her lover had been in the divorce process and last she'd heard it was entering its final phases. I knew then that I was definitely on the right track. So I'm thinking maybe had you asked why she was taking that childhood route, you may have come away with more understanding about the reading.
I didn't like this reading, especially when lots of swords came up, and the Court cards with Queens and Kings and she kept focused on my childhood. That blew me away.
I understand her style did not match your expectations and bottom line there is the sitter is always right. You didn't receive what you needed from this reading and although her intentions may have been good, it just wasn't a good match. However, without full participation from a sitter, without your comments and questions and even protestations where necessary, how was she to know her reading wasn't meeting your needs?
I didn't ask for a past life reading!!!!!! My question was, why are there obstacles in my way all the time!
Maybe the root of the obstacles are there since your childhood. Maybe the way around them is by addressing some deep-seated issues that the cards were showing. Maybe if you had asked her again how what she was saying had to do with your question, she could have explained better?
Next time someone does a professional reading for me I am going to bring my digital camera long so I can snap a shoot at the cards.
Why? So you can do your own reading later? Then why pay for one? Paying for a reading is paying someone else to interpret the cards, hear from the "ether," contact spirit, or the collective unconscious...however you see it. Otherwise, you can do your own readings for free.
I would chalk it up to a lesson learned. How to get the most out of a paid tarot reading is to be a very active participant, to ask questions, in order to gain more insight and clarification. If a reader is not open to that, then I'd have a problem. But I think you can hardly blame a reader for reading differently. We all read differently. Sometimes I read differently than myself -- it depends. Like Sulis said, sometimes I see the message of the cards altogether and I can't really parse it out card by card. It's as if the cards each say a word or two, not full sentences, but all together they complete the sentence or message. Other times, each card holds a message. Each reading is different and each reader is different.