How do you turn to your Tarot when mentally disturbed??

[hunter]

Vee, I love the term "predictive style". I don't use that style and I sometimes forget that most people do. Even people who are not fortune telling are usually still using predictive style. I always tweak the spread position meaning--sometimes ever so slightly--to make them non-predictive and more self-help and self-discovery.

I appreciate this thread so I can be a little more aware and careful of the advice I give.

Maybe in the spreads forum we should start a thread about the best spreads to use when self-reading and upset.

 

[Aerin]

I suppose another factor to consider, if you are doing predictive reading while upset, and if you believe tarot works off the energy of the moment, ('if things continue in the same direction as right now...'), is that if you're mired in negative or confused energy, your decisions and actions wouldn't lead to anyplace that great. So, it would almost have to show negative outcomes.

Hunter, I definitely use the Tarot to self soothe. I just control it a little more, I guess, by only doing guidance one card draws or meditation on cards I pick.

... But in general, I think that when people are in bad mental states, they shouldn't read tarot until they've evened out, especially if they read in a predictive style.

Yes. I read when I am upset but I am very careful about what I ask and use spread positions to focus the reading, with at least one "advice" card. Otherwise, as others have said, I could read anything negative into anything. I don't tend to use predictive readings anyway.

The Bohemian Gothic is the best deck for me when I'm down.

 

[hunter]

Yes. I read when I am upset but I am very careful about what I ask and use spread positions to focus the reading, with at least one "advice" card. Otherwise, as others have said, I could read anything negative into anything. I don't tend to use predictive readings anyway.

The Bohemian Gothic is the best deck for me when I'm down.

Because my most common emotion when feeling bad is fear, lots and lots of fear, this deck would NOT work for me. It's funny because I once spent a week or so with the Tarot of Vampyres during a dark period, and that deck while dark--and possibly encouraging more than releasing my desires to self-harm--didn't increase my anxiety like the Bohemian Gothic and other vampire decks do.

 

[Aerin]

Because my most common emotion when feeling bad is fear, lots and lots of fear, this deck would NOT work for me. It's funny because I once spent a week or so with the Tarot of Vampyres during a dark period, and that deck while dark--and possibly encouraging more than releasing my desires to self-harm--didn't increase my anxiety like the Bohemian Gothic and other vampire decks do.

Whereas the Tarot of Vampyres would make ME go all Nick Drake!

It's interesting how different decks get people in different ways

 

[pacificwaters]

I don't know, but maybe if you have a tower moment every week, getting the tower just doesn't make much of an impression? I just think, yeh, so what else is new? Don't you have anything else to say, as I pull another card. I can line up tower, death and the 5 of swords in a row and just start laughing, and think, "I already knew THAT....and?????"

I usually happen to be a very pessimistic guy when I am low, so at the back of my mind I have the worry of "What if"?????? As mentioned previously I believe the cards are always right and hence just in case such negative cards do come I am bound to feel more worse...

When things are a total mess, I get freaked over too many good cards. I think, "Hmmm....am I supposed to take these literally??? Seriously deck, come on! Are you ACTUALLY saying that is going to happen to ME????? Or am I just going to watch a TV with an episode where that happens to the main character?

That was indeed funny...In my case prior to starting the spread, when I had done a spread while feeling low the cards just told me to hang on and be patient. However yes if you get positive cards, while the mood would be upbeat, just a streak of doubt would definitely creap in (considering that you are already in a very bad state of mind with nothing working your way)!!

Yes. It is a predictive question. And yes, I think it is a natural tendency. It's akin to praying, except unlike with silent prayer, you expect to get a clear answer right away from an oracle.

Absolutely yes (for the part I underlined)!!

And yes, that it what all people who believe that say. I have years of experience to the contrary, and never saw any basis for believing it anyway. Nothing in life is perfect or always right. Not even tarot.

If you keep a record of your readings, and look over them in hindsight, you'll see there's no way to match actual events and outcomes to certain cards drawn sometimes. You'd never have interpreted them the way things actually unfolded and neither would anyone else have... They were just wrong. It's simply not true that they can always be made to fit retroactively. Not if you believe they have any specific or intrinsic meanings at all. (And I think it's a cop out to claim that every time that happens it's because 'things just changed' since the time of the reading. Sometimes it only takes moments to find out the actual answer to something you asked.) But to each their own.

I just loved the way you put it, especially the first paragraph. However, just what I feel. Should not there be one such thing in whom you should have complete trust?? If you (you is generalised here ) say the deck is personalised and is your friend who mirrors your moods, there has to be complete trust and surrender towards it.

Just to explain what I want to say. I am from India where horoscopes have always been and will be the predominant mode for predicting the future and advicing in complicated matters. An oracle in its own right. When someone is born, using the planetary positions a personalised horoscope is charted. This stays constant. At the same point of time two different people though have broadly the same prediction, can differ significantly when it comes to finer nuances. Just in my case it was predicted about 10-12 years ago that I would have a profession in the field of banking, but I am in a totally scientific research oriented field (with banking no way in its periphery). My horoscope is just the same. It hasnt changed, its just that, at that particular point of time the person reading it had his own set of perceptions which made him say so.

Maybe if I were not an Indian I would have believed you just because of the way you put it Mellifluous but as I said I have had different experiences .... But then as you say ...To each his own

Yes. I read when I am upset but I am very careful about what I ask and use spread positions to focus the reading, with at least one "advice" card. Otherwise, as others have said, I could read anything negative into anything. I don't tend to use predictive readings anyway.

That's a pretty good advice. But one has to be I guess very cautious as well not to over-interpret. On the forum I saw this thread about the spread Poor Man's Therapist (http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=130111&highlight=poor+man's+therapist)

I guess may be it could help, though I havent tried it myself...Might as well try it

 

[Mellifluous]

I just loved the way you put it, especially the first paragraph. However, just what I feel. Should not there be one such thing in whom you should have complete trust??

In my opinion & experience: NO!

There is no such thing.

If you (you is generalised here ) say the deck is personalised and is your friend who mirrors your moods, there has to be complete trust and surrender towards it.

Again, no. I know better than to ever surrender completely to my moods (good or bad). Frankly, that would be dangerous.

Moods aren't reality. Everyone gets in bad moods, that should not be acted upon but waited out until they pass. And people with traumas in their past are more prone to dark moods than others, as well as to wanting to 'just go with' good moods whenever they arrive instead of thinking things through.

Just to explain what I want to say. I am from India where horoscopes have always been and will be the predominant mode for predicting the future and advicing in complicated matters. An oracle in its own right. When someone is born, using the planetary positions a personalised horoscope is charted. This stays constant. At the same point of time two different people though have broadly the same prediction, can differ significantly when it comes to finer nuances. Just in my case it was predicted about 10-12 years ago that I would have a profession in the field of banking, but I am in a totally scientific research oriented field (with banking no way in its periphery). My horoscope is just the same. It hasnt changed, its just that, at that particular point of time the person reading it had his own set of perceptions which made him say so.

Maybe if I were not an Indian I would have believed you just because of the way you put it Mellifluous but as I said I have had different experiences .... But then as you say ...To each his own

Yes, always the final wisdom: to each their own.

This is very interesting. Charts are done for babies, at birth? (If so, that's a very cool tradition.) At what age do you usually start finding out about what's in them? Or are you speaking of going and having an astrological reading whenever you feel the need to do so? (Or both?)

 

[prudence]

I find nothing more soothing when I am upset than to find some quiet space and sit down with the tarot with the specific intention of "please, help me to put this into perspective..."

When I am done, I am always so much better off than when I had started. But that's just me, and maybe I'm weird. Been doing this, quite faithfully, for over 15 years and it has never let me down.

 

[SunChariot]

I find nothing more soothing when I am upset than to find some quiet space and sit down with the tarot with the specific intention of "please, help me to put this into perspective..."

When I am done, I am always so much better off than when I had started. But that's just me, and maybe I'm weird. Been doing this, quite faithfully, for over 15 years and it has never let me down.

Nope, it's not just you. I do it too. Often I ask: "What can you tell me now that will help me feel better about this situation." That tends to be really helpful for me too when I am
stressed.

Babs

 

[pacificwaters]

This is very interesting. Charts are done for babies, at birth? (If so, that's a very cool tradition.) At what age do you usually start finding out about what's in them? Or are you speaking of going and having an astrological reading whenever you feel the need to do so? (Or both?)

Both.

The birth time for the charts are noted when the child is born but the first overall life reading is usually done when the kid is 2 and a half years old. This reading gives an outlook of how overall the life of the kid would be.

Later on whenever need be the astrological readings are done for specific advices (just like in Tarot) and these are based on the horoscope as well as the current planetary positions.

 

[Morwenna]

If I'm upset I don't get NEAR the cards!! Or if I absolutely have to, I pick a deck that feels right and just look through the whole thing and maybe study it, or make little stories out of it; perhaps I'm doing that as a distraction (no "perhaps" about it!). But even at the best of times I don't do predictive readings for myself, only analytical ones.

I do like what some of you have said, though, about asking questions of how to get past the current problem. (Just don't tell me what problems are on the way!)