Tarot Readings: Understanding vs. Control

People turn to tarot readings when life feels out of control.

I think this is something a lot of us readers, tarot enthusiasts, and tarot collectors have experienced firsthand throughout the first (almost) two years of the pandemic. When we can’t make sense of our feelings or the world around us, we shuffle our cards, make an intention, and hope that whatever comes up gives us a sense of solace.

Illustration by: Wiji Lacsamana

I see this a lot in the questions that come up whenever I offer free tarot readings on Instagram.

People who I’ve never met or have never engaged with throw a tiny seed out into the Universe, hoping that a tarot reading can help them put the uncontrollable into terms they can understand. A lot of times, I have to explain that the cards we pull only offer suggestions. Effective, practical, and magical readings mirror our own preferences, beliefs, and hopes—and my own hope, as a reader, is that the cards I pull and the questions I help you shape connect you with your own intuition so that you may choose whatever is for your best and highest good.

Everyone’s felt lost at sea at one point or another.

Through my meditation teacher training, I learned that wanting to control certain situations and outcomes springs from the way our brains’ make-up, our psychology, and even our unique and individual backgrounds. We want to protect ourselves from making mistakes, from harm, and from the unknown, and so we grip a little harder, and ball our hands into fists that are so tight our nails bury into our skin.

Sometimes, our need to control what makes us fearful or anxious becomes second nature to us that we don’t realize we lock our jaws at night or grind our teeth, lash out at others or instill habits in ourselves that add on to the stress we don’t see building up.

IT’S A LOT TO DEAL WITH!!!

No wonder we turn to our cards and demand exact and specific answers, ask closed-loop questions, and want to use our cards to find out what other people think or how events will pan out. It’s a way of exercising control where, deep inside, we know we have none.

I recently took a Chorus Meditation class centered on understanding vs. control and it made me think of how and why we come to tarot.

Imagine this…

What if we came to our tarot readings, wanting to understand ourselves and our situations rather than aiming to control our lives?

I’m thinking of this right now and I feel my entire body immediately relaxing. If we can just sit with our anxieties and fears long enough to surpass our knee-jerk need to control everything, then maybe we can deal with whatever comes at us with a little bit more grace.

What if we shuffled our cards with the prime intention of figuring out what’s what rather than having some arbitrary card dictate to us what will happen or what won’t happen?

Just think of how much kinder we would be to ourselves when things don’t go according to plan. Just think of how much more compassionate we would be to others. And think of how, when we finally figure out a game plan for ourselves, we’ll be more committed to seeing it through—because we’ve done the work of getting to know the deepest places from which our needs and wants and desires come from.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to control outcomes in and of itself. It’s part of our make-up as human beings.

But I do think we can go beyond this super primal instinct and add a little more finesse to the way we handle ourselves, our tarot readings, and the way we approach all that’s happening around us. When we come from a place of understanding, we’re better able to see the factors that affect our decision-making. And don’t you think a deeper, more thorough sense of understanding will allow you to tweak your environment and what is actually, realistically in your control?

There are people too, during tarot readings, who unknowingly want to take control of every aspect of the reading.

Have you ever read cards for someone who won’t let you get a word in edgewise? Who questions what every single card means before you can make sense of anything… or why you chose a certain spread… or why a card looks a certain way… or even why you decided to read with a specific deck? All these questions that come one after the other are a sign of how the person you’re reading for wants to get a firmer grip on what’s going on. Not only are they wanting to exercise some sort of control in their lives by getting a tarot reading, they’re also (probably unconsciously) wanting to dominate the reading space in order to gain some sense of control.

It’s up to you, as a reader, whether you want to take clients like these or not! (If this isn’t for you, then make sure you draw boundaries by really working on the verbage in your FAQs and guidelines). If it’s in your bandwidth to hold someone’s hand as they transition from super tense and anxious energy into a more relaxed and free-flowing state, then it might help for you to explain the idea behind understanding vs. control.

As part of your triage solution, I find that a lot of times, guided breath work (breathing slowly with your client!) can almost immediately get someone’s parasympathetic nervous system to kick so they’re not all panicked and wanting to control every part of the reading all the time. Counting breaths, extending exhales, and breathing together can work wonders and transitioning someone from control to understanding. The breath is an awesome tool! And it also makes for a wonderful example. We don’t need to be aware of our breaths for it to keep going. We don’t need to consciously control it. But if we understand how it can help us (as in mindful breathing in order to slow us down), we make room for so much magic.

Tarot readings work the same way.

They’re an awesome tool to help us understand what’s happening, and if we use them mindfully, they can help us tweak whatever we can exact control over. Most importantly, tarot readings can teach us that if we remain grounded and tethered to our intuition and our highest good, no matter what surprises may or may not come, we’re going to be okay.