Liz Worth ~ Tarot

Most of my client readings are focused on work or relationships.

I think that’s pretty common for most tarot readers, as those are the topics that people are usually most concerned with.

But every once in a while, I get some really fun – and unusual – questions.

I was reading at an event in a small town a couple hours away. It was nearing the end of the day when a young woman sat across from me said, “I’m not sure if you can tell me this, but is my house haunted? Because I feel like it is but no one will take me seriously when I tell them.”

I had been asked a lot of questions before this, but it was my first haunted house reading.

I shuffled the cards like usual and had my querent pull a few. When I flipped them over, we both peered down at them and paused.

The Seven of Cups, Wheel of Fortune and the Hanged Man stared back at me.

It’s not always easy to navigate such a direct question: Asking “is my house haunted” is essentially...

Ever since the start of the year, I’ve been hearing more and more tarot readers talk about their struggles with imposter complex.

Imposter complex is something that gets all of us at one time or another. No matter how much work you put into your craft, and no matter how much positive feedback you receive on your readings, there will be days when you question whether you’re cut out for this.

One of the things I think is important to do when doubt creeps in is to sit within the awareness of it. Ask yourself: “Why is this feeling coming up? Where might it be coming from?”

Sometimes imposter complex rises up when readers are trying too hard to do something spectacular. That might look like an attempt to make a wild leap of a prediction, or it might come from pressure to impress a querent by knowing something they haven’t revealed.

When we try to force the uncanny, or when we assume we have to perform omniscient feats, doubt is often in the corners, waiting...

This year I want to roll out a ton of new tarot workshops, while also rebuilding my platform as an author. I have so many ideas I want to share outside of tarot, but I don’t want to let go of either aspect of my work: My writing and my tarot readings have to coexist.  

I have been writing longer than I have been doing anything else, and people have often asked me how I find time to create – especially on top of running a business.  

In all honesty, there is no “hack” or magic secret I can offer. I set my priorities and try to be realistic with myself about what is possible in a single day.  

Learning how to do that has been a process. It has taken me time to learn how to focus my energy and how to set realistic expectations upon myself.  

My natural tendency is to think I can accomplish way more in a day than is possible, and when I do that, I set myself up for failure. And that sends me into disappointment in thinking...

When I heard that Theresa Reed, aka The Tarot Lady, was releasing a tarot book about grief, loss, healing and other hardships, I was excited.

Finally: A resource that will help tarot readers take their skills beyond the usual Tarot 101 fare and learn how to work with common yet challenging topics.

If you have tried to learn tarot based on guidebooks alone, you might have found yourself hitting walls along the way. Standard card meanings can offer a stepping stone towards your foundation, but when it comes time to actually perform a reading and answer a querent’s specific concerns, those general meanings can fall short.

And yet so many people seek out tarot readings when they are facing challenges and looking for support.

That’s why Theresa’s work with The Cards You’re Dealt is so important: This book helps to fill a gap for tarot readers of all levels – especially those who read for other people, or who aspire to.

“Is this a good book for...

When I first started reading tarot for other people, I was actually surprised at how many wanted to know about love.  

I thought I would be answering different types of questions about spiritual journeys and personal transformations.  

But I quickly realized how important relationships are to people, and how much is at stake when we are talking about love, commitment, loyalty and companionship.  

Some of the hardest questions I’ve had to answer as a tarot reader had to do with relationships.  

They can be really complicated. Especially if the people involved are cycling through a range of emotions: One day they’re on, another they’re off.  

Divining a clear answer about a relationship is not always easy to pin down when the people in question can’t be pinned down in the first place.  

Another challenge can arise when clients are impatient about the answer: They feel like they’ve already been...

Whew! Is it just me, or is time flying by?

Sometimes I can’t believe how fast time is going. I’ve been noticing that lot of people are going through some major periods of re-evaluation in their lives.

There’s a lot of change in the air as many of us are rethinking what’s most important and looking at  what to de-prioritize in order to have more time for our families, friends, and ourselves.

Are you going through a big change right now?

When things are busy and hectic, and you’re feeling a bit (or a lot) unclear about what it’s all leading to, it can help to pull out your tarot cards and give yourself some space to reflect.

Instead of asking a predictive question, which can muddy the waters of the present even more, ask something like, “What can I do to stay true to myself right now?”

When you’re feeling pulled in a lot of different directions, it can help to come back to the here and now rather than getting lost in thoughts...

“What does this card mean?”

If you read tarot, chances are you’ve asked this question more than once along your path.

But one thing I’ve started to discourage tarot students from asking is that very question:

“What does this card mean?”

Why?

Because if figuring out a card meaning was the only thing standing between you and your tarot reading, you wouldn’t even have to ask that question.

Card meanings are everywhere. You can Google any tarot card and come up with all kinds of answers.

Or you can get a guidebook and look it up.

Or you can watch any number of videos on social media where people talk about their understandings of various tarot cards.

When someone asks what a card means, the problem isn’t that they can’t find that out on their own. Quite often, students who ask this question have already done their own studying. They already know something about the card they’re wondering about.

The problem is that the card...

One of the most common questions I get asked in my tarot classes is, “Should I be pulling a card a day for practice?”

I don’t assign daily draws and sometimes that makes people nervous. The practice has become so common that a lot of newer readers are under the impression that it’s a universal habit.

This isn’t to say I’m against daily draws entirely. I, too, was given the advice to pull one card a day, and did for a good long time when I was first learning tarot. I still have journals that I kept from that period, where I would record my daily card and the thoughts and ideas it inspired within me.

But I also came to see tarot differently as time went on. Which is what happens when you do tarot over a long stretch of time. Your relationship to it changes. You start to see new angles to it. And sometimes your old ways of doing things no longer fit the way they used to.

One of the biggest shifts for me came when I stopped looking at my tarot deck as...

How do you know you’re ready to read tarot for others?

How do you know you’re ready to start charging for your readings?

How do you know you’re ready to accept that invitation to read at your friend’s party, or to give a talk about tarot at your local bookstore?

These are all questions that you will likely have about tarot at some point in your journey. When I started learning tarot, I knew I wanted to be able to read for other people. I didn’t know right away that this was something I wanted to do professionally (that came later), but I did want to be able to give readings that were intuitive, insightful, and accurate.

Knowing where you want to go with tarot, even in the short-term, is important, because it gives you a goal to work towards. When you know what you’re aiming for, you can focus your studies and practices in a way that will build towards that result.

But what often happens along the way is that it can be hard to know when...

Tarot and intuition seem to go hand in hand: At least that’s what a lot of us are told when we start working with the cards.

But finding the synergy between an intuitive hit and following the cards as you’ve learned them can be a steep learning curve as a tarot reader.

Maybe you’ve found yourself wondering that very thing: “When should I go with the basic meaning, and when should I go with my first impression instead?”

Sometimes what sits behind this question is the fear of getting a reading wrong by going too off track with your interpretation.

I don’t think there’s a perfect answer or pat solution to this: Sometimes, you just have to be willing to go out on a limb with your interpretation to see if it resonates. Practice, experimentation, and patience go a long way to building your relationship with the cards.

Of course, what works for me may be different for someone else – intuition has its own ways of manifesting within each of us....