Reader · 13 min
Reading for yourself
Why reading for yourself is the hardest reading: hope and fear, redrawing, keeping only the hits, and a journal habit that shows you your own patterns.
In this lesson you will
- Name the hope or fear you bring to a reading before you draw.
- Check a reading with the picture-first and opposite-hope tests.
- Keep and review a journal so that misses teach you as much as hits.
It is late, you have just sent a message you are not sure about, and you reach for your deck. The card looks gloomy, so you draw another “to clarify”, and then a third. Reading for yourself is where most people first learn tarot, and it is also where the cards are easiest to bend.
Why your own reading is the hardest
When you read for a stranger, you have no stake in the answer. When you read for yourself, you already know what you hope for and what you fear, and both pull on the meaning. A hopeful reader finds the bright side of every card; a worried one finds the shadow in every picture.
None of this means you should stop reading for yourself. It means doing three things a careful reader does: name your hope before you draw, read the picture before the meaning, and write the reading down so you can check it later.
This lesson is part of Plus
Plus opens every lesson of the Practitioner, Reader and Advanced tiers, with practice that explains every answer.
What the lesson covers
- Five traps, and what to do instead
- Two tests for an honest reading
- When not to read for yourself
- Practice
Foundations and the first lesson of every course are free.