As I mentioned before, my first deck was gifted to me by my crazy step-grandmother, which I had for several years. When my parents moved us into a new house, the cards got ruined by some essential oils that smashed. So…here comes my first mistake:
1. Buying an artsy, pretty, complicated deck
Yep. The first deck I bought about 2 years after this happened was the Witches Tarot. Didn’t connect with it, so I bought the Shadowscapes Tarot, as my original deck was from the 1990′s. While the Shadowscapes deck is beautiful, its also very distracting with how much art is in the cards. It took me away from the actual meanings of the cards, and it made it so, so difficult for me, as a beginner, to properly study. Once I moved onto a new deck, the Every Day Witches Tarot, it was SO much easier!! The cards were like, “Bam! Super easy to read!”
2. Being impatient
This is a constant flaw of mine. I am a very impatient person and my SO is constantly teasing me about how much I have to practice patience. I didn’t realize that studying tarot was a practice. It wouldn’t take a month for me to master the cards – it would take YEARS. So don’t be hard on yourself if you’ve been practicing for 6 months and still struggle with a suit, or a particular card. There are people who have been studying for 20-30 years and sometimes still struggle. That’s why tarot is a practice. (I’m currently patting my younger self on the head for this).
3. Relying on books
Don’t do it. Sure, once you get a new deck, go through its guide book, but then set it aside. Don’t teach yourself to rely on the deck – teach yourself to rely on your intuition. That’s where the readings come from. I literally, to this day, still find myself wanting to reach for my book when I get stuck. So, I close my eyes, rub them a few times, take a breath, and look at the cards I am reading again. When I first started, that book was glued to my right hand.
4. Not reading the right books enough
I would always read the guide books to my tarot decks, which is great. BUT, I would get frustrated because this guide book would say one thing and this other guide book would say another. It was so frustrating and confusing! Instead, I put the guide books up for collector’s items in my hutch, and I started reading books like “Reading Tarot Intuitively” or “Kitchen Table Tarot”. I now read whatever tarot book I can get my hands on
5. Realizing there is no “one way” when it comes to tarot
There are so many old wives tales about tarot – like you have to be gifted your decks. Wrong. I now have 15 decks and I have bought every single one of them, or traded. I also realized that the “meanings” for each card are guidelines, not sticky rules. This helped me in my readings because what I saw in a card was not always what it’s “true interpretation” was in a book. I learned to base my readings AROUND those studies rather than strictly on them
6. Starting out with complicated spreads
I understand getting excited, but start with small spreads. Work your way up. I would get SO overwhelmed and frustrated because here I was, an 18 year-old beginner with my Shadowscapes deck, with 12 cards spread out on my bed. Start out small, work your way up.
7. Letting tarot dictate my life
Tarot does not dictate your life. Just because the cards say something doesn’t mean its always going to happen. You have the ability to change the outcomes of your life and your future – not your cards. They are there for guidance.
Tarot: Mistakes I Made as a Beginner
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