Mentoring With Love

Many years ago as a child, I fell in love with the movie "To Sir With Love", which was a story depicting the commitment of a teacher to his high school students. Secretly, as a student myself, I had wished my teachers were like him, passionate, rational, and genuine. Ok, it would have helped if like him, they were dark and handsome too.

Much as my Mum would have loved for me to be a teacher when I entered Junior College, I felt I didn't have the patience and gift of empathy to be one. However, mentoring tarot readers who are at the beginning of their tarot journey was so different. It required patience, empathy and so much more.

After obtaining my CPTR and having gained even more experience with tarot readings for more clients, I started getting involved with mentoring beginner tarot readers here in Singapore. The studies I had gone through and the resource generously provided by my own mentors here, who had helped me over the months, were crucial for the development of the beginners that I had mentored. Activities ranged from one on one structured sessions with these readers weekly as well as interactive group classes where the beginners are taken through a combination of readily-available resource as well as a basic curriculum written by myself.

I am not sure who enjoyed it more, the beginners or me, but I felt so much emotional fulfilment that came with my opportunity to "pay it forward" by getting these beginners proficient with basic tarot reading skills.

I was also assigned with a couple of protégées from the American Trot Association. While it posed a little more challenging with my only mode of communications via email only because I reside in Singapore, it still did not take away that feeling of fulfilment for the opportunity to play an important role in their respective journeys with their tarot cards.

When I first started Sun Goddess Tarot focusing on my tarot consultancy business, I enjoyed meeting, talking, and reading for my clients. The emotional connections I have formed with them gave me tremendous joy. However when I started mentoring beginner tarot readers, I absolutely loved sharing my tarot reading skills and I felt like I was on a mission to help demystify tarot further with the beginners whom I touched through my sessions. I remembered being questioned about studying tarot which was so "irrelevant to everyday life". How wrong could they be! Tarot IS the journey of life in a wee card box!

Every time I read the tarot cards for my clients, I would always try to remind them about how the interpretation of the spread had uncovered choices for them to make so as to shape their own destinies. Likewise, at the mentoring sessions, I often repeat my stand to the beginner readers. I think I am slowly chipping away at it.

With this in mind, I thought to pull out my Queen of Cups from Ciro Marchetti's Gilded Tarot deck. A warm-hearted, compassionate, sensitive and nurturing queen, the card reminded me to always mentor the beginner readers using the spirit of the queen. It's not about how qualified, or how experienced I am as a tarot reader. It's all about how I inspire the same passion in tarot the way my own mentors have inspired me.

About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and a tarot card reader by accident. She has recently achieved a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America. A member of the American Tarot Association and the Tarot Association of the British Isles, she is also endorsed as a reader for the Free Tarot Network.

She can be contacted at www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot or www.sungoddesstarot.com

Making Firm Choices And Being Happier For It

2 years in the company have seen me building a wonderful amount of experiences, a close-knit and familial relationship within my team and a substantial amount of opportunities to create game-changing marketing campaigns. But I have never thought of where this will all lead me because I have likened it to the fulfillment I get at home with my family. Having achieved my 10 of Cups moment of emotional fulfillment in the home front, I don't turn around to say "let's upgrade the hubby and find a new and better one" do I? So, I have never asked after these 2 years of working in a sometimes frustrating but mostly fulfilling job, "What's next?"

My business trip in Hong Kong in the last 2 days was interesting because it presented me with the opportunity to meet my regional colleagues and get to know them better. Many had to uproot themselves from various home countries to set up a new home in Hong Kong and many of these are practically living out of their suitcases as they chock up frequent flyer air miles visiting the different countries in the region in a bid to juggle their multiple projects. Honestly, I admired their energy and enthusiasm but they did have a weary glint in their eyes.

So I thought to draw my card du jour today to get some clarity on the issue and uncannily enough, I drew the Lovers card. A major arcana card, the Lovers card was about deep love, passion and connectedness influenced by the hard value choices one makes. I knew immediately what it was trying to tell me.

After 2 marriages, missing out on some of my son's growing up years and a breast cancer scare, I think I had learnt to make the right choices of putting my family first and fighting fiercely for my right to a healthy work-life balance. There were compromises that I had to make over the years, like giving up on higher career ambitions within a job that I love so passionately and turning down opportunities for regional roles. I had gladly done so and made the firm choice of putting the interests of my family first.

That was why I was homesick even though it was merely a 2-day trip.

I know what my aspirations are now. I am inspired by the energy of the Queen of Pentacles. She is a nurturing earth mother adept at keeping her family together and happy, maintaining a warm and beautiful home whilst managing a demanding career.

In many of the tarot readings that I do for my clients and indeed amongst my own social circle, I know of people who often find these priorities in conflict and are weighed down by the burden of managing high expectations of themselves. While I learnt to juggle these demands, I know where my priorities lie. That is why I am happier for it. My only expectations of myself, are that I always make the right choices for my family.

The pictures posted within this blog entry are taken from the Gilded Tarot deck by Ciro Marchetti.

About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and a tarot card reader by accident. She has recently achieved a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America. A member of the American Tarot Association and the Tarot Association of the British Isles, she is also endorsed as a reader for the Free Tarot Network.

She can be contacted at www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot or www.sungoddesstarot.com