Tarot Tip Tuesdays - Pressure To Perform

Whether you are new to Tarot and in the throes of building a connection with your Tarot cards or an advanced Tarot reader diligently honing your Tarot reading skills, I am putting out a Tarot tip a week to help you to consistently make Tarot a part of your everyday life.

So here goes your Tarot Tip for this Tuesday:

"All too frequently, anxiety crushes not only your spirit and your potential, but your ability to take care of your mind and body." ~ Jonathan Davidson and Henry Dreher, The Anxiety Book: Developing Strength in the Face of Fear


That 9 Of Swords Moment As A Pro Tarot Reader 

A few weeks ago, after working with my intuitive coach, I came face to face with energies from the past that I needed to let go of.   These stemmed from a single fear - the fear of rejection - that had inhibited my growth along my spiritual journey.  Part of this fear of rejection, had sometimes put a lot of pressure on me to "perform" when I did face-to-face readings for clients.  Yes it can happen to anyone regardless of experience or skills.  I wrote a blogpost  about my painful but necessary process of letting go so do let me know if my story resonates with you after you have read it.  Being free from this fear, has allowed me to face my clients with a lot of confidence.  Channeling for them had become effortless because I surrendered my trust to my guides without any fear of rejection. The insights I got from my Tarot cards also became much clearer.

So I thought to dedicate this tuesday's Tarot Tip to anxieties and blockages that you might get when you do face to face readings for clients.  Many might not have a similar experience as I had whereby a past issue got in the way of my readings. However, I could imagine the fear and anxiety for some Tarot readers who could be  "newish" to the experience of doing face to face readings.  Have you ever experienced having sweaty palms, brow knitted in worry, an almost blank mind and the feeling of dread just before meeting a client?  I had experienced all these when I first started out as a professional reader.  Some of these fears and anxieties might be driven by the desire to be absolutely 100% accurate with the insights, the need to deliver a reading that was more compelling than the details behind the breaking news, the fear of dealing with a client's skepticism, or perhaps the fear of forgetting the meaning of the cards.

Frankly, fear and anxieties are so unproductive and can only serve to drain you off your energy which you can otherwise plough into delivering a more meaningful and authentic reading for your clients. The pressure to perform is all in your head.

“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind.  If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained."  ~ Arthur Somers Roche 

Dealing With Tarot Reading Anxieties 

Here are some ways to help you deal with that pressure to perform in front of your clients.

1) Remind yourself that you are not doing a Tarot reading to entertain or "perform" for a client. You are not a circus act. You are doing a Tarot reading to help guide your client to make the right decisions about his or her life.

2)  Your insights will be  accurate if you learn to trust your intuition.  From my experience, intuition and the cards will never lie.

3) Meditate and ground yourself before and after a reading...ALWAYS. I cannot over emphasize this enough. Grounding yourself helps build a defense against negative energies that can drain you.  It also helps calm your mind, refocus your thoughts and clear the "mental debris" enough to provide you with a clearer vision.  

4) Slow your breath down as you do your reading. This will help give you space to think and feel the situation that your client is in, and the slower pace will also guide you to spend more time connecting the symbols and imagery within the cards to your client's situation.   This also takes the pressure off memorizing the meanings of each card.

5) Be realistic and manage your own expectations. Your clients expect you to deliver authentic readings from the heart that aim to guide them through their issues, and that is your sole purpose as a Tarot reader.  They are not expecting you to wave your wand to remove these issues for them. So do not be pressured by your own erroneous perception of what your purpose as a Tarot reader is.

6) Turn to the Tarot community for support whenever you feel anxious about face to face readings. The members of the Tarot community have thr collective experience to support and advise you.  At some point in their Tarot careers, they were just like you, 

7) If you are dealing with skeptics, remember to come from a place of love and compassion when you deal with them.  They are possibly more anxious than you are because of the challenges that had driven them to call on you for advice in the first place,

8) When you do feel any  blockages at any point during the reading, just slow down, and let the conversation with your client flow freely. You might get additional background information that could form a trigger to provide you with additional insights from the cards.

Most importantly, just have fun when you do face to face readings and treat these sessions like  a casual chit chat over tea with a friend. With time and experience, your 9 of Swords moments will gradually subside.

"Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is, with thoughts of what may be." ~ John Dryden

May your Tarot cards provide you with a full deck of possibilities throughout your day.

If you like this blogpost, do follow my blog at http://sungoddesstarot.blogspot.com and LIKE my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot

About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and an intuitive reader by accident who deploys the combined modalities of a Tarot, Numerology and Astrology overlaid with her Clairvoyant and Clairsentient skills to deliver her readings with authenticity. She was awarded a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America (TCBA) and is also a certified numerologist.  She is currently running a consultancy based in Singapore called Sun Goddess Tarot,  which provides confidential intuitive readings combining the metaphysical disciplines of Tarot, Numerology and Astrology via face to face and emails as well as readings at corporate and private events and workshops.  A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she is also a reader for the Free Tarot Network and mentors Tarot protégés on behalf of the American Tarot Association

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com
Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot
Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot