Tarot Self-Empowerment Techniques: Follow Your Dreams

When doing a Tarot reading for ourselves, we often find that the chatter of our hopes and fears invariably intrudes. Because of this, it is important to find out how we can silence the voice of our rational mind long enough to enable us to hear our intuitive wisdom. To enable you to do that, I have created a variety of non-divinatory techniques for using Tarot cards to empower you to create the future you want. Here is one that I call “Follow Your Dreams.”

Note: Before reading this, you might want to read my introduction to Tarot Self-Empowerment Techniques.

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What do you truly want to do with your life? Questions like this one are critical to our happiness and sense of fulfillment, yet we rarely consider them. We are often told to follow our dreams, but rarely are we told how to accomplish that feat. While some select few seem to know exactly what they want in life, for most of us, our understanding of our hopes and dreams is well illustrated by the Seven of Cups — a multitude of conflicting options about which we are confused and uncertain. Indeed, in order to follow our dreams, we must first know what they are, and differentiating them from the expectations of our parents, our peers, and society in general — not to mention the dictates of our egos — can be a formidable task.

Finding your life’s true path, then, requires you to open up to your soul’s guidance. Since Tarot cards can serve as a divine doorway, the technique described here uses the cards to help you find the spiritual path along which you can follow your dreams.

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STEP 1: Find your dreams

The first step in following your dreams is to find out what those dreams are. To begin that search go through your deck, cards face up, and use your intuitive reactions to quickly pull every card that may indicate what you want to do with your life. This may be in terms of any aspect of your life, such as your career, your hobbies and passions, charitable work you want to do, or your relationships.

Next, spread those cards out in front of you. If you picked more than a dozen, you may want to narrow your choices down to a manageable number. Also, if any of the cards you chose seems to duplicate the message of another chosen card, keep only the one that best expresses this message.

List the cards you drew, and for each one, write down what it suggests you want out of life, or that you want to do with your life. More important, however, is that you also write down why you think you want what this card represents.

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STEP 2: Choose your path

Now you will test those reasons to find out which of these goals come from your soul and which do not.

Line up the following cards above the cards you just chose:

• The Empress and/or the Emperor. These cards represent the voice of your parents (or of parental figures, in case you were raised by someone other than your biological parents).
• The Hierophant. This card will provide the voice of your peers and of conventional society.
• The Chariot. This card will be the voice of your ego.
• The Fool. This card will speak with the voice of your soulful purpose.

I call these cards your “voice cards.” Note that you may use different cards than I have listed here if there are other cards that better represent these voices for you. For example, you may feel that the Sun card represents the voice of your ego better than the Chariot does, or that the Judgement card more accurately portrays your spiritual voice than does the Fool. Use what works best for you, but be sure to have a card to represent each of the voices indicated: parents, peers and society, ego, and spirit. Also, in case you chose any of the cards noted above as one of the things you want in your life (in Step 1), feel free to use that card as both a life purpose card and a “voice card.”

Now, for the life purpose cards that you chose in the prior step, imagine each of the voice cards in turn saying the reason that you wrote for wanting what that card represents. Listen carefully to hear which voice card is able to speak the reason credibly.

Can the Empress or Emperor say this reason convincingly and with conviction? If so, this card may represent parental expectations. Does it sound like something the Hierophant would say? If it does, this aspiration may be born of peer or societal pressure. Does it ring true when coming from the Charioteer? Then perhaps it is of the ego.

Discard any of the chosen cards whose reasons for being selected seem to come naturally from the lips of the Empress or Emperor, the Hierophant, or the Charioteer. Keep those cards whose reasons for being selected sound right and realistic when spoken by the Fool. You will now be left with none, one, or several cards, and the next step will discuss how to handle each of these possibilities.

If you find you still have quite a few cards left, you might want to prioritize them, keeping only the three or four that seem most important to your happiness. This is, of course, a highly intuitive process, which I explain to people by telling them to select those cards that make their heart sing.

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STEP 3: Find your Fool’s path

If you are left with no cards, do a guided visualization using the Fool card, and ask the Fool’s advice. The following are some questions you might ask the Fool:

• What is my spiritual path?
• Why am I here in this life?
• What will bring me fulfillment?

Alternatively, you may want to ask the Fool to suggest a card that might be a good representation of your hopes and dreams for your life.

If you are left with one card, do a guided visualization using that card to further explore what it suggests is your spiritual path. Before you begin this visualization, it will help to intuitively consider how you want to approach this. Will you ask for clarification of what path this card suggests you take? Will you ask for advice on how to travel that path? Will you ask for a gift to help you along that path? Use the approach that feels right to you.

If you are left with more than one card, line them up under the Fool card. Get a clear mental image of this cluster of cards, then do a guided visualization to take you into the Fool card. Once you are there, explain what each of the other cards represents in this context, and ask him (or her, depending on how you see the Fool) for advice as to which one card to choose. Then do a guided visualization with that card, as described above.

It is possible that two or more of these cards will indicate things you want in very different aspects of your life. For example, one might be in the arena of your career while another might deal with your love life. Thus, if you would want to, you can repeat the following steps for each of those cards.

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STEP 4: Prepare for the journey

Over the next few days spend some time with this card, since it describes your hopes and dreams and is both seed and essence of the path your spirit is calling you to take. Place this card (which may be the Fool card if you ultimately chose no other card) somewhere such that you will see it often, letting it soak into your consciousness. You may want to meditate on this card from time to time.

It may also be helpful to look at or visualize this card before you go to sleep at night, telling yourself that you will dream about it and that you will remember such dreams. Then in the morning, write down whatever you can recall of your dreams and consider what they reveal about your spiritual path.

It may help to create an affirmation based upon this card and to then recite that affirmation often while visualizing or meditating on this card. You may want to do a guided visualization into it to ask for an affirmation specific to your life’s journey, or you can find an affirmation for it in my book, Tarot Affirmations.

Another possibility is to do the “Scouting Ahead” technique described in another blog post. In that case, use this card as your “goal” card.

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STEP 5: Begin the journey

When you feel ready to start traveling along the path suggested by this card, sit down with it and relax. Consider what this card suggests, along with any other insights you have gained while working with it. Then quickly write up a list of actions or steps you can take to start your journey. (If this is a path on which you feel you are already traveling, make this a list of steps you can take to improve or accelerate your journey). Do this as a brainstorming exercise wherein you write anything that comes to mind without censoring any ideas.

Once you have a list of ideas, choose at least one of them and commit to doing something, no matter how small a step, to work toward accomplishing it within the next twenty-four hours.

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STEP 6: Use a compass along the way

Create a journal of the following notes about this card and the path you feel called to follow. Keep this book in a special place so that you can add to it and refer to it at anytime.

• The name of the card you chose.
  You may want to include a photocopy or sketch of it.
• A description of what this card suggests your spiritual path is, and the reason why you chose it.
• Any ideas or insights you may have come across while doing the Steps 3 and 4.
• The list of actions you wrote down in the Step 5.
  In that step, you committed to taking an action in the next twenty-four hours. Note what that action was, and describe your progress with it. From time to time, review this list of actions, updating it with new ideas, making new commitments to taking actions based upon it, and noting your progress in accomplishing those actions.

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The Tarot card image on this post is from my RWS 2.0 deck.

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