Tarot & Therapy: Mirrors to Your Mind
Discover how the cards can help you build self-trust and self-confidence + a simple practice to try.
I’m so excited to be talking about Tarot with you today! It’s been on my mind for a while and after the positive response to my last post where I shared a Tarot spread, I feel encouraged to dive in some more!! Tarot is both a personal passion and a powerful therapeutic tool so I’m really happy to explore it here with you!
When it comes to making sense of the world, we humans have always turned to images and symbols.
Images have always helped us remember, understand and connect with each other.
Fast forward a few millennia and not much has changed.
From Grimms’ fairy tales to Disney movies, we’re still drawn to the same timeless characters and themes:
The Hero - only every Marvel movie ever
The Lovers - we’re spoiled for choice in Bridgerton!
The Hermit - think Rafiki in the Lion King, living alone, high up in his baobab tree.
The Tower - Gaston inciting the villagers to storm the castle in ‘Beauty & the Beast’.
We can understand these themes and characters as ‘archetypes’ - universal images and symbols that have been around forever but were popularised when Carl Jung started analysing dreams and when Joseph Campbell traced the Hero’s Journey through mythology. It was then that the idea of ‘archetypes’ was brought into the modern conversation.
And Tarot is a collection of these archetypes in card form.
When you draw a card, you’re not predicting the future - you’re revealing an image that reflects a part of your own story. Much in the same way that the Lascaux Cave paintings reflect the experiences of our ancestors.
Tarot as a Tool for Intuition and Self-Trust
Your brain loves to make meaning.
It’s the same as when you see ‘dinosaur’ in a cloud or a face in a plug socket.
When you see an image and in our case a Tarot card, it sparks something.
A meaning or memory. A feeling or an association.
Tarot becomes a mirror for your mind, reflecting your internal world.
And it's our internal world that many of us overthinkers are disconnected from.
We spend so much time in our heads ‘thinking’, that it can feel almost impossible to recognise what we feel, want or need.
We make lists. We analyse every angle. We ask everyone else what they think. We over-plan and over-prepare.
And whilst this gives us the illusion of control, all it really does is pull us further away from ourselves.
Self-trust doesn’t come from thinking your way to the ‘right’ answers.
It comes from learning to feel your way to your own ones.
This is where intuition enters the chat.
Intuition is the quiet knowing inside you.
It’s the feeling in your chest when something resonates or the tiny tug in your gut that says yes or no.
If you’ve learned to dismiss or overlook your feelings, then listening to your intuition can feel unfamiliar and even uncomfortable. You might have learned stop listening to yourself altogether.
Tarot is a practice that helps you reconnect with that inner voice.
Because every time you pull a card and ask, ‘What does this mean to me?’, you’re not just interpreting a picture.
You’re practising the art of tuning in.
Noticing what shifts inside you. Trusting your first impression and allowing your own wisdom to matter.
And every small moment of listening builds something bigger: SELF-TRUST.
Read this post for more on learning to trust yourself:
How I Use Tarot in Therapy (And My Own Life)
Tarot is such a great starting prompt, especially when we feel stuck or don’t know what to say, because guaranteed you’ll have some kind of feeling about a card, even if it’s just confusion or ‘I don’t get it’ - that’s great, start there!
It helps me and my clients:
🎴 Name what’s unspoken.
Sometimes the cards say what I can’t quite find words for or they draw out something I didn’t realise was important.
🎴Get perspective. When I feel stuck, seeing an image helps me step outside my own head. I move from analysis-mode to meaning-making-mode.
🎴 Create space for reflection. Each card invites a question: What am I ready to release? What am I afraid to feel? Where do I need compassion? Where does this feeling come from? What stands out to me most?
It’s less about “the right answer” and more about opening a door.
📢PSA: There is no wrong way to use Tarot as a therapy tool!
You might worry about ‘doing it wrong’ or not understanding the meaning, but I am here to tell you:
You don’t need to memorise all 78 cards.
You don’t have to be spiritual, witchy or ‘woo-woo’.
You don’t need a fancy deck or a perfect ritual.
You don’t need to shuffle them in a special way.
All you need is curiosity and a willingness to ask: What is this showing me about myself?
A Simple Self-Reflection Ritual
If you’re curious to try, here’s an easy way to begin:
Sit somewhere quiet. Take a few deep breaths. Feel your feet on the floor.
Hold your deck. Any deck you like will do or use the 3 cards below:
OPTIONAL: Ask a question.
What do I need to know today?
Where do I need to be kinder to myself?Draw your own card or see which one your drawn to below👇:
Look. Notice. Reflect.
What’s the first thing you see or notice?
What are you most drawn to? Why?
How do you feel about it?
What does this card remind you of?
OPTIONAL: Check your guidebook for meaning. Revisit your questions. How do you feel about the card now? Have your feelings changed?
There’s no ‘one’ right answer.
Just be curious (and always trust your interpretation over any book!)
It’s a Kind of Magic…🎵
The real magic isn’t in the cards themselves.
It’s in the way they help you:
Validate your experience
Develop your intuition
Practice trusting your own voice
And in my experience - that’s pretty magical.
Curious to explore more?
In future posts, I’m going to be sharing more spreads, prompts and ways to use Tarot (and other visual tools) for self-reflection, emotional processing, personal development and inner healing.
I’d love to know: What card did you choose today?
Leave a comment so we can talk about it!
Happy reflecting,
Amy
Please click the 🤍 if this was helpful or interesting to you and restack it, if you think others might like it too.
My previous post with a Tarot spread to try:
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This was such a good read thank you!