Pulling My Tarot Cards Everyday for a Week Helped My Mental Health

I've always been fascinating by tarot cards. I like the idea that there is a force operating in the world beyond that which is perceptible by the five senses. I suppose, I like the idea of believing in magic because the one thing I've learned since becoming an adult is that it is dangerously easy to become sucked into the humdrum of the "real world" and lose that childlike sense of exploration, curiosity and play.

So, disclaimer, I'm really no expert in the art of reading tarot cards, cartomancy, or divination. I'm really as novice as they come. This challenge came to me quite randomly, and I wanted to use these tarot cards as a device to better understand myself, think creatively, and problem solve.

The method I used to pull my cards varied. Most often, I would start every morning with a simple three card spread (see below). Sometimes, I would ask my tarot specific questions, and do other spread variations, but the specifics of that aren't super important.

So, here's what I learned pulling tarot cards every single day for a week.

(FYI HUGE DISCLAIMER: TAROT CARDS ARE NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT)

1. Tarot can be a wonderful tool for self-awareness

I think that skeptics would argue that a random drawing of cards isn't actually telling of the truth or the possibilities of life. Indeed, the possibilities that life can hold are numerous, but even the possibilities in a drawing of tarot cards are numerous. Based on a 3-card spread, there are 456,456 possible variations. Crazy, right?

When drawing my own cards, I would enter a state of vulnerability and honesty that I rarely engage with (even with just myself). It was curious and often startling to reflect on the meaning I would infer from the cards. It is precisely this secondary set of reflections that make tarot a pretty good tool for self-awareness.

It can help us understand why our mind is drawn to ascribe certain meaning, answers, and themes to cards. Often, it's based just on our own gut instinct (or type 1 thinking), so it can be very telling about what concerns, beliefs, and hopes we truly hold about ourselves.

As for the validity or correctness of the outcomes that tarot cards may predict, I'm not entirely settled on the matter. What I can say, having done a degree in Psychology and all is that it is not impossible that the drawings from various tarot cards can manifest into reality.

There are two possible reasons for this:

1. The Human Ability to Make Meaning (Apophenia)2. Selective Attention Bias (i.e., what we think about a lot becomes what we see more of in the world).

Humans have a proclivity to attach meaning to technically meaningless things, objects or phenomena. It's why we hold onto our baby blankets well into our thirties. We do so not because the tattered scraps of cotton are particularly useful to our lives, but because of the meaning and significance we attach to it. We do so because it represents our past, our childhood and the memories of a time we can scarcely remember.

The same can be said for tarot cards. Though each carry their own meaning and themes, it is the human mind which derives insight and attaches meaning to them - this phenomenon is known as "apophenia."

What happens when we engage in apophenia is that we are developing our self-reflective, slow-thinking (type 2). If the cards seem alien to us, we have an interest to try and decipher what they may mean. As they relate to us, we are inclined to think through our lives and figure out for ourselves what the cards are telling us. In other words, the cards may just be a medium for us to reach into the far corners of our mind to arrive at an answer for why life is going a certain way and how to course correct.

Naturally, human "intuition" is a subject of much contention and there is not much clear evidence of its existence or validity. In other words, it's entirely possible that we may ascribe incorrect meaning to the cards laid out before us. Yet, does this mean the exercise is useless?

It can certainly be dangerous, which is why I would never use tarot as the singular basis for any important decision making in my life. Yet, what also comes from "apophenia" is the natural consequence of "selective-attention bias". In other words, what our mind focuses on begins to attract our attention more vividly in the real, tangible world around us.

2. Selective Attention Bias (i.e., what we think about a lot becomes what we see more of in the world).

If I tell you that seeing yellow umbrellas will bring you good fortune in the month ahead, I bet you'll tell me that you saw loads of yellow umbrellas. You might even have a bit more luck at the casino table too. This might not be due to magic per se, but because I gave you something to focus on.

Moreover, I gave you something to focus on which has a significant level of meaning to you. Therefore, your brain is going to attune itself to spotting it more in the environment around you, where in reality, there may not have been any more yellow umbrellas in existence, you just spotted them more frequently. Same could possibly be said for tarot cards and their divine outcomes.

For me, this exercise of pulling my tarot cards every day made me think hard about my situation, what got me here and what I could realistically do to mitigate negative potential outcomes. It made me be honest with myself in a way that I had been consciously refusing for many months (or even forever).

2. There can be comfort, even in distress

Leading on from the point about self-awareness, another thing that pulling my tarot cards every day for a week taught me is that there can be comfort even in distress.

I'll admit, maybe I turned to tarot cards as a form of self-help or as a means of comfort. So, perhaps I was mentally inclined to wish for only positive cards and explain away negative cards.

However, on my second day, I pulled a pretty awful stack...

- The Devil (upright)

- The Hermit (reversed)

- The 8 of Cups (upright)

If you're already knowledgeable in tarot cards and their various meaning, you're probably pulling a bit of a "yikes" expression. I'll admit, I was pretty dismayed by these cards, and the apparently negative meaning of each of them seemed beyond mere coincidence.

But, building on the self-awareness and self-honesty point, it made me be accountable. I was very quickly able to discern what each of these cards meant for me and though the portrait was not a pretty one, it was an honest one. Again, the tarot cards made me self-reflect and verbalise all the negative behaviours, attitudes and actions that had led me to my current position.

Lots of people say they don't want their tarot cards pulled because if they got a negative reading, it would seriously concern, annoy or upset them. Which is fair - again, I'd be very unlikely to utilise tarot to give me answers on deeply troubling questions (e.g., the ill health of a family member).

However, I am always rendered curious by such reactions of myself and others. I mean, wouldn't you want to know? Wouldn't you want to know so you could face it head on? The answer, understandably and for me a lot of the time, is no. I am really not judgemental of your answer if you'd rather not know. When I am in a particularly vulnerable headspace, pulling the Tower tarot card really is the last desire of mine.

However, I am a firm believer that fortune favours the brave (in the face of trouble). Pulling those seemingly negative tarot cards (which did sort of turn out to be true) was one of the most memorable drawings of mine. Because it woke me up to the fact that I was actually not doing okay. There were many things that I was in fact very concerned about. However, up until I had some cards staring me in the face telling me so, I largely ignored those worries. It was really hard because I had to be honest with myself. I am a person who takes pride in always being strong, but in those moments I felt weak. I was in distress. Yet, there really was some form of comfort to be found.

That day, and week, was hard but from that I began to stop taking things for granted. Somehow a smile from a barista in a coffee shop seemed so much kinder and a goodnight message from my boyfriend seemed so much sweeter. Additionally, there was some comfort to be found that when I explicitly wrote down what problems I was facing, I found that I could really see myself getting through them and how - which is a huge form of comfort in itself.

3. Maybe tarot cards are real ...

Last week, I swear I pulled "The Hermit" card in upright and reversed variations almost every time. I shuffled properly and placed in the deck such that the probability of its drawing was reduced. Yet, it kept appearing.

For those who don't know, the Hermit card broadly represents a person on a pilgrimage alone. It is supposed to represent a period of intense personal growth and need for solitude in that journey. I didn't quite understand why this card was coming to me. Yet as I look back, this whole month (February 2022), not just the week I pulled tarot cards, was a hugely transformative and eye-opening month for me.

Though not quite the same as the plot of the film "Into the Wild," I was plunged into a deep period of solitude and reflection. I spent two weeks ill from an infection and bed-ridden from the antibiotics, got bad news from my job regarding job security, my doctor regarding my reproductive health, and my partner regarding our potential future together - all of this within about a week of each other.

It was a lot to handle and rightly or wrongly, I spent most of the month trying to sort through it alone. I felt a lot of pain, but through it I was able to take a different approach to my life and began having those honest and difficult conversations, questioning what my values really are and how I can better align myself to them. In other words, it showed me what was really important to me.

Of course, we can chalk a lot of this up to apophenia and selective-attention bias. But interestingly, I don't think I've pulled The Hermit card since and a lot of my life has been on the up recently. But hey - maybe that's just me attaching meaning to something meaningless (wink).

I don't know if I recommend pulling your tarot cards every day for a week to be honest. It could freak you out by it its potential dark, ominous messages and worsen poor mental health. It could equally lull you into a sense of complacency through its endlessly mysterious, positive, bountiful messages. But if you do, I'd say that you do so with a curious and introspective mind. For me, they helped me reflect more than I ever have, take action I was scared to take, and have a deeper appreciation that perspective is everything.

Thank you for reading and may the tarot cards be ever in your favour!