“Ugh, I Hate this Card!”: Working through Strong Feelings and Preferences around our Tarot pulls

Photo by Sami Matias Breilin on Unsplash

Tell me if this sounds familiar to you. 

You’re doing a reading for yourself, you flip over a particular card, and before you can even stop yourself, some version of “UGH, I HATE this card!” flies out of your mouth.

You feel embarrassed, even ashamed, believing that you’re supposed to be greeting each card like a friend, opening to the medicine it brings you. “How will you ever read for someone if you still have this kind of bias about certain Tarot cards?,” your brain hisses. 

I’m mentioning this because the first part of this story just happened to me the other day. Permit me to say that if it can happen to me – someone who is not only lucky enough to make my living working with Tarot, but who also specifically focuses on helping folks to release worry, fear, or assumptions about these magical cards – it can happen to anyone. In fact it does happen to everyone, so I invite you to be really gentle with yourself in these moments and know that you’re absolutely not alone in them. 

The strong response we have to certain Tarot cards – whether it be delight, disgust, or anything in between – isn’t wrong, but we do owe it to ourselves to unpack, explore, and get curious about what’s at the root of those responses. 

What do we do in these moments when bias, strong preferences, or automatic responses take hold around our Tarot pulls? Is there any way to change or alter these big negative responses to certain cards? 

Let’s dive into some resources around this together below.