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BTP67: How to Trust Your Intuition in a Tarot Reading

Trust your intuition

One of the biggest concerns of Tarot beginners is how to know when to trust your intuition during Tarot readings. Can you relate?

I often hear questions like, “When can I trust my intuition?” and “Is it my intuition, or is it my ego?” and “Should I be listening to it?” Have you ever wondered how it all comes together during a Tarot reading? If so, this episode is for you.

In this podcast episode, you’ll learn:

  • What is intuition?
  • During Tarot readings, how do we know if it’s our intuition doing the talking or if it’s our ego?
  • Three simple exercises to help you connect with your intuition when reading Tarot.

Additional Resources

Podcast Transcript

Brigit: You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 67: How to Trust Your Intuition in a Tarot Reading.

Voice-Over

Welcome to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, where you’ll learn how to connect more deeply with your intuition and live an empowered and enlightened life with the Tarot cards as your guide.

Listen as Brigit and her guests share their very best tips and strategies to help you read Tarot with confidence.

And now here’s your host, Brigit Esselmont.

Introduction

How to Trust Your Intuition in a Tarot Reading

Brigit: Hello, and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. As always, I am super excited to be talking with you all about Tarot.

Now, before I even get into today’s podcast, I just want to share with you a little bit about the real life of running a podcast and a business and so on from home.

I sent my daughter packing with my husband and grandparents and said, “OK, you guys have got to get out of the house. I’ve got to record, I think, four podcasts in a row. I need absolute quiet. Can you please go?” After a bit of negotiating, I got them out of the house.

Now I’ve got my neighbour’s kids out the front, screaming. They’re little boys. They’re very gorgeous and very sweet, but they’re out there and lots of screaming and shouting, as boys do, so if you hear some kids in the background, you’ll know why, and I just wanted to let you know I did my absolute best, but sometimes we just can’t get it perfect.

I think this is just a good lesson that we strive to be the best and do our best, but sometimes we can’t get it perfect, and I think that that’s a good thing, because my other option right now would be to delay this podcast and do it at another time, which I don’t have, so I’d much rather just get it done and be able to share this with you, even if it does mean having some kids in the background.

But hey – who knows? My podcast editor, Nuno, might be able to do some pretty crafty editing, and you might not even hear them at all.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you before we got into today’s episode. But hey – let’s get into it.

One of the biggest concerns that Tarot beginners have is “How do I know when to trust my intuition in my Tarot readings?” It’s a really basic question that people have, but it’s very real, because ultimately, if we’re doing Tarot readings, we want to do intuitive Tarot readings. We want to know “When can we trust our intuition?” and “Is it our intuition, or is it our ego?” and “Should you be listening to it?” How does it all come together when doing a Tarot reading?

That’s what today is all about, and I’m going to be covering:

  • What is intuition?
  • How do we know if it’s our intuition doing the talking or if it’s our ego?
  • Three simple exercises to help you connect with your intuition when reading Tarot.

Now, if you want to get the show notes, you can do so at biddytarot.com/67, and you can also download the transcript for today’s podcast.

Now, before I get into it, I do want to share a couple of reviews that have been left in iTunes, and I am just so grateful for all of the fabulous feedback. I think our average rating is 5 stars, which is just crazy good, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. Thank you so much to everyone who has sent in a review and who shared their feedback and comments. I wanted to share two specific reviews.

One is from… GG.S.Y. from the U.S., and this person says, “Biddy introduces a variety of Tarot topics and experts every week. For beginners seeking answers to simple questions or long-time card readers longing to bond with a greater community. Biddy rewards listeners with refreshing insight into the all-too-often murky subject of Tarot.”

Awesome. Thank you so much!

And the second one is from SpaDog in the U.S. (I love all these little tag names). This person says, “If you really want to learn and understand Tarot, you need to Brigit – probably my favourite of the Tarot podcasts. Brigit really emphasises intuitive reading, which sometimes feels overwhelming as a beginner, but also incredibly empowering. Listening to the chats about reading Tarot has taught me so much about reading cards. Now when I do my own readings (and I also recommend her website and e-books), I get such a deeper understanding than simply looking up the meanings.”

Perfect, because that’s the kind of impact that I want to have, and I really want to inspire you as the listener to get into your Tarot cards and learn how to read them intuitively. I want to say it’s not hard, but I also empathise with many people who are like, “Oh, this is hard!” I want to make it easy and simple for you, because it is.

When we get back to the core of what intuitive Tarot reading is really about, it’s actually a very simple place, but for whatever reason we’ve overcomplicated things. We’ve got our knickers in a knot, and we’ve steered away from ultimately what Tarot is all about, and I think today’s episode will help bring you back to that beautiful place of just trusting you and trusting your intuition.

Let’s just talk about intuition to start with. What is it?

The way I see intuition is it’s a knowing something without knowing why you know it, and I think of it in terms of probably from a more scientific perspective. We take in millions of bits of information every second, and there is no way that our brains can process all of that information, so what often happens is filter that information. We store some of that consciously and remember things, but there’s a whole bunch of things that just goes straight through, but ultimately they’re landing in our subconscious mind.

I want you to take just a moment right now and just pay attention to your peripheral vision. Not just what’s in front of you, but what’s on your left-hand side, and what’s on your right-hand side? Just take note of the items, things, what’s going on around you.

There is so much going on around you, right? You might notice what the weather is outside. You might notice, “Oh, I’ve got twelve books in front of me. Oh, there are my Tarot cards. Oh, there’s a dead flower on there; I need to remove that.” There’s so much in just one little blink of the eye, so our brains can’t take that all in.

Where am I going with all of this?

When it comes to intuition, we don’t need our conscious mind for intuition. Our conscious mind kind of processes the information and analyses things and takes the data and goes, “All right, well, taking into account all of that, then I believe this.” Intuition is going into our subconscious mind, and it’s about collecting that information without thinking it through, and then ultimately you have a gut feel about something, and that’s your intuition doing the talking. It’s that knowing something without knowing why you know it, and it’s sourcing all of that information that you’ve taken in, but you're not having to process it all.

Now, of course, there’s a little of magic with intuition as well, and I can certainly explain things on more of the scientific level when it comes to our own intuition, but when it comes to how is it that when we do a Tarot reading for someone we don’t know that’s on the other side of the world, we can still nail it, and we are able to intuitively pick up what’s going on for them… That, to me, is the magical side of intuition, and that is where I think we are tapping into a collective universal energy that helps us connect with other people more intuitively.

You can play with that. You can play with more the scientific explanation or more of the magical explanation.

Now, how do we know when it’s our intuition doing the talking?

This is something that people ask me all the time. It’s like, “Well, I think this thing is going to happen, but how do I know I’m not just going ‘I want that to happen, so therefore I’m going to say that that’s my intuition talking?’”

Well, I think we’re balancing intuition with ego, and if we think about intuition and ego, intuition ultimately comes from a place of love, whereas ego often comes from a place of fear.

Think about intuition. It is connected to the divine in a beautiful way, and even though sometimes our intuition will show us things that we might go, “Oh yuck! I don’t want that to happen! Really? Does this have to happen?” and ultimately, though, it’s for our better good. Our intuition is showing us things out of love for who we are and for what we’re destined for.

On the other side with ego, ego is often about fear and lack and that fear of missing out on something, and it can often be about striving towards an external goal. Our ego might be saying, “Hey, I should write this book, because I’m going to get really popular, and it’s really cool to be popular.” We’re coming at it from this place of a fear of not being known, whereas our intuition might say, “You know what? I want to write this book, because I’ve got a message. My soul is communicating a message, and I need to share that with the world in some way or another.”

There’s quite a difference. Next time you’re questioning “Is this my intuition or my ego?” just check in. “Am I coming at this from a place of love or a place of fear?”

Now, another thing with intuition and ego is where it’s felt in the body. Our intuition is often felt either in our heart – we have that sort of feel-it-in-our-heart space – or in our solar plexus area, or our gut. I think there are quite a few scientific studies around intuition and the stomach, and you often feel that sensation within your stomach when you know. You’ve got that gut feel. It’s in our language, right? “I’ve got a gut feeling about this.”

On the other hand, our ego is often being played out in our mind. You might have body sensations in your head, and I often find when I am overthinking something, it will manifest as a headache – or even worse, as a migraine. I get ocular migraines sometimes, and I know that that is because I’m too much in my head, and I need to move down into my heart and my stomach and back into the core of who I really am.

And then finally, intuition and ego play out in different ways in terms of volume and persistence. I find that ego often is pretty noisy at the start. “Hey, do this! Do this! Do this! It would be really cool! Do this! Do this!” But then over time it kind of gets less and less, and it becomes less of a thing.

Whereas intuition is a little bit more gentle. It starts off kind of softly and says, “Hey, have you thought about writing a book?” And then you think, ‘Oh yeah, not ready for that yet. Not yet.’ And then intuition finds a book agent, maybe, to come and contact. The book agent says, “Hey, have you thought about doing a book?” “No, but maybe.” And then the persistence kind of grows. Maybe then you get a publisher also contacting you and offering you a great deal, and maybe that volume and persistence gets louder and louder until you get to the point where you cannot ignore it. It’s a different kind of pattern than it is with ego.

All right. Now we know what intuition is and how to identify it. Let’s now talk about how do we get intuition coming up in our Tarot readings. How do we become more intuitive, and how do we know how to trust our intuition when doing a Tarot reading?

I want to share with you three very simple exercises that are going to help you connect with your intuition when reading Tarot. Trust me: these are simple exercises, because ultimately intuition is simple. We’ve just done a good job overcomplicating it, and in that overcomplicating of things, we’re getting back into our ego and back into our mind, and it’s the thing that’s actually taking us away from our intuition.

Simplify and get closer to your core and your intuition.

Here are our three exercises:

 1. That’s all – breathe.

Also, meditate. Whenever you’re about to start a Tarot reading, just take some time to close your eyes, place your hand on your heart, and just take in three deep breaths. That first breath, you’re really just letting go, and then the second, you’re coming into the now, and then in the third breath, you're surrendering and opening up to the possibility of what may come in your Tarot reading.

Just that simple practice of three deep breaths, of letting go, getting present, and opening up to possibility just does magic for your Tarot reading. It just makes things so much more intuitive when you're reading Tarot that way.

Now, you can also work on letting go of some of the thoughts, because I don’t know about you, but I have total monkey mind, so when I close my eyes, I’ve got thoughts going around everywhere, and it really helps for me when doing a Tarot reading to just let go of those thoughts.

The practice I use is I see in my mind a big lake. My mind is this big lake, and I want that lake to be so smooth and so calm, and every time I have a thought, it might be a wave or a ripple. I was going to say “a rave!” Hopefully I’m not having a rave in my head. It might be a little ripple, but I just watch that ripple float away, and I bring that lake back to that place of smoothness and reflection, where I’m seeing the sky or the hills reflected on the lake, because it’s so smooth.

That lake visualisation might also help you with meditating.

Now, of course, breathing and meditating are great for before a reading or in between readings. It’s good practice, obviously, every day to be doing your meditation, but also when you're doing a reading, and you might get a card and you’re like, “Oh my gosh! What is this card? What does this mean?” You’re starting to freak out. You're drawing a blank.

Ah! Just breathe. Come back into that place of calmness, and you’ll find that your intuition has a much better opportunity to kick back into gear.

Let’s move on to our second exercise, and that is…

 2. Put the book away during a Tarot reading, and trust yourself.

I think Tarot card meaning e-books, like The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings, or just general books, I should say as well, I think they’re awesome – I really do – and they do add a lot of value to people’s Tarot study, but they play a great role in between readings.

When you're about to do a Tarot reading, this is where you are calling on your intuition to take all of that information. You’ve been reading the Tarot books. You’ve been learning about what the cards mean. It’s all stored in your mind. Now it’s time to turn it over to your intuition to do the work and to sift through all of that information and bring you your intuitive insights during a reading.

Here’s the thing: it’s OK if you’ve got your Tarot cards in front of you, and intuitively you're hearing, seeing, feeling, thinking something else, and it’s completely different to what you read in the Tarot book.

For example, the Six of Swords in the book, it’s about a rite of passage, a transition, a mental transition that you’ve got to make, but you're looking at that card and going, “Oh my gosh! That card reminds me of when I had to leave a really difficult situation as a kid, and I felt deep sadness about it, and that’s resurfacing now.” Maybe there’s a pattern or a theme that’s resurfacing in your adult life, and you connect with that intuitively. That’s perfect! Who cares what’s in the book. If your book is going, “Well, it’s a rite of passage,” and you’re like, “Oh, but my intuition is saying this, and the book is saying this!” Go with your intuition, because ultimately that’s what it’s about, and it’s about trusting that intuition and really feeling your way into your intuition.

Put the book away during a Tarot reading, and trust yourself, trust your intuition.

OK, the final exercise to connect with your intuition when reading Tarot is to..

3. Record your Tarot readings.

Recording your readings – simply write down what spread you used, what cards you drew in that reading, and what were your insights. What is standing out for you?

And if you have some messages in the reading that you’re like, “I don’t think that made sense. I don’t get it. I’m not experiencing that right now. I don’t know why that’s in there,” write that down as well, because what often happens is that as time passes – a few weeks, a few months – you go back to that reading, and you go, “Oh, I get it now. I didn’t understand it at the time, because maybe I had my blinkers on. Maybe I needed to evolve a little bit more.” But there it is – it’s right in front of you now, and it all makes sense.

Recording your reading is really important, because it helps to validate your intuition. At the time of the reading, you might be thinking, ‘Oh, I think I’m way off. I think it’s my intuition, but it doesn’t make any sense, so I think it’s off.’ But then later you’re seeing, ‘Oh, OK. It does make sense!’ It validates your intuition.

It also helps to enhance your intuition. I really find that the more you lean into your intuition and reaffirm to yourself that you are intuitive and your intuition has value in your life, the more that you grow intuition. It’s like muscles: the more that you use your muscles, the more that they grow, and then you have big, beefy arms, so you can have a big, beefy intuition.

Finally, when you're recording your Tarot reading, you're helping to personalise the Tarot card meanings, and that’s incredibly valuable as you grow as a Tarot reader, because you can read what’s in the book, and that gives you kind of the core essence of the card, but you're going to get the magic in your Tarot readings when you take those card meanings and you make them your own, and you embody them, you experience them, you get them, and as you're writing down what your readings mean for you, you start to create that really beautiful, personal, and intuitive connection with the Tarot cards.

There you have it.

We’ve talked about:

  • What intuition is
  • How you know when it’s intuition versus your ego
  • Three simple exercises to help you connect with your intuition
  1. Breathe and meditate before a reading
  2. Put the book away during a reading and trust yourself
  3. Record your readings as well

I hope that has been helpful. Just use these techniques now for your next Tarot reading and just see how much it comes to life.

And, of course, if you want the show notes and the transcript for today’s call, head on over to biddytarot.com/btp67, and you’ll find them there.

Now, if you're ready to create a personal and intuitive connection with the Tarot, then make sure you check out my Master the Tarot Card Meanings course, which is at biddytarot.com/mtcm – that’s short for Master the Tarot Card Meanings.

Now, in this course you’ll learn exactly how to interpret the Tarot cards from an intuitive place so that you're reading from the heart and not the book. I walk you through all these different techniques that really help you to connect to the cards in a simple and easy way, so you're not having to memorise Tarot card meanings or learn really complicated esoteric systems. It’s all about getting to trust yourself and getting to create this beautiful relationship with Tarot that connects you to your intuition and with your core and who you really are.

To learn more about that program, head on over to biddytarot.com/mtcm. The link for that will also be at the show notes at biddytarot.com/btp67.

All right, my friends, it has been an absolute pleasure to be talking with you about intuition and Tarot. I can’t wait to speak with you again very, very soon. Have a great week, and bye for now.

How to Trust Your Intuition in a Tarot Reading | Biddy Tarot Podcast

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