Feeling Lost? Here’s a Tarot Reading For You

I’ve found my practice with tarot to be both comforting and illuminating (which can sometimes be uncomfortable!). While I don’t believe that I ‘tell’ a fortune or divine the future, I do find that tarot is a powerful tool that reveals to me how I really feel about a situation that I’m facing.

I know that there are a lot of people out there who feel lost, and if you’re one of them and have stumbled on this, this tarot reading’s for you.

In the Past: Judgement (Reversed)

Judgement is one of those cards, especially in the Smith-Waite, that is heavily influenced by Christianity. While the initial gut reaction to Judgement may be one of ‘final judgement’ in the Christian sense and may associate it with more apocalyptic ideas, the judgement as a calling of your true self ‘home.’ Judgement reversed can be interpreted in a lot of different ways, but intuition leads me to believe that this is an instance where you haven’t been feeling like you’ve been authentic to yourself (you are, after all, reading an article about feeling lost). Instead of having a smooth and steady transition, you’ve been having a difficult time of it. You aren’t sure where to go, what direction to head, what to do — nothing really makes sense like it used to.

Helping You: 6 of Swords (Reversed)

You thought you were going to be able to just get out of a tough situation, but as ‘luck’ would have it — those plans are changing. They may be delayed, or worse — you may be stuck. It ends up, though, it really is working in your favor, even though it may not initially feel like it. There’s a temptation to go to a different venue to try and fix problems that lie within ourselves. Perhaps this delay to plans will allow you some space and time to consider what your next moves should be, and how to best support yourself through what’s become a challenging transition. As a wise singer once said, “There’s no need to run when you’re heading down the wrong road.” Instead of rushing for the door, take a beat and let yourself breathe.

Working Against You: 3 of Wands

It’s the creative block that’s really working against you, and it’s beginning to affect your ability to make plans. How can you plan where you’re going to be when you aren’t even sure where to go from here (and you know you can’t stay?). Nothing you do feels useful — you aren’t even sure where to apply your energy. The long-term block is creating a lot of chaos for you short-term as well, and as your creative energy feels blocked you can also feel your reserve of it waning.

In Your Thoughts: The Moon

You know that what is going on with you is on a deeper level than how you normally express it. This is something more than just concern over a temporary hiccup — this feels deeper, like it’s grown out of some deep, dark wound in your psyche. If your thoughts swirl too much, you’re bound to stagnate. See if you can start to recognize where you brain gets caught up in negative thoughts, and if those have flowed from a wound somewhere.

Subconsciously: King of Wands (Reversed)

It’s easy to have a bunch of turbulent emotions when we’re dealing with big questions about our life — and if you feel lost, you’re definitely dealing with some big questions out of life. Give yourself some grace. Instead of putting so much pressure on yourself to have all the answers, give yourself compassion and space.

The Future: 7 of Cups

There’s a lot of big, wild dreams out there and you’re certainly capable of holding them all in your head. The first step to making a better world is dreaming of what it could be .Be careful, however, that all of these dreams are actually possibilities and not just distracting dalliances.

Advice: Queen of Pentacles

It’s important that you keep yourself grounded, and often times that means focusing on the things you can experience with your senses. Whether it’s engaging in sense-based grounding exercises or a good yoga session, you may find clarity in reconnecting with your body and your environment.

Putting it All Together

It would be so much easier if tarot gave us the kind of answer that would tell us exactly what to do. “Become a writer” it would say, or maybe “you should go back to your other job.” Maybe it would advise you to move back to your small town or to hug that happy squirrel — and avoid that sad one. But that’s not how tarot works.

Instead, it can give you general things to ponder.

Recently, you’ve been feeling like you aren’t going in the right general direction of life. At first you had felt certain about where you were headed, but as the certainty drained from you, so did your speed, and you feel yourself at a standstill. It wouldn’t feel so harrowing if it weren’t for the fact that you aren’t feeling certain about the overall direction you should be headed in at all — quite lost. You perhaps felt this was something you could change by changing venues or by seeking some other change — but that has been delayed, and you’ve found yourself unable to really figure out how to bounce back.

Obviously, there’s something going on with you. It’s not just your present circumstances — it’s the psychology of the situation. Instead of pressuring yourself to try and get the answer about where you should be going, see what happens when you relax. Where does your mind go? When you resist an answer, where does that originate from. Don’t just allow yourself to resist, ask yourself why. Interrogate your feelings in a gentle but firm manner. There’s no need to feel shame over how you feel, and how you feel is valid, which is why it’s worth being understood. You’ll have a lot of future possibilities, even wild ones, but it’s going to be important that you have a way of staying grounded, and allowing yourself to explore your feelings without fear of reproach from YOURSELF.

The biggest energy in this reading is around the feeling like you aren’t being authentic or heeding the call that is around you (Reversed Judgement) and The Moon, in your thoughts (which is about your unconscious). Give yourself a save space in which to operate, and see if you can explore those feelings more to understand where they originate, and how you can best respond to them.