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How to Use Tarot in Your Daily Activities, by Jaymi Elford

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

When most people think about tarot, they view the cards as a device to answer questions or tell the future. I get asked to read someone's cards every time I pull a deck from my bag. Did you know tarot can be used for more than just asking questions? You can sprinkle tarot into almost every activity you do in the day.

Each of the techniques I suggest here do not have to take up too much time in your life. In fact, I recommend you spend less time when you pull cards. Doing so helps prevent the inner editor from leaking in and telling you how you are doing things wrong and that your interpretations aren't good enough. Time is precious, and simple acts of insight can be as potent as ones done in longer, more formal settings.

Morning Routine
Tarot fits in perfectly as a morning intention-setting tool. You can pull your deck out after you wake up or sneak in some journaling time before you settle in to deal with work emails. Shuffle your cards, select one at random, and note the name down. Think about how the card and its meaning could affect you and the events you participate in during the day. Some readers post images of their cards on social media so others can follow along. Others jot their notes into a journal or planner.

Put the card away and go about your day. Don't force the card to remain in your mind. Let the moment soften and settle in the back of your mind. You'll be surprised how much this intention can influence the various activities in your day.

Workout Motivation
Use the cards to motivate your health and workout goals. The power of tarot numerology comes into play here. I've always had a fondness for the Strength (8) card. Gaining strength is one reason so many push themselves at a gym. I always try and select lockers with numbers that add to 8 (for example, lockers 71 and 35 are favorites).

A fun activity to do while you're on a machine is to test your knowledge of major arcana and numerical reduction skills. Most machines include a calories burned area on their displays. These numbers start at one, and as you move the number counts up. Add each individual number appearing on the screen and reduce it to a base number between 1 and 21. Can you quickly tell which card gets associated with that number? Doing this task is harder than you think when your are moving on a treadmill.

When you are finished moving, do a final reduction of those numbers at the end of your session. What card do you get? How might it have influenced your exercise session? For some reason I tend to end on The Hanged Man (12), The Empress (3), or even The Chariot (7).

A Trusty Coworker
Bring your cards into work. This can be done with physical cards, or discreetly with one of the many smartphone tarot apps available. I keep the Shadowscapes Tarot and Beautiful Tarot apps on my phone.

Use the cards to do readings as you go about your daily routine. Need some quick advice on a new project? Draw a card and see what action it gives you. Dealing with a coworker and need advice? Draw two cards on the subject and see what is going on with them and how you can resolve the conflict. Using tarot at work this way gives you the ability to receive some instant advice on dealing with tough questions without needing a full-on reading.

As a freelance writer, I tend to use the cards to interview the potential partnerships with working with various clients. My readings also lend me valuable insights I may not have seen or thought about while I work on short and long-form projects.

A Boost of Energy
Need a self-esteem boost? Have an important deal at which you want to succeed? Look through your tarot deck, or tarot card app, for an image that represents the energy you need to have. You can tuck the card into your pocket or wallet as a reminder of how capable you are. If you are using an app to achieve this purpose, you can always set the background image on your phone, or computer.

Then, when you are ready to propose a raise, or seal the deal, take the card out. Let it remind you how strong and important you are. Let its energy fill you with a confidence boost and go get what you desire!

Creativity Partner
Take your crafting skills to the next level with tarot. Keeping a deck at hand while I feel creative is one of my favorite way to incorporate cards into my daily routines. Try your hand at designing a deck with your drawing, painting, or college skills. Sew "clothing" (aka cases) for your cards. Torn between two different hobbies? Why not let tarot help you decide? You can create a spread to help determine the right path to take each step of the project. Use the cards as prompt generators to get your inner muse psyched for your next crafting session.

As a writer, I'm constantly thinking of new article ideas, fiction worlds, and ways to bring my views to others. Tarot is, hands down, my creativity partner. Use the cards to help you craft well-rounded characters for your fiction. Draw three cards and you have an instant beginning, middle, and end story plot. The imagery can even inspire various settings and atmospheres for your characters to run around in. Torn between two new non-fiction book ideas? Do a quick reading for each project to see which one is better for you to work on at that moment.

Keep those inner editors at bay when they try to derail your writing session. Draw a card at random, or find an image that helps you focus, and set it up against your desk. Once again, this is a good place to let your creative side free and create desktop images with digital tarot cards to help cheer you to completion. Tarot always has my back when it comes to keeping my fingers moving across the keyboard.

Bedtime Routine
Wrap up your day and get ready for tomorrow by using your deck to reflect. Take out the card you drew in the morning and look over any notes you may have written. How did the card's meaning and energies fit into the day. What new insights can you add now that the day is almost over?

Alternatively, you can draw another brand new card that contains insights for a lesson your day has gifted you. Look at the card, reflect on the day's activities. When you are ready, get your journal and write a single sentence wrap-up for the day. This exercise is especially good for those who dislike drawing cards first thing in the morning.

Shuffle the cards back into the deck. Put away then pen, journal, and deck. Turn out the light and rest peacefully to begin the day anew.

Wrapping Up
Although everyone's daily journey is unique and filled with an ever-changing palette of challenges, adding a little bit of tarot through out the day can help lighten the stress. Many people talk a lot about wanting to bring spirituality into the workplace. Integrating tarot into various moments each day can help do just this. Repetition of the activities helps build your practice and gives you a small way to invite spirit into every action you take.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2019. All rights reserved.

I understand that we are all psychic, and that some people choose to embrace it and others do not. I have this friend I have been close to for many years, and she fully believes that we're all psychic, but says that she herself doesn't like it. She says that she likes to still her head, and that she chooses to do whatever it takes to quiet her inner voice. I've met many people, in fact, who seem to be consciously choosing to turn off their psychic ability or quiet their intuition. I believe that intuitive insights come to us from a higher place. If this is true, then aren't we sort of turning God off by turning off that inner voice? Why are some people afraid to hear their inner voice? Is it harmful to turn it off?
K.

Susyn:

It's true that some people are afraid to listen to their inner voice. Fear and a desire to control things are often the reasons for people shutting out Spirit and their inner knowing. We are all psychic and intuitive, but some people just don't feel they can handle this type of energy, so they turn it off.

We live in a society of people that like to feel they are in control. Many of them will have nothing to do with the supernatural. They use what's tangible as their rule of thumb: if it can't be seen or proven by science, they choose to ignore it. That may seem puzzling to those of us who have experienced the great wonder of living a spiritual life and developing our psychic abilities. Given that we all have free will, however, they have the same right as we do to decide what to believe in and what to be skeptical about.

Some people like to think that they are in charge of what happens in their lives, so relying on an invisible power to direct them seems foreign or even ridiculous to them. They tend to take the credit when things go their way, and blame everyone else when trouble visits them. Living a spiritual life may not always empower us to avoid trouble, but without a higher perspective, it is very difficult to learn the lessons behind our experiences.

I agree that this is a difficult way to live, but people make choices every day that work against them. They eat poorly, ignore their bodies, and pull out their credit cards when they don't have enough money. They are on a more-more-more roller coaster, just trying to fill an aching void within themselves with the wrong stuff. The sad thing is that the thirst they are trying to quench can only be truly satiated with one thing: Spirit.

It may be that negative religious or unsettling personal experiences caused these people to choose to cut off their one true source of joy and enlightenment. In doing so, they are limiting themselves severely and don't even realize it. We can't spend all our time trying to change their minds, but we can, through example, show them a better way to live.

As you continue to develop your intuitive skills, people around you will see a new light emanating from you. Your efforts will empower you to succeed in all sorts of ways, and you'll become an endless source of hope, comfort and inspiration for others. Perhaps the people you come in contact with will finally ask you what your secret is, and you can tell them, I just allow my intuitive gifts to freely flow through me!

*****

Oceania:

Turning off our inner voice can be harmful because in doing so, we may be cutting off sources of information that could be helpful to us. It's important to find wise balance when it comes to considering new information. Some people are impulsive and quick to shift positions; some of those may even have a reputation for being short-term fanatics. Others are fearful to open up to new input, and may never change their minds about much of anything.

We could say that intuitive insights come from a higher place, but another way of putting it is that they come from a larger place that includes anything beyond our current belief system and what logic may dictate. Those of us raised in Western culture are taught to put great value on reason, linear thinking and conscious awareness, and are encouraged to dismiss irrational feelings, dreams, and intuitions.

Your friend's inner voice may well be nudging her to examine something important that she doesn't want to face, so she's disregarding it for now. Are we turning off God when we turn off our inner voices? I think so, regardless of how we define God. If we think of God as All That Is or the Whole of which we're a part, our inner voice could be considered the link between our conscious minds and that larger Whole.

One definition of God I'm fond of is Good Orderly Direction. In this sense, God is the guiding principles by which we live our lives, so when we turn off that inner voice, we may also disregard those principles. God can also refer to Spirit - the essence of Being, Life or Love - so turning off our inner voice would mean we're disconnecting from our very essence.

Meditation is one way to reconnect with God and inner wisdom, because in that relaxed and quiet state of no-mind, we can sense more. I love Eckhart Tolle's metaphor of a lake for the whole of our minds. When we're at the surface of the lake and involved in the drama of our lives, we may experience turbulence. Waves on the surface of the lake may be whipped up and feel distracting or even dangerous, but if we sink down to the bottom of the lake, all is still and well, and we can reconnect with deeper wisdom and awareness.

The thing that jumps out at me most in your letter is that you are questioning your own beliefs just because others disagree with you. While it is always prudent to consider the beliefs of others and review our own, in this case, I think you are wise to stand by your inner voice and trust your inner knowing.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.