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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.

Three years ago, I caught my husband with his secretary in bed in my house. It was devastating for me because my husband generally looks down on people who flirt and have extra marital affairs. I was so shocked that I had no words to express my hurt and anger. Though the woman was married, I didn't inform her husband, as I didn't want to jeopardize her marriage. Both of them requested forgiveness, and I said, Since I love my God, I have to forgive, especially since both of you are feeling remorseful about it. The ordeal didn't end for me, however. I started having dreams that this woman is making fun of me and that I am slapping her. I thought I had forgotten the incident, but dreams keep recurring and making me sad. In my dreams I am hurting her, but at the same time I am crying. I want to forget it, but I've been unable to. I feel I am the one who is suffering, while my husband and this woman seem to be fine. How can I get rid of this pain?
Anita

Dreamchaser:

You write that you have forgiven because you love God and have to forgive, but you have NOT forgiven. Not only have you not forgiven, it continues to get worse. You do not trust your husband, and you pretty much hate this woman.

Christian forgiveness is NOT synonymous with meekness and mildness. I have no idea where that idea came from and why women in your position react this way so often. Nowhere is it written that you have to instantly say I forgive you and then forget it. That is just not practical. True forgiveness is often something that takes years to achieve. For example, it has taken me over four years of hard work to get to the place where I can forgive one particular person for something that he did to me. If I was in your situation, I would still be working on that whole forgiveness thing, as would MANY women.

Yes, we're wise to forgive people for wrongs they did to us, but that person must also be held accountable for their actions. In the world you live in, things get swept under the carpet and no one is made to assume responsibility for their actions. You did not want to jeopardize her marriage? She did that herself by sleeping with your husband in YOUR bed. You made her completely unaccountable for her actions by not informing her husband about what happened. It is because she skipped merrily on her way that you are plagued by dreams of hurting her.

Another essential part of this equation is self-protection. To incorporate this, you may have to say, I forgive you for what you did to me, but I will never allow you another chance to do the same thing EVER again. You have to consider how you can apply that in your situation.

You need counseling, and you need it asap. You need individual counseling and you also need marriage counseling. Your husband does not have sex with another woman in your bed if your marriage is solid. By using your method of forgiving, you put the affair behind you and moved forward in your lives without addressing the original problems that caused him to bring another woman into your bed in the first place. If the problems are not addressed and fixed, he will cheat again, and you will suffer again.

You must find a good therapist so that you can deal with the anger, frustration, fear, doubt, and loathing that you have for your husband, this woman, and your life now. You also have to work to get back to a place where you can once again trust him - or any man for that matter. The bottom line is that you have not truly forgiven either of them. Go get some therapy. Fix yourself so you can be happy. You deserve it. I wish you PEACE in your soul.

*****

Astrea:

I want to take this opportunity to explain that Scorpios have an undeserved reputation for being unfaithful. While the really bad ones may use that as an excuse to stray, in my experience, Scorpios are overall a very tender group. When a Scorpio really loves someone, there is no one who is a more dedicated and faithful partner. Sometimes they even carry that to obsession and possessiveness, which can make their partner feel smothered. As with every sign, there are a few bad apples, but overall, Scorpios are faithful and stable in relationships when they're happy.

Scorpios also have an awful time when they try to sneak around, and are most often caught at the WORST possible moments in their lives. You caught your husband in your own home; I see that as a cry for help. Scorpios take things to extremes sometimes. He must have wanted you to catch him so that he could get out of the affair or begin to fix whatever was missing in your marriage.

The dreams you're having are no mystery. Even though you would love to punish that woman for the pain she's caused you, it would hurt your Spirit to do that in real life. That's why you cry as you slap her in your dream. Your conscious mind knows that it wouldn't do any good to punish HER, because it's your HUSBAND who chose to cheat. Your subconscious has picked her for you to be slapping in your dream because you really don't want to confront your husband any more about this nasty situation. Even though you have forgiven him, somewhere deep inside you, it's natural to feel that both of these people should pay for what they did to you.

Whether those two are suffering or not, you sure are! Meditation can help with that, but a professional therapist would be much better for dealing with and working through this awful event. Because you're still with your husband, it will take you longer to be at peace with this situation. You were really and truly a victim here, and nothing is going to change that.

Many people could never forgive that kind of betrayal. Because of your close relationship with God, you were able to forgive your husband and keep your marriage together. I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart for minding your own business and not involving yourself with your husband's secretary's marriage. That would have hurt you even more.

She and her husband have problems of their own to work through - if they can. Staying out of that saved you much grief. That was a smart Virgo thing to do for sure! One of Virgo's best qualities is the ability to zero in on personal problems and leave everyone else alone to solve theirs in their own way. That focus is probably what saved your marriage.

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.