Has it happened to you yet? It must have! It happens to us all at some stage. The dreaded Tarot Blank!
There you are getting more confident every day about your Tarot skills. Starting to trust more in those feelings and sensations that come up. Then someone sits down in front of you, you get them to pull the cards and then…nothing! Blank!
You cannot read the cards. Nothing. Ditto. The Tarot Blank! What to do?
So here is a piece of advice – you are not ALWAYS going to be able to be a pro at the cards and yes you will get a tarot blank. You might be tired, hungry or wiped out from a day with the kids. You might have a skeptic sitting across from you who have closed themselves so much, it feels there is nobody there.
It could be that you get a blank with a close friend or family member because you are too emotionally close to them and its hard to be objective and give advice. Perhaps a women came excited for a reading about her new boyfriend but you see doom and gloom and you freeze because you have no idea how you are going to describe these cards.
You might also get a tarot blank because you are putting pressure on yourself to give an ‘excellent’ reading in return for the clients money and so you are in your head and not in your heart.
And… you know what! It could simply be that your psychic button is not switched on for the day. We cannot be super psychic all the time, every minute of every day. As you get to learn more about yourself you will find your psychic and intuitive abilities comes and goes in waves.
So what do you do if you get a blank? Do not freak out and go 80’s on me with your hair.
Learn my tips on how to get out of this hairy moment…
ONE
Breath.
Do not feel you need to jump in straight away and start jabbering.
Pause and breath.
When I first started reading the cards I would do a Celtic Cross Spread and then panic when I couldn’t make sense of it. I would breath and then point to each card and make sounds.
Hmmmmmmm! Ahhhhhhh! Oh I see! Wow! So interesting!
It was a little dramatic but it made it look like I was connecting all the dots. The person receiving the reading usually loved it and had more anticipation for all the waiting. Meanwhile in my head I would be saying to myself, “What the hell does this all mean”. The technique would give me a few seconds to stop the ‘freak out’ in my mind and calm down.
Then I would go to step two.
TWO
I would then focus on one card and start to describe it. A Major Arcana card or a Court card are good ones to focus on if they pop up in a spread with a few cards.
If your client only picked one card I would find a symbol on that card and start describing the symbol. Speak slowly and give yourself time to relax.
When we describe a Tarot card we warm up and the words start to flow easily and we become more relaxed. When we are more relaxed, out intuition starts to speak again.
For example I might describe the 9 of Swords like this:
“A person is sitting up in bed. It is nighttime. They cannot sleep. They look worried – so worried that they feel despair because their hands are on their face.”
THREE
Then if you still have a blank, ask questions. And no, you are not cheating. You are allowed to ask questions.
You could describe the 9 of Swords card above and then ask, “Do you feel like that right now about something?” Ask them what they feel when they look at the card? Get them to dip their toes into the Tarot world by getting them to describe what they see. People will always describe what is inside them when they look at a card and that can give you more of an idea about what is happening for them.
You could even ask them as you point to the card, “Is this happening right now for you in your life?”. You will often be surprised by the answer – it is nearly always YES!
FOUR
If you find even describing the card is hard, then ‘fake it till you make it’.
I do not mean lie!
What I mean is talk technically about a card. If you cannot feel your intuition and you have a crazy tarot blank, then at least tell the person what the card is about from the knowledge you have gained.
Here is an example:
“This is the 3 of Cups. Cups represents emotions and water. Water is like emotions. It can be a gentle nourishing cup of water that we drink. It can be a tsunami that can crash over us. In this card you can see that the emotions are happy and good. The women are celebrating. They are happy and dancing. Has this happened to you lately? Is this something you are looking forward to or desire?”
FIVE
If you go blank because you consider the cards to be bad and it is freaking you out, then you can simply say: “Wow, it seems like you are going through a lot at the moment”.
Be honest.
You do not need to say WHAT you see if you are not ready to deliver the message or you feel it is inappropriate to do so.
9 times out of 10 the persons will get emotional when you say this and agree and probably tell you what is happening. They will open up and you in your compassion will intuitively open up to them also.
Think about practicing with a willing person on how to deliver hard news and if it sounds OK. We have a big responsibility as readers to respect the clients heart. Even bad news can be delivered in a proper way. So do not freak out if you see what you assume is a “bad’ card. You will not believe how many times a client has been relieved when a bad card was pulled. The client gets confirmation of what is really happening.
SIX
You might just have to say that you are sorry and you do not know why but nothing is happening today.
I always feel it is better to be honest than talk utter rubbish. It is total disrespect to lie to a person. In my early days I often had a blank but using the above tips I managed to pull through.
There is only 2 times in my tarot reading career that I got a big NOTHING. I was honest with the clients and I did not charge them money. One was an aggressive skeptic and the other was a person that I sensed had cancer and I freaked out. Probably because at the same time a family member had been diagnosed with cancer and I was very emotional about it.
Both times I got a blank because of my stuff! Which led me to do more self development and inner awareness.
Blanks can sometimes come as a gift, to show us where we have blocks or strong emotions. They are not always a bad thing.
So good luck with my tips! These worked for me in my early days when my lack of confidence hindered my ability to tap into my intuition.
Don’t forget!
A tarot blank is part of the growing experience. Believe me when I say this: the FEAR of getting a big blank in the future during a Tarot reading never leaves you 100% because we are after all…human!
If you have the tools to know what to do if you get a tarot blank, then you are one step ahead:)
And on that final note, watch this great video by Sonia Choquette on getting that intuition stronger so you will get LESS BLANKS and get to know yourself better!
