Man, I gotta tell you, a few years back, I hit a wall. Everything was spinning sideways. Career felt like a dead end, my relationships were a joke—the whole nine yards. I needed clarity, not some fancy self-help book telling me to “manifest good vibes.” I needed a direct answer to a direct problem. So, I grabbed the first cheap deck I saw—didn’t even know Tarot from Oracle—and said, “Alright, let’s see what this thing can do.”
The Big Mistake I Made First
I dove straight into the instruction booklet, right? Big, fat mistake. That thing was a nightmare. Pages and pages of keywords. The Ten of Swords is “utter defeat, rock bottom, betrayal, sudden collapse.” The Nine of Pentacles is “material stability, self-reliance, luxury, appreciation of solitude.” What the hell am I supposed to do with a dozen words that all kinda mean the same thing but don’t feel like anything real?
I tried to memorize the whole deck, every single card, like it was a chemistry final. I was trying to shove 78 little essays into my brain, and my brain just totally shut down. I mean, think about it. You get a three-card spread, and suddenly you’re juggling thirty different keywords and trying to smoosh them into one cohesive story about whether or not you should take that new job. It was a total mess, an absolute jumble. Like trying to write a simple email using five different languages all at once. The whole process was confusing, overwhelming, and, worst of all, completely useless for getting a real, actionable answer.
I gave up three times. Just threw the deck in a drawer, thinking, “This is just for people who have hours to sit around and study ancient texts.” But the problem I was trying to solve—my own life’s mess—didn’t go away. I figured the deck wasn’t the problem; the method was the problem. The people who write those books want you to think it’s complicated so you keep buying their stuff. I needed a method that was fast, ugly, and gave me a direct, immediate gut punch of meaning.
What I Actually Started Doing
I was sick of the over-intellectualizing. I took the little white book and my notebook full of definitions and literally tossed them. They were creating noise, not clarity. I had to figure out a way to bypass the ‘meaning’ and get straight to the ‘action.’ The key, I realized, was to stop trying to read the card and just try to feel the image.
I broke my practice down into three simple, rough actions. I forced myself to follow these rules, or the deck went back in the drawer. I call it the ‘Look, Verb, Journal’ approach, because that’s all I let myself do. No fluff, no history, just the simple work.
-
First, I Forced Myself to Stop Reading the Card Name. This was brutal at first. I’d pull a card and immediately cover the title and number with my thumb. Just look at the picture. Forget the name ‘Temperance.’ Forget the Roman numeral XIV. What is happening in this image? Is someone struggling? Is someone celebrating? Is someone mixing two cups of water? I forced my mouth to say just one thing out loud, like ‘Waiting,’ or ‘Fighting,’ or ‘Winning,’ or ‘Thinking too much.’ If I had to pause for more than three seconds, I put the card back. It had to be immediate.
-
Second, I Gave Every Card a Simple, Single Action Verb. This was the actual breakthrough. The fancy books had a dozen confusing nouns and philosophical ideas. I was done with that mess. I simplified the whole deck. The Two of Cups isn’t ‘harmony and mutual respect,’ it’s ‘Sharing.’ The Five of Swords isn’t ‘Pyrrhic victory and loss,’ it’s ‘Running Away.’ The High Priestess isn’t ‘intuition and the unconscious,’ it’s ‘Just Knowing.’ The King of Wands isn’t ‘enthusiasm and authority,’ it’s ‘Telling Others What To Do.’ I wrote these simple verbs down on one tiny index card—the only cheat sheet I allowed myself. Not the 78 card meanings, just a single, powerful verb for each one.
-
Third, I Made a Commitment to Daily Draws, and I Could Not Look Up Anything Else. This is where the real learning happened. Every morning, I drew three cards. I didn’t open the book, I didn’t check Google—nothing. I forced myself to string those three simple verbs together into a story about my day. So, if I got ‘Waiting’ + ‘Telling Others What To Do’ + ‘Sharing,’ the story was: ‘I’m waiting for the right moment to tell my boss what to do so we can finally share the profits.’ It sounds completely nuts, but I made that crazy story, wrote it in a journal, and then went about my day. At the end of the day, I’d review my journal and see if the made-up story actually played out. This messy, personal system stuck the meanings way faster than any book ever could because I was learning by doing and connecting the card to a concrete, personal action.
The Outcome: Real Clarity, Real Fast
It was clunky for the first few weeks, I won’t lie. I constantly questioned if I was doing it “right” or if I was missing out on some deeper knowledge. But within maybe six weeks, I wasn’t opening any book. I wasn’t even checking my simple index card. I’d pull a card, and the simple action verb—the ‘Running Away’ or the ‘Just Knowing’—just popped into my head automatically because I had trained my brain to see the action, not the academic jargon.
The complicated systems the ‘experts’ push? They’re just noise. They create a big, confusing mess that takes years to untangle, and honestly, they just want you to keep buying their expensive books and courses. My method is fast because it’s dirty, simple, and connects directly to what the image is actually doing. Don’t overthink it, beginner. Just look at the picture, decide what action is happening, and move on. Trust me, it works a thousand times better than trying to stuff 78 little dictionary entries into your skull. Stop reading, start seeing. That’s the real trick.
