By Janni Thorpe

Tarot readings never “tell” you what to do — they offer suggestions for you to consider. Often, this suggestion helps you think of different perspectives — different ways to evaluate a situation. By helping you see things from different angles, tarot readings help you see things more clearly.

Let’s take a two card reading — the first card suggests something to consider. Perhaps some positive attribute that you’d like to exercise — or perhaps it’s some negative attribute that you’d like to avoid.

The second cards offers tips on how you might achieve this.

For this reading, we start with the Nine of Swords.

Some folks see this as a really negative card — but I normally see it as just describing a real situation. We’ve all been in situations where we “worry” about something. This can be the type of concern that might even keep you from sleeping — you just can’t stop thinking about a difficult situation.

I don’t see this as a negative card because it honestly describes something we all face. Every one of us has gone through this before — and we’ll go through it again. We can always anticipate facing a vexing situation that causes us anxiety.

And this is okay — it’s okay to be concerned about a problem. What we want to be wary of is not moving from that “worry” state; we instead should look for ways to resolve the situation.

Sometimes that means we try to solve the problem — sometimes that means we learn to accept the situation — and sometimes it means we try to find an alternative and leave the problem behind us. No matter what we choose, we need to move on.

How can we move on? Well, let’s see what our second card suggests… the King of Swords.

Whenever I see the King of Swords, I see my Dad glaring at me after I’d done something really stupid. He’s asking “Why did you do that — you knew better! You knew what that right thing to do was!” And… he was right. I did know what the proper course of action was — I just didn’t take it.

This King always knows the right thing to do. He doesn’t care if it’s a difficult thing — if it’s the right answer, then it’s the right answer and that’s all there is to it.

What this means is that when we’re faced with a worrying problem — in the back of our minds, we probably know how to solve it. We just don’t always want to listen to ourselves — because maybe the answer is too difficult. However, “Dad” says “Doesn’t matter — if it’s the right thing to do, then it’s the right thing to do!”

When you think about it, it’s really silly to agonize and say “What should I do? What should I do?” when you already know what you should do. What you’re really saying is “I know what to do, but I’m reluctant to do it.” That’s okay — but it’s a completely different situation from the first one described. You’re not worrying about the problem; you’re worrying about being able to implement the solution.

Be honest with yourself — when faced with a difficult situation, can you see the right thing to do? If so, then don’t worry about the problem any more — instead, start working on how you can achieve the solution.

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