How to Do a Tarot Reading for Valentine's Day
Ok, ok, I know – Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and you might be feeling antsy to pull out your cards and ask all the big questions.
Love is such an emotional, charged topic for so many of us. (Myself included, trust me!)
I’ve been reading tarot for two decades now, and in my time reading for others, I’ve noticed that the most commonly asked questions from my clients are about love, love, love!
Well, love and work, but love really takes the cake. And even when folks come to me for career readings, countless clients will explain their work situations in depth, and then shyly tack on at the end, “and, maybe a card or two for love, if we have time…” I know that’s the topic they REALLY want to know about!
Are you curious about doing tarot card readings for yourself around love?
Truth be told, it’s a tricky topic, and it might be a good idea to spend some time reflecting on whether or not you’re in a headspace to do a love reading for yourself.
Are you in a headspace where you can step back and be a bit distanced about it, and take in whatever the cards have to say, however much or little it is aligned with what you want to hear?
Will you have a meltdown if the cards tell you your lover is covered in red flags, and there isn’t much you can do to help the situation?
How about if, when you ask about the pros and cons of divorcing your partner who cheated on you, the cards suggest it would be far more beneficial to your peace of mind to pack your bags? (Or, on the flip side, that your long-term peace might actually lie in giving it one last shot?)
If you’re not too sure on whether or not reading for yourself is the best course of action right now, feel free to check out this article. It’s rare, but sometimes even I will consult with another spiritual worker to help me suss out a situation. It helps to be in touch with ourselves and know when we’re just too foggy to take anything actionable from a card pull.
Know yourself, know your vibe, know the situation.
Obviously, tarot cards act as friends and guides, laying out the energies that surround us, our lives, and our choices and potential futures – and as with any other friend, we’re always free to completely ignore whatever the hell it is the cards say. Don’t like the cards’ guidance? No problem! I’ve definitely ignored the wisdom of my tarot cards before, and, often, at my own peril – some of the explosions or difficulties my cards brought to my attention over the years have come to pass. Sometimes, though, we really do have to learn the lessons for ourselves, the hard way, even if all signs point to a particular course being ill advised. I’ve been there, got the bruise, learned the lesson.
Ok, so, you’ve listened to my disclaimers and caveats, and you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and attack the Valentine’s Day love reading.
How you approach this will likely differ depending on what’s going on with you.
Are you single?
In a stable relationship?
Or are you in a situation where… it’s complicated?
I’ll be writing separate blog posts for all of these unique situations and circumstances in the coming months, but for now let’s keep it simple.
Valentine’s Day can come with a lot of pressure. We often want the day to be just right. If you’re dating, you might be wondering if your partner will live up to your expectations and make the day special for you – or, if you’re in a different relationship dynamic, you might be feeling the pressure to deliver the goods.
You might be wondering about whether or not you’ll have ‘the talk’ and become official, or whether or not a proposal is in the cards. If you’re single, you might be feeling miserable, wondering if you’ll ever find love after a barrage of unpleasant, unhappy relationships.
Whatever your personal situation is, here are my 3 top tips for giving yourself the best Valentine’s Day reading possible – whether you’re single and ready to mingle, crossing your fingers for a proposal, in a situationship, or are in some kinda complicated thing where you’re not too sure what the hell is going on.
Valentine’s Day Tarot Reading Tip #1: Don’t Ask Whether or Not a Particular Thing Will Happen
Will it happen? Won’t it happen? Who knows!
While some folks operate under the misinformed assumption that tarot reading is supposed to be predictive… it really isn’t, and going to the tarot as your own personal fortune teller is a quick way to stress yourself out and get your heart broken.
Why?
Tarot isn’t so much a weather forecast as it is a detailed long-term report on the climate. Weather can change hour to hour, minute to minute, depending on tons of different factors. Switch around some of the influences, you get a different result – which is sometimes why we get those surprise rain showers, or sunny days when we expected clouds.
Climate is different, though – it’s more about averaging out long-term observations and conditions over time, noticing patterns and tendencies and different influential factors. Knowing that Toronto has a semi-continental climate with incredibly humid summers with an average temperature of 26 degrees celcius in July doesn’t guarantee that your July Toronto vacation won’t involve some seasonally uncharacteristic sweater weather – or that it won’t be a 40 degree heat wave, sending you away from the beach and into hotel air conditioning.
So how can we translate this into tarot?
Tarot is less about making concrete predictions, more about a vibe check. Your partner can still treat you nice sometimes, but still be kinda crappy overall. That’s the type of ‘climate’ the tarot can help you sort out, if you’re having trouble seeing the forest for the trees.
On another note – asking about whether or not something will happen takes the fun out of living. This kind of question often comes from a deep discomfort with sitting in the mystery of life, and a hesitance to embrace the reality that many things are unknowable and beyond our control, and indeed are the culminations of decisions made by many other people, some of whom we may know and many of whom we may not. What’s the point of knowing a few hours or days before? Why not just embrace that we can’t control everything in life?
If this is the kind of question you feel tempted to ask, my tarot homework for you is to connect with The Hanged Man tarot card. The Hanged Man is all about surrender, giving up control – realizing that over many things in life, we are powerless – and grasping desperately at sand will not make it any easier to collect. Embrace the mysteries of life, and practice discerning the difference between the things you can’t control (cough other people) and what you can.
Rather than asking whether or not something will happen, here are some inspiration questions that you might wish to ask the cards instead:
Why do I feel the need to control the outcome of this situation? How can I release my desire to control the outcome?
Why do I feel a sense of desperation and/or immediacy around this situation? How can I move into surrender and acceptance?
What about this situation is within my control? What about this situation isn’t in my control?
If I’m in a situation where boundaries have been crossed multiple times, what is my own personal line in the sand where I will make a different choice rather than continuing to engage? What do I need to keep in mind as I strengthen my boundaries? What do I need to keep in mind as I think about consequences?
What are my hopes and dreams for this situation? What is it actually?
I’d recommend pulling 1-3 cards as answers to each question. Feel free to use these as inspiration or as guide posts, and adjust the questions to your situation as you see fit. Add or subract questions, too – these examples were just to get your brain moving.
…And that brings us to my next big Valentine’s Day tarot reading tip:
Valentine’s Day Tarot Reading Tip #2: Ask About You
Ask about you!
You you you!
Often in love readings, we know how we feel about a person or situation or relationship – we know what we want! We want them to love us, we want them to change, we want what we want what we want, and we want it yesterday. So much impatience!
As a result of this obsession that can sometimes pop up around this time of year, many times folks may feel like focusing their readings entirely on their object of affection.
Do they like me? Do they love me? Do they want to date me seriously or is this just a fling?
Will I be single forever?
Should I download Tinder?
To be honest, I have worked with the tarot to answer these kinds of questions for my clients; sometimes these queries do fit into the broader category of climate, or vibe check. But, more often than not, they don’t.
What I would love to challenge you to do instead this Valentine’s Day, is to focus on you.
You, your decisions, your actions, your frame of mind, your behavious, your attitudes – these are all things you do actually have the ability to change and influence. You can’t control whether or not someone will fall in love with you, whether or not they’ll propose, or whether or not that next Tinder swipe will be The One. What you can control is your own attitude to dating, your own beliefs about whether or not it’s possible for you to find (and keep) love, whether or not you believe all your wildest hopes and dreams are out there, ready to be seized.
You can decide whether to continue believing that all men are shit, or that all the good women are taken, or that being queer and trans means no one will love you. Maybe I’ve become an optimist in my old age, but I do believe that our thoughts have the power to shape our reality, and that there is truly someone out there for everyone, if we choose to move towards a partnered life.
Instead of asking about how others feel about you, why not ask yourself if you even like them that much anyway – if they’re a good fit for you, based on your own standards and desires?
Here are some other questions you might wish to ask:
What are my own attitudes about love?
What should my area of focus be right now, in regards to love? Romantic love? Platonic love? Self love? Familial love?
What’s holding me back in love? What about my attitude needs to change? What can stay?
Everything is going amazingly. How can I sustain that? How can I make my love life/relationship/partnerships even better?
What characteristics of mine are keeping me from a happy relationship? What limiting beliefs do I need to dump out in regards to love?
What lesson or messages do I need to hear about love from the tarot?
How can I show myself some love during this time?
Valentine’s Day Tarot Reading Tip #3: Take the Pressure Off
I wouldn’t be surprised if Valentine’s Day has always been a high pressure holiday - and with the rise of social media, it’s just gotten worse and more stressful. You might be feeling extra pressure to keep up with the Jonses, to have something sexy and fun and envy-inspiring to post on Instagram, to have the happiest, perfect, most bestest relationship on the whole entire internet. On Valentine’s Day.
I love social media, but don’t get me wrong, it can definitely sometimes bring out the worst in people. There’s so much performance (and sometimes, people are actually having a genuinely good time, and our bitter, jaded asses just write it off as ‘performance’ to make excuses for our own misery), so much excess, so much competition for who can be cuter, more photogenic, more picture-perfect, least messy and complicated
Well, life is complicated, and that doesn’t just stop because it’s Valentine’s Day.
Relationships are complex – hell, anything involving multiple people is complex – and this is a big part of why I’m (perhaps surprisingly) an introvert. People are hard!
Ultimately, while Valentine’s Day is and can be an opportunity to engage in a joyous and beautiful celebration of love – whether solo or partnered, whether completely in secret or all over the internet, it is still just another day.
A day can be special, and also mundane, all at the same time.
Sometimes folks come to their tarot cards when they feel stress and pressure – a need or desire to make some order out of the chaos and uncertainty of life. Tarot can certainly be an amazing tool to work with during times of crisis, don’t get me wrong – but Valentine’s Day ain’t what I’d consider a crisis.
When you approach your cards, take as many deep breaths as it takes for you to step into a deep relaxation.
Remind yourself that things don’t have to be so serious, high-stress, and high-pressure.
Commit to appreciating the love in your life, in whatever form it takes – and if you’re having a particularly solitary or lonely year, it’s okay if all the love that feels vibrant to you right now is coming from your cat, yourself, and your heating pad.
Calm yourself, affirm your love of yourself, your value, your worth, your beauty.
If this feels hard or like lying, take it from someone who’s been there – fake it til you make it.
Give these affirmations a try, even if only just for today, just right now, just this moment.
Ground your tarot reading in your awareness that whatever happens, you are enough, you are lovable and worthy of love, just as you are, no matter how alone or complicated or surrounded by people you are.
Happy reading, beauties – and please share if you found this article helpful!
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