Winning At Therapy

The Tarot Cards Many Stories

Dec 09, 2025

I’ve been in therapy for 6 years now. I’ve gotten very self-aware and quick at recognizing my unconscious behavioral patterns.

So clearly I’m winning at therapy.

Although sometimes I wonder if I’m spending my time in morbid fascination.

My therapist is one of those that like me to start the conversation.

“Hi, how are you?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“How was your week?”

And then I start talking about something that happened, that brought up some feelings, that brought up some memories, that brought up a root cause of something.

I’m a fan of talk therapy. I don’t see myself not having therapy for the long foreseeable future.

But, in therapy, you get really good at telling your story. One story.

And at times I’m sick of myself hashing out the same story, the same pattern, the same scratched record skipping the same line.

Enter tarot stage left

Tarot is a book without a spine. And what attracted me to tarot were the very things that scare others.

I was working at a graphic design agency, and wasn’t very happy. I felt aimless and wanted to search for something bigger than myself. Some kind of faith to put my mind at ease.

And I was not running, not even walking, to Christianity. I’m not about to succumb to some bigoted pastor with a god complex, whose congregation hasn’t formed one independent thought, nor questioned what they’re hearing and reading (you know they’re not reading the Bible).

I found a metaphysical shop about a block away from my job, and they held nearly daily reiki circles.

Perfect!

I get to sit in silence, people leave me alone, and I get to receive some loving healing energy.

The reiki masters would put an oracle deck in the center, and we could pull from it to receive an additional message.

At first, they felt generic.

“you are loved”
“You are capable”
“The love of the Universe is guiding you”

Well, great! Guiding me where? We’re missing some direction here. However, the messages were still encouraging on some level, and I knew there was more to this meditation/card messages/reiki energy stuff. (This…stuff? – in the voice of Miranda Priestly)

When I discovered tarot and I saw The Devil, Death, The Tower, I knew I had found a truth teller. At the very least something that would guide me to the truth.

Tarot of many stories

I couldn’t afford therapy at the time, and I saw an opportunity in tarot to guide me to my inner self.

Tarot is full of stories. Tarot is a book without a spine.

I could challenge the stories I tell about myself. It would ask of me to question, and think differently, and offer up a new perspective.

Sometimes our minds can feel so fixed on something, on a way of thinking, and seeing the world.

While tarot continuously, and sometimes infuriatingly, asks “are you sure?”

Every shuffle of the cards brings up a new story. A comic book strip that was randomized. And at times it feels like it brings about confusion, but what it’s really bringing up is curiosity.

A way to get us out of the quicksand in our heads, and encourage us to ask the deeper questions. To take a point of view that we were blinded to.

Monopoly of Healing

Neither therapy nor tarot hold the monopoly on healing.

However, the way they compliment each other is magical.

They’re both tools for self-development, and they’re both mirrors.

Your therapist will mirror back to you topics and patterns you’re repeating, but are yet unaware. While tarot mirrors back thoughts and feelings that we may be unaware of. And vice versa.

My therapist likes me to start the conversation. Or rather, she’ll start by asking how I’m going, and how my week was. Then I’m the one doing the heavy lifting by responding, and quite often I’ll open up with “I was pulling cards this week, and these were my reflections on the topic we were discussing.”

Tarot has a way of challenging and clarifying what’s going on in my head. It allows me to break free from the trance our minds can put on us when we are blinded by trauma, and lost on how to “fix” it. Tarot, in only 78 cards, offers infinite narratives, complex plot lines, and character arcs that want to push the plot further, and develop the inner story.

Tarot and therapy go hand in hand. They’re besties, in my eyes. And Tarotpy is the mind child of these pillars.

With much love, and tarot magick,

Icaro

What are your favorite healing tools?

A few years ago I discovered the runes, and have been hooked. Tarot and Runes work so well together! They’ve been fun to learn, and I even consider myself Norse pagan.