The Tarot Diagnosis

In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis podcast, I’m exploring tarot clarifiers and a question I don’t think we ask often enough: Why are we pulling clarifying cards if we already understand the card in front of us?

This episode came about unexpectedly after I pulled the Seven of Wands during my weekly tarot practice and immediately felt my body reaching for the deck again. But I already knew what the card meant and more importantly, I knew what it meant to me. I didn’t actually need more information. Eventually, I realized I was reaching for distance because the card made me uncomfortable and I wanted to get rid of that feeling ASAP.

That moment got me thinking about how often this might be happening in your practice. So, I recorded an impromptu podcast about it.

Throughout the episode, I explore how pulling tarot clarifiers can sometimes become a form of reassurance seeking or avoidance, especially when one clarifier becomes another and another until we finally find a card that gives us the interpretation we were hoping for. I also look at confirmation bias and how pulling more cards can give us more opportunities to find evidence for the narrative we already know/want to believe. Both things to be aware/ cautious of.

But this isn’t an argument against clarifiers - I promise. Clarifying cards can add valuable context to a tarot reading - especially when we’re developing our ability to read cards in relationship with one another. So I’m more interested in what our impulse to pull another card is telling us - versus the act of pulling a clarifier.

I also explore tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty when using tarot. Like what happens when, instead of immediately resolving the tension a card creates, we allow ourselves to sit with it for a moment? 

Using my reaction to the Seven of Wands, I walk through how I resisted pulling a clarifier and instead explored my initial defensiveness and discomfort. That shift allowed me to practice dialectical thinking by asking what else could simultaneously be true, without bypassing the initial feelings. This then brought up a fun fact about film composition and how we can apply that to tarot.

Ultimately, this episode isn’t about whether you should or shouldn’t pull tarot clarifiers. It’s more about encouraging curiosity about why you’re reaching for a clarifying card in the first place.

Want more of this type of tarot experience?
📚 Order my book Dark Shadow, Golden Shadow for more therapeutic tarot practices!

Grab my FREE Tarot Wheels here.

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If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!

Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Deep Resonance Sound⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Music by Timmoor from Pixabay

In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m back with another collective monthly tarot reading, and for September, I’m exploring The Courage to Become, which is a four card tarot spread I originally created around identity, existentialism, and the often uncomfortable process of growth and change.

Spoiler: Apparently, September is the month of Pentacles - I’ve been pulling them personally and three of them show up in the reading!

Pulling the Knight of Pentacles, Six of Cups, Page of Pentacles, and Six of Pentacles, I explore who we may be becoming collectively, what frightens us about that transformation, what makes it exciting, and what remaining exactly as we are might ultimately deny us.

The Knight of Pentacles kicks us off and I end up spending quite a bit of time with this knight, so if you struggle with this card, I hope this is a helpful episode for you. I also explore how in a culture that rewards urgency, immediacy, productivity, and reactivity, this Knight asks us to slow down and be intentional about where we focus our attention. I touch on the importance of responding vs reacting, and why being strategic and willing to tolerate uncertainty may be our own form of resistance.

I also infuse the existential psychology of Rollo May and Erich Fromm, particularly their ideas around courage, freedom, responsibility, identity, and the anxiety that accompanies getting to choose who we want to become. Fromm says that freedom sounds wonderful until we realize it also means that we have to accept responsibility for our choices and I think the Knight of Pentacles is well aware of that.

Next, the Six of Cups brings us directly into our relationship with nostalgia and the safety of familiarity - a cute nod to our 200th episode about nostalgia previously. This card asks us, if we’re becoming something new, how do we make sure we aren’t also just recreating a new version of the past? I explore why familiarity can feel safer than freedom, how nostalgia can pull us toward old identities and systems, and the distinction between being shaped by our history vs repeating it.

The Page of Pentacles then offers us some hope by giving us permission to embrace beginners' energy. We don’t have to know exactly what comes next because how fortunate are we that we get to experiment, question, learn, and participate in the ongoing act of creating ourselves.

Finally, the Six of Pentacles turns our attention toward reciprocity, community, and highlights our individualistic collective culture. This card asks us: what is our hyper-independence costing us? And what would life look like if we embraced individuality without abandoning our communities?

This September tarot reading ultimately became an exploration of identity, existential psychology, community, nostalgia, uncertainty, and the courage to become something we’ve never been before. The cards suggest that it’s about being willing to move toward the future intentionally, remaining curious about what we’re creating, and resisting the noise to pull back from collective support.

Want more of this type of tarot experience?
📚 Order my book Dark Shadow, Golden Shadow for more therapeutic tarot practices!

🌙 Stay Connected With Me
💌 Follow me on Instagram:⁠ @thetarotdiagnosis⁠
🧠 Sign up for my newsletter at⁠ thetarotdiagnosis.com⁠

👥 Join ⁠The Symposium⁠ — my tarot & psychology membership community 

If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!

Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Deep Resonance Sound⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Music by Timmoor from Pixabay

In this special episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m celebrating 200 episodes with someone who has quite literally been behind the scenes since the very beginning: my cousin and the podcast’s audio engineer, Anthony DiGiacomo.

Anthony and I grew up together - our moms are identical twins, we lived a few blocks apart, went to the same schools, and spent our teenage years immersed in the local music scene. So, naturally, a conversation celebrating the history of the podcast turned into a much bigger exploration of something the two of us talk about all the time: nostalgia.

Nostalgia is such a fascinating psychological and dialectical experience because it holds two seemingly contradictory emotions at once. It can feel comforting and painful, connecting and isolating, joyful and grief-filled all at the same time.

While tarot doesn’t show up right away, I promise we talk cards! For example:

We explore the Six of Cups as the traditional archetype of nostalgia, but I also look at Temperance as a surprisingly powerful representation of what healthy nostalgia requires: allowing ourselves to dip into the emotional waters of the past while keeping one foot firmly planted in the present. We also explore the Knight of Wands and Two of Wands through identity, longing, and the tension between honoring who we once were and continuing to move forward.

Anthony and I also get into the psychology of why nostalgia has become so culturally prominent. We talk about social media, disappearing shopping malls, old video games, concerts, neon signs, the increasingly beige and gray aesthetics of modern life, and anemoia - the experience of feeling nostalgic for a time or place we never actually experienced.

And we also talk about how nostalgia has a very dark, shadow side too. Because memory is inherently imperfect, the past can become romanticized. We can convince ourselves that life used to be better, safer, simpler, or more meaningful while forgetting the painful parts of those same periods. Anthony and I discuss how that vulnerability can be exploited through weaponized nostalgia, including political and cultural narratives that promise a return to an idealized past that may have never have actually existed in the way it’s sold to us.

We also talk about nostalgia and grief and how reminiscing can simultaneously remind us of someone’s absence while helping us maintain a relationship with them after they’re gone.

Ultimately, I think nostalgia asks us to practice being in a kind of dialectical both/and space: How do we honor the past without trying to live there? How do we stay connected to previous versions of ourselves without allowing them to determine who we become next?

And I think that’s part of what celebrating 200 episodes means for me, too. I get to look backward at everything this podcast has become, appreciate the people and experiences that helped create it, and still remain incredibly curious about where we go from here. 

On a more personal note to the listeners: Thank you for being here, whether you’ve listened since episode one or just recently discovered The Tarot Diagnosis - knowing you find value here means so much to me. Cheers to the next 200!

Book Referenced: Past Forward by Clay Routledge

🌙 Stay Connected With Me
💌 Follow me on Instagram:⁠⁠ @thetarotdiagnosis⁠⁠
🧠 Sign up for my newsletter at⁠⁠ thetarotdiagnosis.com⁠⁠
👥 Join⁠ ⁠The Symposium⁠⁠ — my tarot & psychology membership community 

If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!

Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Deep Resonance Sound⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Music by Timmoor from Pixabay

In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m exploring self-sabotage through a psychological and therapeutic tarot lens and challenging the idea that self-sabotage means we’re just getting in our own way.

We tend to label procrastination, avoidance, staying in unhealthy relationships, overworking, turning down opportunities, or repeating painful patterns as self-sabotage. And when we notice ourselves doing these things, we tend to ask the same question: Why do I keep doing this to myself?

But I think there’s a different question that actually might help us better understand our own self-sabotage: What is this behavior trying to accomplish? Or, what purpose does it serve?

Because from a therapeutic perspective, every behavior usually has some sort of function that benefits us. Even behaviors that eventually hurt us may have developed because, at some point, they helped us avoid anxiety, rejection, shame, uncertainty, vulnerability, abandonment, or failure. In other words, what looks like self-sabotage may actually be an attempt at self-protection.

I explore all of this through psychodynamic theory, attachment theory, behavioral psychology, schema therapy, and, of course, tarot. I talk about Freud’s concepts of Eros and Thanatos, repetition of painful experiences, how attachment can make those old, but familiar patterns feel safer than healthier, unfamiliar possibilities, and why avoidance and procrastination work so well in the short term, even though they often create bigger problems later.

And then I bring in The World, the card that completely changed the direction of this episode. I initially resisted seeing The World as a card of self-sabotage, but the protective wreath surrounding the figure helped me recognize something important: sometimes the boundaries we construct to keep ourselves safe become a barrier that prevents us from experiencing something new, and that might end up being exactly what we need for growth.

From there, I explore several tarot cards as different manifestations of self-sabotage and self-protection, including:
Four of Pentacles as clinging to familiar identities, relationships, and ways of living

Five of Pentacles as rejecting ourselves before someone else rejects us

The Devil as remaining attached to familiar beliefs and behavioral patterns

Seven and Eight of Cups as the overwhelm & uncertainty inherent in choosing something new

Seven through Ten of Swords as an escalating psychological progression of avoidance, limiting beliefs, anxiety, and collapse

The Tower as what happens when an old protective strategy can no longer sustain itself

Ten of Wands as over-functioning, overachieving, over-planning, and carrying everything ourselves so no one else gets the opportunity to disappoint us

The Ten of Wands ultimately brings me back to what I think is one of the most important ideas in this episode: eventually, the thing that was supposed to protect us can become the thing that burdens us. So rather than shaming ourselves for procrastinating, avoiding, over-functioning, choosing familiar patterns, or seemingly getting in our own way, I’m interested in getting curious about the function underneath the behavior.

Maybe we stop asking: Why am I sabotaging myself?
And instead ask: What is this behavior protecting me from and do I still need that protection?

Want more of this type of tarot experience?
📚 Order my book Dark Shadow, Golden Shadow for more therapeutic tarot practices!

🌙 Stay Connected With Me
💌 Follow me on Instagram:⁠ @thetarotdiagnosis⁠
🧠 Sign up for my newsletter at⁠ thetarotdiagnosis.com⁠
👥 Join ⁠The Symposium⁠ — my tarot & psychology membership community 

If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!

Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Deep Resonance Sound⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Music by Timmoor from Pixabay

In this month's collective tarot reading on The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, I explore one of my favorite concepts from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): the idea that two seemingly opposite truths can exist at the same time.

Inspired by the emotional chaos of Mercury retrograde (but designed to be relevant no matter what's happening in your life) I use my Tension of Opposites tarot spread (below) to explore how we can stop searching for certainty and instead widen our capacity to hold ambiguity, complexity, and contradictions.

Throughout this collective, DBT-inspired reading, I weave together tarot, psychology, parts work, and dialectics as I explore how learning to tolerate emotional tensions can become one of our greatest sources of growth and strength - all through the High Priestess, Empress, Ace of Cups, and Three of Cups.

Ultimately, this episode is an invitation to stop searching for a single "right" answer. Tarot doesn't always ask us to choose between opposing experiences, it often asks what it can look like to hold opposition with curiosity, compassion, and flexibility. 

I hope you enjoy this unscripted, nerdy, and compassionate musing of tensions of opposites.

Want more of this type of tarot experience?
📚 Order my book Dark Shadow, Golden Shadow for more therapeutic tarot practices!

🌙 Stay Connected With Me
💌 Follow me on Instagram:⁠ @thetarotdiagnosis⁠
🧠 Sign up for my newsletter at⁠ thetarotdiagnosis.com⁠
👥 Join ⁠The Symposium⁠ — my tarot & psychology membership community 

If you love The Tarot Diagnosis Podcast, please consider leaving a review! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a super easy and FREE way to support my work. Plus, it helps more people discover the podcast. I appreciate you all so much!

Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Deep Resonance Sound⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Music by Timmoor from Pixabay