I Stopped Using Tarot for Divination

And It Freed My Spirit

Tarot is an extraordinary tool for insight, self-reflection, and connection. I love tarot and have received a lot of benefit working with it.

I’m stepping away from divination.

Let me explain.

I’ve used tarot for future outcomes many times. Sometimes the readings were uncannily accurate. Sometimes they were accurate in ways I couldn’t see until much later. And sometimes they were simply wrong.

Yet the explanation was always the same:
the cards don’t dictate the future.
They show the energy of a path.

What we do with that energy is free will.

But here’s what I started to notice.

Reading tarot for future outcomes pulls me out of the present moment. It moves my awareness forward into imagined states, and for me, that’s where anxiety lives. Presence is where my body settles. Presence is where my spirit feels whole.

When a prediction doesn’t play out the way I expect, fear creeps in. Doubt follows. I question myself. I wonder what I did wrong.

When a prediction does play out, it creates joy, but it also plants expectation. Now I’m watching the future again, hoping for repetition, measuring success before it arrives.

Either way, I’m no longer grounded.

That cycle of hope and fear is subtle, but it’s powerful. And over time, I realized something uncomfortable.

That cycle gives my power away.

So, I chose another way.

Instead of using tarot to ask what will happen, I use it to ask what is happening.

A past, present, future spread becomes something entirely different:

• Source – What is the origin of the energy I’m carrying into this moment?

• Now – What energy is strongest and most active right now?

• Expansion – What energy is naturally unfolding forward?

No fixed outcomes.
No predictions to chase or fear.
Just awareness.

This keeps my focus in the present.

The same approach works beautifully with decisions. When there are multiple paths in front of me, I don’t ask which one I should take.

I ask:
How do my energies align?

I might pull a body, mind, and spirit card for each option. I notice what tightens. What opens. What feels supportive or draining. The cards don’t choose for me. They help me listen more clearly to myself.

I lead with energy.
With spirit.
With presence.

And in doing that, tarot stopped being a tool that told me who I would become.

It became a tool that helped me stay fully inside who I already am.

Tarot is truly empowering when it brings us home to ourselves.

When we stop asking it to peer into an imagined future and instead use it to witness what is alive now, it returns our power to where it belongs. Into the body. Into awareness. Into choice.

The present moment is the only place where transformation can happen. When we send our energy into future possibilities, we scatter ourselves. We wait. We brace. We hope. We fear. And all of that pulls us out of our own authority.

But when tarot is used for self-discovery, it becomes a mirror instead of an oracle.

It doesn’t tell us what will happen.
It helps us understand who we are.

From that place, decisions become clearer. Not because the path is guaranteed, but because we are rooted. We move forward aligned with our energy, our values, our spirit,

Tarot doesn’t need to predict the future to be sacred.
It’s a tool to keep us present, awake, and in relationship with ourselves.