How Reading Tarot for a Year Changed My Life
In this blog post, I’m sharing my journey with intuition and how I began to receive channeled messages. I hope it inspires you to develop your own intuition more deeply.
Early Inspirations in my Childhood and Adolescent Years
When I was a freshman in high school, I studied Buddhism. I intuitively understood the concept of karma — how we’re each born into this lifetime with lessons that we must resolve and transmute. From there, my interest in spirituality grew over the years, leading me to study and learn more about Hinduism and other religions and philosophies.
My childhood was filled with memories in nature, and this went on to inspire my writing. I always felt connected to animals; being outside helped me focus on the present moment. From a young age, I felt in tune with the earth and the consciousness of the beings around me.
The Book That Inspired Me to Meditate Daily
One day, my mother gave me a book called Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing by Anita Moorjani. In short, it’s about a woman who was diagnosed with cancer and felt that her emotions and thoughts affected her body, to the extent that she developed the disease. Throughout the book, she speaks about her journey and how she rid cancer from her body through spirituality, meditation, intuitive eating, and other spiritual practices.
Reading that book was one of my first “aha!” moments, which eventually led me to meditate each day. This book helped me understand that we have the power to change our physical bodies based on our thoughts and how we carry ourselves energetically.
Meditation turned out to be a grounding practice for me over the years, helping me feel balanced and calm whenever my life became stressful. After 3 – 4 months of meditating for at least 10 minutes a day, I noticed a significant difference in myself. When unexpected changes and upheavals caused those around me to panic, I found myself staying calm and grounded, able to focus on the present moment.
My meditation practice led me even further into Buddhism and reinforced my aspiration to share love with all the people in my life. At this time, I also started to work on myself through inner child healing and shadow work, attempting to “let go” of everything that held me back from reaching my fullest potential.
Discovering Card Divination
After graduating from college, I started working as a recruiter. Although the job was cyclical, it revealed a passion of mine — helping others match their behavior with their intentions. This lead me to explore spirituality even more deeply; I began taking an interesting in guiding others towards a more holistic and spiritually uplifting life.
In my free time, I loved to stroll by thrift book stores and pick up anything interesting I could find. One day, I came across a Lenormand card deck called Titania’s Fortune Cards. The way the cards were set up was very simple — just pictures with descriptions. I began reading the cards and experimenting with different card spreads. Since I was working a pretty repetitive job, I found great interest in the practice, and would practice doing card readings late into the night. Shortly afterwards, I began doing readings for friends. I was surprised to find that people were fond of my readings. Even my close friends would call me and tell me that what showed up in the cards had transpired in real life!
After a couple of times hearing this, I began to seriously believe that I was channeling some kind of spirit. I truly enjoyed helping others find more clarity and resolution, and felt safe and protected while doing so. A few years passed, and I would still read for my friends here and there. I let go of card reading for some time, and didn’t think much about it. It wasn’t until a couple years later that my spiritual journey began diverging into a new route.
Getting My Reiki Certification
My mother is very spiritual, so we often do fun activities together like yoga. One day, she invited me to do a level 1 Reiki training with her. We both had really enjoyed our Reiki training — we had an amazing Reiki Master who was very well-versed in the history of Reiki, the 7 chakras, and how life force energy helps heal others. I distinctly remember going back home and giving my boyfriend at the time a Reiki session (I technically wasn’t meant to, because I had only completed reiki 1 – but oh well!) Afterwards, he shared that he felt so free and light, like everything he was energetically holding onto had been released. I have been fascinated by the healing properties of Reiki ever since, and now am a Reiki Master.
Finding Tarot
Later on, while I was transitioning jobs, I started to study tarot. I love throwing myself into new subjects and enjoy being a lifelong learner. I picked up the book The Essential Guide to the Tarot by David Fontana, and used the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck to learn about the different symbols in the cards and their meanings. I devoted a lot of time to studying tarot and practiced with a variety of card spreads each day for a year.
I truly believe that if you’re committed to something and practice it every day for a year, your progress will blossom. If there’s something in particular that you feel drawn to studying, I encourage you to take the time to practice it every day for a year, for at least 5 – 10 minutes a day. See where it takes you!
Becoming a Tarot Reader on Youtube
After studying and practicing tarot for a year, my boyfriend at the time encouraged me to start a Youtube channel. I was pretty reluctant at first until the pandemic hit. I decided to give it a try, since there wasn’t much to do. I got back into tarot and planned out my first video. After I filmed my very first collective card reading, I went to bed and told myself, “if this video gets 40 views, then I will continue with this, and I will dedicate myself to it”.
The next morning, I woke up and was surprised to see that my video had been viewed 42 times. Back then, I had maybe 8 or 10 subscribers, but I was still in shock that people resonated with my first collective reading. I practiced reading tarot for a year straight and posted Youtube videos to track my progress. I started to notice a significant shift in my readings. In the beginning, I was very much focused on the signs, symbols, and traditional definitions of the cards — the same way you would memorize the alphabet — and then one day, things began to change. Out of the blue, I began to see images in my head. They would pop up as I was reading the cards. This new approach to reading tarot was completely new for me. From that moment forward, I began relaying channeled messages that felt divinely guided. Multiple people told me they were accurate and that they resonated deeply. This practice (called clairvoyance) is what allows my readings to be precise. These days, I really only use the cards as a clue or hint.
Developing My Intuition Over Time
After studying and reading tarot for a year, I felt like my intuition has grown exponentially. I believe that there are levels to developing your intuitive gifts. Depending on how prepared you are, your spirit guides will send you messages accordingly. When you’re conducting personal or collective readings for others, it’s important to effectively listen to what’s coming through and translate it in a way that helps others — without causing harm or using fear-based messaging.
To be a responsible and dedicated reader, it’s important to stay grounded and humble. A lot of people can get caught up in being in the “spiritual world”, and they can lose sight of the practical, tangible things we need to do in our 3D reality. It’s always a dance between finding your purpose, showing up authentically, and then thinking about the actual steps you need to take to do what’s best for your highest good.
When you’re first starting out on your spiritual journey and tapping into your intuition, it’s important to have a genuine love and desire to do so. You will be energetically aligned to receive messages from your Spirit Guides and channel their messages more thoroughly. For example, I’d be inquiring about something, and then my spirit guides would mention something super specific like “there’s asbestos in your house”. I wouldn’t even know what that meant, but it resonated for the person I was reading for.
Currently, I am mostly clairvoyant, clairaudient, and claircognizant, but I also experience clairsentience whenever I do Reiki sessions. Tapping into someone’s energy reminds me a lot of when you open up a book; instead of a story, I can see their lifetime and how it unfolds, one chapter to the next.
Final Guidance
Studying and practicing tarot every day for a year and continuing to learn something new is what made my intuition skyrocket. If you truly want to live out your purpose, I believe that your spirit guides are going to put you on that path in divine timing. Nothing will come too early or too late, but today could be the day you begin.
I’m incredibly grateful for the work that I do and have overwhelming gratitude for all the people who support me and allow me to do what I love: supporting and guiding others. The immense joy I feel watching others reach milestones in their lives is limitless, and continues to make this work worth it.
I hope this helps you as you deepen your own intuition!
With love,
Gabriella
