#tarot28

This is my guide to how I do my daily self work to bring some joy and happiness and better things closer to me.  Everything I do listed below is written down in the same place - a generic leftover half used spiral notebook next to my bed.  

I have a little anxiety and uncertainty and a little moop (a word for when you’ve got sad mood that’s kinda blah but it doesn’t have as quite of a severe connotation as depression does imo) when it comes thinking about the future.  To get super real for a second here, it can be so so bleak sometime to look ahead and look at where I am now and where I could be like if only if only.  Coming out of an unhealthy and toxic relationship and being on the mend from that also has me looking for ways of actively reviving my worth and my joy and I’m glad to report that what I’ve outline below has helped me personally and by sharing, I hope I can help others :) :)

Also just as a note: I use the Universe instead of God, Goddess, Spirit, etc bc that’s my preference.  Mentally sub that for whatever works for you <3

Contents: sorry this is a hella long post but here’s the break down - Manifestation (what I used to do) - Goals (what I do/how I altered manifestation to make it work for me) - Intentions (goals are long term, but here’s the daily) - Gratitude (how it puts things into perspective) - Meditation (an on and off again relationship/the one that always gets away) - How the fuck do I fit all this into my daily routine ?

Manifestation: So when I first started this routine I used kinda generic manifestation and threw literally everything I wanted at the Universe like here this is what I want and it’s your problem now.  That’s the idea I got from the very minimal reading I did on manifestation and law of attraction type shtuff.  I reallllllly hesitate to call what I currently do manifestation but it’s like a cousin and is closer to setting goals.  I’m not going to go into manifestation further but the “manifestation work” I do is like everything written here collectively.

Goals: This is the branching out I did for manifestation.  It’s more accessible language too.  A goal is something I want and it’s something attainable.  Transitioning from manifestation to goals was kinda necessary to me because when I was doing manifestation was me throwing every tiny little want and need at the Universe.  Goals was that but with filters and then elaboration.  I went from asking for like 8 or 10 things that would change often to asking for 3 consistently.

Here’s a working example.  One of my old “manifestation” items was “a sense of confidence in my body.”  Let’s pull this apart a bit.  This isn’t a bad thing to ask for at all; it’s definitely something that can happen.  But like does the Universe really need to bestow that onto me or is that something I could do on my own.  It’s too specific and exclusive as well.  The perception of my own physical health comes from my personal relationship with myself, mentally and emotionally.  My body confidence won’t change unless I work at how I talk to myself or unless I start to praise my own appearance.  

I use a different, but related version of this older item currently in my goal statements that aims to “improve the relationship I have with myself for myself through positive self talk, self care, and recognizing the joy that comes through exploring my relationship with myself.”  This is longer, but it’s bigger picture.  It encompasses mental, physical, and emotional health.  It also emphasizes my part in it, which was the biggest issue I had with what I was calling “manifestation.”  I think it’s ok to ask for things, but personally asking and waiting passively for something to drop into your lap just on the merits of asking for it felt unrealistic.  I think my biggest personal distinction between goals and manifestation was introducing accountability, thus empowering myself to make the changes in my life that I wanted to see.

Intentions In addition to writing my goal statements, I write my intentions.  The goals are more specific to the season or a couple month to a year long period, whereas the intentions are a couple of ways I want my day to go.  Again, this is kinda me empowering myself to take action and decide how my day will unfold.  It’s just a couple of brief statements about things I want to happen, but less of a tangible to do list and more like what’s the vibe today boysss

So for example on a to do list I had this week: chem for mon, wed, fri, bio lecture notes from thursday, final revisions on whatever weekly essay it was lmao rip, and then a couple emails.  This was a to do list from Monday and I have work and class and meetings and bathroom break and have to take care of the dogs and make food and eat the food and drink water and maybe squeeze in a workout from 9am to 3:30pm on top of the to do list, which is usually just classwork.  My intention for the day was to “be productive enough to prepare for tomorrow.”  This is a way to say do the bare minimum and feel better about it.  Another intention I had was to “recognize and when I need a break and give myself the rest time I need to be productive.”  Another way of justifying slacking off occaisionally but giving it an elevated purpose through the wording.  It also makes me feel like shameful about not getting everything I planned to do in one day because I carried out my intentions.

Gratitude! This is my absolute favorite part of my routine!  It brings everything home for me and I can really draw attention to all the mundane disguised positivity in my life that might go unnoticed or underappreciated otherwise.  This one is so simple.  I start by writing “I’m grateful:” and then just list whatever comes to mind easily.  

If it’s hard at first, make sure you’re not overthinking.  When I introduced this into my routine I would almost talk myself out of the stupid things, but I think that’s where a lot of my small, daily joy comes from.  Yesterday was cold and rainy and that’s my favorite weather so I wrote “rainy and cold” on my list and I think I put sweatpants on their too.  Don’t overthink it and don’t force it and just start doing it.

Here’s some research for the benefits if you don’t want to listen to me, please listen to the science, more of the science and a little more.  If these links don’t work- sorry but they’re random articles I found from google scholar after searching gratitude journaling.  SO much evidence out there 

Meditation This is my long lost love.  I feel like I never have the time and I’m fighting to put her back into my routine.  It makes me feel great and settles me into my body.  More posts to come if when I get back at it.  If anyone has techniques or guided mediation recommendations omg let me know.  I use a couple podcasts, one is purely guided mediations because they’re like 5 or 10 mins each and I’m short on time a lot.  The other is called nothing much happens and it’s just like bedtime stories about mundane routines and not strict mediation, but I love them.

My daily routine and how I make this work for me and don’t give up: My first rule is that if I’m not in the mood, I simply do NOT.  Like days where shit sucks is different from days where you feel like you’re breaking down and it physically hurts to think about the future or your goals because everything is so hard.  I get that and I treat myself like an adult and know that not doing it one day won’t be an issue as long as I make sure I do it the next day.

In the morning, I think about my schedule.  What is today and what is the best way to approach what I have going on?  What is the best way to direct my energy?  This is intention time :) And then this is where I’m trying to add meditation back in but I really suck at morning time management and I’m trying to use the time to work out before my day gets started.  We’ll see lol I’ll prob add it in at the end of my day to help me get to sleep feeling a little more settled and comfy in my own body and mind.

I try to keep my intentions in mind during the day.  Sometimes it happens, sometimes not.  It’s ok because I did them and I thought about it at least one time during the day for it’s own special, dedicated amount of time.

After I’m completely done for the day, I go what the fuck am I doing on this planet, how can I improve my existence, what do I see happening for myself? Under my intentions, I write my big three goalssss.  Something for my own healthy, something for my career and academics, and something to kinda talk about my meant to be, forever home of person that I’m trying to attract.  Self-career-social kinda triangle of goals.

Under my goals, I zoom in on everything that went great.  The last thing I write down for the day is gratitude so that even if I get a little stressed about not following my intentions too well or not making a lot of progress towards my big picture goals, I can look at today and go I had a great cup of hot chocolate and binged AHS though and I don’t regret it because it made me so happy that I wrote it down.

Hi hi hi idk why I always start my posts by saying hello but it feels wrong or rude if I don’t so that’s why I do.

This is a post on daily tarot draws.  And my opinion on them and I want y’all to know it’s really just an opinion based on my experiences as a beginner tarot reader and I really could rant about this because I have strong opinions towards daily draws, but I’m gonna try and keep it organized like my other posts

Theory Behind Daily Draws Across the posts and websites and youtube channels and videos and instagram posts or videos I looked at and still look at (because the learning never stops yo) one of the most common pieces of advice given to beginner tarot readers is to draw a card once a day every day.  There’s a couple reasons why this is a suggestion which I’m going to cover below.

This helps you gain familiarity with your new deck and the cards themselves in the most pure sense of the word familiarity.  Based on probability, you should be able to shuffle your deck each day and draw a new card for a solid amount of days in a row.  You’ll be able to feel the way the deck feels and you’ll be able to see what the artwork looks like on a good variety of the cards in your deck.

Drawing a daily card can also be used to pin down an intention for your day.  It might be something to meditate on or a mindset to take on as you move forwards temporally.  This meditation on the daily draw could offer another dimension of spirituality to your tarot practice.

Instead of meditating on the daily draw, tumblr user hillbilly oracle suggested using the daily draw as a prediction for one sure fire thing that will happen in the day.  This is used to associate more concrete meanings behind the cards that your particular deck spits out at you each day.

Discussion: Benefits, Negatives, Opinions, the Whole Enchilada Based on the overview of the theory of daily draws, you can probably draw a few conclusions for yourself, but I’m also writing this to give a big picture of where I stand with this particular technique.  

The upside is that it’s exposure to the cards and it gets you into a habit of using your cards for like at least five minutes everyday.  It can also serve as an expansion of other practices like meditation or intention setting or just general divination.  And tarot cards are literally like for divination so if this is your starting technique or if doing daily draws is your gateway into tarot or your learning method, not only are you learning, but you’re also actually doing the thing and I’m so proud of you :)

Ok that being said, I did this for a solid month.  Every day I drew a card and started by using it as like a “What’s the vibe today?” kind of drawing.  Somewhere along the lines of meditation or intention setting, but farther away from pure divination or prediction, if we want to categorize.  My general impression was that it was good to get time with my deck everyday, but I didn’t really connect with what they were trying to tell me.  This is when I reached out to hillybilly oracle and readjusted to try to predict.  Again I didn’t really vibe with it.

HERE’S WHY THOUGH: I didn’t vibe with it because it felt very shallow and surface level.  It also felt like it was taking too long to learn.  I was touching the deck and it was there and I was there and it was like here’s today and I was like k cool but is that it?  Like every day I felt like it was the same card and I decided I kinda hated the monotony.  At this point I had a couple of 5, 7, 11 card full on readings under my belt and the intuition and ease I experienced in my multi-card spreads was absent in my daily draws.  I didn’t feel like I was learning and it felt like a waste of time, but I thought I would be an absolute shit reader if I didn’t do daily draws because almost every resource advocated for them.

The Real Real and Conclusion Even though everyone said to do daily draws, they didn’t work for me.  That’s ok though because I had large spreads.  I also realized the dynamic through which my deck and I best collaborate.  Please try any method you come across to see if it works for you, and definitely take the liberty to adjust as you go!  Daily single card readings didn’t work for me at all 0/10, and three card daily readings also were like a 2/10 and I really do work better with larger spreads because it helps me understand the big picture and the connections and relationships at play.

I heavily suggest trying daily draws for a month because you really don’t know until you try but I’m writing this and I’m here to tell you that daily draws are not the only way to learn and they might not work and if they don’t work for you, it doesn’t invalidate any of the experience or potential you have a tarot reader.

Let me know what y’all think.  Lots of love to everybody and extra to anyone who needs it <3 

Hi I’m in midterm season and like deep into the semester right now, but I have plans to ramp up my activity soon.

In the mean time I wanted to make an outline of my daily routine and practices that I try to include every day, more for myself just so that maybe I can look back on this and see what worked and didn’t or see how things change and progress.  In italics I put the parts that are more relevant to my spiritual health.

Morning I usually have to work or be logged on by 830 or 9 every morning so I try to wake up around 7 or 730.  Depending on the day and like my mental/emotional state the order of events changes but here we go :)

I start with a workout three or four days a week, but if I really don’t feel like it then I don’t push it too much.  I’m really trying to be more gentle and accepting with myself because I don’t want to add stress to my already tentatively balanced work-college-tarot life, even if working out calms my body and mind down for the day.  If I don’t workout, I stay in bed for a little bit and check in with myself and do like a quick meditation either from bed or the shower.  I eat breakfast and then get everything set up for the day so that I don’t have to try to rush to log on to everything at the last minute.  I also make a big cup of tea and put it in a travel mug for my commute upstairs and I make it super duper hot.  I love tea because it just feels kinda witchy and I can’t handle my caffeine so coffee is kinda out of the question. 

After I eat and set up, I hop in the shower and get dressed pretty quickly because my time management skills still need a little work.  Work is usually slow for the first half hour so I write down like three or so intentions for the day.  These are just brief statements about how I want my day to go or things I want out of the day. 

Late Morning/Afternoon Work, classes, more work it’s fine it’s that online remote learning mid day rush, so I try to pack my schedule and be as productive as I can in the work day.  I make sure that I ground myself by taking the time to breathe while I cook lunch and half listen to my class.

Evening By this time my parents are home from work, so I usually pick 3 or 4 assignments to do downstairs that don’t take up all my attention.  Social health is lackingggg big time but I get it where I can right now.  I make sure that I eat without my phone or laptop around so that food and meal time remains something that’s more grounding than other events in my day.  After dinner I stay downstairs and work through the assignments the best I can.

Night I usually go back upstairs around 9 and finish up a couple more assignments.  By 11 at the latest I get ready for bed.  In the same notebook that I write my intentions for the day I make a list of things I’m grateful for underneath the intentions to kind of close out the day.  Then I decide to be the worst and get on instagram for a half hour or so. BUT then if I feel like I need it, I do another short meditation or breathing exercise, which has been happening a little more frequently than usual because mental health is like under siege a little and I’m doing what I can to mitigate :) 

Take aways/summary/feelingssss Soooo thanks for reading but the main strategy and mindset I have going into constructing my daily routine is like doing what is helpful but not too much effort.  If something isn’t helpful then I know I won’t stick to it because I love instant gratification.  Also I have a lot on my plate and I don’t want stress to come from things that are supposed to alleviate stress from my daily life.  

Lastly, I’m in a place where I feel like my routine is where I want it so I’m going to start adding readings in, so stay tuned for that.  The reason I kinda dropped off of doing readings was because it was taking time and effort (mental/emotional) away from other aspects of my life that needed it wayyy more and I’m glad I recognized that but I’m ready to get going again.  Also to end on a real but depressing note (a downerrrrr lol sorry not sorry this is important) I recently went through a period in the past week and a half where I lost a major support person in my life and realized that I want to be the source of my own stability in my life and I think I’ve got my health-conducive routine down and I love reading tarot because it’s empowering for me and I love helping people where I can.  Lmao I’m rambling but essentially, I’m ready to step forward and step into myself :)

I’m changing my name from hhreadings to tarot28 it is just a name change so it’s kinda minor but I’m also changing the colors because I found something that resonates with me a little more.

I’m not going to use instagram it is too much work for me right now.  I’m a full time student and work 20 hours a week on top of that and I need to balance my life between enjoyment and stress abt not having posted for so long.  I like the community a lot better on tumblr anyway and that whole algorithm change got me a little hesitant to continue using instagram.

I’m going to start getting back into reading again and more regularly because I genuinely love it and love to meet and help people :) I’m also going to try and post somewhat consistently but in the next few days I’m just going to ease into things.

That’s all the updates, and really not much is changing.  My asks are always open and my dms and soon I’ll have a new email and a new form link for readings so stay tuned