tarot as a trauma healing tool: how my tarot practice has helped me heal

[image description: a photo of karina holding the devil card from *the pastel journey tarot* in front of a pink & orange faux floral background.]

tarot as a trauma healing tool: how my tarot practice has helped me heal

tarot can be a super supportive tool for trauma healing; at least it has been for me, as a survivor with CPTSD. so today, i want to talk about that: what tarot is, when & how my tarot practice became a part of my healing journey, & how, tarot as a tool, specifically supported my trauma healing process. i’ll wrap up by sharing some of my fave tarot books & decks.

sound good, bb? let’s go!

tarot 101: a very basic intro

so basically, tarot is the practice of using a tarot deck for divination, self-discovery & personal growth, & as a meaning-making system, broadly speaking.

a tarot deck consists of 78 cards which represent different life events, areas, & archetypes through symbolic imagery.

the first 22 cards are the major arcana; these cards represent the archetypal story of the fool's journey. the following 56 cards, the minor arcana, are divided into four suits, each representing an element, such as air, earth, fire, or water, & their associated domains of life.

in all of our stories: the little red tarot guidebook, beth maiden beautifully writes:

"within the 78 cards of the tarot, we can find every human experience. all of life is here, the good, the bad, the mundane, the earth-shattering. love & hope, inspiration & fear, transformation & completion, oppression, justice & liberation.
tarot cards show us what's really going on in our lives, helping us to see how & why we act the way we do, what works & what doesn't, & how we can create new possibilities.
tarot cards can unveil the vast and unjust systems that frame our lives, & help us imagine new & different futures for ourselves and our communities.
tarot is a tool for self- development, a device for looking in on our lives & finding symbols & images that illustrate our experiences, our journeys, our hopes & dreams."

(i just love how beth summarizes tarot like that. damn!)

tarot & my healing journey

my personal journey with tarot as a tool for healing started in 2016-ish when i was in grad school. my first deck was the slutist tarot created by morgan claire sirene.

i picked this deck because the queer femme sex worker aesthetic, the immaculate vibes, & the politics of the slutist tarot really spoke to me.

the slutist tarot centers queer femmes & celebrates all types of bodies, which can be really hard to find in decks, to be honest. & it's a deck inspired by sex workers, witches, & healers, & fetish, bdsm, & leather communities, as well as the diy art community in chicago, which i L O V E.

morgan writes in the introduction:

"my intention in creating the slutist tarot is to tell the fool's journey through the archetype of the maiden. the maiden is seen as a young femme and she represents the divine feminine; a spiritual aspect of ourselves that is not limited to feminine persons. in the classic tarot narrative, a querent is expected to identify with cis male archetypes - regardless of their own gender identity - and conversely, the slutist tarot asks its querent to see themselves reflected in the maiden."

she goes on to share that:

"the maiden's journey is about sexuality specifically: how sex and sexual trauma can change you and your perception of yourself and how you deal with humanity. it doesn't have to be a woman's narrative even though i am telling it from a femme perspective. i can't speak for all female identified people but for me and many women i know, having your life defined by sex is inevitable; it makes sense to me that this is the maiden's gift and curse."

i’m a nonbinary queer femme (not a woman) & this deck just, like, really f*cking spoke to me. & almost a decade later, it still does, probably because it was inspired by many communities & people who i identify with & share worlds & communities with.

after i found a deck that i was excited to work with, i started doing spreads for guidance on a regular basis, many of them from the first diy many moons guidebooks by sarah faith gottessdeiner which i adored & devoured.

i also found tarot spreads in books, on blogs, & on social media. like, you can easily find books entirely devoted to different tarot spreads.

if you're looking for tarot spreads to experiment with, you can also find a plethora online. the moon studio shares some really incredible ones on their blog & instagram & in their newsletter, moonbeaming, that i always enjoy playing with.

& of course, you can always create your own tarot spreads.

[image description: a photo of a 6 card tarot spread i did on my pink bed, circa grad school aka 2018, with my slutist tarot deck.]

tarot as a tool for trauma healing

now that we've talked about what tarot is, the beginning of my healing journey with tarot, including how i chose my first deck & how i find tarot spreads to use, i want to talk about how tarot has been a supportive tool in my trauma healing process.

tarot has been - & still is - a supportive, generative, & beautiful ally in my healing journey; it gave me a way to make meaning of the the world around me, a world which often felt unsafe, chaotic, and scary.

[content note: brief mentions of sexual violence, abuse, & stalking]

in the aftermath of being raped, i experienced stalking, collective abuse, harassment, DARVO, & gaslighting. most of this abuse revolved around my stalker saying that i made up my rape to scam people, for attention, or what the fuck ever they'd decided the bullshit flavor of the day was. to say this deeply, deeply, deeply, fucking harmed me is a massive understatement. it was really fucking traumatizing.

[end content note]

some of the impacts of these experiences was that it didn't feel safe to trust my self-knowledge or to believe in myself. i struggled with listening to my intuition and often felt like i didn't know who i was anymore.

what tarot helped me with - & how - on my healing journey

so a lil more tarot 101 + context: when doing a reading for yourself, you rely on your intuition to read each card &/also the message created when the cards are in relationship with one another, like when you use several cards in a reading or do a spread. & while many folks often will consult guide books for keywords to support their interpretation, you're still intuitively making the meaning yourself.

in this way, my tarot practice strengthened my intuition and self-trust, offering clarity & guidance from a place of introspective, empowered, & embodied self-sovereignty.

tarot became a safe place to practice feeling empowered to make my own meanings & to have a voice, especially to listen to & know my own inner voice.

tarot also helped me know myself after the trauma. my tarot practice helped me remember who the f*ck i am.

idk if this is relatable this but because of what was done to me, i felt like i didn't know who i was anymore. my tarot practice affirmed that i already did know myself, deep down. the key was staying connected to that sense of self.

so basically…

tarot has been a super supportive tool in my trauma healing journey in many ways, including:

practicing introspection & going deep within;
having a meaning making system & ritualized practice;
relearning self-trust;
gaining self-knowledge;
strengthening my intuition & actually listening to it;
offering embodied clarity & guidance; &/also
providing opportunities for practicing self-sovereignty.

tarot books & decks: my favorites

finally, i want to share some of my favorite tarot books (& decks!) with you. after all, i’m a librarian & i love giving book recommendations (it’s, like, one of my love languages).

my favorite tarot books

tarot for the hard work: an archetypal journey to confront racism and inspire collective healing by maria minnis
tarot for creativity: a guide for igniting your creative practice by chelsey pippin mizzi