5 Mistakes When Reading Lenormand For Yourself

Do you mainly read Lenormand cards for yourself? Do you keep a Lenormand journal?

As you’ll know if you visit here often and read my personal weekly spreads, I  read cards for myself regularly – and find them a useful personal tool. That said, some readers avoid this and only read for friends and family, taking the view that they’re just too close to situations to be able to get a truly objective view.

Personally, I think reading for yourself regularly is a fantastic opportunity to develop a more intuitive and confident relationship with your cards, to experiment, see how they operate and to get them to work for you.

There are some pitfalls though that you’re likely to come across in the course of your daily practice. Here are some of the main mistakes to avoid when reading for yourself, especially when you are starting out.

1. Not Being Objective

I know I’ve been banging on a lot recently about developing your intuition, getting to know your cards and their meanings and how they work for you given what you know about circumstances, and trying not to second guess yourself.

At the same time, you need to avoid being so subjective that you start changing those underlying meanings of the cards entirely. This is particularly true when you are asking a specific question and can, I know, be extremely tempting when the cards throw up an answer you don’t really want to hear. Getting this right can be a delicate balancing act.

Ways To Be More Objective

I stand firmly by my advice to understand how each cards’ meaning tends to manifest in your life. That said,  the end of the day, the cards that appear in your particular reading and for the question you have asked, are the cards that are there, and I like to think that they’ve appeared for a reason. Often, you’ll find they throw up big surprises that can amaze you when you look back.

My tip would be to go through your readings systematically, making sure you give equal weight to each card according to the layout you are using, and then try to imagine you are reading for somebody else. With practice and time, you’ll start to see the patterns in how they manifest, which’ll put you in a position where you can get the cards working for you.

2. Reading When Over-Emotional

This goes hand in hand with the advice above about staying objective.

Extreme emotion is the opposite of objectivity and if you’re reading cards when you’re feeling highly emotional or in desperate or very upsetting situations where the stakes are very high, you are likely to cloud your interpretations with all your wishes and fears about the situation. Often, this is because these are situations that, by their very nature, are ones where you may not like the answers you are given.

Lenormand can help with guidance, and often throws up underlying issues that are helpful to know and explore, but you have to be ready for that and to receive them.  Situations of high emotion are often that way because there are things to work through and that are difficult to face. Lenormand-reading requires a cool, calm head. Wait until you are in a position where you can step back a bit from things.

3. Not Asking Clear & Precise Questions

Again, something we’ve touched on a few times now. It depends what you want from the cards, of course, if you are just doing very general predictive readings for yourself for practice, or if you have something very specific you want to know, but as we have seen, context and question really does affect how the card meanings manifest and how accurate they are.

Over time, and with practice, you will start to see how the meanings have manifested in different situations. Take a look at my How To Ask Lenormand Questions post for some tips on how to frame questions.

4. Reading Again Because You Don’t Get The Answer You Wanted

Another point I’ve made before, that relates to the need for objectivity and a clear head. The cards will show what they show. You may like it, you may not, but it’s still giving you useful information. If you read the cards again, over and over, until you get the result you want, you’ve diluted what they’re telling you. If you already know the only answers you’ll accept, there seems little point in reading the cards at all.

If this is you, you want to think about why it is you have the urge to do this. People often use tools like cartomancy in the hopes of confirmation of their wishes and needs; in a way, as a kind of control. If you find you’re wanting to do this, the experience is still telling you something loud and clear: it’s telling you what it is you want so much and that you’re so rigid about that you’re not ready to accept any alternative!

That said, the emotion you experience in this kind of situation is very useful information to have at your fingertips. Is this rigidity about the issue something you need to explore further, perhaps outside of cartomancy systems like Lenormand?

5. Treating Lenormand As Fixed Rather Than a Tool

Following on from that is the more philosophical question of why we’re using Lenormand and other cartomancy systems in the first place, and whether we’re clinging to interpretations and predictions in unhealthy ways. It’s always a balancing act when it comes to predictive systems and the issue, in particular, of free will.

Personally, I think our lives do follow overall patterns and are interconnected, and some things will happen whatever, but I’m also a huge believer in having control over our own destiny; I believe we largely create our own destinies through the choices we make in response to possibilities and events that happen in life.

How I Use Lenormand

I tend to use Lenormand in this way and the universal card meanings as a kind of framework, but I don’t cling to it, and do my best to use the information my readings impart as a tool rather than let a given interpretation dictate my life and actions. That said, I have often found when I read for myself that the cards tell me stuff that deep down, I already know. For me, it’s more that it’s opened the possibility of making sure I truly consider the answers given.  The cards have also been great for giving me warnings that I’ve found highly pertinent at times. Quite often they’ve led me to consider alternative possibilities that have ended up opening new pathways in my life.

I’ve also had numerous experiences where a reading did tell me something so precise either ahead of time or about something I really didn’t know in a way that was uncanny. A practice reading about a usually highly confident friend that showed upcoming depression and illness (and no, I didn’t share it, and yes, to my surprise it absolutely came to pass a year or so later. All I could do is be there when it did.).  A reading about a man I knew that showed an investigation by an official body that I had no idea about (my response “Huh? He’s being investigated?” was answered months later by the same person being fired from their job as a result of said and now revealed undercover investigation.)

In any case, I think it’s really important to try to find balance between the two.

The Benefits of Practice and Keeping A Journal!

Again, I truly believe that the best way to get the most out of Lenormand is to experiment with your readings, to find both what works and yes, which also means giving yourself the freedom to be wrong from time to time! Keeping your own Lenormand journal and building it up with your own readings and personal insights is a great way to do this and find the best ways of using the system as a tool that eventually works for you.

To summarise, then

My top tips for reading Lenormand for yourself

• Be objective and clear-headed
• Avoid reading Lenormand when highly emotional
• Ask precise questions
• Accept and be open to the answers given
• Practice, and treat your personal readings as a tool

 

And if you want more info and guidance, check out my Lenormand Tips page for answers to some common questions and issues, or why not sign up to my mailing list for regular newsletter, tips and exclusive subscriber-only freebies!