Four ways to read Tarot cards in Reverse

Understand the Card's Standard Meaning

Before interpreting a reversed card, familiarize yourself with its upright meaning. This foundation will help you identify how the card may shift in meaning when it appears reversed.

With Reversals, there is an internal pause, an oppositive reaction, and an opportunity to view your Life through an internal lens. The World Stops, and you are pulled inward to reflect and dive deep into your subconscious, where all the mineral stirrings of your thoughts, emotions, senses, and desires warp into a whirlpool, a storm to unknot, clear up, and create a smooth passage towards your conscious reality once more.

1. Consider the Opposite Interpretation

A reversed card often suggests the opposite of its upright significance. For instance, if the upright card represents harmony, the reversed version might indicate discord or imbalance.

This is a time to pay attention to your dreams. You are pulled within to consider the opposite impact of the Tarot Meaning. When offered the opposition, note that you are protected in uncovering the solution to create positive change in your Life.

Where there is action, there is a reaction. Energies either attract or repel. At times, the direct intended energy is smooth and continuous, only expanding toward the directed outcome—more of the same. However, too much of the same energy can create an imbalance; in this case, an opposite reaction, or Repel, manifests to bring balance and harmony to the situation.

2. Reflect on Internal Struggles

Reversed cards may point to internal challenges or conflicts. Consider how this card relates to personal issues or emotional difficulties you or someone else might face.

There is no escaping this. When conflict arises, you must take the time to process the information or risk the anguish being stored in your physical, emotional, mental or spiritual body. Not only do these unhealthy unconscious tendencies become self-destructive, but they can also lead to health complications, pain, anxiety and inflammation.

"I know you want to fly and be free like the Wind, but the only way out of this magnetic pain is through."

"I sorta can't right now" is the stubborn belief and restriction within that keeps you stuck to a moral compass created by an unhealed unknown Emperor leading his perceptive Life.

As you reflect and learn to surrender and let go of control, allowing the light pleasure to romance your autonomous nervous system, which perceives the unknown as a threat or something to fear, you will be delighted to discover how good it feels to allow love to untangle the knots of the illusive burdens you carry in your heart and mind.

3. Look for Blockages or Delays

Sometimes, a reversed card highlights obstacles that prevent progress. Assess how the card's imagery and symbolism might indicate barriers or setbacks in a situation or goal. Applying these approaches allows you to gain deeper insights and a more nuanced understanding of your Tarot readings when cards appear in Reverse.

Road Blocks shown by Reversals help you see where you might be holding on to what cannot change and resisting the path you had set foot on and expected to walk through.

However, when you embody the energy of water, it flows naturally. When it hits a dam that blocks a stream that was once there, it simply changes direction to a newly developed flow, quenching and nurturing.

Thus, a Reversal in a Tarot Spread can be an empowering new beginning, turning pain into Power, allowing the flow of Life to carry you without fear, and having faith that you will get to where you set out to go—only healthier and stronger!

4. Dive into the Shadow

The Shadow is where our Fears lie. It is the instinctual choices we make from a state of survival. Whether unconscious or Conscious, it is to be explored as a form of assessment of who we are, what we are, why we choose to feel, act, think or sense as we do, where we want to go, and how we want to get there.

This state in the Darkness is where we find our attachment to our deepest desires, wishes, dreams, and hopes and the depths to which we will acquire them. We see our temptations here, taboos, and the things that make us feel guilty, shameful, angry, sad, anxious, and other fearful states of being.

Interpreting our Shadows when pulling Reversal Tarot Cards during a Reading is an opportunity to explore the illusions we project onto our worlds, internally or externally.

You can find your opposites here; for example, insecurity is projected as arrogance, entitlement is projected as greed, and neglect and abandonment are projected as an attachment to Power and status.

However, our Shadow teaches us to traverse the Darkness by shining our light and consciously integrating this part of ourselves with awareness. As a result, it becomes our strength and sense of empowerment instead of something harmful and destructive.

Knowing what Reversals Mean for You

Essentially, Reversals teach us that Life is filled with Positives and Negatives, Yin and Yang, High Vibrations and Low Vibrations, Darkness and Light, Shadow and Shine. We cannot live without the other; we need both to have balance and harmony in our lives.