The 6-Step Beginner’s Guide to Reading Your Own Tarot Cards 

Reading tarot sounds fun until you’re alone with the deck and suddenly every card looks like it’s judging you. Turns out, that’s where almost everyone starts. 

On Dear Gabby, host Gabrielle Bernstein sits down with intuitive tarot reader Angie Banicki to strip away the mystique one shuffle, one question and one card at a time. Whether you’re fully new to this or already have a deck collecting dust on your nightstand, here’s exactly how Banicki says to start reading your own cards without making it weird. 

How to Read Tarot Cards for Beginners

Step 1: Put your own energy into the deck

Fresh out of the box, a tarot deck is basically a stranger. Before your first reading, Banicki recommends spending a few minutes just holding and shuffling it while you “think about the deepest love that you have.” That can be your dog, your person, your ride-or-die friend—it doesn’t matter.

Step 2: Skip the yes-or-no question

One of the easiest ways to get frustrated with tarot is treating it like a Magic 8 Ball. Instead of asking, Should I quit my job? or Is this relationship going to last?, Banicki recommends asking for guidance instead.

Think:

• What do I need to know today?
• What am I not seeing right now?
• What should I pay attention to?

Bernstein gets it instantly: “Guidance and direction, not yes or no. You already know. You don’t need a card to tell you yes or no.”

Step 3: Shuffle however feels natural

Forget what you’ve seen in movies; there’s no official technique here. Riffle it, overhand it, smoosh the cards around on the table like you’re five, whatever gets the deck moving. “There’s no shame in however you want to mix,” Banicki says. 

Step 4: Pull with your non-dominant hand

Spread the cards out, then pull with whichever hand you don’t write with. It feels a little clumsy at first, but that’s the point. “You’re not thinking about it as much. You’re not overthinking it,” Banicki explains. “You’re just sort of pulling.”

Step 5: Sit with the card before you Google it

Your first instinct is going to be pulling up a guide or searching “what does the [insert card] mean” the second you flip it over. Resist that for like 60 seconds. Just look at the card and notice:

• What are the colors doing?
• What symbols show up (cups, swords, wands)?
• What’s your gut reaction before you overthink it?

Then give yourself a one-sentence read. Maybe it feels like a warning, a push, a pause or a fresh start. After that, check the card’s traditional meaning. “You look at it, you see what you feel, then maybe you read the guidebook,” Banicki says. Do this enough times and you’ll start trusting your gut before you ever crack the book open. 

Step 6: Try a three-card ‘basis, present, future’ spread

Once you’re ready for more than one card, Banicki suggests a simple three-card pull. You can think of it as past, present, future, but she likes a slightly looser version: “basis, the now, and the potential of where it’s headed.” 

Here’s what that looks like:

• Basis: what you need to know right now
• Present: where things stand today
• Future: what might be coming

Just don’t treat that last card like it’s written in stone. “It’s not necessarily saying this is the future,” Banicki explains, “but it’s saying, oh, you might have some fear come up.”

Want to see Banicki walk through it in real time? Listen to the full episode of Dear Gabby, available wherever you get your podcasts.

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