“Give me a fish and I eat for a day.
Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime”

Working with the Tarot cards is like working in a team. Together the reader and the cards make sense of the situation and find a way forward giving the querent knowledge, confidence and hope. And most importantly empowered and not dependent.

I have had people ask me if they should contact me once a week for forecasts, guidance and advice and my response is always a firm Never. Tarot should be turned to whenever we really, truly need it, and not as a weekly advisor. If we allowed others to make all our decisions, validate our every plan and analyse every soul we interact with, what power are we left with?

Empowerment is about tapping into our internal battery that all of us are equipped with as human beings. It’s the light in your soul that makes us unique from the other person, and it’s the fuel to our existence. Empowerment begins with self belief. Knowing that I have the power to change my life. Knowing that I am fully responsible for my choices. And knowing that ultimately only I can control the direction I wish to go in. One simple example would be negative patterns of thinking. Anyone can tell us “think positive”, some can give us techniques, but it is only us who has to work with our minds to train ourselves from shifting from the darkness to the light in terms of thoughs. Not at all easy, but can be done.

Another way of expressing empowerment is with knowledge. When someone tells us something about ourselves we know to be true, we feel the power. When we survive a crisis or tragedy, we are empowered. When we discover realities of life and the truth behind some people, we grow. When we work to train our minds with meditation and our bodies with physical exercise we are working towards adding power within ourselves.

The act of increasing our self confidence, believing more in our capacities to face the ups and downs of Life and gaining strength in the process is true empowerment. And it’s not a one time zap up of oneself, it’s a continual process, strengthening and restrengthening.

Wikipedia describes the capabilities of empowerment pretty clearly in

• Having decision-making power of one’s own
• Having access to information and resources for taking proper decision
• Having a range of options from which you can make choices (not just yes/no, either/or.)
• Ability to exercise assertiveness in collective decision making
• Having positive thinking on the ability to make change
• Ability to learn skills for improving one’s personal or group power.
• Ability to change others’ perceptions by democratic means.
• Involving in the growth process and changes that is never ending and self-initiated
• Increasing one’s positive self-image and overcoming stigma
• Increasing ones ability in discreet thinking to sort out right and wrong

In short, empowerment is the process that allows one to gain the knowledge, skill-sets and attitude needed to cope up with the changing world and the circumstances in which one lives.
Guides like the Tarot cards are nothing but signposts leading you to your own inner self. Because that’s where true power lies.