Throwing out the book

Lately (the past year or so) I've been more serious about my readings... getting better at them and really using more of my intuition and personal thoughts about what I'm seeing in the cards instead of the traditional meanings that I learned out of either a book or the little instructional booklet that comes with a deck of tarot cards. I've been reading tarot for over twelve years (whoa, that makes me feel old, and I'm not!), and I've only started to learn to trust in my own interpretations now. But from doing so, I have become an immensely better tarot reader, and a better person all around.

So what is it about tarot that makes us so afraid of our own gut instincts? Is it because these cards are outside ourselves, being laid out on the table for us? Does it feel so final and set in stone when those cards are staring up at us from the table, accusing us of our mistakes and faults? Do we feel naked and our souls bared when a spread is laid in front of us for the world to see? What is it exactly that makes us feel we are incapable of reading what the cards have to say without a road map and a guide of symbols as to what each card means?

I think it all boils down to fear. Fear of what we might discover about ourselves, fear of not being capable of reading our cards for ourselves, of not making the right interpretations, of being dead wrong. Fear of looking stupid, or of making a mistake. I've decided to embrace my fears and keeping going in spite of them, and in some cases, because of them.

How about you?