You Don’t Need a Special Gift.

Diane Priestley
3 hours ago
4 min read

One of the questions I’m asked more than almost any other is this:

“When did you realize you had a gift?”

I always smile when I hear that question.

Not because it isn’t sincere. It is.

But because the answer is probably not what people expect.

The truth is, what changed my life wasn’t discovering a gift.

It was building a relationship.

I’ve been reading tarot for more than fifty years now.

Half a century.

When you’ve spent that much time with something, it becomes familiar. Comfortable. Almost like sitting down with an old friend over coffee.

But it didn’t start that way.

When I first picked up a tarot deck, I was convinced everyone else knew some secret that I didn’t.

I thought the “real” readers had memorized every card, every symbol, every definition.

So I did what most beginners do.

I bought books.

Then another book.

And another.

Before long I had stacks of them.

Some lived on my coffee table.

Some on my bookshelf.

Some had sticky notes poking out from every direction because I was terrified I might miss something important.

I’d shuffle the cards.

Lay out a reading.

Pull my first card.

Then reach for the nearest book.

I’d read one interpretation.

Then I’d wonder…

“I wonder what my other book says?”

So I’d grab that one.

Sometimes it agreed.

Sometimes it didn’t.

Then I’d pull out a third book hoping two out of three would settle the argument.

Instead, I ended up more confused than when I started.

One author would tell me a card represented a fresh beginning.

Another would focus on innocence.

A third would talk about taking foolish risks.

I wasn’t learning.

I was collecting opinions.

The hardest part came when I laid out several cards together.

Each individual meaning might make sense on its own…

But together?

They felt like random puzzle pieces from completely different boxes.

I’d stare at the spread thinking,

“How in the world are these supposed to become one story?”

To be honest, there were moments when I wondered if maybe I just wasn’t cut out to read tarot.

Maybe everyone else understood something I didn’t.

Maybe I simply wasn’t intuitive enough.

If you’ve ever felt that way, I want you to know something.

You’re in very good company.

I think almost every tarot reader has had that moment.

Mine lasted a lot longer than I’d like to admit.

Then something happened that changed everything.

Not all at once.

Not like lightning striking.

More like the sunrise.

Little by little, I stopped asking,

“What does this card mean?”

And I started asking,

“What is this card trying to show me?”

Those are two very different questions.

One asks for a definition.

The other begins a conversation.

That’s when the cards slowly stopped feeling like seventy-eight pieces of cardboard.

They started feeling like companions.

The High Priestess no longer seemed mysterious because a book said she represented intuition.

She became the gentle reminder that sometimes the quiet voice inside me deserved to be heard before everyone else’s opinions.

The Hermit stopped being “the old man with a lantern.”

Instead, he became the reminder that wisdom doesn’t always arrive with fireworks.

Sometimes it comes one small step at a time, just far enough to see the next few feet of the path.

And The Magician…

Oh, The Magician became one of my favorite teachers.

Not because he performs miracles.

Because every tool he needs is already sitting on the table in front of him.

I think that’s true for beginners, too.

Most people believe confidence comes first.

Then they’ll trust themselves.

I’ve found the opposite to be true.

You trust yourself a tiny bit today.

A little more tomorrow.

And one day you realize confidence quietly arrived while you were busy practicing.

One of my favorite moments as a teacher happens when a beginner looks at a card, tells me what they think it means, and then immediately says,

“I’m probably wrong.”

I smile almost every time.

Because most of the time…

They’re much closer than they realize.

Not because they’ve memorized seventy-eight meanings.

Because they’ve actually looked at the card.

They’ve noticed the expressions.

The colors.

The symbols.

The feeling.

They’re beginning a relationship.

That’s why I teach differently.

I don’t hand my students pages and pages of meanings to memorize.

I ask them to pull one card.

Just one.

Then I ask them to begin with four simple words.

“Once upon a time…”

That’s it.

No pressure.

No grades.

No fear of getting it wrong.

Just a story.

Stories have a funny way of opening doors that definitions never can.

They invite curiosity instead of perfection.

They encourage imagination instead of memorization.

Most importantly…

They help us trust ourselves.

Do I still own tarot books?

Absolutely.

I love them.

I majored in writing. Of course I love books.

I still enjoy reading how other experienced readers interpret the cards.

But here’s the difference.

The books don’t get the first word anymore.

The cards do.

My intuition speaks next.

The books are invited into the conversation afterward.

That simple change transformed my relationship with tarot.

And, if I’m being honest…

It transformed my relationship with myself.

So when people ask me when I discovered my gift…

I gently tell them that’s not really the right question.

The better question is this:

“When did you begin trusting yourself?”

For me, that answer came one card at a time.

One story at a time.

One quiet conversation at a time.

If nobody has ever told you this before, let me be the first.

You don’t have to earn the right to trust yourself.

You simply have to begin.

And if you’d like someone to walk beside you while you build that relationship with the cards, I’d be honored to teach you.

My next beginner 8-week class begins July 18 at noon Eastern

20% off early bird registration starts today through July 12th with the code TAROTEB20