Unlock Your Tarot Potential: 5 Ways Personal Keywords Can Advance Your Practice

Let's be honest. Most people assume that assigning a personal keyword to every card in the tarot is a beginner's tip. After all, keywords are an excellent memory aid and one of the most effective ways to get comfortable with every card's meaning quickly and easily.

Not many people realize that personal tarot keywords can also help take a beginner tarot reader to a confident tarot expert simply by incorporating keyword-based methods into your tarot reading practice.

Before you can use any of these methods, you'll need your keywords. I find it easiest to use a tarot deck, which I've modified by writing my keyword on each card. If you aren't comfortable writing directly on one of your tarot decks, you could also write or print a cheat sheet listing your keywords. Remember, keywords work best when you've chosen ones that make sense to you personally. If you're working from someone else's keywords, don't be afraid to change the ones that don't resonate to ones that do.

Method #1: Bridging the Gap
One of the most powerful qualities of a well-assigned personal keyword is its ability to create a quick connection between the image on the card and your understanding of the meaning of that card. This allows the synapses of your brain to fire quickly when you're interpreting that card as part of a larger reading.

For example, if you're looking at the Six of Cups, your brain might see a child handing a potted plant to another child and immediately fire off with "gift giving," "generosity," or "nurturing." That's useful if that aligns with your personal interpretation of the Six of Cups. But if you see the Six of Cups as a card representing a happy memory, you've got to patiently guide your mind to that interpretation despite what the image may be saying to you. Now imagine that you flip over that Six of Cups and see that you've written the keyword "nostalgia" or "memories" on it. With your keyword as a bridge between the image and your understanding of the card, interpreting that card in a reading is faster and easier.

Nothing builds confidence as a reader faster than having immediate access to the context of every card.

Method #2: Comparative Analysis
One frustrating thing for readers is how many cards in the tarot seem to have similar meanings. Think of cards like Judgement vs. Justice, the Two of Wands and the Three of Wands, or the Five of Wands vs. the Five of Swords. Whether because of their title or the imagery typically associated with them, these cards (and many others) are easily confused with each other.

If you have a personal keyword assigned to every card, you can better understand the differences between these commonly mixed-up cards.

For example, my keyword for the Two of Wands is "possibility." But my keyword for the Three of Wands is "commencement." So, even though the images of these two cards seem to tell similar stories (a person on a high place looking out over a vast landscape or horizon), my keyword helps me differentiate them.

As a study exercise, go through your deck, find all the cards you commonly mix up with other cards or whose imagery or meanings seem similar, and compare your keywords for these cards. Considering the difference between your personally assigned keywords deepens your understanding of these commonly confused cards.

Method #3: Narrative Interpretation
Nothing makes a reader feel more insecure when interpreting the tarot than not getting how two or more cards connect. The most important skill you need to advance your tarot practice is the ability to read cards in combination.

Narrative interpretation is reading a combination of cards by telling a story or creating a sentence using each card's keyword. This deceptively easy practice improves your ability to think on the fly and give confident and cohesive interpretations to groups of cards.

For example, let's look at the Empress, Nine of Swords, and Two of Cups. My personal keywords for these three cards are "nurture", "anxiety", and "connection."

My narrative interpretation of these cards might be:
*Nurturing* others is creating *anxiety* for you. Perhaps in your attempts to *connect* with someone close to you, you're trying a little too hard to take care of them. It might be helpful to worry less about how much you can provide and more about building a more balanced connection between the two of you.

If you practice this method regularly, you will get better and more confident at reading cards in combination. Begin by working in groups of three cards. As you get comfortable with three-card combinations, start working with larger combinations.

Narrative interpretation works great when reading for others or yourself.

Method #4: Use Your Keywords as Significators
This is one of the most creative ways to work with your tarot deck, and it is an incredibly powerful way to read, especially for yourself!

A significator is a card you choose to represent you, your querent, or the situation being asked about. It's common, for example, to pull a court card out of the deck to represent yourself or your querent. Some readers like using the Fool card in this way. But, if keywords are written on your cards, using any card as a significator becomes incredibly easy.

There are two common ways to use a significator. One way is to place the card on the table to visually represent the person or issue. I prefer the more active method of shuffling that significator into the deck and using the cards around it to interpret the answer to the question.

For example, let's say that I am struggling financially, and I want to know what I can do to improve that situation. I go through my deck looking for a significator to represent that situation. I know several cards could represent the situation. Some that may work include the Tower, the Hanged Man, the Five of Pentacles, or the Seven of Pentacles. So, I take a look at my keywords. For the Tower, my keyword is "destruction." That doesn't quite fit. Neither does "suspension" for the Hanged Man or "evaluation" for the Seven of Pentacles. But "hardship" for the Five of Pentacles is perfect! That will be my significator for this reading. I shuffle all the cards in my deck and then start flipping cards until I find my Five of Pentacles. Once I do, I place it on the table as well as the three cards that were beneath it in the deck. I'll interpret those three cards to get the answer to my question about how to improve my situation.

Using cards as significators is a fun and engaging way to work with your tarot cards, and having a set of keywords makes it so much easier to find the perfect significator for any question.

Method #5: Reading Intuitively with Keywords
For tarot readers looking to take their practice to the next level, I often suggest exploring the practice of reading intuitively.

Using your intuition to work with tarot involves stepping outside your comfort zone and not relying solely on a memorized or "by the book" meaning of each card.

To be clear, reading intuitively is not about abandoning your tarot knowledge. Reading intuitively is about using your tarot knowledge to unlock new possibilities for interpretation.

Having a single keyword assigned to each tarot card provides a unique opportunity to interpret the card differently every time it appears in a reading. This type of intuitive reading is a little like "mind mapping." Mind-mapping is where you take a single concept, idea, or—as in this case—word and create connections to other ideas or words. Doing this on the fly is one approach to intuitive tarot reading.

For example, my querent explains that they haven't heard from their love interest for the past few days and don't know what to do. I pull the Seven of Swords. If I read this card by the book, I might be tempted to suggest that my querent's love interest is up to no good. After all, this card often represents subterfuge, hidden agendas, and other sneaky behaviour. But maybe that doesn't feel right when I pull the card. Thankfully, my keyword "rebellion" gives me a springboard for my intuition. That word makes me think about breaking the rules. I realize that my querent is trying too hard to play by dating rules and suffering as a result. They need to break some rules to escape the stalemate they've found themselves in. So, I tell my querent: "You know, it looks like you need to take matters into your own hands. Instead of sitting back and waiting for your love interest to contact you, reach out to them first."

Having a personal keyword you've associated with each card gives you room to move and play with your intuition by acting as a tether to your foundational understanding of the card so that you can explore intuitive interpretations with more confidence.

These are just a few of my favorite ways to use personal keywords to build confidence as a tarot reader, but there are many, many more, and they are only limited by your ability to imagine them. I've used my keywords to build tarot spreads, journal, meditate, interpret my dreams, write stories, and more.

Many people believe that keywords limit your understanding of each card. In my experience, rather than limiting my options for interpreting each card, keywords unlock each card's infinite potential. If you want to learn more about the power of keywords and how to create your own, check out my book, Unlocking the Tarot: Create Your Own Keys.