There is something you have been avoiding. You know it. I know it. Your tarot deck definitely knows it — because it keeps putting the same card in front of you, and you keep shuffling past it.
Stop.
Whatever that thing is — the conversation you have been putting off, the feeling you have been numbing, the truth you have been too afraid to look at — the cards have been trying to get your attention. And the longer you avoid it, the louder they get.
How to Know You Are Avoiding
Most people think they are fine. They have busy lives. They have reasons. They are functional. But avoidance has a specific texture. It shows up as:
You keep starting things and not finishing them. Not because you are lazy. Because finishing requires looking at something you have been avoiding.
You have a category of topics you change the subject away from. Not because you do not care. Because you care too much and you are not ready.
You use distraction as a primary coping mechanism. Not because you do not want to deal with it. Because dealing with it feels like it might break something you are not sure you can put back together.
What the Cards Show
When avoidance is in play, certain cards appear more frequently than they should. The Moon — because avoidance lives in the dark, in what you cannot quite see. The Five of Pentacles — because avoidance often looks like a loss you have decided to stop mourning. The Hanged Man — because avoidance is a form of suspension, of refusing to change perspective even when the current one is not working.
If you have been seeing the same card repeatedly, ask yourself: what am I not looking at? What would this card mean if I let it mean something about me?
That question is uncomfortable on purpose. The discomfort is the point.
Why You Are Avoiding It
You are not avoiding it because you are weak or broken or in denial. You are avoiding it because at some point, looking at it felt dangerous. It threatened something. A belief about yourself. A story about your life. A relationship you were not ready to lose.
Acknowledge that. Give yourself that. The avoidance is not your failure. It is your protection. Even if the thing you are protecting yourself from is no longer a threat, the protection remained.
The cards do not judge the protection. They just show you that it is still there, and that it might be costing more than you realize.
How to Stop
You do not have to do it all at once. That is not how it works.
One step: name the thing you are avoiding. Not to solve it. Just to say it out loud, or write it down, or admit it to yourself in the dark at 2am. Name it. That is the first crack in the avoidance.
Two: notice how it feels in your body. Not the story. The sensation. Because the avoidance lives in the body. It is stored there. And it can only leave through the body.
Three: sit with one card. Just one. Look at it and ask what it is showing you about the thing you are avoiding. Not what it means in the book. What it means in your chest.
That is shadow work. Not dramatic. Not easy. But effective.
LaVelaTarot offers guided shadow work readings in a private, safe space. Start your reading.