When Everything Goes Wrong: How to Use Tarot for Healing in Hard Times
- Suzanne
- Sep 28
- 17 min read
Life has a way of unravelling when we least expect it. You think you’ve got the rhythm down—work is ticking along, relationships feel steady, your body is keeping pace—and then something slips. The job disappears, the bills stack up, the argument explodes, the old anxiety resurfaces, or you wake one morning with that strange hollow feeling that nothing makes sense anymore. Suddenly, the ground that felt solid yesterday is sliding beneath your feet.
This is the territory we don’t often talk about when it comes to tarot. It’s easy to pull cards when life feels light, when you’re curious about the next adventure or trying to catch a glimpse of possibility. But when things actually go wrong, when you’re knee-deep in struggle or staring at the ceiling at 3am wondering how you’re going to get through the week—that’s when tarot stops being a pretty ritual and starts becoming something else entirely. A mirror. A witness. Sometimes even a lifeline.
Because here’s the thing: tarot doesn’t fix your problems. It won’t pay the rent, repair a broken relationship, or cure depression overnight. But what it can do—when you let it—is sit with you in the middle of the mess. It can name the fear you don’t have words for. It can remind you of the resources you’ve forgotten you have. It can hold your past, your present, and your future in one image and whisper: this moment isn’t forever, and you’re not as alone in it as you think.
And yes, sometimes it calls you out, too. It has a wicked sense of humour in the middle of despair, which can feel infuriating—but also strangely comforting. When you pull the Ten of Swords in the middle of a breakdown, you may want to scream, but there’s also a strange relief in seeing the drama mirrored exactly as it feels: Yes, this is awful. Yes, it hurts. And yes, the dawn is somewhere behind this scene, even if you can’t see it yet.
This piece is about those moments—when things go wrong practically, relationally, emotionally, spiritually—and how tarot can walk beside you through them. Not as a cure, but as a companion. Not as a promise of perfection, but as a reminder that struggle is part of the path, and that healing doesn’t mean avoiding the dark. It means finding ways to stay with yourself inside it.
When Life Breaks Down: Practical and Material Struggles
There’s a particular sting when struggle shows up in the material parts of life. Money runs short. Work dries up. The roof starts leaking, the car breaks down, or the fridge dies the same week as the tax bill arrives. These are the kinds of problems that don’t just live in your head or heart—they press into your body, tightening your chest, interrupting your sleep, making your shoulders ache under the weight of carrying it all.
Tarot can feel almost irrelevant in these moments. After all, the cards can’t pay your rent or magic up a new job (if only). But what they can do is shift the way you see the terrain. They can show you where your energy is leaking, where your resilience is stronger than you realise, and where survival mode might be blinding you to resources or next steps.
When cards like the Five of Pentacles arrive, the first reaction is often dread—it’s a harsh image of poverty, exclusion, being left out in the cold. But if you sit with it, you’ll notice the lantern light in the background. The reminder that support is nearby, even if you’re too focused on lack to see it. That doesn’t romanticise hardship—it simply acknowledges that struggle often narrows our vision, and tarot can gently widen it again.
The Ten of Wands is another frequent visitor in times of material stress. It can be frustrating, pointing out what you already know: that you’re carrying too much. But sometimes having the burden mirrored back helps you ask the uncomfortable but necessary question: Which load isn’t mine to carry anymore? What can be set down, even temporarily, to let me breathe?
Tarot also helps in very practical ways when life is breaking down. A simple three-card spread—What’s the heart of this struggle? What support is available to me now? What’s the next small step?—can move you from paralysis into grounded action. When everything feels overwhelming, you don’t need a grand solution. You need the next breadcrumb on the path. Tarot has a way of illuminating just enough ground beneath your feet to keep going.
And maybe most importantly, tarot reminds you that material struggle is not a sign of personal failure. Cards like the Wheel of Fortune point to cycles—seasons of plenty and seasons of scarcity, turning endlessly. If you’re in a downturn, it’s not a permanent verdict on your worth. It’s a season. And seasons shift.
The cards won’t solve your financial stress or fix a broken boiler. But they can stop the spiral of shame that so often comes with material hardship. They can show you that even in the bleakest images, there’s still light, still movement, still choice. And sometimes, when life is falling apart practically, that reminder is enough to keep you steady until the ground firms again.
When Relationships Fracture
Few things knock the wind out of us like relational struggle. Whether it’s a friendship quietly fading, a family bond fraying under years of tension, or a romantic relationship cracking apart, these are the moments when the heart feels like a house with broken windows—drafty, exposed, and no longer the shelter it once was.
Tarot has an unflinching way of showing us relational truths we’d rather not name. Pull the Three of Swords and you’re confronted with the stark imagery of heartbreak: no sugar-coating, no spiritual bypass. It says, “Yes, this hurts. Yes, it matters.” Sometimes just seeing that pain mirrored in a card is a strange comfort—it validates the depth of your experience when the world around you might be telling you to get over it or move on faster than your heart can manage.
Other cards show us what sits beneath the fracture. The Two of Cups reversed can reveal where mutuality has slipped, where one person is giving more than the other, or where connection has become tangled in expectation rather than freely offered. The Five of Swords might point to a cycle of conflict where winning has taken precedence over listening, leaving both sides wounded. The Devil may remind you that attachment can sometimes become entrapment, that holding on at all costs can feel safer than facing the void of letting go.
But tarot doesn’t just diagnose relational pain—it also helps you imagine what healing might look like, whether within the relationship or outside of it. The Temperance card often appears as a quiet nudge toward balance, suggesting that restoration is possible if both parties are willing to meet in the middle. The Six of Swords sometimes shows up when it’s time to accept transition, guiding you to the bittersweet work of leaving behind what can’t be repaired.
And then there are those moments when the cards gently remind you that the most important relationship is the one you hold with yourself. Pull the Empress after a breakup and she may be whispering: Nourish yourself. Rest. Remember your worth is not dependent on who stays or who leaves. The Strength card, too, often arises as a mirror of your inner resilience—the reminder that gentleness with yourself is its own kind of power.
When relationships fracture, tarot offers neither false hope nor fatalistic despair. It simply sits with the truth: this hurts, this matters, and this isn’t the end of your story. It can help you sift through the rubble—naming the grief, acknowledging the lessons, and pointing you toward the pieces of yourself that are still whole, still capable of love, still worthy of belonging.
Because even when the bond between two people unravels, the cards remind us that connection itself is not lost forever. The broken window can be repaired. The heart, though scarred, can still be a home.
When the Mind Won’t Settle
Some struggles don’t come from the outside world at all. They come from inside—the restless spinning of anxiety, the grey weight of depression, the constant hum of thoughts that won’t quiet down no matter how desperately you want them to. These are the battles no one else can see, and they can be some of the hardest to carry, precisely because they make even the simplest tasks feel monumental.
Tarot isn’t a replacement for therapy, medication, or professional support, and it’s important to be clear about that. But what it can offer is companionship on the days when your mind feels like an inhospitable place. The cards don’t try to fix you. They don’t demand you “think positive.” They meet you where you are and give shape to what otherwise feels formless.
Take the Nine of Swords, for instance. It’s often called the “anxiety card”—the image of a figure awake at night, head in hands, swords hanging overhead. When you’re in that place, pulling this card can feel brutally on the nose. But it’s also a relief. It says: Yes, this is real. Yes, this is part of the human experience. You are not broken for feeling this way. Naming the spiral doesn’t end it, but it can soften the shame around it.
The Four of Swords, by contrast, often arrives as medicine: a reminder to rest the mind, even if rest feels impossible. It might not mean a spa retreat or hours of meditation. It might mean five minutes of lying down with your phone in another room. It might mean journaling a few words before bed so your thoughts have somewhere to go other than around and around your head. Tarot gives permission for rest, even when the inner critic says you haven’t earned it.
And then there’s the Moon, which has a way of surfacing during periods of confusion, illusion, and inner fog. This card doesn’t offer certainty—it asks you to walk gently in the dark, to trust that not everything needs to be solved right now. When anxiety demands clarity and depression whispers that nothing will change, The Moon says: You don’t need to see the whole path. Just take one careful step.
In practice, when your mind won’t settle, tarot can become a grounding ritual. Light a candle, shuffle slowly, and pull a single card—not for answers, but for companionship. Ask: What energy is with me right now? How can I support myself in this moment? Let the card guide you toward one small, tangible action—drink water, open the window, send a message to a friend. When everything feels overwhelming, tiny steps matter.
And perhaps most importantly, tarot reminds you that your inner weather is not permanent. Just as the suit of Swords moves from struggle to clarity, so too does the mind have its cycles. The storm is not the whole sky. And even in the middle of it, the cards can sit with you quietly, saying: You’re not alone here. This moment is not the sum of you.
When the Soul Goes Dark
There are struggles that touch the body, the heart, the mind—and then there are those that cut straight to the soul. Mystics have long called it the dark night of the soul: a season when the beliefs that once held you steady stop working, when the practices that once nourished you feel dry, when meaning itself seems to slip through your fingers. You might not call it that yourself—you might just call it emptiness or numbness or nothing makes sense anymore. Whatever the name, it’s the kind of struggle that makes you feel like you’ve lost your map.
Tarot doesn’t try to sugar-coat these seasons. In fact, some of the starkest cards in the deck point directly to them. The Tower, with its lightning and collapse, doesn’t come gently—it says something you once trusted is crumbling, and there’s no putting it back together the same way. The Death card often follows, not as punishment, but as the inevitable process of endings that make way for something new. Neither card is easy to sit with, but both are honest: the soul is shedding an old skin, and the shedding hurts.
During these times, tarot can act less like a guidebook and more like a companion at the bedside. It doesn’t rush you through your grief or confusion. It sits with you in it. The Hanged Man is the clearest example—an invitation to surrender, to accept suspension, to wait without forcing answers. This card isn’t glamorous. It’s frustrating. But it carries the deep wisdom that sometimes the only way forward is stillness, and that transformation happens in the pause before rebirth.
Practical spreads in these moments should be simple and gentle. Pull one card and ask: What is being stripped away right now? Pull another and ask: What can I hold onto while I’m in the dark? Often the answers aren’t comforting in the usual sense, but they can be anchoring. Maybe the cards remind you to lean on daily ritual—making your morning tea, tending to your body, keeping the small promises that tether you to life. Maybe they simply validate that you are in a threshold space, and thresholds are meant to feel uncertain.
The dark night of the soul can feel endless. But tarot, with its cyclical structure, quietly reminds us that no card stands alone. Death is followed by Temperance. The Tower is followed by the Star. The Hanged Man is followed by Death, and then—eventually—Judgment and the World. These cards don’t erase the pain of collapse, but they whisper of continuity: this is not the end. This is part of the story.
And perhaps the greatest gift tarot offers in these seasons is presence. You may not know what you believe anymore. You may not feel any comfort from old sources. But the simple act of shuffling, of laying down a card, of letting an image speak—this can be a thread through the dark. Not a way out, but a way through. Sometimes that’s all the soul needs: the assurance that it’s still moving, even if it feels lost.
The Common Thread of Struggle
Every kind of struggle looks different on the surface. Losing a job doesn’t feel the same as heartbreak. Anxiety doesn’t feel the same as spiritual emptiness. And yet, if you sit with enough of these experiences, you start to notice a common thread running through them all. Struggle—whatever shape it takes—has a way of making us feel small, isolated, and cut off from ourselves.
It isn’t just the problem itself that hurts. It’s the weight of the questions it stirs. Why me? Why now? What did I do wrong? Will this ever end? These questions can spiral into shame, convincing us that our pain is a personal failing, that if we were stronger, wiser, or more spiritual, we wouldn’t be here. It’s a cruel trick the mind plays—one that leaves us feeling not only burdened, but also somehow to blame for the burden.
This is where tarot, in its quiet honesty, offers a different kind of medicine. The cards don’t pretend you’re not struggling. They don’t scold you for not being “better.” Instead, they lay your experience out in ink and symbol, showing you that what you’re living is part of a larger human story. The Ten of Swords doesn’t say, You’re weak for feeling this way. It says, Others have been here too. The night feels endless, but morning will come. The Five of Pentacles doesn’t call you a failure—it acknowledges the hardship, while reminding you that support, however small, is still flickering nearby.
And perhaps most importantly, tarot interrupts the isolation. When you lay out the cards, you are no longer alone with your spiralling thoughts. You are in dialogue—with yourself, with archetypes that have carried human struggle for centuries, with the possibility that even in pain there is meaning. The cards become a witness, saying: I see this. I see you. You don’t have to carry it in silence.
This shared thread—the loneliness, the shame, the sense of being cut off—is often the heaviest part of struggle. And it is often the first thing tarot softens. It reminds you that being human means being breakable, and that breakage is not the end of your story. It is simply part of it.
Tarot in Practice: Gentle Companions for Hard Times
When everything is going wrong, it’s easy to either avoid the cards altogether—because you’re afraid of what they’ll say—or to fling them down desperately, hoping for a miracle answer. Both impulses are understandable. But the real gift of tarot in hard times isn’t in prediction or control. It’s in presence. In creating a steady rhythm that holds you when the rest of life feels like chaos.
One of the simplest ways to work with tarot in struggle is to pull just one card a day, not to forecast the future, but to ask: What energy is with me right now, and how can I meet it? Some days the card will feel like a mirror—naming your exhaustion, your heartbreak, your anger. Other days it will feel like an anchor, reminding you that there is still hope, still love, still light. Even when the card feels harsh, it’s still an invitation to honesty, and honesty can be strangely comforting when everything else feels out of your control.
For deeper struggles, especially those that touch the heart or the mind, a three-card conversation can be grounding. Rather than asking “What will happen?” try asking: What am I experiencing right now? What support is available to me? What is the next gentle step I can take? Notice the phrasing—it’s not about fixing everything at once, but about making the next breath, the next choice, a little lighter. Tarot, when framed this way, moves you away from despair and into manageable presence.
Sometimes ritual matters just as much as meaning. Lighting a candle before you shuffle, keeping a small journal beside your deck, even whispering your question aloud—these acts signal to your nervous system that this is a safe space. The cards themselves become less intimidating and more like a trusted companion: a place you can go when you don’t have answers, but need to feel seen.
And there are times when tarot offers practical prompts, too. If the Pentacles show up repeatedly, maybe the cards are nudging you to check the state of your resources—budgeting, asking for help, tending to the basics. If the Cups dominate, they may be pointing you back to your emotional body, asking you to let yourself feel instead of numbing out. The Swords might ask for clarity: journaling, writing down your fears, sorting what’s real from what’s imagined. And the Wands often remind you that even in low moments, a spark of energy—creativity, movement, expression—can be medicine.
The key is to approach tarot not as a judge, but as a companion. Some days you’ll lay the cards down and sigh in relief. Other days you’ll curse at them and put the deck back in its box. Both are valid. The practice isn’t about perfection—it’s about creating a space where you can meet yourself honestly, without having to do it alone.
Because in the end, when things go wrong, what most of us need isn’t a promise that everything will be fine. We need something to walk with us in the not-fine. Tarot can be that something. Not fixing, not forcing, but simply holding the thread until you’re ready to pick it up again.
Holding Struggle in the Healing Tarot Framework
When life is steady, it’s easy to explore tarot with curiosity, pulling cards for growth, insight, or gentle encouragement. But when life is breaking down—when you’re anxious, heartbroken, or staring into the unknown—the work can feel too raw, too heavy to navigate alone. This is where structure matters. A container stops the reading from spiralling into fear or self-judgment. And this is why I return again and again to the Healing Tarot Framework.
The framework is built on the cycles of reflection, development, integration, growth, and return. In times of struggle, these stages become less abstract and more like lifelines. Reflection allows you to name what hurts without rushing to fix it. Development offers a glimpse of what might shift in the future, not as pressure but as possibility. Integration anchors you back into what can be held today, in the present body. Growth reminds you that even small steps matter. And return closes the loop, bringing you back to a place of safety and presence before you set the cards aside.
Through this lens, your past, present, and future selves can all find a place at the table. The past self might voice the origin of the wound. The present self names what it feels like to hold it today. The future self offers encouragement or perspective, without demanding certainty. The framework ensures that none of these voices dominate, and that the reading doesn’t collapse into despair or spin into fantasy. Instead, each self is heard, and the present becomes the anchor where they meet.
This structure matters most when you’re in the thick of it. Without it, pulling cards while struggling can sometimes heighten anxiety—especially if you latch onto a single image and spiral into worst-case scenarios. The framework reminds you that each card belongs to a cycle, that no single draw is the whole story. Even the harshest cards—the Tower, the Ten of Swords, the Devil—are contextualised. They become part of a rhythm, not verdicts carved in stone.
And perhaps the most healing part is the return stage. It says: you don’t have to leave the table raw. You don’t have to walk away mid-spiral. You get to close the practice with grounding, with gratitude, with the reminder that you’re still here, still held, still capable of carrying yourself into tomorrow.
This is why the Healing Tarot Framework isn’t just a method—it’s a form of care. Especially in dark seasons, it ensures that tarot doesn’t become another weight to bear, but a circle of support you can step into whenever you need it.
Tarot and the Support Beyond the Cards
As powerful as tarot can be in times of struggle, it’s important to remember that it can’t—and shouldn’t—be everything. The cards can mirror your feelings, help you make sense of chaos, and remind you that healing is possible, but they aren’t a substitute for other forms of care.
If you’re navigating anxiety, depression, or a season of deep grief, tarot may sit beside you like a trusted friend, but it can’t replace professional support. Therapists, doctors, medication, support groups, trusted loved ones—these are the nets that catch you when the fall is too steep to manage alone. And reaching for them isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom. Tarot can hold your inner world, but sometimes you need outer scaffolding too.
The beauty of tarot is how well it works alongside other supports. A therapy session might leave you raw, and a card pulled afterward can help you integrate what was stirred. A conversation with a friend may remind you that you’re loved, and tarot can help you reflect on how to let that love land. Medication may steady the storm in your nervous system, and the cards can help you listen for the quieter truths that surface once the noise has softened.
Think of tarot as part of a wider ecosystem of healing. It gives voice to your inner landscape, while the people and practices around you—therapy, community, rest, medicine, movement—help you hold that landscape in the real world. Together, they create something tarot alone can’t provide: both the inner insight and the outer support to carry you through.
So if you find yourself leaning hard on your deck in dark times, let it be a companion, not a crutch. Let it guide you toward the other forms of care that will help you stand again. Healing isn’t a solo act, and tarot, at its best, reminds you of that too.
Closing Reflection: Tarot as a Companion in the Dark
When things go wrong, it’s easy to believe you’ve failed, that life is against you, or that you’ve somehow lost the path. But struggle is not a detour—it’s part of being human. Everyone, no matter how wise or spiritual or prepared, finds themselves in seasons where the ground cracks and the way forward is obscured. The question isn’t whether you’ll face those moments. The question is how you’ll hold yourself inside them.
Tarot cannot solve every problem. It won’t refill your bank account, erase grief, or banish anxiety. But it can sit with you when you’re hurting. It can mirror your reality so you don’t feel so invisible in it. It can remind you that even in collapse there is rhythm, even in heartbreak there is continuity, even in confusion there is a thread worth following.
Sometimes the cards will validate your pain. Sometimes they’ll nudge you toward the smallest next step. Sometimes they’ll even make you laugh in the middle of despair, which is its own kind of miracle. And through it all, they’ll remind you that struggle isn’t the end of the story—it’s a chapter.
The beauty of tarot is that it doesn’t demand you be okay before you sit down with it. You can come to the cards raw, broken, restless, numb—and they will still meet you. Not with judgment, but with presence. Not with perfection, but with companionship. And often, that’s enough.
So if you’re in one of those seasons where everything seems to be going wrong, perhaps let the cards sit with you. Light a candle, shuffle slowly, pull one card. Ask not for rescue, but for presence. Ask: What can hold me today? Sometimes the answer will surprise you. Sometimes it will sting. But always, it will remind you: you are not alone in this.
And maybe that’s the quiet promise at the heart of tarot. Not that it can stop the storms, but that it can keep you company until the weather shifts.
Ready to go deeper into healing and intentional growth through tarot? Explore The Healing Journey, our step-by-step guided experience for transformation.
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