The purpose of these cards

When introducing Three Card Therapy our first move is to give the client a deck and encourage them to play with it for a week. Look at the shapes and patterns. Dwell on a card. Perform quick readings with friends. Experiment! Once a degree of comfortable familiarity has been established we can explore a variety of uses.

(i) Quick Readings.

One quick and effective use of the cards is to see them as indicative of symptoms, illness and healing. The first central EXS card offers a summary of how a particular condition is presenting itself – symptoms. The UAS (left side) card suggests the feelings and emotions that underly the illness/condition but which have not hitherto been brought to full consciousness. The right sided card is the TS. This points the reader/client to a Healing that transcends contemporary solutions.
The Question:
The client sits hung over on a Sunday morning. He wonders about his excessive partying. He draws three cards. The Unconscious card is Fear, next to that is the Expected Self card Celebratory, and the third Transformative card on the right is Nurture.
The Excessive partying is revealed in the Celebratory card.
This is a bright and happy design but it can indicate abandon or avoidance. What might it be a symptom of? Has he ‘swallowed’ the object rather than dwelt with it? The Unconscious card is Fear. Is there something lurking in his unconscious he is unwilling to face? Is his excessive partying a running away from his problems? Is he frightened of facing up to his feelings? Might this be the illness at the root of his symptoms?
The Healing is offered in the third card he draws – Nurture. The thick borders around this card suggest the need to retreat from raucous company and offer himself a degree of warmth and compassion not least to counteract the Fear of the unconscious card and bring himself to a more grounded place.

Another quick method we call day-reading .
Rather than slipping into the patterns of the EXS – the identity (and pressure) most people wake up to – try laying the cards out in the three card pattern and asking ‘What should I look out for today?’ This will reveal your habitual response (EXS) what you usually have to hide (UAS) and what you might lean into for inspiration (TS). Take a screenshot of the three cards and refer to it throughout the day.

(ii) Decisions

This is a method in which we explore more aspects of a clients’ psyche when faced with a decision of some significance. The cards are shuffled while the reader turns the question over in their mind. The layout of the cards is the same. First card to be drawn is the Expected Self, the second card on the left is the Unconscious Adapting Self and the third card on the right is the Transformative self.

This time we proceed in five stages.

Step one.
Write down your immediate impression of these three cards. Don’t think. Just write.
Step two.
Analyse the connection between the UAS card and the EXS card. Do they work together or do they represent a conflict?
Step three.
Look at the connection between the EXS card and the TS card. Can you see how the TS card moves you beyond the moment into a different way of approaching the decision?
Step four.
Remove the EXS card and look at the connection between the UAS and TS cards. This is the larger context in which the EXS operates. In this moment are revealed the larger forces that frame the actions and patterns of the EXS’ behaviour. How might this larger context aid the EXS as she goes about her work?
Step five.
Return to your first impression in step one. Put these readings together.

The proof of value here is in how the cards enable you to suspend your connection to the everyday self. The idea is to shake up the patterns of the EXS and to explore your potential to feel and experience alignment – to realise
Home is Now and Now is Home.