This week on The Tarot Diagnosis, Shannon and Luna get into the weeds with the question- when does positivity become toxic? We thought we were going to have some disagreements getting into this one (and frankly - were kind of hoping we might get some sparks flying). Instead, it’s a conversation about how positivity and happiness are seen in our culture - and how it has both light and dark sides to it. As always, we talk about this through the tool of The Tarot, loving how this simple deck of cards can give us ways to think deeply about the wide range of emotions we all experience as humans. Spoiler alert - Shannon can’t stop referencing Parks and Recs, so if you don’t want to know what happened in season 7, save this one for later! Luna and Shannon peel back the veil on their own lives this week, by pulling cards about themselves and asking what is blocking happiness and positivity in their own lives. So here’s a question to ponder (which, btw- you will be seeing on Instagram later this week).  Is it possible that The Sun is one of the most difficult cards to work with in Tarot, because although we all say we want to be happy- we actually have a very weird relationship with that desire. We also invite you to participate in the Mental Health Awareness Daily Tarot Challenge on Instagram! Final note- if you have a moment, it would mean so much to us if you could rate and review our podcast on whatever platform where you are listening.  We are stunned and humbled by the response we continue to get from our listeners and feel honored and privileged to be able to share bits of our knowledge, experience, and passions. Studies and Assessments explored in the episode: https://www.viacharacter.org http://thehowofhappiness.com/ https://positivepsychology.com/big-five-personality-theory/ https://positivepsychology.com https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/ https://positivepsychology.com/happiness/

Luna and Shannon have a lot to say about a topic that seems to be really taboo - money. In this episode, our tarot cards are plentiful and our therapist brains are on fire because there is SO. MUCH. TO. SAY. about our relationships with money. How comfortable are you when it comes to talking about money? This week on The Tarot Diagnosis, Shannon and Luna have the first (of probably many) conversations about the ultra-taboo topic of money.  It’s so weird to us that 72% of Americas experience some sort of financial stress every month, yet most of the therapy world is *crickets* on the topic.  Likewise, the extended tarot community tends to talk a lot about abundance- but little about the realities of money stress and anxiety. But we are willing to go there…and we do. We talk about some of the work being done in the budding (yet, very quiet) field of financial therapy, including what some common money thinking habits are - and how they can become a problem.  We take it a step future by talking about ways to work through some of these thinking pattens to come into a more positive and proactive way of engaging in a money relationship - all through a conversation about some of the most challenging cards we can face in Tarot. As with all things, the stories we tell ourselves color our experiences in the world.  This is ridiculously true when it comes to money - and we love beginning the conversation of how that works. We also happen to go long with a ham sandwich metaphor and “Daddy issues.” It’s all relevant, we promise – and somewhat hilarious. We also offer some acutely helpful resources at the end of the show. Deep breath - take a listen, and please let us know what you think - or if you have a question you would like for us to explore in future episodes let us know! Check out the links below to resources mentioned in the episode. We may make a small percentage of the fee of the products listed on Amazon. This goes towards podcast production fees so we can keep talking about Tarot and Mental Health. :-D Dave Ramsey https://www.ramseysolutions.com https://amzn.to/3gCGPLC- The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness https://amzn.to/3vipX0L- The Total Money Makeover Workbook: Classic Edition: The Essential Companion for Applying the Book’s Principles Bari Tessler https://baritessler.com https://amzn.to/32MT2Fr- The Art of Money The Financial Gym https://financialgym.com You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life https://amzn.to/3dVvSD3

Every once in a while, we will hear a story that goes something like this: “I know this might sound a little crazy, but there’s this person (fill in cute meet story here) and even though nothing ever happened (or we ended things a very long time ago), I can’t stop thinking about them.  Maybe they were, like, you know, the one I’m supposed to be with or something…” This week on The Tarot Diagnosis, Luna and Shannon dive deep into this topic.  Is this a question of the red string of fate being tragically tangled in this life time?  Or maybe this is stalker situation?  Is this maladaptive daydreaming, or a reasonable developmental coping skill in a hereto-normative, overly sexualized world? Perhaps a little bit of all of the above? As always, The Tarot offers us imagery and a framework to talk about how our minds work, and Shannon and Luna hop from The Devil and Seven of Cups to The Emperor and Six of Swords, and a whole bunch of cards in between to help between understand this uncomfortable situation- as always, through the lens of a therapeutic perspective. Sneak peek - There may or may not be a weird left turn half way though the episode that deconstructs the icon of the boy band- and Shannon and Luna tell about about their middle school obsessions (*NSYNC, Hanson, and Duran Duran anyone?) If you’re struggling with a situation like this, we’ve created a mildly complicated spread for you, for a very complicated set of feelings, which you can find on our Instagram or when you sign up for our mailing list on our website. Subscribe to our email list to get all kinds of free mental health related tarot goodies on our website www.TheTarotDiagnosis.com Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @TheTarotDiagnosis Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of Deep Resonance Sound Contact: DeepResonanceSound@gmail.com

“People use dating apps the same way I use Zillow…” This week on The Tarot Diagnosis, Luna and Shannon get super real about the what it’s like to enter the dating scene after a long hiatus (or- ever). We are so grateful to the listener who submitted a question to the podcast this week - a single mom who has been raising two kids while building a career, and now wants to restart her love life.  The conversation around this question (and the cards that were pulled) was so dynamic and really was more about facing our inner fears than about dating or single motherhood (but, there was a lot of dating advice in there, too). Come take a deep dive with us into the realms of the conflicting desires, and vulnerable, (sometimes) annoying needs us humans have to constantly evolve. Sneak peek - our discussion about The Hanged Man and 8 of Cups gets pretty raw. Subscribe to our email list to get all kinds of free mental health related tarot goodies on our website www.TheTarotDiagnosis.com Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @TheTarotDiagnosis Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of Deep Resonance Sound Contact: DeepResonanceSound@gmail.com

“In many ways [the Two of Swords] is the ultimate therapy card.” – Luna This week on The Tarot Diagnosis, Shannon and Luna dive into the two cards for each suit. Through the lens of a fictional client, they explore the ways each two card relates to Chelsea- a 26 year old woman stuck in a dating and career rut. In numerology, twos represent balance, harmony, duality, and choices- all of which our fictional client Chelsea seems to really be struggling with. Luna is lamenting not talking about the role of twos in the Enneagram typology - but is just going to have to save that idea for the future. Noted in this episode are the following: "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi If you want to explore the two cards more after listening, check out our Instagram for a spread specific to this episode. Subscribe to our email list to get all kinds of free mental health related tarot goodies on our website www.TheTarotDiagnosis.com Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @TheTarotDiagnosis Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of Deep Resonance Sound Contact: DeepResonanceSound@gmail.com

Luna and Shannon explore the intersectionality of Tarot and Psychology in this week’s episode. Listen in as they highlight some of the pioneers of psychology and compare their well-known theories and research back to the practice of Tarot. Luna and Shannon explore the works of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Fritz Pearl and even share some details into what it is like being a therapist who pulls not only from these major psychological principles, but also from Tarot. Subscribe to our email list to get all kinds of free mental health related tarot goodies on our website www.TheTarotDiagnosis.com Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @TheTarotDiagnosis Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of Deep Resonance Sound Contact: DeepResonanceSound@gmail.com

Shannon and Luna tackle everything from communication, sex, and childhood trauma in this episode that focuses on the differences in perspectives in our relationships. Relationships can be tough and we learn a lot about ourselves, our partners, and the world around us as we navigate through them during the good times and the times of conflict. As psychotherapist Esther Perel says, “The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our life.” Join Luna and Shannon as they incorporate principles from psychotherapy, developmental psychologists, and tarot to help increase insight within ourselves and our relationships. Highlighted in this episode are the following: Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/ Subscribe to our email list to get all kinds of free mental health related tarot goodies on our website www.TheTarotDiagnosis.com Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @TheTarotDiagnosis Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of Deep Resonance Sound Contact: DeepResonanceSound@gmail.com

In this episode Luna and Shannon pull cards and talk about what happens when we’re feeling stuck, lacking confidence, and unsure how to move forward in our lives. Subscribe to our email list to get all kinds of free mental health related tarot goodies on our website www.TheTarotDiagnosis.com Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @TheTarotDiagnosis Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of Deep Resonance Sound Contact: DeepResonanceSound@gmail.com

What this episode should be titled: How Tarot Helps Us Develop Coping Skills We Hate In this episode Luna and Shannon talk about how to implement tarot into your daily life. They get vulnerable and explore their own tarot practices, where they fall short, how tarot has evolved for them over the years, and how they have utilized tarot in therapy sessions with some of their clients. They even talk about how sometimes therapists do not enjoy those go-to techniques that all therapists recommend *ahem* journaling. Luna spoke about the Carl Jung concept and exercise of Active Imagination. Learn more about this here: https://medium.com/@SteafanFox/carl-jungs-active-imagination-technique-2a622e00311 https://youtu.be/GUJP7XtDElg Subscribe to our email list to get all kinds of free mental health related tarot goodies on our website www.TheTarotDiagnosis.com Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @TheTarotDiagnosis Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of Deep Resonance Sound Contact: DeepResonanceSound@gmail.com

In this episode we explore anxiety, its possible root causes, and coping skills, while pulling cards to help facilitate a deeper understanding of the issue. We also show examples of how tarot can be used to learn more about your own anxiety at home or with a therapist. A follower graciously and vulnerably asked a question about her own anxiety, which we use tarot to help unravel.  We spoke about Gestalt therapy and the Empty Chair Technique. Learn more here: https://www.counseling.org/docs/david-kaplan%27s-files/wagner-moore.pdf Subscribe to our email list to get all kinds of free mental health related tarot goodies on our website www.TheTarotDiagnosis.com Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @TheTarotDiagnosis Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of Deep Resonance Sound Contact: DeepResonanceSound@gmail.com