Man, reading tarot cards, especially when you start getting into those reversed meanings, felt like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded back in the day. I mean, the upright ones were enough to wrap my head around, right? You pull the Sun, you’re happy. You pull the Devil, maybe lay off the chocolate for a bit. Simple enough. But then those darn cards would flip, and suddenly, everything I thought I knew went right out the window. And don’t even get me started on The Tower. Just seeing that thing upright would make my stomach do flips. It’s like the universe screaming, “Brace yourself, something big is gonna blow!” So, when that card started showing up reversed in my spreads, I used to just stare at it, feeling utterly stumped.
My journey into deciphering reversed cards, especially The Tower, really kicked off during this weird phase a few years back. Life just hit a wall, you know? It wasn’t one big, dramatic crash, but more like a slow, creaking grind. Everything felt stuck. My job was okay, but not fulfilling. My personal projects were stalled. I just felt like I was drifting, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I’d do my daily pulls, hoping for some clear direction, and there it was, taunting me—The Tower, upside down. At first, I’d just flip it upright in my mind, just to feel a bit better. “Nah, it’s fine, it’s just meant to be upright,” I’d tell myself. Pure denial, plain and simple.
I remember one particularly frustrating evening. I’d just had a pretty rough day at work, felt like I was pushing a boulder uphill. Came home, pulled out my deck, shuffled it till my fingers ached, and out popped The Tower, again, reversed. I honestly just threw it back on the pile. I was so sick of not understanding it. I thought, “This can’t just mean ‘no sudden disaster,’ can it?” That felt too simplistic, too passive. I knew there had to be more to it. That night, I actually found myself digging through old tarot books I’d bought years ago, ones I’d mostly skimmed because they felt too ‘heavy’ or ‘academic’ at the time. I was desperate for something, anything, to click.
That’s when I really started to work with the card. I stopped trying to force it upright. Instead, I decided I was going to pull The Reversed Tower every single day for a week, and just observe. No interpretation, no freaking out, just noticing. What was happening in my life when it showed up? The first few days, nothing big happened. Which, ironically, was kind of the point. No sudden explosions. But I did start noticing subtle shifts. Little things I had been avoiding—a difficult conversation with a friend, finally tidying up that corner of the garage that was a disaster zone, even just making a clear decision on what to cook for dinner instead of waffling.
The real ‘aha!’ moment hit me about four days in. I was stressing over a project at work, knowing it was on shaky ground, but I was clinging to the hope that it would just magically fix itself. That evening, I pulled The Reversed Tower again. Instead of shying away, I consciously decided to confront the issue. I sat down and started meticulously going through all the problems, one by one. I wasn’t tearing it all down in one go, but I was seeing the weak spots, acknowledging them, and planning how to reinforce them. It was like I was preventing the tower from falling by doing internal groundwork, by addressing the flaws before they became catastrophic.
From that point on, my approach changed. When The Reversed Tower appeared, I started asking myself:
- What destructive force am I resisting or avoiding?
- Is there a necessary change I’m delaying, perhaps out of fear?
- Am I dismantling something gradually from within, or am I just patching over cracks?
- What internal revelations are happening that might lead to a more stable future?
It wasn’t about avoiding a crash entirely, but about taking control of the demolition. Sometimes it meant I was choosing to dismantle something outdated in my life rather than waiting for it to be ripped away. Other times, it was a warning—you’re seeing the cracks, but you’re not doing anything about them, so the inevitable fall is just being prolonged, not averted.
I remember one time a buddy of mine was stuck in this job he hated, but he was terrified of leaving because of the uncertainty. He pulled The Reversed Tower during a reading I did for him. Instead of interpreting it as “your job won’t blow up,” I pressed him. “Are you slowly eroding your own foundation by staying?” I asked. “Are you just delaying the inevitable, or are you actually building yourself up for something better while you’re still there?” It sparked something in him. He started taking online courses, networking quietly, basically building his new tower underground, before ever touching the old one. He left that job a few months later, not with a bang, but with a well-planned, calculated exit. He didn’t experience the shock and chaos of the upright Tower; he managed the deconstruction on his own terms.
So, yeah, The Reversed Tower isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s a call to action, but an internal, deliberate one. It’s about taking responsibility for the breakdown, understanding the need for change, and either avoiding a total collapse by timely intervention, or embarking on a controlled demolition of what no longer serves you. It’s about personal agency in the face of destruction, and honestly, once I grasped that, a lot of other reversed cards started making so much more sense too. It’s less about doom and gloom, and more about finding that hidden power to reshape your own destiny.
