Three of Swords Tarot Card Meaning Upright and Reversed

Three of Swords Upright Tarot Card Meaning in a Tarot Reading

The three of swords traditionally means heartbreak. Things not working out and creating a situation of intense pain and sorrow in your life. The three of swords can show up to show us that there is pain we have been avoiding or that that we haven’t fully processed something. It shows the swords piercing the heart… meaning the sorrow, or grief, or pain, or heartbreak is still in your emotional body. You still feel sad when you see that person or triggered when you see their Facebook posts. The pain just rises right up again. Nobody likes to feel intense pain and hurt feelings so this card can sometimes denote some sort of avoidance. We often like to run from the feelings or at least push them down. So if you are getting this card it may be a good time to look at what you don’t want to look at. Release what you don’t want to acknowledge is there. And just let it go. This card can trigger a great healing just by acknowledge and looking at what is, and then consciously choosing to let it out of your emotional body. If you feel sad cry. If you are subconsciously trying to distract yourself, go sit in the bathtub and give yourself space from distractions so can really be in your feelings and feel them and let them go. When deep feelings leave the body and are released, they have to move thru the emotional body to get out and be discharged and thus you get to feel them all over again. If you go to the bottom of the emotional pattern you will feel a cathartic release. So this card is all about what internal emotions are you fighting with? What heartbreak or sadness, or emotional pain are you not dealing with? Can you let this go?

Can you get some help? Is there a support group you can join or a coach or healer you can get assistance from? Or maybe you should just call your best friend. To me this card is about turning toward the difficult emotions. It’s not about running from them and hiding. Healing will come thru embracing and facing the fear and seeing the truth again. Doing John Gray’s (he wrote “Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus”) “forgiveness letter” (which you can find by googling if you don’t have his books) might be a good idea. That can help you process and let of repressed and trapped emotions. The letter has you go thru 4 different emotions to have a release of the stuck energy. He has you fill in the blank for 4 sentences for each emotion, but I suggest you write a page or for each emotion to get it all out.

Three of Swords Reversed Tarot Card Meaning in a Tarot Reading

When readings any card reversed we want to reverse the energy of what it means upright. So if when the three of swords upright has the swords piercing the heart, then in the reverse, we can imagine the swords removing themselves from the heart and then interpreting the card that way.

So the sorrow is over. The have already processed the release of the hurtful emotions. The tragedy is done. You have breathed, you have released and you have moved on. You feel emotionally cleansed and happy. It’s that feeling you feel AFTER you have deep cleaned your house! It feels like satisfaction and being proud that you have overcome something and you are on the other side and you are feeling better. You may not be really stoked that all the emotional pain and difficulty has happened, but you are grateful that you have become stronger, and more resilient and you have more wisdom as a result. You are proud that you can now help others who are haven’t traveled as far as you have on the journey and you know you can help them… because YOU ARE OVER it. You are on the other side and feeling fine.

Now if we bring our action back to the ‘swords being pulled out of the heart’ what else could this mean? The three of swords reversed could mean being kinder to yourself. Speaking kind and loving worlds to yourself or to others. It could mean being more gentler, more compassionate. It could bring attention to how you are treating yourself. Are you beating yourself up and telling stories about how you’re not good enough and nobody loves you and other tales of woe? If so this card is saying to have some love and compassion to yourself. Speak words of love and affirmation. Get Louise hays “You Can Change Your Life” and create some mantras of love for yourself.

Ok, lets go back the image of swords begin pulled out of the heart again. What else could this mean? Well swords can denote decision. What decision can you make to move on? How can you change things or what can you do differently so that you can create a healthier, stable, and kinder environment for yourself? Can you remove yourself form the presence of people who drag you down? How talk down to you? Can you choose to limit your time with them? Or not even see them in the first place? What sort of healthy boundaries can you have to protect your energy more so that you don’t get so hurt?

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