What to know
- Chapman uses tarot to help clients reflect on their true desires and strengths, not to predict the future.
- Her sessions are focused on practical steps, like journaling or rituals, to empower career pivots.
- Many clients seek her guidance for transitions, from switching jobs to redefining personal identity beyond work.
- Chapman believes a successful reading is when a client feels truly seen and validated in their choices.
Forget the fortune-teller clichés and romance questions. This tarot reader uses the cards as a practical tool to help you figure out whether your 9-to-5 is really working for you, and what to do next.
Vancouver-based tarot reader Erica Chapman, known as Tarot with Ti, doesn’t use her cards to predict the future. Instead, she uses tarot to guide real-life decisions.
Ahead of leading tarot tables in Toronto later this month, Chapman revealed how tarot can help people navigate career decisions.
“I’m not going to be like, ‘Oh, abundance is on its way, and prosperity is here,’ or ‘He’s going to have blonde hair and blue eyes and be like eight feet tall.’ I’m not going to tell you a bunch of things you want to hear; I’m going to tell you the things that need to be said,” Chapman told Now Toronto.
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‘Insight as to the individual desires that might be hidden’: How tarot can guide career-based decisions
Based on previous readings with elderly and middle-aged clients, Chapman realized not everyone is looking for love readings anymore. Some are instead looking for career guidance, including how to transition from full-time to part-time schedules or whether to make full career pivots. Responding to this demand, Chapman offers genuine feedback on customer’s strengths and tips on how they can work around them.
“I use a tarot spread to give us a little bit more insight as to the individual desires that might be hidden,” she told Now Toronto.
Chapman explained that people often seek permission to change careers, and the cards can offer insight into desires such as enjoying time and working solo.
As opposed to career consulting, the tarot spread helps people decide based on energy, sometimes giving them enough external validation to pursue a career change they’ve been thinking about.
How it works
Before the reading, customers fill out an intake form so Chapman knows what career questions they have: are they retiring, pivoting careers, or just entering a field?
Then, they go through a grounding exercise and choose the deck that resonates most with them from three different spreads.
The reading typically lasts 30 to 45 minutes, and at the end of the session, Chapman creates a homework PDF for them to analyze more deeply and figure out their next steps. For some, it’s a tea ritual; for others, it’s a journal prompt ahead of their next reading the following month.
Chapman’s most memorable experience from this work was when a client found the cards resonated with her, and chose a career change that made her happier than she’d ever been.
To do that, Chapman began the session by asking the client what title she would give herself beyond being a mom, wife, and business entrepreneur.
As the appointment went on, she found many cards that resonated with her, and decided to choose a career pivot that felt authentic to her.
By the second reading, the client said she found herself. By the third, she had changed her life around.
“She had sold her old car and bought herself a new vehicle. I got her to stop doing the whole mom thing, where you take everything on for yourself… She planned a full Thanksgiving dinner, had everybody bring snacks and napkins, so that she didn’t feel overwhelmed getting everything together,” Chapman explained.
“It was just watching her go from somebody who was tired and exhausted to just being tired because she had 12 people over at her house for turkey dinner, and who wouldn’t be exhausted. So, seeing her really go from ‘I’m not sure’ to ‘I’m a badass mama.’ Let’s go,” Chapman shared.
To Chapman, a successful reading is when a client feels seen.
“I always find it’s that pause. It’s that moment where the client has really felt seen, and because I’m looking at you dead in the eye, and I’m telling you things that you have been feeling icky about, and then you allow it to resonate, it’s just this silence, and it’s profound,” she said.
Tarot with Ti is hosting an event at The Drake Hotel on Oct. 24 and 25.
