I went to my first psychic reading on a dare when I was eighteen. It wasn't anything like I imagined. I expected the building to be a broken down shack that gave off all types of spooky vibes. Instead, I arrived at a cute yellow house that weirdly resembled my dentist's office. I anticipated crystal balls or velvet drapes but just got tarot cards. I envisioned the psychic to be this creepy old woman warning me about a full moon or something—but it couldn't be anything further from the truth. She was a small middle-aged woman who wore normal clothes and had kind eyes.

Not going to lie, it was a bit of a letdown because I was excited about roasting the entire reading in my head. But, once I sat down and she read my first card, I realized I actually needed to take this seriously. Not because I believed it, but because she was already calling me out on my shit in the best way.

She brought up boys, future aspirations, family, friends, college—the works. But she also brought up my insecurities within these facets of my life and specifically how my unhealthy life choices were hindering my full potential. It seems obvious, a therapist could tell me these things. But there's something about a stranger reading cards that are weirdly accurate and laying out the possibilities of your future that really makes a girl listen.

I walked into my appointment filled with skepticism but left feeling guided and confident in myself. I'm now twenty-one and I've seen random psychics at least once a year since. Seeing a psychic can be just as effective as seeing your shrink. Some of the best life advice I've ever received is from past readings.

I'm not saying I'm a full on believer. And in all honesty, it doesn't really matter if I am or not. But it does matter that tarot cards bring up some really important life topics. Some are pretty general, some extremely applicable, making them easy to relate to your situation. Granted, there are times that I have found myself overthinking cards and it for sure can be considered a stretch when I try to apply it to my own circumstances. It's not because I want to believe this random woman is telling me my future. It's because each time I do, I am forced to think about my mental health and how it applies to my past, present, and future situation.

Take the whole fortune teller thing out of the equation and think of it like this: I am forced to process events and moments in my life that I'd usually ignore. The fact that when you're in a reading and you immediately think of an event when the psychic says something, shows that that event should be taken into consideration when you are trying to better your mental wellbeing.

A card could be as simple as "Stop worrying about money and trust that you are doing the work to prepare" and I could almost immediately connect it to how I'm worried about paying off my student loans. It's normal to worry about money, and some could see that card as a scam to give someone false assurance, but I see it as permission to calm down and plan. Regardless of the psychic, scam artist or gifted, I have left each reading with a new perspective on my life.

Speaking as a past skeptic, it doesn't matter how you feel about the whole hocus pocus of it all. It matters how the hocus pocus applies to your life.