“‘Love life’ is not a question!” A fellow reader shared this thought in frustration after working a lengthy gig where she had to quickly read a long line of impatiently waiting people.

I understand the frustration. When doing short readings, a clear question is much easier to work with.

Yet, when we have some time to spend with a client, I enjoy the keyword questions because they allow us to expand into many different questions.

Here’s how it works. If a person simply says that their question is ‘love life,’ we can expand that into the following questions.

What has been the energy or experience of love in the past?

What relationship modeling was provided in childhood?

What is the current relationship situation?

What can be done to improve or nurture the current situation?

Here’s another example. If the keyword question is ‘career’ you have no idea whether the person is unemployed, happily employed or unhappily employed. You have no idea if they are doing what they want to be doing, or if they have a dream they have yet to fulfill.

It can be an interesting exercise to simply ask a question such as, ‘What is the energy around career at the moment?’ and pull a few cards. Share the energies you see in the cards and see how it fits with the client’s situation, and the way the client perceives their situation. Then you can ask further questions to help the client set goals for next steps and understand what could be possible for the future.

In readings that need to be short, keyword questions are the bane of readers everywhere. When you have some time to explore, keyword questions allow the reader to develop the narrative by asking multiple questions in a way that can be extremely helpful and enlightening.