Strength as How Someone Sees You: Gentle, Steady and Stronger Than You Look

Written by Chaya the Medium.

Strength as how someone sees you means they see the hand on the lion's jaw. Here is what the picture includes, upright and reversed, and what it may cost.

If you want the short answer, Strength as how someone sees you means they see you as gentle and unbreakable: patient, kind, calm in a crisis, the one who handles difficult things with soft hands and never seems to crack. It is a deeply trusting picture. It is also the picture of someone who gets leaned on, because people do not worry about the one who holds the lion.

This is you as the woman closing the lion's mouth. They see the calm. They may not have noticed the lion.

Strength upright as how someone sees you

Tina Gong's Strength guide at Labyrinthos associates the upright card with courage, compassion, inner strength and patience. When the card lands in a position that asks how someone sees you, I read those meanings as the image the person holds of you, which is not the same as who you are and not the same as what they feel. Strength as feelings covers what they feel; Strength as intentions covers what they plan. This page covers the picture. The Major Arcana overview at Biddy Tarot is a useful second reference.

Upright, I read Strength as a person who sees you as safe and steady: someone whose patience they rely on, whose kindness holds, who does not flinch. They admire your composure and they may underestimate what it costs. In the upright card the admiration is warm and the underestimating is unintentional.

What I would not read into it is that they see your lion. Strength is seen for the hand. The person may have no idea how much you are holding in check.

What the card does not tell you

The card does not confirm the person sees you as vulnerable, that they would notice if you were struggling, or that the trust is accompanied by care for you. No card lets a reader see inside another person's head. What a card can do is describe the kind of image that fits the person's behaviour toward you, and give you something to check against how they actually treat you.

Strength reversed as how someone sees you

Reversed, Strength as how someone sees you means the picture has gone from steady to doormat or from gentle to weak: they see you as someone who tolerates too much, who can be pushed, whose patience is permission. Or they see you as suddenly volatile, the lion out, and do not know what to do.

In your own question, ask whether the person has lately treated your patience as a given, or whether they have seemed startled by you losing your temper. A reversed card here is a prompt to notice whether the picture the person holds has gone sour or gone wrong, not a verdict on you.

Strength as how an ex sees you

Asked how an ex sees you, Strength suggests they remember you as patient, kind and stronger than they deserved, the one who held things together. It is a picture with gratitude and often with guilt in it. Guilt about having leaned on Strength is common and does not always become a return. My guide to asking a psychic whether an ex will come back explains what a reading can and cannot say about that question.

Strength as how a new person sees you

For someone new, this card means they already see you as someone safe to be difficult around, which is rare and valuable. Let them see the lion once, kindly, or the picture becomes a place to rest rather than a person.

How to check the picture against reality

Look at whether the person ever asks how you are coping. Look at whether they treat your calm as something you give or something they are owed. A Strength picture is trusting and can be exploitative; the way to test it is to need something and see whether they hold the lion for you.

What to record before drawing again

Keep three short notes: the question you asked, what the person leans on you for, and the last time they held something for you. The third note tells you whether the picture is mutual.

For comparison, the Chariot as how someone sees you and the King of Cups as how someone sees you describe different pictures. The Strength card meaning page covers the card in full, and Strength as a person covers the card when it describes a temperament rather than an image. For a personal interpretation, my guide to a love psychic reading online explains how I work, and the three-card tarot listing and customer reviews are worth reading before deciding whether to order.