Strength Tarot Card: Courage, Compassion & Inner Power

After The Chariot teaches us to conquer through willpower and control, Strength appears as card number 8 in the Major Arcana—showing us that true power comes not from force, but from compassion, patience, and the courage to be gentle. Where The Chariot represents outer conquest, Strength represents inner mastery.

Strength is the card of quiet courage, emotional resilience, and the profound power of love over fear. It shows a woman gently taming a lion—not through violence or domination, but through calm presence and compassionate understanding. This is the strength of the heart, not the fist.

Strength Tarot Card at a Glance

Number: 8 (or 11 in some decks)
Element: Fire
Astrological Association: Leo (courage, heart, nobility, creative power, leadership through love)
Keywords: Inner strength, courage, compassion, patience, self-control, gentle power, resilience, taming instincts, emotional mastery
Yes or No: Yes—you have the strength to handle this with grace

Strength Card Imagery & Symbolism

The traditional Rider-Waite-Smith Strength card is a beautiful study in gentle power. Let's decode the symbolism:

The Woman

A serene woman in a flowing white robe represents purity of intention, spiritual power, and the divine feminine. She is calm, centered, and unafraid. Her gentle demeanor shows that true strength doesn't need to prove itself through aggression.

The Lion

The lion represents raw instinct, primal power, passion, and the animal self. It's the untamed force within us—our anger, fear, desire, and ego. The lion is powerful but can be destructive if not guided wisely.

The Gentle Taming

The woman gently opens or closes the lion's jaws with her bare hands. There's no struggle, no violence, no force. She tames the beast through love, patience, and calm presence. This represents mastery over our lower nature through compassion, not suppression.

The Infinity Symbol (Lemniscate)

Above her head floats the infinity symbol, just like on The Magician. This represents infinite patience, eternal wisdom, and the unlimited power of the spirit. Strength has access to infinite resources because she draws from the divine.

The Flower Crown

She wears a crown of flowers, suggesting natural authority, harmony with nature, and the gentle power of growth and beauty. Her authority comes from alignment with natural law, not from imposed control.

The White Robe

White symbolizes purity, spiritual clarity, and innocence. Strength operates from a place of love and higher consciousness, not from ego or fear.

The Garland of Flowers

A chain of flowers connects the woman to the lion, forming an infinity loop. This represents the eternal bond between spirit and instinct, higher self and lower self, consciousness and the unconscious. They are not enemies—they are partners.

The Mountains

Mountains in the background represent challenges, obstacles, and the heights of spiritual achievement. Strength has overcome these through patience and inner power.

The Number 8

Eight represents infinity turned on its side, balance, karma, and the mastery that comes from integrating opposites. It's the number of power achieved through harmony.

Strength Upright: Core Meanings

When Strength appears upright in a reading, it signals:

Inner Strength & Courage

You have the courage to face your fears, the resilience to endure challenges, and the inner power to overcome obstacles. Strength says: You are stronger than you know. Trust your inner fortitude.

Compassion & Gentle Power

True strength is gentle. This card represents the power of kindness, patience, and love to transform difficult situations. You don't need to fight or force—you can influence through compassion.

Taming Your Instincts

Mastering your anger, fear, desire, or ego through awareness and self-control. Strength doesn't suppress these forces—it integrates them, channels them, and uses them wisely.

Patience & Perseverance

The ability to endure, to wait, to persist through difficulty without losing your center. Strength represents the long game—steady, patient effort that eventually wins.

Emotional Resilience

The capacity to feel deeply without being overwhelmed, to face pain without breaking, to remain soft in a hard world. Strength is emotional courage.

Confidence Without Arrogance

Quiet confidence that doesn't need to prove itself. Strength knows its power and doesn't need to display it aggressively. This is humble mastery.

Overcoming Fear

Facing what scares you with courage and grace. Strength doesn't mean you're not afraid—it means you act despite the fear, with love as your guide.

Strength Reversed: Shadow & Challenges

When Strength appears reversed, its energy becomes blocked, distorted, or misdirected:

Self-Doubt & Insecurity

Feeling weak, powerless, or unable to handle challenges. The reversed Strength can indicate a crisis of confidence or forgetting your own inner power.

Aggression or Abuse of Power

Using force instead of compassion, dominating instead of guiding, or letting the lion run wild. The shadow side of Strength is cruelty disguised as toughness.

Lack of Self-Control

Being overwhelmed by instincts, emotions, or impulses. The reversed Strength can indicate addiction, rage, or being controlled by your lower nature instead of mastering it.

Weakness or Cowardice

Avoiding challenges, giving up too easily, or lacking the courage to face difficult situations. The reversed Strength can indicate running from what needs to be confronted.

Impatience

Wanting immediate results, forcing outcomes, or being unable to endure the slow process of growth and transformation. The reversed Strength has lost its patience.

Suppressing Emotions

Trying to control feelings through repression rather than integration. The reversed Strength can indicate toxic positivity or refusing to acknowledge anger, fear, or pain.

Strength in Different Life Areas

Love & Relationships

Upright: Patient, compassionate love that endures challenges. The ability to love someone through their difficulties, to be gentle with their wounds, and to create safety through kindness. Strength indicates a relationship that requires emotional courage and the willingness to be vulnerable.

Reversed: Power struggles, emotional manipulation, or one person dominating the other. Can also indicate lack of boundaries, codependency, or staying in a relationship out of fear rather than love.

Career & Finances

Upright: Success through patience and perseverance, leadership through compassion, or careers in healing, counseling, or working with vulnerable populations. Strength favors those who lead with heart and who have the courage to do difficult work. Financially, it suggests steady growth through disciplined effort.

Reversed: Workplace bullying, burnout from lack of boundaries, or feeling powerless in your career. Can also indicate giving up on goals too easily or being too aggressive in business dealings.

Spirituality & Personal Growth

Upright: Mastering your shadow, integrating your instincts with your higher self, or developing emotional and spiritual resilience. Strength represents the spiritual warrior who conquers through love, not violence.

Reversed: Spiritual bypassing, using spirituality to avoid dealing with emotions, or being overwhelmed by shadow material that needs integration.

Health & Wellness

Upright: Recovery from illness through inner strength and positive mindset, overcoming health challenges with courage, or developing healthy habits through patient discipline.

Reversed: Health issues related to stress, suppressed emotions, or lack of self-care. May indicate need to address emotional root causes of physical symptoms.

Strength as a Person

When Strength represents a person in a reading, they are:

• Courageous, brave, emotionally resilient
• Compassionate, kind, patient
• Quietly confident, humble, gentle
• Able to endure hardship with grace
• A healer, counselor, or caregiver
• Someone who leads through love, not fear
• Emotionally mature and self-aware
• Potentially aggressive or weak if reversed

This could be you, someone in your life, or the energy you're being called to embody.

Strength's Advice

When Strength appears as guidance, the message is:

• Be gentle with yourself and others. Compassion is more powerful than force.
• Face your fears with courage. You're stronger than you think.
• Master your instincts. Don't suppress them—integrate them wisely.
• Be patient. True transformation takes time.
• Lead with your heart. Love is the greatest power.
• Stay soft in a hard world. Gentleness is not weakness—it's strength.
• Trust your inner power. You have infinite resources within you.

Strength in Combination with Other Cards

Strength's meaning shifts depending on surrounding cards:

• Strength + The Chariot: Powerful combination of inner and outer strength; unstoppable force guided by compassion
• Strength + The Hermit: Inner work, shadow integration, or solitary spiritual practice building resilience
• Strength + The Devil: Struggling with addiction or unhealthy patterns; need to tame destructive impulses
• Strength + The Tower: Enduring crisis with courage or finding strength through breakdown
• Strength + Temperance: Perfect balance of patience, moderation, and gentle power
• Strength + Nine of Swords: Overcoming anxiety and fear through inner courage
• Strength + Ace of Cups: Emotional healing through self-love and compassion

Journaling Prompts for Strength

Deepen your relationship with Strength through reflection:

1. What part of myself (my "inner lion") needs gentle taming right now?
2. Where do I confuse force with strength?
3. What would it look like to approach my challenges with compassion instead of aggression?
4. What am I afraid of, and how can I face it with courage?
5. Where do I need more patience in my life?
6. How can I be both strong and soft?
7. What does true inner strength mean to me?

Working with Strength's Energy

To embody Strength's power in your life:

• Practice self-compassion when you make mistakes or face challenges
• Face one fear with courage and gentleness
• Tame an impulse—pause before reacting in anger or fear
• Be patient with a process that's taking longer than you'd like
• Lead with kindness in a situation where you're tempted to use force
• Acknowledge your strength—write down times you've been courageous
• Practice emotional resilience—feel your feelings without being overwhelmed by them

Strength's Lesson: Gentle Is the New Strong

Strength teaches that the most powerful force in the universe is not violence, domination, or control—it's love. Compassion can tame what force cannot. Patience can achieve what aggression destroys. Gentleness can open what hardness keeps closed.

This card reminds us that we all have a lion within—our instincts, our passions, our fears, our ego. The question is not whether we have these forces, but how we relate to them. Do we suppress them? Do we let them run wild? Or do we gently guide them, integrating their power with our higher consciousness?

Strength shows us that true mastery comes from love, not fear. When we approach our own darkness with compassion, when we face our challenges with courage and patience, when we lead with our hearts instead of our fists—that's when we become truly powerful.

Final Thoughts

Strength is the card of quiet courage and gentle power. It appears when you're being called to face your fears with love, to tame your instincts with compassion, and to remember that you are far stronger than you know—not because you can force outcomes, but because you can endure, persist, and remain soft in a world that often demands hardness.

You have a lion within you. It's powerful, passionate, and wild. But you also have the gentle hand that can guide it, the patient heart that can calm it, and the infinite love that can transform it from a beast into an ally.

Be brave. Be gentle. Be strong.