Mindtrays Essence
Explore your inner states and roles — a journey into emotions, parts of self, and quiet moments of awareness.
Essence is a 89-card deck for meeting the different parts of yourself. A face hidden in hands, a figure running free, a gavel over a heart, two cups on a table, a road at night. It is the widest MindTrays deck, with room for joy and shame, protectors and vulnerable parts, shadows and resources — so every inner voice can find its picture.
The cards
A wide inner landscape
Soft pink, peach and lilac — people, hands, roads, symbols and quiet rooms. Tender images for feelings that aren't always tender.
Open the deck to see all 89 images.
What's inside
Seven kinds of image, one inner world
Grouped by what is on the card. Emotions, vulnerable parts, protectors, shadows and resources run through every group.
Example spreads
Four layouts for inner work
From a quick check-in to a long piece of work. Positions name the question; the card a person chooses answers it.
Here and now
3 cards
- 1What I feel
- 2What I need
- 3What I can do
Inner dialogue
4 cards
- 1The loudest part
- 2The quiet part
- 3What each protects
- 4What they could agree on
Shadow integration
4 cards
- 1What I push away
- 2What it protects
- 3Its hidden gift
- 4How I let it in
Path of transformation
6 cards
- 1Where I was
- 2What hurt
- 3What held me
- 4What I learned
- 5Who I'm becoming
- 6The next step
When to reach for it
What Essence helps you meet
Parts work. Give each inner voice a card — the critic, the scared one, the one who keeps going.
Naming emotions. When the answer is "I don't know what I feel", a picture often knows.
Protectors and defences. Masks, gavels, glass domes — what keeps you safe, and what it costs.
Shadow work. The cards someone pushes away hold as much as the ones they pick.
Inner resources. A sprout in open hands, a candle, a hammock — what restores you.
Relationships. Two cups, two chairs, two figures in a storm — closeness and distance.
Change and decisions. Roads, stairs and doorways for where you are and where you're going.
Self-reflection. One card a day to meet a part you don't usually listen to.
Questions to ask
Prompts for meeting a part
The artwork
Soft colour for hard feelings
Every card is an original pastel painting made for MindTrays. Even the heavy themes — shame, judgement, loneliness — are painted in warm, gentle light, so a person can stay with a difficult card instead of looking away.
No text and no fixed meanings: a mask can be protection for one person and play for another.
Who it's for
For deep inner work
Therapists
Parts work, emotion-focused and trauma-informed practice. Clients meet a part through its picture before they have to explain it.
Coaches
Inner conflict behind a stuck goal: the part that wants to move and the part that holds back, side by side on the desk.
For yourself
Journaling with a card a day. Over time the parts that keep showing up tell their own story.
How to work with it
A session in four moves
Start with a feeling
Ask what is loudest right now and choose a card for it.
Find the other parts
Who else is in the room? A card for each part that answers.
Let them talk
Place the cards facing each other and ask what each one wants.
Close with a resource
End on a card of support. The spread saves with the session.
Questions
About this deck
What is Essence used for?
How many cards are in the deck?
Can I use it for parts work?
Why so many cards?
Can I use it online?
Do the cards have meanings?
Other decks
Keep exploring
Meet the part that's loudest today
Open Mindtrays Essence, look through the cards and choose one for what you feel right now. Working with a client online? Start a collaborative session and send the link.
