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When I started reading I refused to use reversals. I'd flip the upside-down cards rightside-up before I even looked at them. I thought reversals meant bad things and I didn't want bad things in my readings.
This was, to put it kindly, beginner thinking.
A reversal is not a negative. A reversal is information. It's the card telling you that this energy is showing up in a different shape than usual — turned inward, blocked, delayed, secret, unconscious, or asking a different question than the upright version would.
The Empress upright is the nurturing, abundant, fertile, sensual version of the card. The Empress reversed is what that energy looks like when it's not flowing — when nurture has become smothering, when abundance has stalled out, when you've forgotten to take care of yourself in the process of taking care of everyone else. Same archetype. Different state.
Death upright is the ending you can name out loud — the breakup, the move, the job you quit. Death reversed is the ending you can't quite let yourself admit, the thing you keep trying to revive, the version of you that's been dead for a year and still has your name on the door.
There are a few reversed cards that are actually friendlier than their upright counterparts. The Devil reversed is freedom from the loop. The Tower reversed is the controlled demolition you started yourself instead of waiting for the lightning. The Eight of Swords reversed is the moment the trap reveals itself as exit-able.
If you're new to reversals, the practice I'd recommend: don't ban them, but read them gently. When a card comes up reversed, take an extra breath before you interpret. Ask yourself: where in this person's life — or my life — is this energy not flowing the way it could be? What's stuck? What's hidden? What's being asked of them that they're not yet doing?
The shadow side of every card is the card's full picture. You're not reading reversals. You're reading the whole human.