Enough is too much!

I'm a big fan of big projects, I've picked one for the past four years.  Something that I wanted to add to my practice, something that covered an entire year.  I am always adding to my life, adding new writing projects, adding new hobbies, adding new things to learn.

The problem is that I am not good at letting things go.  I look at my life, and think "Oh, I've got time to do one more little thing..." but then when I actually go to DO the thing, I find that I'm overwhelmed.  Just thinking about the stuff I have to do in a day sometimes makes me want to scrap it all and just do something to avoid everything else.

There is an interesting phenomenon called decision fatigue (or ego depletion), that basically says that we have a finite supply of mental energy...the stuff we use to make decisions, the stuff we use to stick to our convictions...willpower.  And that the more we use this mental energy, the more overwhelmed we feel, no matter how we are spending it.  So, if you take a dozen of those 'fun' internet quizzes (what type of sandwich are you?  where is your ideal home? ), you will actually find yourself worn out simply because you had to make a series of decisions to complete them.

This same energy that we use to make choices is also what we use to stick to our plans, to follow through with things that we may or may not be struggling with.  Remember everything is a choice!  If I know it's Wednesday, and I have a blog to write, I still have the choice of not writing it.  Sticking to my choice (to write a blog post every Wednesday) uses up some of this energy.  It uses less than if my goal was 'to write a blog post every week' (because then I'd have to make the choice to write the blog PLUS choose which day to write), but it still uses up some of that energy.

I do a lot of planning in my life, because it helps streamline my choices.  If I leave my days wide open, if I don't plan anything...I tend to avoid choices altogether.  I won't stop and make real decisions about what to do, I'll just do whatever comes along, and then at the end of the day, I'll look back and realize that I didn't do anything that I had actually wanted to get done.

Planning also helps me spread out the choices.  I can plan for things and get my choices narrowed down, so that I don't have to spend energy to make them later.  I make lists of possible blog topics, when things pop into my mind, so that when it's time to actually sit and write, I have a list of ideas (and pictures, which can spark ideas!).  I still have to pick one of them, but it takes less mental energy to pick one from a list of four than it does to come up with one out of the blue.

When it comes to larger goals, I try to break it down the same way, to limit the number of choices.  If I make a commitment, I see that as no longer being a choice.  Yes, I know there is always the choice not to do something, but for me that really isn't a choice, I hate failing to complete something I have set out to do, and having made that commitment means that I have extra willpower on hand to follow through with my choice.

So I may have picked 'rune study' as my goal for the year, but I break that down into much smaller chunks:  read in my rune book for each bi-weekly period, post a weekly rune-inspired question, write down the rune affirmation every day in my planner. 

Sometimes, I'll intend to add more in, like daily rune study, but I'll hit that wall of overwhelm.  I am finding there is a point at which my brain just doesn't hold any more information.  It's like trying to stack a bunch of balls on a plate...eventually you put one too many and they all come crashing down, and a few roll under things and you completely forget about them.

The odd thing is, you really do completely forget about them.  Last year I worked every day on my spiritual practice, tying actions into the phases of the moon and the Sabbat cycle.  This year, since my focus was on runes, I swear I turned around and it was Imbolc!  I had hoped to continue working regularly with the moon and the Sabbat cycle, but I lost track of what the moon phase was...because my brain was busy working on other things.

What is important to remember is that when you are at your limit, it's like a glass of water full to the brim.  You can keep adding water, and for a small time, it will cling and mound and hold together, but then, at some point, the tension breaks and it spills (often below the rim, so you actually loose stuff!)

When we keep ourselves so busy we are always pushing our mental limits, we leave ourselves no room to adjust to the crazy stuff that life likes to throw at us.  Things will inevitably come up, and if you are already stretched to your breaking point, you will snap and something will fall.

Everyone's threshold is different, and we too often compare what we feel we should be doing to what we see other people doing.  We forget that we aren't them, and that our capabilities might be aligned towards different things.  I have no problem coming up with the stories behind people...but naming them is hard!  I actually often rely on random name generators so that I don't have to come up with names for people in my stories (especially for incidental characters that aren't central to my story).  I will just click to generate random names until one pops up that I like, and boom, done!  But I can knock out a few paragraphs about what that person likes, where they are from and what they've been up to recently without a problem.

It seems counter-intuitive, but sometimes the best way to stay on top of things is to pull back.  If we are finding ourselves feeling overwhelmed and drained too often, perhaps it is time to think about reducing the stuff we do.  It can be really freeing to look over the things you do and figure out what you can stop doing.  The great thing about most things is that if we find we truly miss it, we can pick it back up again!  But sometimes, we let something go and it's like a HUGE weight just got lifted from us, much bigger than the thing we are releasing.  It's not just about not drowning, it's about having room to breathe.

So, remember to leave yourself some wiggle room, and when you notice that you are loosing that space, see what you can do to reclaim it.  Recognize your strengths and your weaknesses and find the best way to play to both.  Try setting things down, and seeing how you feel about not doing them.  You may be surprised by just how big of a change this will make in your life!

Sacred Self

There are times where science and spirituality seem to agree, and I think the fact that we are 'more' than just our bodies is one of those.  We may never fully understand exactly what we are or what we are made of, but we instinctively know that there is more than the obvious.

There is a poem I adore, written by Nikkita Gil, and it's called 93 Percent Stardust:

We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins,

carbon in our souls and nitrogen in our brains.

93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames,

we are all stars that have people names.

Science says nothing is ever created or destroyed, only changed, and so the 'stuff' that makes us was once other things.  Over the ages, how many other things were we once?  The things we touch and interact with every day, those might have once been people.  In a very real sense, all things are connected, because the bits that make us up break down over time and get recombined into new things.

We talk about the body being a temple, and it is possible that we once were.  But on a much more abstract level, how can we not see ourselves as divine, if we contain within us bits of all of the rest of creation?  Okay, I know that we probably don't have a bit of everything, except that if at the very start of all things, and in all the time since, each thing breaks down and becomes new things, then we could very well have a tiny speck of all that once was!  And how incredibly amazing is that!

We don't often think of ourselves as being special.  We look for the magic outside ourselves, and we miss the wonder that exists within us.  We see our body as a physical thing, and yet, we are almost entirely empty space.  If you were to condense the matter that makes you up (so that there was no empty space in the atoms that make us up), we would be smaller than a particle of dust, and the entire human species would fit inside the space of a sugar cube!

I remember reading about this idea back when I was in school.  I don't remember precisely what I was reading, just that it was talking about how we were mostly empty space, and that if all the physical bits inside you lined up just right, you could pass right through other 'solid' matter...because everything is mostly empty space.

It really makes you wonder, how we see and feel things as being solid, when they are so insubstantial.  And if we are mostly space, if the 'stuff' that makes us who we are is so tiny, then we must be mostly mind, mostly spirit, mostly that other stuff that science struggles to understand.

I love the image that the air I breathe today is the same air that my ancestors once breathed.  I like thinking that all the living beings on this earth are connected by the constant breathing that we do.  Our lives start with an inhale and end with an exhale. 

Many cultures treat the breath as sacred, and sharing a breath with someone is an intimate way of greeting them.  One of my favorite novels has a bit where one of the characters is dying and asks someone she loves to take her last breath.  He captures it with a kiss, and I wonder if kissing is simply an extension of sharing breath with someone.

We don't live in a world that encourages you to see the magic in everyday things, let alone in yourself.  But every once in a while, it's good to stop, to really think about the crazy, miraculous things that led up to us being here.  The fantastical nature of our being, of the bodies we possess and the spirit that goes so far beyond the reach of even our own understanding.

We think that we are fleeting, that perhaps no one will remember us when we are gone, but think of the many people who lived in ages past that we know of, many of whom weren't well known in their own age.  And even those who's names may not be known, we are learning more and more about.  We have stories handed down from generation to generation that speak of the people who weren't written about.  We dream, and remember things that we have no way of knowing. 

There are connections there that can only be found by looking for them.  We are sacred, because we a part of the world, of the past and the future.  We are so much bigger and smaller than we appear.  When we remember this, we become the universe, we become the all.  And how can we not be fabulous then?

Love doesn't require perfection!

As Valentine's Day approaches, love is in the air!  But this is also a time when many people struggle.  There is a pressure from society to be loved, and we often have a hard time loving ourselves.  We may feel we are not worthy of love, for many reasons, or we may know, on an intellectual level that we deserve love (both from within as well as without), but we don't really feel it.

There are a lot of thoughts on love, and the way we talk about love as a society says a lot about us.  I always adored the Greek words for love.  You have eros, which is what we tend to talk about as romantic or intimate love.  It is the love that lovers feel for each other.  Then there is storge, which is familial love, often the love between parents and children.  Philia is brotherly love, but also the love we feel for our friends.  Agape is universal love, the kind of transcendental love that we think of divinity having for all things.  Pragma is really interesting, it's sometimes called enduring love, like the kind you find in a long lasting marriage, where a working relationship takes priority over passions.  And finally there is philautia, which is self-love.

I think that, at least in the US, we often have a very stilted view of love.  We twist up the definitions of love and sex and worth, and end up thinking that we have to earn love, and that somehow we have to be 'good enough' to deserve it.  We think that only the best people get love, and we build up this crazy idea of what we need to be or have in order to attain love.

And at the same time, we use the world love for all kinds of trivial things.  We love the new movie, or nachos or pretty dice.  I'm not saying that these things can't light you up, and you can't love them, but I do find it strange that we have no problem saying we love things, but we struggle to say we love people.  And we really struggle to say we love ourselves.

I am lucky enough to have a wonderful husband, and we've been together for 20 years now.  I love him, and he's definitely not perfect.  Our relationship isn't always perfect.  We fuss and fight, and he annoys me at times.  I still love him.  When he snores at night, I don't love him less (though I do wear earplugs).  When he snaps at me because he's tired, I don't stop loving him (but I might snap back).

It's funny, because we often don't think of any of these things as deal-breakers when it comes to loving other people (okay, some things are deal-breakers, but we don't only love perfect people!), but when it comes to ourselves, we often use our faults as reasons why we aren't deserving of love.

The one that I struggle most with is issues of self-image.  I don't always like the way I look, and sometimes that makes it feel like I am not loving myself in the way I should.  But I would never look at my son and think, "He hasn't shaved recently, he must be lazy, that makes him a bad person"  (I have pretty much had that exact thought about myself....)

I saw a meme the other day that I thought was both brilliant and sad at the same time.  It was talking about self love, and how whenever you are feeling bad about yourself, to pretend you are a cat.  Because people will look at a fat cat and gush about how cute it is.  They will look at a tiny (short) cat and gush about how cute it is.  They will look at pretty much any cat...and it is cute.  But we don't see ourselves with that kind of variety.  We think that there is ONE type of attractive, and if we don't match it exactly, then we aren't worth loving.

This kind of thought process is extremely harmful!  We aren't even always aware of it.  We don't realize how many times, throughout the day, we have negative self-talk, and how that impacts our sense of self, our capacity for self-love and our ability to accept love from others.

I am very insecure about my self when it comes to other people.  Hubby tells me (often!) that he loves me, and sometimes I still have to ask, "But why?  What is it about me that you love?  Why do you like me?"  I have to remind myself that my friends love me, and they like me for who I am...and that they don't care if I am having a bad day or if I don't wear makeup...they love me anyways.

Sometimes we need to take a step back, to recognize what matters and what doesn't.  To see what is superficial and what is essential.  Love looks for your heart, it doesn't look for the little things that dress you up.  And most of the things we stress about are little things! 

As we approach Valentine's Day, I want to challenge everyone to start looking at the world through eyes of love....and to start by looking in a mirror!  Look at yourself as if you were a stranger, or your most beloved person in the world.  Look at yourself as if you were a cat!  If you aren't feeling the love...pretend!  Act as if the person in the mirror was the person you adored MOST in the world.  Think about all the reasons why you love this person (who is still yourself....).  Then, try thinking of one thing that you would normally beat yourself up about.  Perhaps you have a bit of extra weight, or you don't like how your nose looks, or you think you should have been working on that big dream of yours more.  And as your thinking about this less than idea thing....remind yourself you love this person (or cat...), and see how this changes how you think about that one small issue.

Because I can tell you right now, I don't think of other people's flaws in nearly the same, critical light that I think of my own.  I know plenty of people who share my flaws (and some who exceed me), and I am harshest on myself.  I hold myself to impossible standards, and learning to be kind, to love myself, is a journey!

If you are still struggling to see yourself in a loving way...turn to a trusted friend.  Ask them to help lift you up, to encourage you and to sing your praises.  I love building my friends up like this, it's really fun to say nice things about other people, and to know you are bringing a smile to them, especially when they are down!

Take some time, this holiday, to do something nice for yourself...just because you love yourself.  Get yourself a little treat (perhaps that favorite chocolate, or a fancy drink you love), spend some time pampering yourself (I like giving myself foot massages...and thanking my feet for all the work they do carrying me around all day!), and send yourself a little love (maybe write yourself a love note and tuck it somewhere you will see it throughout the day). 

Once we start loving ourselves, we will find it even easier to love other people!  If we can all spread just a little love, the whole world becomes a bit brighter, a bit lighter, and some of the nasty stuff that has been running rampant might just be a little less prevalent.  I truly believe that if more people loved themselves and loved each other...SO many problems would be solved!  So love yourself...and know that I love you too!

Multiple New Years!

With Chinese New Year just passed, this will be the third new year I've observed this 'year'!  The start of the new year is something that is honored in many cultures and practices around the globe and throughout time, and yet when exactly it occurs is something that varies widely.

In my personal practice I tend to think of 4 different 'new years'.  There is the calendar new year, falling on January 1, then Pagan new year (Samhain), Chinese new year, and my personal new year (birthday).  Recognizing another cycle of our earth around the sun is something that I find useful, as it gives me time to reflect. 

I'm not a huge new year person.  I never really got all worked up for the new year.  I didn't dive in deep with resolutions or throw huge parties (though I have attended some!) or watch the big shows (I always thought it was a little odd to watch the countdown in other time zones).  But I have my own traditions for the new years, and each one ends up being a little different.

Probably the one I do the most for is calendar new year.  Since I do personal planning, calendar new year is when I swap calendars (obviously lol).  This often means that the way I approach the year will be different.  Last year I was using two planners, one dedicated to magic and the other was a Bullet Journal style planner.  My medium term planning was more intense last year:  I had to draw out pages for every month and week.  I tracked my progress in more things.  I planned more (by the moon phases, by the week and by the month!).  This year, I'm more tuned into my feelings with my planning, and I am taking things more day by day.  And this focus, which will shape my whole year.

I also set my year long focus for the calendar new year.  This is something I started to do several years back, when I realized that I wanted to direct my spiritual growth more.  I picked one thing (though a big thing) to focus on for a year.   Spreading it out over a year gave me time to really explore it, and also to integrate it more than a shorter course of study.  I enjoyed it so much, I have kept doing it, naming my years (my Year of Magic or Year of Runes). 

This is very similar to picking a word of the year (which technically my Year of Magic started with the idea of Magic being my word of the year).  There is a subtle difference I feel between having a word of the year and a yearly focus.  A word of the year, to me, is more of a theme:  it is one word to sum up your year in it's essence.  A yearly focus is more of a plan:  it is a desire to explore one topic over the course of a year.

Now, when it comes to Pagan new year, it took me a while to come around to this one.  I knew that many considered Samhain the pagan new year (if I remember correctly, this view is based on the Celtic calendar).  Since there is no Sabbat on the calendar new year, it makes a sort of sense that the Wheel would have one of the Sabbats as it's turning point.

I didn't really resonate with why it was Samhain until quite recently, and it was because of a fiction book.  In this book, there was a culture that believed that their 'dead rode with them until the long snows' (they were a horse based culture).  So, anyone who died during the year was basically still hanging around, until winter came.  And there was a ceremony they held to say goodbye to the dead as they journeyed beyond the snows.

This spoke so much to me of Samhain, and about how we honor the dead who passed during the year.  And I really like the idea of marking the changing of the year based on when the dead pass further along their journey.

For my local group, this is our one big ritual of the year:  Day of the Dead.  If we are only going to do one ritual, this will be it.  So it is the time when I get to see people who I may not see for the rest of the year, my extended Pagan family.  It feels very celebratory for me.  I like that it is at Samhain that we get together.

I don't celebrate Chinese new year as much as I'd like.  Even when I was little, we would get red envelopes sent from my grandparents, but rarely did much otherwise.  I love the little traditions though.  The idea of eating long noodles to represent long life.  I am half-Chinese, but I have always loved what little I have known of Chinese traditions.  It is something that I intend to explore more.

And then there is my birthday.  I'm not really a birthday person, in the sense that I don't expect a big fuss.  Often, we don't do anything super special on my actual date of birth (we celebrate holidays loosely in my house, depending on work schedules and things like that....we would rather be able to relax and enjoy something than try to get it on 'the right date').  And since we married on my birthday, it's a kind of double celebration for us (which I both like and don't like...it has it's pros and cons!). 

I've never really stressed so much about getting older.  When I was young, it was definitely cool to be older, but I wasn't in a real rush.  And now that I am older, I'm not freaking out about having turned 40 or the grey hair that I have.

I do find it a little interesting that we talk about our age (or don't talk about our age lol), but we don't really think of our life in cyclical terms, like we do calendar years.  I think my absolute favorite way to think about years of my life is in gamer terms!  I saw this while searching for birthday meme's to wish a friend a happy birthday, and I fell in love with the idea.  "Instead of saying that I'm 30 years old, I'm going to start saying I'm a 30th level adventurer!"

And really, if you think about it, you aren't just an adventurer (though life is certainly an adventure!).  I am a level 40 human, but I am a level 22 Pagan/witch, and like a level 34 student (because I never stopped learning!).  This also makes me a level 19 wife (will hit 20 this year!), and a level 18 mother.  It's amusing to think about it this way, but I also think it's really thought provoking.  Every time someone asks me how long I've been doing something, and I actually count up the years, I am taken aback by how long it has been!

There are cycles within cycles throughout our lives.  We live in multiple worlds all at once, and so it is only natural that we have multiple starts to each 'new year'.  And there is nothing wrong with celebrating and honoring each in it's own way!  When you think about the different parts of your life, you may find that you want to honor a turning of the year for certain ones.  You can decide when that 'new year' will begin for you, and how you want to celebrate it!  And that is one thing that makes life so amazing...it is completely customizable!

Emotion based goal setting

Many of us were taught about setting goals when we were little.   We were told to figure out what we wanted, and then to sort out how we were going to get it.  We were shown how to break a goal down into more manageable steps, and how to make a plan so that we could get where we wanted to go.

And sometimes, this works out perfectly.  We keep our eyes on the prize, we know we have divided up the work, and that if we just keep at it, we will get what we want.

But sometimes, this process doesn't work so well.  Maybe the thing we thought we wanted was just a placeholder, something that we were using to fill a hole inside us, and we weren't really sure what we actually needed.  Or perhaps, somewhere along the way, we found something even better than our original goal, and now we were faced with a choice.  Or perhaps we really did want the thing we were after, but it was so very far away that the work needed seemed insurmountable, even though we had it separated into smaller bits, it was just hard to get started.

Most of us are used to setting result based goals:  we have a thing we want and that is our goal.  But other times, especially when it comes to our spiritual path, our goals are more ephemeral.  We want to find peace or we want to develop a connection with a deity.  We may not be sure how to word these things as goals, or what we can do to work towards them.  And instead of becoming goals, they stay as dreams and wishes, and we find ourselves continually gazing at them from afar, without knowing how to get closer.

The very best goals are fueled by emotions.  Even when they are very concrete and 'easy' to accomplish, like if your goals is to write down three things you are grateful for every day, the reason you want to do this is based on an emotion.  You want to feel grateful, and so you set yourself a goal to express that gratitude.

But other times, you may not know what the underlying emotion is at first.  Perhaps you have always wanted to read tarot cards, and your goal is to be able to do readings.  But you keep putting it off, because every time you start looking into it, you are inundated with hundreds of decks, so many different meanings, different ways of interpreting cards, and even dozens of symbols within each card.  You are overwhelmed, and you set it aside. 

If you take the time to explore the emotion behind wanting to be able to read cards, you may find that your focus in working on your goal changes.  Instead of just having the goal of reading cards, you have the goal of being able to read cards because you really want to help people, or maybe you just feel very insecure and have a hard time making choices and you want reassurance that your choices are good, or you might just think that it looks fun!  All of these emotions are valid reasons to want to learn to read cards!

Now, when you think about learning the cards, you can remind yourself of the emotional reason for it.  If your desire is to help others, you find some friends who you can practice with, and focus on them.  If you are seeking reassurance, you might focus on tarot journaling, and make your learning very introspection driven.  And if you are looking for fun, you might just look for whatever seems the most fun, and turn your study into play!

The emotion you are seeking becomes your focus, and this is what keeps you coming back to your goals, it is what helps you do the work, even when it feels like you aren't moving forward, or when it feels like the work will never end.

You can also start with the emotion, and then build your goal around it.  So, perhaps you are wanting to grow in your practice, but aren't sure exactly what you want to reach towards.  But you know that you want to develop a deeper connection, to feel more in tune with the world around you. 

Knowing this is how you want to feel, you can start brainstorming things that you could do that make you feel that way.  You might have to start with exploration activities, things designed to help you really notice what types of things make you feel the most connected.  From there, you can work on ways to include more of these in your life.  You can also look into practices or activities that are similar to the ones that light you up and make you feel the way you want to. 

The best thing about emotion based goal setting is that the physical outcome is secondary.  If your goal is to have fun with tarot, then it doesn't matter if you have memorized all the meanings of the Arcana.  If you can pull out your deck, and have a good time while using it..then you have met your goal!  If your goal was to be more connected with the world around you, and you find even one way to tap into that connection, you are living your goal!

There is no outside 'win or fail' condition.  Every day, when you work on your goal, you have the opportunity to tap into the feeling you are wanting to cultivate.  Every single time you experience that feeling, you are succeeding!  Even if someone observing from the outside might not realize you are progressing...you are, because you are bringing more of your desired emotions into your life.

So, the next time you set a goal, think about the emotion that is fueling it.  When you want to move forward, but aren't sure what to aim for, consider picking an emotion to strive towards.  And when you look at the steps you have laid out, find ways to infuse your desired emotion into each and every one of them.  And you will be surprised by how much more you will get from your goals!

Play with your magic!

I think there is a tendency to feel like we have to be serious and proper if we respect our faith.  There is this need to make things complicated and oh so serious, because if we don't we fear being accused of faking it or being crazy.

I have never been someone who feels like mirth and joy aren't compatible with true reverence.  You can be deeply serious about your faith, and still laugh and keep things light. 

I learned magic with the understanding that magic bridges the gap between the left and right brain.  Your thinking brain wants things, but your child brain often gets things done.  They don't communicate well!  The thinking brain works in words and logic, while the child brain needs symbols and emotions to really 'get' what is going on. 

And this is where magic comes in!  When we do ritual or cast spells, we are translating the words in our (thinking) brain into symbols and feelings that the child brain understands.  Much like a small child who has suddenly realized they KNOW what the adult wants, and scampers off to do it (with much enthusiasm!), our child brain (subconscious) will take the symbols and emotions we use to do our ritual and run off and create change.

Here is where I think magic looses a little of it's shiny sometimes:  we take it too seriously!  We may have read books on magic theory, or have found spells that work towards what we want to do, and we think that we need to follow the instructions like it is a manual for assembling furniture. 

This isn't to say that I don't think we can't have serious rituals or follow a ritual/spell format, but I think that magic should light us up...it should have a sense of wonder to it.  The same way that a child looks at the world, that is how we should view our magic.  And children can be very serious about many things...they approach pursuits with a purity of passion that we can emulate in our own magical practice.

But I also think that playfulness is a very powerful tool!  Being creative and flexible keeps our practice fluid and changing...it keeps it from becoming rote and routine (where we tend to loose focus and interest). 

I adore doing thought exercises when it comes to magic and ritual.  Where you take a random assortment of things (especially non-traditionally-magical things) and pick a spell or ritual focus...and decide how you might accomplish that task with those things.  There are all kinds of ways to pick which random things you start with.  You might dump out your purse/pockets/wallet and pick up three things and those are what you have.  Or you might find a picture, and only use things you can see in that picture.  You might even find a 'random item' generator online (I have a bunch that I use for roleplaying games, one of which has a 'random stuff in your pocket' generator, which is brilliant for this!)  I also have a bunch of dice with words or pictures on them, that could be used (you can find these often in the kid's toy section).

When I do exercises like this, I really do often think like a child might, if they were playing make-believe.  It helps break down some of the logical barriers we might otherwise put in place.  All of a sudden, that bottle cap becomes a boat or an umbrella or a shield.  The rubber band could be super stretchy arms, an unbreakable rope or a trampoline!  This really helps you get out of your adult (thinking) brain, and work with the symbols that the child mind works so very well with.

Another fun way to do this is to pick a book or movie/show where the characters are stuck in a situation with a problem.  Look at what they have available and figure out what you would do with those things to solve that problem.  To make it a bit more tricky, you may limit yourself to 'things that would work in that world'.  So, if you were watching a modern day detective show, you might have to do a more subtle magic, perhaps to get the culprit to admit their crime.  But if you were reading a high fantasy book, you might be able to have them create an actual fireball or summon an imp to help them!

It sounds like we are leaving the realm of reality here, but the thing to remember is that magic works in symbols.  So even if you are visualizing summing an imp, your child mind is working to help create the things you are visualizing the imp doing.  It is helping to move you in the direction you want to go, without you being aware of it.  This is the true power of magic:  being able to send messages to your subconscious so that it can help you create the things you want in the world!

Play doesn't have to be super silly or super crazy either.  If you watch children, their play is real to them.  They aren't (always!) doing random things or being over the top.  In moderation, those types of play can be great too!  If you have ever been in a situation where you just can't stop laughing, you will know the release that can be!  That is powerful energy right there!

Play is about being in the moment, about loosing yourself in the story you are creating, and about finding ways to make things work.  And that is what magic is about too!  The more invested you become in your magic, the more you are letting the two halves of your brain communicate, and the more clear your focus becomes. 

Learning to play may take work for many of us.  We are taught that adults should do adult things, and that play is for children.  From the moment we start showing signs of 'growing up' we are encouraged to put away our toys and adult.  I think we spend too much time adulting!  Of course you need to take care of the things you need to do...but once you have adulted, it's time to play! 

Welcome play back into your life.  Let yourself really get lost in the things you want to do, and stop worrying if they are 'appropriate' for someone of your age (whatever age you are).  Take this attitude of play into your magic, and let your inner child free.  You will be surprised at what they can accomplish...when you stop trying to force them to act like an adult.

Balance of Awareness and Action!

I'm a big fan of thinking, of dreaming, of visualizing, of journaling and planning.  But sometimes I notice that I'm doing a whole lot of preparation...and not very much work.  It is easy to get caught up in my head, to keep working through the mental side of things.


It is very tempting to keep getting ready until we feel prepared, but that's a trap!  There will always be some level of fear involved with growth, because you are becoming someone new.  You are transforming who you are and bits of you are being left behind.  It doesn't matter if those bits are pieces you don't even care for, or might actively despise.  What matters is that they are familiar, and the new bits of you that will grow to fill their space are unknown.

The unknown will always scare us.  It has the potential to be exactly what we desire, or it could be worse than we already were.  And we were functioning the way we were, so we may feel like we should just stay where we are, not push through and risk failure.  Or, we may even be afraid that we will succeed, and that might snowball into us noticing other areas that we could improve in...which leads to more change!  We may even be afraid that the people we care about will no longer like us if we change too much.

As powerful as our minds and thoughts are, there are some things that really need physical action to be fully realized.  Taking physical steps helps us feel like things are real.  We can change a whole lot inside, and still not appear to have changed at all. 

Sometimes, working from the inside out is the natural flow of things.  We build up all these changes inside, and we find our external lives changing without effort.  But sometimes, we need to work in the other way.

One thing I struggle with is doing the same inner work over and over.  I will fight with something I want to change, and I will lay out all the reasons why I can't keep doing what I am doing.  I will make plans for how I can change things, and I will visualize all the ways in which I will be better once I've made the change.  But my good intentions are just wisps of thought, and in the moment I don't remember them.  I continue acting as I always have, because my actions have built momentum and become habits.  I don't think about what I am doing, and by the time I realize I have started to do the thing I am trying to change, it is already done.

In these cases, it can be helpful to start with physical stuff and then, once you have the ball rolling, you can go back and do the mental work to support your growth.  If I want to read part of a book every day, I may need to physically put the book on top of something else I would normally do (like on my computer mouse pad!), so that I actually have to pick the book up and move it to do my normal habits.  Once the book is in my hand, it is much easier for me to just go read, than if I had to remember to go find the book and then read.  And, because the book is not normally on my mouse pad, even if I choose to not read at that time...it is a choice, because I still have to physically move the book in order to use my computer!

Ultimately, you need to find the right balance between awareness and action.  Neither truly functions well on it's own.  To create real and lasting change, you need to do the mental and the physical work!  It's the dance between them that carries the magic.

It doesn't have to be an on/off switch either.  Often, you are doing bits of both, throughout the process.  I find this works the best for me.  I will find some small task to do, and find a way to tie thought and action together.  For example, when working with the moon cycle, I will not only do the mental and planning work throughout the cycle, but I will plan small actions to help actualize my work.  This might be something simple, like lighting a candle or writing a banishing and flushing it.  But every day I would think about what part of the moon cycle it was, and what actions I could take to embody that part of the cycle.  Then I would write the chosen actions in my planner, where I would be reminded to actually do them.

Knowing what your preferences are helps you adjust your plan to shore up your weak points.  I know that I lean towards mental work.  For years, most of what I did was visualized.  So, for me, physically getting up, actually lighting that candle, or picking up a tool from my altar...this was powerful stuff!  For someone else, it might be stopping and actually jotting down their thoughts about the rituals they have done.  Or maybe writing down their emotions when they are starting to feel overwhelmed.

Our paths are personal, but don't let yourself be limited by habit!  Take the time to notice where you are spending your time and energy..and where you aren't.  Seek out those things that you wish you were doing...but aren't...and find ways to do them! 

Start small.  You may want to burn more candles, but don't feel like you have time.  Buy some birthday candles, and give yourself that small amount of time to tune into your practice.  If you want to journal, but aren't sure where, grab a notebook and just write down one thing you did that day that you are proud of (even if all you can think of is something like, "I made it through the day.")  If you want to study a new subject, dedicate yourself to learning one new fact about it every day.

These little things will add up.  You will find yourself drawn to doing a bit more, when you have time.  You may light a tea candle while you eat on the weekends, or have a really great day and find you have written a paragraph about it just because you were so excited to write down what happened.  You may find yourself so interested in the subject you are studying that you make notes of related subjects to dive into next.

And remember, balance isn't a static thing!  If you were to stand up on one leg and try to balance, you may find moments of stillness, but most likely you will be constantly making small adjustments to one side or the other.  The balance between awareness and action is exactly the same!  You may find that some days you need more reflection while other days you need to get up and get moving.  Some projects may be very simple to envision but will need more physical work, while others might take a lot of planning and then be relatively simple to actually execute.  Let your instincts guide you, but stay mindful of what is needed on both the mental and physical side of things.