Self-Sabotage and the Solitary Baby Witch
You don’t aspire to become a witch. You slowly realize that you already are one.
The brain isn’t truth
The brain is constantly taking in information. Everything we observe enters through our senses and gets processed upstairs where the big computer lives. It’s not always the most organized place, and it’s often running on outdated software. In other words, your brain doesn’t know the truth. When Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” he hadn’t quite grasped this concept. Eckhart Tolle comes closer as he talks about the difference between thinking and being. The brain means well, but it also houses and feeds the ego… aka self-doubt, negative self-talk, fear, and excuses that prevent us from taking chances.
So much doubt
Am I doing this right? Did I say the right words, did I use the right ingredients? Was I focused enough? Did I clear the space and my tools well enough? Oh no, I forgot all about color correspondences! Did I miss the full moon again? These cards… I’ll never memorize them!
If you’re like me, you have Pinterest boards with witchy kitchens with lots of plants and perfect lighting, and candles, and hanging dried flowers, and old-timey spell books, wooden pentacles… and so many spells and potions…. you’ve pinned about sigils and runes, you’ve pinned information on astrology, maybe. You may even have started a grimoire and/or a book of shadows. So much of the info is conflicting, and all the spells are perfect and they rhyme, some rituals mention circle casting and deities…
Here’s the thing though… there’s a reason the information isn’t consistent across the board. We are all witches. Knowing your Craft is knowing yourself. Your power comes from your energy and your intentions. Your energy. Your intentions. Yours. You have the power to perform magick. You also have the power to choke your magick out before it is even expressed.
Side Note: Traditionally, witches practice in covens, and solitary practice isn’t a thing. There are rules, there are tools, there are specific ways to do things. There is history and lore that hold profound meaning to a lot of people. I’m in no way trying to discredit traditional witchcraft or Wicca. I am however saying that a person’s relationship with diving energy is their own, and for that reason, the solitary practitioner holds a lot of power too.
I’m not an expert, though
Self-sabotage told me not to write this. I’m kinda new at this whole becoming-aware-of-my-own-self-sabotage thing. And the whole witchcraft thing actually. I’ve dabbled in witchcraft through the years, but nothing really serious. I called myself Wiccan for a while in high school, but I didn’t actually know anything about the deities or how to actually perform much magick. It all just felt right, and it felt cozy and homey yet mysterious. Things did tend to just sorta work out for me in life though. I expected things to fall into place because they usually just sort of.. did. I was just a lucky person, right?
The second I started trying to study witchcraft seriously though is when things started to go wrong. Researching for the sake of knowledge and understanding is one thing. But there’s a difference between researching plants so you can effectively use them without poisoning everyone, and doing what I was doing. I was obsessively watching tarot and oracle card readers on YouTube, reading about spells, getting out library books on Wiccan lore, rituals, and vocabulary, and it became clear that I was not equipped to be a witch. It was too hard, and it involved gifts I simply didn’t have. I relied on those tarot readings each week, and I thought literally everything I saw, heard, smelled, or felt must be a sign from the universe. I got lost in conflicting messages. So I gave up, save for some meditation here and there, and perhaps a wee bit of tarot reading. I even got attuned in Reiki. However, I couldn’t focus all that well, then was diagnosed with ADHD, so that seemed like a good excuse for being unable to focus and therefore be an effective practitioner. I couldn’t do it, and I wasn’t in tune enough to ever be good at it, so it must not be the right path for me. There. That was easy. I was no longer accountable for developing a new skill, and I didn’t have to do anything difficult.
But time went by and I still felt like I was living alone within a vessel with most of the lights turned off. If a light anywhere turned on, it must have been a fluke.
Then my aunt passed away on a Friday.
She was my favorite person in the whole world. Aside from my own mom, Mimi was my person. My friend told me several years ago that a great way to talk to Spirit is through music. Ask loved ones, spirit guides, or your higher self for guidance on an issue, then put your playlist or a music app on shuffle and listen for a message. I asked Mimi a few days after she crossed over if she was okay, if she was free, and that I was hoping she’d send me a song to help me reconcile her passing. Mimi sent me Last Friday Night by Katy Perry. I laughed and cried at the same time. This party anthem that literally describes a bunch of friends having a wild and crazy time on a Friday night was more perfect and more comforting than I even expected. I thanked her, and I knew at that moment that our relationship hadn’t ended. It had just changed. That’s when I realized that maybe i had just been trying too hard this whole time. She has since shown me other ways I can commune with her and our other relatives, but it was that night in my kitchen with Pandora that I realized that the magick is in the small things too. I really did just talk to her. I felt her. I heard her laugh. She was Joy and I could feel it. I could feel. Period.
A little time had passed, and I was still afraid to do much more than meditate and talk to Spirit through music. I had the house to myself for a couple hours. So I just said, “let’s do this.” I had some prayers to send up and some heaviness I wanted to lift from my chest. I was tired of living on a spiritual hamster wheel of *just a little more research and I’ll be ready for the next step, so I took a chance and literally just spent the next half hour doing whatever felt right. I took a shower. I visualized the soap breaking down the layers of baggage I’d been attracting all day. I visualized the water carrying it away and it losing power. I felt better. Not completely better, but I stepped out of the shower and lit a candle. I didn’t pay attention to what color it was. I said the first three words that came to my mind as I lit it. Patience, passion, freedom. I felt my meanings in my words and didn’t try to get fancy. That was the first night it felt like real magick. I just did it. And it felt really good. I felt more like myself than I had in a long time.
Magick is in your authentic self
I’m often embarrassed by how much I like cute things and funny little toys. Just the other day, I considered the possibility that I was too focused on trying to repress that part of myself and not focused enough on how to embrace it (thank you, therapy). If it is a genuine source of joy, that’s powerful. That means there’s energy in the relationship between you and the thing. Wherever there’s energy, there’s a way to focus it for Good. I have Finneas and Ferb figurines in my window. I’m not embarrassed by them. I’ve given them all jobs. They’re now charms to help with time. As children, time seemed to go so slowly. There was always time for the things you wanted to do. That’s how I remember it anyway. So these toys sit in my window energized with the gift of time. If you’ve seen the show, you know how hilariously appropriate that is (Finneas and Ferb make insanely complex contraptions in the course of a single afternoon in every episode). It’s one of the most powerful bits of magick in my home.
If it feels authentic, it probably is. If you feel excited just thinking about it, it’s worth doing. Fear kills more dreams than failure ever could. I can’t remember who originally said that, but this witch is straightening her pointy little hat and walking into her truth.
