Tag Archives: self improvement

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Money = energy

There is often a negative backlash against doing magick and spiritual work for money. Some people belong to traditions (or have ideologies) which are seen as being opposed to such things. I’ve actually heard some defensiveness go along with it; I spoke with someone who actually sells magickal items, including books and supplies, for a living but was struggling to make the rent for the storefront. When I suggested using magick as an aid, the walls went up. The idea was clearly seen as a Bad Thing.

I’m not sure where this came about, and I suspect it came with the idea put forth amongst some religious adherents that poverty was a blessing and somehow a sign of “being spiritual”. There are two things that come to mind with this: 1) this is often preached or hinted at in religious traditions where its highest members work in elaborate, expensive buildings 2) you can’t help out others if you can’t help yourself.

Money isn’t evil. Lusting after money, being greedy about it, and doing unethical things in order to obtain and keep money is what’s evil. Money is just another form of energy, and the more of it you have, the more you can give to others–not to mention inspire others to do the same.

Practical Alchemy is about both practice and being “down to earth”. If you cannot manifest money for your rent or mortgage, how do you expect to be able to manifest results in the Great Work?

With increases in income, you can find more and better ways of being of value to your family, your friends, and your community. There are many ways in which you can use your hobbies and things that you love not only to gain money, but also to benefit charity. I myself do charity 5K runs and similar events.

People need to ditch the bad feelings of unworthiness, inappropriateness, or flat out guilt over the idea that something that they love and are passionate about can make them financially successful and more than capable of supporting themselves. There is no better time than today.

 

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Reclaiming your personal power

I think this blog post will undoubtedly be filed under “The most difficult but most essential blog post written on here yet”. For the sake of others, I will also highlight this with trigger warnings for touching on topics such as rape, abuse, and assault. However, I will urge those who HAVE undergone such things to read this post, as I hope it will be of help to you.

Before I begin, a caveat: I am a Certified Life Coach, not a licensed therapist or counselor. I am speaking strictly from my personal experience and what has worked for me. You may find that some of what I say will not work for you. In that instance, consult a professional. Here’s a list of important hotlines for people in need of help, take a look at it and see if anything there may be of use to you.

People often give their personal power away regularly albeit unintentionally. Other times it is taken from them. In both cases, they need to recover from the damage done to them, their lives, and of course in their magickal practice.

The Law of Attraction has been written and spoken about to death, and the biggest detractor/rebuttal to it has been questions such as “But what about people who undergo massive trauma such as rape, attempted murder, war, or assault?” What about when there are people in your life who have wronged you in some way, shape or form? I personally think that the Law of Attraction has been massively misunderstood and oversimplified by well-intentioned people, and even used against others as a form of New Age Bullying. The original idea is never and has never been about either blaming people, victimizing them, or taking away their personal power–rather in fact, the opposite. It’s been about empowerment and taking control over your life, even in the face of hardship and struggle. Because of all of the negative connotations that this whole “Law of Attraction” approach now has towards sensitive issues like this, I won’t even address it in this blog post as I think it’ll detract from the overall message and scope of what I want to write about, which is reclaiming your personal power.

First of all, the absolute worst thing you can do in the process of trying to get back your sense of self and personal power is to place the blame of what happened on you. Where you were, what you did, who you chose to hang out with, and all of that line of questioning won’t help you. Unfortunately too often after a series of events such as a bad or abusive relationship, personal trauma, etc. it’s hard to shift focus. Once that power has been taken away, it often continues to be leeched away. Having had that experience, knowing what it is like, it changes things. It changes us. We may even get used to being depleted, which of course doesn’t help in any way, shape, or form.

Then there’s the other side of the coin. We want the party who wronged us to face some sort of karmic retribution, and a part of us may feel that if we let go of what happened to us we are somehow excusing it, that if we manage to somehow “get over it” that it wasn’t a big deal to begin with. At the same time, it’s challenging to not review what happened in our own minds and try to think of ways we could’ve prevented it, could’ve seen it coming. The scars from these sorts of things can affect people for years.

I am not writing this blog post without personal experience. I have been in an abusive relationship, am a two-time survivor of date rape, and had someone who had been my best friend sexually assault and threaten me with rape. Coming back after that was difficult. It affected my spiritual work, my personal development, health, finances, pretty much everything. I spent a good year or two afterwards just “getting by”, struggled with emotions ranging from depression and anger to total numbness, and have described the experience as being out of “cell phone range” from the gods. I found that ultimately what helped me was realizing that I could not wait around for a major change or a breakthrough, I had to take small steps and cherish small victories. As they piled up over time, my life became easier and better. I got healthier, my finances got better, and I started to feel good again about myself and my life.

Reclaiming yourself and getting yourself back on track is ultimately your road to victory. It means not letting the guilty party continue to win over you. It also means forgiving yourself for what you never should’ve had to forgive yourself for in the first place, which is being a person with feelings, emotions, and the capacity to have bad things happen to them. So ultimately what you may need to do is to forgive yourself for needing to forgive yourself, and that’s okay. Realizing that what happened was not your fault and that you CAN get back in the driver’s seat again is a form of release, but it is one of those things which can take time. You will have good days and bad, but in the end the bad days will get fewer in number and the good days will increase.

One of the things I determined for myself after what happened to me was that I wanted to get out there and do positive things, be a stronger and better magician, and inspire others to transform their lives. It also forced me to take stock of what was important for myself in the grand scheme of things, beyond life and death, and what would ultimately let me live a happy and fulfilling life with purpose.

Here’s my list of things of what I did that helped me over time:

  1. Take time out for yourself. Watch good movies, read great books, listen to your favorite music.
  2. Make a to-do list every day of absolutely everything that must get done daily. Put events and reminders of them on a calendar. You may find that during this time that your usual memory, especially short term, will not be as good as it normally is, and these lists and reminders will save you grief and added stress later. Anything that is on that list, bite off the biggest pain in the ass that’s on there first and get it done and out of the way so you can focus on the rest of your day. Eat that Frog! by Brian Tracy touches on this and more.
  3. Take care of yourself. Physical exercise has been my best source of sanity. Go outside for a walk, go running, find something to do which is physically active that you enjoy. Emphasis on ENJOY. Also, eat good, healthy food as often as you can and do your best to avoid any habits which are self destructive such as eating bad food, overindulging in alcohol, etc. The better your body feels, the better YOU will feel. Anything else is a temporary distraction to mask the pain for a few moments and will make you feel even more miserable after and will negatively impact your physical health besides. Please trust me on this.
  4. When hit with bad memories, thoughts, or feelings caused by previous events, you may want to distract yourself with things which are fun and frivolous. Watch cute kitten videos on YouTube. ANYTHING. 80s movies, cartoons, and comedy have been hugely wonderful for me.
  5. HOWEVER…you may find that there are times when you DO need to process your feelings and emotions about what happened to you. Doing that versus repressing them may be of use to you. Trying to figure out when you are processing versus when you are dwelling can be a challenge. If you are finding that your negative feelings and thoughts are getting in the way of every day life, I would pursue #4 first before doing #5. If it gets too much and #4 isn’t working, please consider getting in touch with a professional, especially if #4 is beginning to look more like the symptoms of PTSD. I’ll be touching more on the subject of how to deal with bad thoughts and feelings when I get to #9 and #10 on the list, so stick around.
  6. Remember the people in your life who DO support you and care about you. You’ll have moments when you’ll want to retreat into your shell and others where you’ll need to be surrounded by positive people. Having a nice balance of both will help you.
  7. Eliminate absolutely everything and everyone in your life who is a drain on you, your energy, your emotions, and your resources. If you’re dealing with any form of struggle to reclaim your personal power, this is essential. You may find that you have some toxic relationships to dump. Avoid the Negative Nancies like the plague. You’ll find that some people want to feed off of you as opposed to help you during this time. Identify them as quickly as you can (some will take the burden away from you and will identify themselves without your help), and quietly distance yourself from them. You will be grateful for it.
  8. Find things which inspire you and surround yourself with them. When the going gets tough, turn to those things for support and direction. This could be anything from your favorite personal development books to your spirituality, it could be music, it could be whoever is your personal hero. It does not matter. Whatever will inspire you and make you feel good AND is good for you, find it and thrive in it.
  9. Do healing work. Get Reiki done, do healing spells, etc. Find whatever magick and energy work you can do in order to help you to better deal with the problem and DO IT.
  10. When the negative thoughts and feelings do occur, ask yourself why you feel this way or what brought it up. Then–and here is a question which may seem weird to you–ask yourself what fears you may have if you were to stop thinking or feeling this way. Once you uncover any, ask yourself if you really believe that those fears are true. Keep digging. Sometimes we think that emotions and feelings happen out of nowhere when in fact we have utterly no idea that our unconscious mind is really, really busy and hard at work dealing with all of the stuff we’re not aware that we’re busy processing.
  11. There are two things which will not necessarily always be your friend during this time, and you’ll have to learn how to reprogram them. One is your thoughts, and the other is your feelings. Each will affect the other in a vicious cycle. If you focus on the things which make you feel good, you will think good thoughts. If you focus on the good thoughts, you will feel good. Ending the cycle of internal negativity is challenging, but it can be done. Again, as always, small victories and steps will snowball over time.
  12. If you ever get to the point where you feel like you can’t handle this on your own, either find some good self-help books on the subject, see a therapist, or call an appropriate hotline for support and guidance. There’s only so much any one of us can do or deal with, and if we’ve reached our limit, that’s okay. It doesn’t make us bad, broken, crazy, damaged, or worthless–it just means that we have some stuff to process which a third party may be more equipped to help us deal with. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.

There is no right or wrong way to deal with this, there’s just what works for you and ultimately makes you healthy and happy. There is also no such as thing “that pain is greater than this pain”; get rid of your sense of worthiness in terms of whatever you went through and whether or not it qualifies as something to be concerned about. Ditch comparisons. It doesn’t matter if you were dumped by the love of your life, were raped and/or sexually assaulted, had your home robbed, lost your job, lost your pet, lost a family member, lost a spouse/significant other, etc. Pain is pain, period. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, ditch them too. No one should have to feel guilty or feel that they are not worthy of expressing that they are suffering for whatever discernible reason or cause. How you go about dealing with the struggling, what happened to you to get you to this point, and how you feel about it has no bearing on your worthiness as a person or as a magician. As always, this is ultimately the best time to do personal work and growth as it will help you to recover.

As always, if you want to talk, I’m here.

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What it means to be a magician or a witch

A blog post by Nick Farrell on signs you are not a real magician has been circulating through the occult community. Although an excellent and well-written rebuttal has already been posted (and you should check it out), given the topics I’ve been blogging about lately I figured I’d add my $0.02 worth. Edit: another good (but brief) rebuttal can be found here.

First of all, to address the idea of whether or not you are a “real magician” or a witch: if you study and practice any form of magick or have at any given point, you are indeed a real magician/witch/occultist. Nick compares this to whether or not you are a “real writer”. Well, guess what? Same thing! If you write, you are a writer. Period.

There was an excellent article in the September 2013 issue of Runner’s World about this, actually, under the “Newbie Chronicles” section by Marc Parent. The title of the article “You’re a Real Runner If…” with the byline, “How do you know? Never mind the miles and shoes, look at the laundry!” In that article, he states the following: “The problem with authenticating yourself as a ‘real runner’ is that the distinction is a moving target. If a real runner is someone who goes long or fast, then almost any measure pales in comparison to the person who goes longer and faster.”

And it’s true. Being a runner, a writer, a magician/witch isn’t a destination, it’s a process. And if that process is yielding proof that you’ve been sweating/doing the work, you are IT! You are REAL! You have arrived. You don’t need a special title, approval from your favorite occult blogger, or any of that bullshit.

There are a few key points in Nick’s blog post that I want to address however, so I’m going to tackle them in order.

  1. “Your life is the same.” If your life has remained the same, it’s not that you’re not practicing magick and/or not a “real magician”; it’s that you are not growing as a magician and as a person. It means you have not done enough personal development to get your Will to the point where you’re out there, kicking ass. It doesn’t have to come overnight, and anyone in the craft will tell you that not only does “slow and steady win the race”, but also that “small steps add up over time.” If you’re expecting only huge epiphanies and changes as signs of growth, you may be quite disappointed. Cherish every victory and change, big or small. Look for them and EXPECT them. Be a magnet for the change and growth you wish to see in the world and in your life.
  2. “You have not lost at least one relationship because of magic.” It is true that with personal development often comes separating the wheat from the chaff, and that sometimes you will be forced to let go of people in your life who are either toxic and/or holding you back. But if you are isolating yourself to the point where magick is an obsession and you are not giving your partner, family, or friends their just due, it’s time to pull back and remember why you’re here to begin with. Some alone time to reflect, meditate, and process your life changes is normal. Hurting those whom you love is not. Therefore I don’t think making a sweeping statement without reflecting upon both sides of the story can be used here; as the saying goes, it takes two to tango. I also think that the whole “poor, persecuted magician” mindset needs to banished. Are we trying to grow as people, or are we trying to do some weird teenaged rebellion? If you’re finding that the time and attention spent on magick is making your relationships difficult, you need to evaluate: is it that the people in your life are unhealthy for you, or are you becoming unhealthy to both them and yourself?
  3. “You have lots of hobbies.” I laughed long and hard at this one, because it goes along with my previous point. If you are obsessing over magick to the point where you are alienating everyone around you and you have no other interests or pursuits in life, it is unhealthy. You are neither developing as a person or as an occultist. Here’s the thing: to truly bring about your Will into manifestation, you need to realize that every single part of your life is a part of your magickal practice. Every. Single. Part. The moment you absorb that, there is nothing you cannot affect from your practice, and you become more magickally efficacious as a result. From that perspective, you need a balanced life. I myself am a fitness nut, a writer, have numerous geek interests, and take the time to cuddle my cats whenever I can. All of these things contribute to my life as a magician, not detract. Who I am as a magician does not begin and end with my donning a robe and going into my temple room. It is a part of my everyday life. I am a magician when I pay my bills, when I drive to work, when I go out for a run, and when I give one of my kitties scritches under the chin.
  4.  “You have an active social life.” Nick argues that occultism is a “lonely thing”. Please see #2 for my full philosophy on that.Yes, you will find that there are, on occasion, people who are either toxic and/or unhealthy for you. They may be pedaling backward while you’re trying to move forward. Some people will pass out of your life as a result, and you will have to let them go. On rare occasions they will spring back and come to realize what they did to themselves and their relationship with you. On the other hand, isolating yourself is unhealthy. Friends and family are important. In addition, having a sounding board of people who can call you on your shit is immensely invaluable. If you have a friend or a loved one who does not hesitate to praise you and be happy for you when you do good and also let you know when you’ve screwed up (albeit in a caring and constructive way), treasure them like gold. Again, people practicing magick with the idea that it is some weird teenaged rebellion need to rethink their approach, attitude, and reasoning behind why they are here. It is not meant to isolate you from the world but to help you become a better contributing member of it. If you’re not able to do that, it’s time to do some serious personal work and find out why you feel that being around others is holding you back. Is it the wrong choices of people, or is it you? Find out. Dig deep. Leave no stone unturned and remember that your shit stinks just as much as someone else who doesn’t practice magick.
  5. “You think that something else is important.” Yes, your health is important. Your family is important. Your friends are important. Taking care of yourself is important. And all of these things are a part of the practice and work as a magician. Your life is not separated out into little boxes labeled “Personal Development”, “Family”, “Health”, “Work”, and “Magick”. All of these things overlap and affect one another, and something out of whack in your life could be the proverbial canary in the coal mine. The more you get involved in magick, the more you will realize that it’s not the equivalent of drive-through Sunday church. You are not solely a magician whenever you perform a spell or do a meditation. It is a part of your everyday life. It’s who you are to yourself and to others. Any separation is artificial and will hold you back from doing the Work. I cannot stress this enough.
  6. “You think that things in magic are literal and physical.” Nick argues that “nothing in magic is literal, most of it is symbolic and few things relate to physical events”. Speaking as a magician who does indeed do a lot of astral work, I could not disagree more. The idea that magick is symbolic and only exists in your mind also completely contradicts the idea that if you’re really progressing in the craft that your life should not remain the same. Magick is more than mere symbolism, and YES, you can cause physical changes on a very great scale. The idea of magick being merely psychological is a very “in vogue” thing in the modern day occult community, and it’s something I very much wish would die. If you are causing no changes to occur in the physical world and in your life, you are doing very little other than engaging in mental masturbation. In essence, you are saying magick doesn’t really exist. I’ve often found that magicians who claim the “magick as purely psychological” model are those who are disillusioned, cynical, have not genuinely done the amount of personal work and growth needed to practice magick, have strong doubts over their own magickal capacity and of themselves in general, and think that just because they have not succeeded in bringing about any sort of physical change that it cannot happen for them or for anyone else. People who have limiting beliefs on what they can and cannot accomplish will naturally find themselves gravitating towards this paradigm.

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, either way you are right.” -Henry Ford

People hold themselves back all the time and make excuses for it. In this instance, I see a LOT of problems with little to no personal development or work being done and blaming it on the practice of magick–or worse yet, seeing it as being NORMAL for practicing magick. If what you are doing is causing harm to yourself and/or others, is ultimately unhealthy, and isolates you from everyone else, you are not progressing. You are, in fact, moving backwards.

I am very grateful for Nick’s post as it’s a perfect illustration and teaching tool for what I’ve been saying in my Personal Development and Magick blog posts. This is why doing personal growth and development is so essential as as magician. Anything else is just an excuse to not leave your comfort zone. Magick will not necessarily destroy your life, but YOU can destroy it as a result of not doing the very important evolution you need to do as a person. And also, in case it hasn’t been already been inferred from everything I’ve been saying here: if you are a magician/witch/occultist and you are fighting very real obstacles in your life towards happiness and well-being, it’s not that you’re not a “real” magician; it’s that you haven’t done the necessary internal work in order to “purify the vessel”, as it were. You are that channel for your Will, and if the channel is cloudy, your Will will come out cloudy too.

The whole stereotype and mindset of magicians need to be poor, struggling, suffering, and impoverished in every way and that this is a “normal” and “acceptable” part of being involved in esoteric pursuits needs to banished, never to be seen or thought of again or used as an excuse. If you were truly evolving as a person and as a magician/witch, there would be none of that. If you are practicing magick and you are still struggling with the basics (ie., living from paycheck to paycheck, no friends, health is awful, romantic life is miserable, etc.) you need to get your shit together and start getting some personal work going. Read some good self help books. Hire a life and wellness coach, especially one that understands occult practices and can help you from that angle. I’m both a Certified Life Coach and an occultist, am available if you need an ear, and can be contacted for free consultations.

 

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Cause change in your inner world, create magick in the outer world

The other day I covered why personal development is important to magick. Next step in the series: how causing change in your inner world enables you to be a more magickally efficacious magician or witch.

Magick is more than simple rote spells, lighting candles, or chanting weird shit under a full moon. All of these things are meant to jog your unconscious mind and connect with sources of power outside of yourself that will help you to fulfill your goal. I have a magickal mentor who once told me that “magick is about making a connection.” This is entirely too true.

In this instance, YOU are the vessel, and your unconscious mind is a more powerful tool than you could ever hope or dream of. You literally have the power to do anything you want. Maybe not EVERYTHING, but anything. But that’s a topic for a whole other blog post. If you are not a clear and effective channel, all you will receive is static. If you have a crappy cell phone that’s constantly disconnecting on you, running slowly, and is buggy forget about checking your email or browsing the Internet. In short…don’t be a crappy cell phone.

Causing change in your inner world is about removing the static. It’s about clearing up the internal blocks, limiting beliefs, and unconscious ideas holding you back from achieving your deepest desires and dreams. It’s about eliminating the negative voices which are holding you back so you can finally hear the still, small, quiet voice within you which can tell you EXACTLY what you need to do, where you need to go, and who you want to be.

That voice is what helps you to take inspired action, connect with your higher self, HGA, the Force, God, gods, Divine, Flying Spaghetti Monster, or what-have-you. Trusting that voice is vital, but first you have to make sure you can hear it.

Next blog post in the series: How to clear the static and blocks preventing you from performing magick.

 

Need help with any of this stuff? Think you could use a life coach whom you can actually talk to about magick and various other esoterica and help you with your own magick? I’m here. Contact me anytime for a session or a free consultation.