“I can’t take any more of this,” Todd, a workshop participant, said.
“Would you tell me more?” I asked.
“I feel overwhelmed,” he replied.
I felt great empathy for his situation. This began a valuable conversation.
So, what do you do when your back is against the wall?
Figure out how to lessen the overload
Draw a vertical line down the middle of a sheet of paper. On the left side, list the top three situations that are impinging on you. Directly across from each stressful situation, note two things you might do that could relieve some of your pain. Here’s a helpful angle about this process: Somewhere, somehow, there’s a lesson in all this. Consider writing in a journal about your thoughts and feelings that arise.
Ask the Gods for Guidance
Meditation is the key here. During your meditation session, breathe in deeply. Ask the God and Goddess, “Please guide me for my good and the good of all involved.” You can also ask, “Is there a lesson for me to learn here?”
Do a ritual to help alleviate the pain
Ritual is a great process for releasing negative energy—to flush it away.
Also, during a ritual you can create and enhance positive energy.
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How is life going for you? Are you feeling pressured with work, family, friends, and personal pursuits?
If so, I’m with you. It can be hard to prioritize what to do when obligations weigh heavily on your shoulders.
Then, I had an intuitive nudge. It’s embodied in this question: How would Goddess help me prioritize for my enjoying a fulfilling life?”
Goddess wants you to grow
Goddess wants all Her children to grow. This means learning our lessons and conquering our fears.
What kind of lessons? This varies by the individual. You set up your goals for your lessons before you were born. These lessons can be things like forgiveness, handling fear, or finding love for yourself.
Goddess encourages you to prioritize your health and safety
I realize that I have sometimes, faltered about my own health. Sometimes, I’ve hesitated to go to the Emergency Room when my asthma was overwhelming.
How about you? Are you prioritizing your health? Good sleep, good nutrition, time devoted to nurturing your relationships …
Let’s remember that Goddess wants us to care for ourselves. After all, our bodies are the temples of the Gods. Goddess wants us to be healthy and happy while we are on this earth.
Goddess wants a better connection with you
Sometimes, I get the impression that Goddess might say, “It’d be nice if you called once in a while.” How? We can do ritual and have meditation sessions to connect with the Goddess and God. Even a 5-minute meditation session is better than nothing.
Along these lines, my new book Goddess Has the Answers to Life’s Tough Problems just debuted on Amazon. CLICK HERE to “look inside” my 9th book. For many of us, “9” is a sacred number, and I feel great about this book! I know that many readers will find support to grow and pick up insights that we, Wiccans, have discovered over the decades.
I’ve learned that it is hard to make a healthy choice when you’re in the middle of chaos or stress.
So, what is the solution? Make the choice when things are quiet.
Wiccans, I’ve talked with, mention how they’d like to feel better. In this post, I’ll talk about how you can get to a place of inner quiet. More than that, I’ll show how you can charge a talisman, so you’ll have it available for a stressful moment.
When you make a choice during a quiet time, you can later, during stress, make the healthy choice automatically. In this way you avoid having to make the choice again and again. (Sometimes, we do not have the extra energy to make the healthy choice at that time.)
For example, my husband decided to eliminate peanut butter and apricot preserves from his daily diet. He made the choice once (when he wasn’t hungry.) It has helped him drop 15 lbs. permanently. I have used Goddess Style Weight Loss that I share in my book, and I have dropped 50 lbs. so far.
Charging Your Talisman
Often, Wiccans choose a talisman that can fit into their pocket.
Some suggestions are:
A worry stone
A crystal or mineral that is smooth to the touch
A piece of smooth and sanded wood
Pick something that helps you feel comforted.
Charging and Using Your Talisman Ritual
What you will need:
Your talisman
Brown chime candle
Candle holder
White candles
White bath robe (or a different color that you prefer)
White fresh bath towel
Chamomile tea
Cakes and wine
Gardenia incense
Gardenia oil
Relaxing music
Kosher salt
Altar
Ritual tools
What to do:
Conduct this ritual during a waning moon and when you will not be disturbed.
Set up your altar and place your talisman in the middle of the altar. Next draw your ritual bath.
Add your kosher salt, three tablespoons.
Light the white candles and burn some of the incense for the bath. Play some soothing music on a device safely away from the bathtub.
Drink the tea, then recline in the bath water. Feel the soothing water. Close your eyes and envision all the stress and negative energy dispersing and being absorbed by the bath water.
Deep breathe and relax.
Stay in the bath until all the stress and negative energies are gone from your body. Remain as long as you like.
Once you have finished your ritual bath, dry off with your fresh clean white towel. Put on your clean bath robe.
Next, go to your altar area and cast your circle. Then, sit in front of your altar in a comfortable position.
Cleanse and consecrate your oil and brown candle. Then, dress your candle with the oil—from base to wick. (This pushes the bad stuff away from you.)
Cleanse and consecrate your talisman and rub some of the oil on it as well.
Place the talisman in front of the brown candle.
Light the candle and say:
Fear, stress and sadness, I fling you away During the madness here with me today. Let this talisman disperse all my worries and fears away, Replace with calm and peace for me to stay. As I So Will So Mote it Be.
Carry your talisman with you. When you start to feel overwhelmed, rub it and feel the negative feelings pulled away and into the talisman. Your talisman neutralizes your negative feelings.
Let this ritual bring you peace in your heart and soul.
If so, I’m with you. Why? Because every day I deal with asthma, dyslexia and clinical depression.
Here’s More Trouble: Beware of Those Who Shame People with Mental Illness in the Pagan Community
What do I mean by “shame people”? I’ve encountered people who told me that I do not need medication. Instead, they claim that “a certain herbal tea” will “Fix you right up.” No. That is a delusion. But what really bothered me is their self-righteous attitude that I was not “believing enough.” Now that’s what I call shaming!
I do meditate. And I take medication. I have medical doctors who help me.
I have depression and asthma—serious diseases. And it is B.S. to tell me to drink a tea or think or wish my asthma attack or depressive episode away. This is life or death!
I do magick rituals, and they help. Still, if someone says that I don’t need medication, they are deluded. Instead, we must be our own advocates as we deal with invisible illnesses.
Why do the God and Goddess let these things happen?
I believe that before this incarnation the God and Goddess helped us plan the lessons we wanted for this incarnation.
Learning lessons on this plane is about taking the direct route. Sometimes, the direct route involves trauma or mental illness. And we know this before we are incarnated.
The God and Goddess don’t want us to suffer. They want us to be happy.
They send help to us when we need it most. My husband—that is, boyfriend at the time—came into my life and encouraged me to get help in the form of therapy and medical assistance. I am so grateful to him for taking my hand and leading me to the help I desperately needed.
Why would we choose an incarnation with trauma?
I’ll share an idea: Do you really learn what touching a hot stovetop is by someone describing it to you? Or do you learn faster and understand more completely by experiencing the pain?
The same is true with the lessons of our life. We need to experience the situation to truly learn our lesson.
Then, there is the experience of real compassion. Recently, I went through a “bottom-time” (crying and feeling hopeless). My husband sat with me. He didn’t try to “cheer me up.” He rubbed my feet. I felt better the next day—Thank, Goddess!
Still, my husband knows that there is no “happy button” on me. Sometimes, we just need to sit with the pain. I deeply appreciate my husband’s real compassion and love.
I realize that we do not ask for pain today. Still, God and Goddess often help us have the experience of support when we’re suffering. Perhaps, you’ll want to do a candle ritual to remind yourself of God and Goddess’s presence in your life.
“Why is it getting worse?” my friend, Stephanie, said.
“I know there’s a lot happening. Anything in particular?” I replied.
“More violence in this country!” Stephanie said. And, this began a significant conversation.
What if Goddess Serves as Your Source of Certainty?
Is it possible to be certain of anything, anymore? Some people complain, “Unbelievable. I could not even imagine that people in leadership positions would be so … disgusting.”
I’ve learned that there is value in seeing ourselves as “spiritual beings having a human experience.”
As many of you know, I believe in the Summerlands, a place of love and peace in between the times we incarnate. We return and incarnate into a new body, and the lessons begin. We use our bodies as a user-interface for our spiritual being to learn lessons on this physical plane.
I realize that it can be tough to see this spiritual level when we’re in the midst of suffering and confusion. It’s as if we’re wearing “human-tinted glasses.” I suggest that we pause and consider looking at our lives from Goddess’s perspective. Goddess knows.
A Source of Comfort
Sometimes, I return to The Charge of the Goddess for inspiration and comfort.
“Let my worship be within the heart that rejoiceth, for behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. And therefore, let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.” – Doreen Valiente (speaking in the voice of the Goddess—from The Charge of the Goddess)
A couple of meanings rise up for me with the above quote.
Notice the phrase “all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals,” and see that the Goddess gives us the answer. We can derive comfort in honoring Her with our compassion, reverence, humility and more. Acts of kindness and beauty honor the Goddess and make us feel good.
A Prayer
Dear Goddess Release me from my stale, limited beliefs And give me compassion and mirth in heaps. Acts of love and Acts of pleasure. I honor You in this way forever.
May the ideas expressed here comfort you and invite you to listen to your heart. May compassion for others flourish in your heart.
“I told her that I trust her with something that, in my local community, I have to keep confidential,” Julie began. “I made her promise me—but she told my secret to everybody. And now they shun me!”
“She told them you are Wiccan,” I said, realizing.
Have you had a similar situation in your life? Has someone betrayed you and now you just can’t get the painful thoughts and feelings out? Does it feel like you’re being ripped apart?
To heal after betrayal, we notice a process …
Stages:
Identify the betrayal
The point here is that you need to acknowledge to yourself that you have been wronged. This person made a decision that caused you harm. Before my divorce, I put up with bad actions of my then-husband. Part of gaining the strength to leave him was for me to put my foot down and declare in my own mind: “This is wrong. I will not endure this, anymore.”
Feel the pain
Acknowledge the pain. Feel it. Until you do, you can’t grow and move past it. Additionally, until you feel the pain you might not have the energy to push through and move on. My then-husband would drain our joint account of money to buy his video games and there would be no food in the apartment. He would feed himself with fast food and think nothing of me.
I had to feel the pain and gather my strength to get the hell away from him. (By the way, I’m so glad because after the divorce, I was free to find my soulmate. It’s so much better now.)
Perhaps, you’re like me, and you’d like a break from feeling so much pain. In fact, I had a recent meditation session in which I asked the God and Goddess, “Why do I have to be in such pain?”
Their answer made me pause. They said, “Pain is to grow.”
So, feeling the pain is where growth happens. I know it sucks. But pain is the fuel that creates growth.
Protect yourself from more trouble
This is where you need to cut all contact with the person. You can do the ritual below for this.
Here are the steps of True Separation:
Verbally end the relationship
Stay away from the person.
Ground yourself.
Cast circle.
Do the Separation Ritual (see below).
Do the Cakes and Wine ritual.
Close the circle.
Finally continue to have no contact with the toxic person.
You will need your usual ritual items to cast circle and your altar. As I mentioned you will also have a length of yarn or piece of red string. The yarn/string must be long enough to encircle your own waist and to encircle the object (that represents the toxic person).
The Separation Ritual
Take the object. First, your will asperge it. Asperge means to sprinkle the holy water with your fingers onto the object.
With the holy water, asperge and say:
I cleanse and consecrate you by water and earth.
Next you will cense the object. Cense means to waft incense smoke over the object.
With the incense smoke, cense and say:
I bless and charge you with air and fire.
Then take the string/yarn and cense and asperge it as well and say:
I cleanse and consecrate you by water and earth.
I bless and charge you with air and fire.
Take the red string/yarn in your hands saying:
Tiny bundle of String/yarn
You are now the same as the bonds between me and Name of person.
Tie one end of the string/yarn to the object and then encircle your waist with the other end of the string/yarn, while you say:
You are the bonds that connect us now.
From me to Name of person and from Name of person to me.
Our connection is by thee.
Sit and concentrate on the bond between you both and see it as the string/yarn that now connects you and the object. Once you have a firm connection with that thought, take the boline and cut the string/yarn, seeing in your mind’s eye the astral bonds being cut along with the string/yarn.
Once you complete the cut, say:
I am now free of the ties of Name of person as he/she is of me.
May my happiness expand, and may Name of person’s happiness expand.
Blessed be.
Finish up with the Cakes and Wine part of the ritual and then close the Circle.
Call upon the God and Goddess to assist with your healing
Meditate and pray to the Gods for strength. Here is a prayer you can use.
Heal my heart and mind, Free me of violence that binds Keep me safe and sane from [his/her] madness, Let me stay centered and stay strong as my own badass. So mote it be!
Circle the Wagons with Friends
Keep your true friends close to you. Confide in them and let them build you back up.
Move into Inner Peace
Now that you are centered and have had your friends strengthen you, you can now move into peace. You now know that you have separated yourself from the betrayer, and you have surrounded yourself with the love of your true friends and the God and Goddess.
Keep in mind there is a difference between acceptance and approval. You do not approve of the betrayer’s actions. Eventually, you might get to the point of acceptance. What would you be accepting? You would accept that the person was caught up in their own crap, and you weren’t even a fly on their windshield. We notice that people can be seriously self-centered and cruel.
But acceptance is not approval. Acceptance is realizing that you went through an event, and today you are not ruled by it.
May this material support you and bring you peace.
“This is so disturbing. All the rich and powerful men who gang together to protect themselves when we see evidence of their sexual abuse of women,” my friend, Jessica, said.
“Yes. And I realize that this is a crucial moment in history,” I replied. Jessica and I continued with a significant conversation. From this conversation and others like it, I have thought a lot about what is going on.
Use Anger as a Stepping Stone for Positive Change
When I was a child, I felt like I did not matter. My brother was given preferential treatment. He tormented me, and my parents’ neglect gave me a clear message that he was worth more to my parents than I was. My brother even went so far as to hold me down underwater (at a neighbor’s pool), terrifying me because I needed air! His friends, all boys his age, did nothing, to help an eight-year-old little girl. They just watched me being assaulted.
With the #metoo movement and with a woman testifying Thursday about the sexual assault she endured, we, women, are now taking our place as worthwhile people who will not stand by while such abuse continues in our society.
Perhaps, like me, you were taught to just swallow your anger.
Now is the moment for a new approach.
Use anger as a stepping stone for positive change.
We, Wiccans, know that there are times when we must stand our ground and even actively defend ourselves. During one of my meditations, I used my astral-sword to defend myself.
Methods of Defense and More …
Here are some suggested actions you can take.
Meditate and keep yourself strong – Keeping your spirit whole and healthy is the foundation for everything.
Call Upon the Goddess – In meditation and prayer, ask the Goddess to strengthen you.
Volunteer in the community with an organization that helps women in need.
On the astral plane, I breathed easily, talking with the God and Goddess. In the midst of my meditation, I knew that standing in the Stone Circle was safe.
Just as I took some steps to leave the Stone Circle, the God moved like a flash and barred my exit.
Then I heard a gut-wrenching fight between Jerry (my protective animal spirit) and some thing—outside the protective Circle.
Apparently, Jerry won. He came back to my side and guided me safely back to the earthly realm.
Soon, I opened my eyes. My meditation was complete.
The next day I talked to a friend, and she told me that “All religions have prophesies foretelling this.”
This what? The Veil between the earth and the astral plane is currently quite thin. Around the time of Samhain, The Veil usually does become thinner. However, at this moment, The Veil appears thinner still.
What can we do?
Put up extra wards and protections around your home and your life.
Employ Witch’s Bottles.
I begin with revamping my witches’ bottles. Learn to make you own Witch’s Bottle here.
Bless Salt or Stones for Protection
You can bless salt or stones (particularly hematite) and pour or place them around doors and windows. Wiccans pour blessed salt across thresholds, doors and windows. Wiccans place blessed stones next to such areas, too.
Here is a prayer to instill protection on your chosen substance (salt or stone):
By Sun and Moon, by stream and sea may protection come unto me. I ask the Lord of Death and the Lady of Reincarnation to take any negative or rough entity back to where they belong. May this salt [or stones] protect me and my home. So Mote It Be.
“Can I make a big mistake in Casting a Circle?” my friend, Veronica, asked.
“It is important to focus on three vital details,” I replied.
When you Cast a Circle you want to:
Keep Things Out—They Steal Your Energy
Keep Energy In
Dismiss the Elementals—or They Cause Havoc
Keep Things Out—They Steal Your Energy
If you don’t Cast Your Circle properly, nearby entities can steal valuable energy you have raised. It gets worse: Such entities can cause your spell or ritual to fall flat.
Let’s say you do a Prosperity Spell. But such entities leached your valuable energy. Then, your Prosperity Spell will collapse, due to no power behind it.
Keep Energy In
A properly cast Circle keeps your energy all in one place. When you raise energy, you want it to build—not dissipate into the surrounding landscape. Your Circle helps you magnify such energy.
Dismiss the Elementals—or They Cause Havoc
Elementals can cause havoc on your life if not dismissed. I have heard of problems ranging from electrical issues, plumbing problems to scary incidences of fires breaking out in one’s home.
Warning: ALWAYS dismiss an entity once it has completed its function.
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