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Being a mom caused me to forget being a wife and caused lost connection in my marriage

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner I know many of us are thinking about love, romance, and our relationships. Especially, those of us in marriages or committed relationships/partnerships.

I know for me during this time of year our sex life usually sees an increase or a change in style and I end up reflecting a lot on what has been going on recently and the last year of my marriage.

For me this time of year is a romance/ relationship reset. I usually am so focused the month of January on New year goal setting and planning that is more focused on myself, my family as whole, and finances etc. With all the holidays focused on connection, romance and renewal this time of year for me it makes so much sense this happens.

This year was different than all the rest.

This past year in particular had been one of the most difficult and challenging years my husband and I have had in the 13 years we have been together.

And when I say difficult; we both had many moments where we for the first didn’t know if we would actually make it and stay together. There were more fights and tears in this one year than we had experienced in the entire 12 before this. The “D” word divorce was even said many times this past year in our home.

For many reasons this year was challenging; life struggles, mental health, still adjusting to no longer being just the two of us, and financial struggles.

But, the biggest reason our connection was just off.

We were miscommunicating all the time.

We both thought the other one was attacking the other one with our words often when the other one had no intention of doing so.

Our sex life had some hiccups and slowed down for the first time, not even having our son had done this.

We both were isolating ourselves from the other one when we could and we were no longer doing things together for connection and fun. We would do things in the same room or home but, not together.

Our fights and disagreements had gotten to the point we were now saying personal attacks towards each other and keeping a tally of rights and wrongs and nothing was ever getting fully discussed or worked thru.

We both felt like we weren’t being heard and that the other was not putting in effort to mend the repairs and move our relationship forward in a more positive direction and frankly for it just to survive.

And we wanted it to survive.

Our marriage and our connection with each other has and will always be something deeply sacred to us. And even though we both had thrown out in frustration and hurt thru tears that we should separate and maybe we weren’t meant for each other anymore and had grown apart.

We both wanted desperately to get to the core of what was going on and find the effective way to navigate it. I don’t know how many times we had conversations about what the issue was, how we were going to work on it together, and what we both needed. We would end up with us just hitting another wall and both of us in tears wondering how we could have gotten here again.

Than one day recently something happened that caused me to reflect.

My little family was playing around on our bed, cuddling, laughing, tickling and by the end of it I had ended up laying across my husband in a cuddling way almost draped on him. And the comment he made next both rocked me and caused me to have to go and reflect on so much.

He said he had forgotten what it felt like to have me laying on top of him like that and it felt unfamiliar now.

Like, I said I was rocked and taken back. I was also sad and bewildered that we had gotten so far disconnected from each other. My husband didn’t recognize a feeling that used to be a very common part of our lives.

I took those emotions and thoughts and really sat with them and reflected on what this really truly means and how it had effected us. And if this could be apart of why we were struggling so much with what felt like no progress.

What came to me was obvious and surprising I had missed it.

The first thing I realized was it was true and how had I missed it? We had not cuddled like that in so long. I could try and blame it on many things; like we are a family who co-sleeps and even at almost 3 years old our son is still in our bed every night. Or that for a year I was working overnights and not even in bed 4 nights a week.

But, as I kept reflecting I knew those things couldn’t be blamed for it because, we could have added it to part of our day at others times and didn’t. So, why didn’t we?

As I was still working on figuring that out, I started to wonder were there other simple things we were not doing anymore in our marriage? And if so, how was that affecting us and how did we let those little things slip away ?

I realized quickly there were other little things we either had stopped completely, or they were not happening as often as typical for us. And even at times there were things that would only happen if we were not fighting.

We were not kissing each other as often or long. Or saying I love you. And pet names weren’t happening as often.

And that helped me realize how we got disconnected.

Our pet names had become mom and dad since we had become parents. We heard those two names from one another more than anything else.

So, they had become solely who we were. We had become just mom and dad now. We were no longer individuals let alone husband and wife. And I knew that I really had disappeared into that part of my identity personally.

Being a mom had become my priority.

For so many moms especially first time moms this is something common to happen. You all of sudden have this tiny little human that is depending on you for absolutely everything.

You are in a state of mind of overwhelm all the time as you try and learn how to both care for your new child and learn who you actually are as a mother.

And let’s not forget the constant physical overstimulation. Which by the way wasn’t even part of my every day vocabulary until I was A mother.

On top of that I have abuse, neglect, and childhood trauma that colors every parenting decision I make especially right in the beginning. I was desperate to the point of it being paralyzing at times to be break generational patterns in my family. The mindset that I am who I am in spite of my parents and upbringing could definitely be used to describe myself and my parenting.

With all this combined, I had become solely focused on being a mom

To the point where I wouldn’t even leave my son. He is almost 3 now as I write this and to this day no one has baby sat him for more than one hour ( 1 time). It took me over a year and half to even leave him alone with his dad.

I spent all day long filling every single moment with learning, developing and creating a healthy attachment with my son and my husband as a family unit.

And I had completely lost sight of not only myself and this new version of myself but, I had lost sight of my role as a wife separate from being a family. And how important daily intentions and small little things helped foster that connection.

I had forgotten how we had been just the two of us for a decade prior.

Which made my husband feel like I was forgetting him on a daily basis. And if you feel forgotten how are you suppose to stay connected to one another?

So how was I going to let my husband know that he was not forgotten and how was I going to make that connection an intentional priority each day.

By kissing randomly, saying I love you just because, making physical contact randomly when you can like cuddling during tv, talking the time each day to check in with each other as partners and not at parents, and more.

Once I realized this what did I do?

I took what I had realized and I made it my main goal to be very intentional with creating those small moments of intentional connection with my husband completely separate from my son and as a family unit.

When he was sleeping in the morning while I was up, I would go in and kiss him periodically and whisper I love him so he could start his day in love and connection every morning when he woke up. I would also make sure to stop and kiss him for 30-60 seconds throughout the day to continue to foster that connection.

I was intentional with noticing when we were alone together and made the choice to be mindful and fully present to simply just be in same space with each other and in each other’s energies instead of going to do on of the many things my brain had on it’s to do list or to go check on my son.

At the end of the day, I started checking in with him to see if there was anything I could have done differently that day to foster connection between us or if there was anything he needed from me to do that.

The difference this made and how quickly suprised me!

Seriously, in about 4-6 weeks our communication started to improve and we were fighting less often. Not personally attacking each other and taking the time to hear each other an apologize when we needed to.

I had some big issues I was working thru with my husband that suddenly were easier to radically accept. ( I will leave the details for another article. )

Our sex life improved in so many ways and now looks so different in the most liberating and cosmic ways.

The feelings of isolation were less.

The feeling unheard and misunderstood by each other was being expressed less and less as well.

We had begun to feel like a team again and like this wasn’t possibly the end of our time together in this life.

The small moments and intentions had rekindled our connection.

They had given us exactly what we needed to reset our relationship and commit to be able to keep working through this patch of growth TOGEHER IN THE SAME DIRECTION!

Are we out of the patch completely? NO. Which is why we are committed to remembering we learned and making those small moments of intentional connection happen each and every day where we are just husband and wife and not mom and dad.

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New Moon in Aquarius; a time for awakening, great change and creativity

This month’s new moon comes to us in the very creative, life changing and airy energy that is Aquarius. This new moon is super strong now that Pluto is in Aquarius for this New Moon, and we’re entering a whole new era. This is a huge time for change, but this isn’t small change. It’s huge, maybe life-altering at times, and normally that scares us, but with Aquarius, we’re ready to go.

But, first a brief run down of what the new moon is

The new moon is the time to reflect and cleanse your energy. It is a time to  set your intentions for what you wish to attract this lunar cycle. Every  intention set requires action and energy from your part as well.

The new  moon energy is there to support you in manifesting what you want. The  new moon is a time to allow new ideas and energy to flow with you. It is a  time to honor new beginnings, and the turning over of a cycle. Think of these  intentions as seeds you are planting for this lunar cycle to be ready to harvest by the full moon.

Use this time to  rest, reflect, and plant what you will grow just as your ancestors across  many cultures did while there was little light in the night sky for them to  use.

To go in depth about the basic foundation of the new moon and how to work with it. check out my previous blog post here https://modgepodgemystic.com/working-with-the-new-moon/

 Each New Moon is unique, offering its own magic within each month.

And this Aquarius moon is no different!

What does the sign Aquarius represent in the zodiac

Aquarius is the 11th sign in the Zodiac and is teeming with energy all about the doing the greater good for humanity, your own uniqueness, changing your life in massive ways, and expressing your creative spirit. This astrological sign brings progression, liberation, innovation, and world-mindedness.

Even though it is commonly mistaken for a water sign due to one of its most well know symbols the water bears it is actually attached to the element of air. This is because Aquarius represents the movement of knowledge, wisdom, creativity, and connection to the collective through life and spreading it on the breathe of the spirit ( AIR) to humanity for the greater good.

Aquarius is the futuristic sign of the universal collective due to it’s placement being the 11th sign and looking both at the end of cycle and towards the next one.

It’s the sign of broad learning, and the shedding of the past. It’s the sign of new, and sometimes radical, beginnings. Aquarius allows for the flow of ideas and gifts for humanity with the ability to tune into the universal mind and think outside the box without fear.

Aquarius New moon; The moon to change the world

When the new moon transits Aquarius, it feels like you can change the world. Literally! This is because of it’s strong connection to wanting to better humanity and raise it to it’s highest level of consciousness and we see this in the symbolism of the water bearer. Where you see the sign of Aquarius pouring its physical blessings of knowledge, and more out for all of humanity to access and benefit from.

With this moon you really have the opportunity to connect to a divine energy all about the expansion of humanity. You can reflect on how you have or have not been doing this in your life. And you can reflect on how you can do start to or do it differently than you are now? You will feel that deep desire to further humanity with your blessings you have to offer others through the throat chakra it is connected to.

Aquarius New moon; The moon to connect and trust in your own uniqueness

The new moon in Aquarius brings about a time to celebrate your uniqueness and who you are as a divine being. It is a time to dedicate yourself with a full blazing passion on a path towards your goals. This moon really opens up to your root chakra to allow you to be fully grounded and confident in every unique part of who are as divine soul.

This new moon invites you to invite in full trust in yourself that you know who are and what your path is for this lifetime is. You can really take this time in during this moon to reflect on what truly makes you unique and sets you apart and how can you use those traits to benefit the greater good of humanity and the collective.

Aquarius New moon; The moon of explosive creative expansion

This new moon in Aquarius ushers in a time to really truly open up to the expression of your creativity as well to look for new ways to express yourself and to expand any business endeavors in a new and innovative way. The new moon in Aquarius opens up this trusting space within yourself to be willing to accept your own uniqueness which allows your creativity to just explode without the fear of judgement since you are so happy with who you uniquely are in this energy.

This new moon give you the space to really open up to any and all new ideas to try especially if you have a business or a side hustle. You will feel this energy open up new ways for you to get you and the services you have to offer the collective.

Aquarius New moon; The moon of life altering change

With the sign of Aquarius being ruled by element air which causes the movement of energy within the water of knowledge and blessings the water bearer pours out for humanity, this moon is all about change. And not just small changes whispering through on a light breeze of the air but, big massive change blowing through you and your life in big gusts of change. This new moon opens you up to reflect on what truly needs to change in your life to finally be living the life you truly desire and were meant to be living.

Aquarius New moon; The moon of awakening and liberation

This new moon opens you to the possibility that every thought, action, and unique vibration holds the capacity to awaken some new layer of previously unexplored consciousness. We experience this with the combination that all this new moon energy has to offer. The expansive explosion of creative energy. A deepening trust in ourselves and who we uniquely are. The deep desire to spread our uniqueness to the collective for the greater good through the winds of change while altering our own life from the ground up. With all this combined how could we not awaken to a new self, a new life, and feel so liberated while doing so?

How to connect to this new moon

Now, that we have talked about the themes of this new moon and how it is going to affect you let’s talk about how you can specifically connect to and work with this moon. First, make sure to do all of your staples that your learned in the previous blog post linked above for you like, charging your crystals, making moon water, and resetting your altar.

With this moon there are certain spells and rituals that will help connect you this moon in the most effective way.

  • Any rituals to open up and express creativity
  • Expressiveness
  • Friendship spells
  • Freedom
  • Problem solving
  • Increase your intuition
  • increasing and expanding your spiritual or magic training
  • MEDITATION AND VISUALIZATIONS ARE VERY POTENT ON THESE DAYS
  • Anything to do with innovation and business endeavors
  • work that has to do with serving humanity

Correspondences for the Aquarius new moon

First, what is a correspondence? A correspondence is an item or symbol that is meant to connect you to a specific energy thru it’s representation. It is seen also as an item to respect, honor, and venerate that energy as well whether it be a deity, an archetype energy , or the zodiac energy the moon is currently in like I will list below for you to use.

  • planet-Uranus
  • Element- air
  • Sex- masculine
  • Modality- fixed
  • Symbol- the water bearer
  • colors- bright blue and purple
  • Phrase/motto- I know
  • Chakra- Throat and root
  • Flower- orchid, lavender
  • Stones/ crystals- amethyst, garnet, aquamarine, hematite
  • tarot- the star
  • Animal- the peacock

Reflection topics and questions to focus on this new moon

Every single new moon is a great time for reflection for everyone to do in order to plant your seeds of manifestation in fertile and healthy soil to sprout and grow this lunar cycle. Whether you do it thru meditation, shadow work, or divination like tarot; below is a list of prompts and topics to connect with the energy of the Aquarius moon in the most effective way.

  • What is the Aquarius energy bringing up and feeling like for you?
  • Three ways I can honor my most authentic self
  • What does the ideal version of my life look like this next lunar phase?
  • How can I share more of my gifts with others?
  • How can I best serve the greater good?
  • Can I find new ways of looking problems and solving them?
  • How can I take charge in my life to change it?
  • What old bonds or relationships are holding me hostage?
  • What Outdated beliefs do I need to re examine in my life?
  • What unique parts of myself have I been rejecting and suppressing?
  • When do I feel the most creative in my life and how can I do it more in my life?

Ritual to uncover your dream life

With this new moon in Aquarius being all about big change and fully stepping into your dream life see below this auto scripting ritual to uncover and reflect on what you want your true authentic dream life to look like. I don’t know about you, but sometimes my biggest set back to manifesting my dream life is because I don’t truly know what it is I want to manifest. And if you can not know it or see it how can you manifest it? So, here is one of my favorite rituals to clear up the murkiness and allow me to clearly see what it is I dream to manifest and this Aquarius energy is perfect to do that in.

Remember you can always adjust and change this to meet your own path, practices, and needs.

  • First step is make sure you have a writing utensil and something to write on. You can have just one sheet of paper but, I usually grab a journal or a notebook since I never know how much writing will come out.
  • Next, find yourself a comfortable place to sit, where you can be alone and enter sacred space
  • Once, you have found your space it’s time for you to take some deep breaths, center yourself and feel grounded in who you are in this moment.
  • When you feel grounded, centered and in scared space its time to pick up your writing utensil and set your intention for this session. You can do this by speaking out loud to the universe what topic it is you are asking to receive a message about this session. So, this session you will be asking to receive a message about what your authentic selves dream life looks like.
  • Than you simply let your writing utensil go whether you answer with journal prompt, a list, doodles, it does not matter just simply let the first things that come to your mind flow from you pen with zero hesitation and judgement.
  • Do this until you feel you have let it all be expressed on the page.
  • Once, you feel this you can put your writing utensil down, and take in all you have written. Absorb the messages you find there and make any notes of any further reflection needed.
  • Lastly, do not forget to thank yourself and the universe for the message you received and were open to receiving today.

However you choose to connect to this new moon in Aquarius be prepared for the deep life altering change coming your way and being introduced to the most authentic version of yourself that can advanced the greater good of humanity.

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How I found my Magical & Spiritual Path

My Journey prior to paganism and Witchcraft

As a wee bitty baby against my will I was baptized in a Lutheran church. I have very strong feelings on baptizing children into any religion and later in life I did perform an unbaptizing ritual and a chord cutting with that contract and deity. After that growing up my family wasn’t super religious until I got to middle school and my family started attending a Baptist church and my mom was remarried. And even than my parents never were devoted Christians. It always felt very surface level from them and that they were Christian for the image and when they needed financial help or support. I was always much more devote than they were and it caused many fights my teen years when I would point out some of their unchristian like behavior.

When I say devote, I mean I brought my bible with me everywhere, I was the girl at the lunch table reading my bible and saying prayers at the public school, organizing see you at the pole for the first time ever in my district and school, leading bible study groups, I had the bible memorized forwards and backgrounds due to awana, sunday school, and other bible study groups, and I went on a mission to the Dominican Republic as well. I was devoted to that religion and faith until that mission, that started to change it all for me and what happened in life afterwards.

When my disenchantment with Christianity began

My mission trip to the Dominican Republic was a turning point in my faith and who I was and who I now have become. It was a trip that caused a lot of mixed emotions for me, anger, hurt, confusion, guilt, shame, and it really began to make my faith in the Christian religion fall to pieces. Going into this trip I was so excited, so proud, and so grounded in who I was and what I stood for. I was so excited to simply go, and provide a service to help others. I deeply care about others especially when they are suffering or going through difficult times and simply wanted to help. I was so excited for the service part and focused on that. Of course I would spread the word of Jesus when I could and when it felt natural but, for me I was there to serve and help with my hands and actions.

Day one of our actual mission work and that all changed for me.

I will never forget being pulled aside after spending majority of the day playing with the kids, digging drenches and moving and tilling land for the basketball court we had come to add to the village our church had been to many times before this one. And being told I was spending too much time playing with the children and not enough time witnessing to the children.

If you know me now or knew me than, you’d expect me to immediately speak up and say “nope, that’s wrong. That’s not why I am here. I will do it my way and that’s it. In a kind way and I am here to serve first and foremost.”

None of that happened.

I got completely quiet, turned and went back to the physical labor part of our trip and that was how I finished the rest of the trip. ( until I got bit by a mosquito and got really sick)

I spent all my free time of that trip in shock/awe that conversation had even happened. I spent my time in prayer, reading the bible, and in reflection trying to figure out what had happened and if that was what I had been dedicating my life too? Had I been crusading for an institution that cared more about how many followers they had, the rules, and who their followers were? Who cared so much more about their deity, than their fellow human beings? Who thought the church was more important than what was simply kind, moral and helping your fellow human? Was this one small group of people, was it my church, was it the whole religion, was it the deity himself?

If you are reading this and at my site because you were apart of Christianity prior to this You probably had a similar moment happen and reflection follow and I am sure you have an inkling of what began to happen next for me.

Disenchantment plus Synchronicity Equals leaving the church

After that trip, I spent a lot of time reflecting and thinking looking all around me. At my fellow church goers, at the religion itself, at the text, at the leadership, and how we treated others. And than the multiverse stepped in and added another thing in my life with the beauty that is synchronicity; I took AP world History at school. That class opened up so many doors for me. I had always loved history but, it was so limited to what I had been taught at that point. And to hear what my religion had been doing globally to mankind for centuries really made me look more. On top of that being taught other religious beliefs from a source outside my church was EYE OPENING. And led to my own study of these religions and belief systems.

I started studying Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, and at that time was being taught to me as mythology like Greece, Rome, Persia and Egypt. I would stay after class, and go and find any time I could to study and ask my teacher questions.

By the end of that school year I would no longer have a bible on me, I would no longer be saying prayer at school, and I would be fighting with my parents about forcing me to go to church and study groups. I even got to the point of just out right arguing under my breath passive aggressively out loud during sermons.

I would no longer consider myself Christian. My parents would continue to force me to keep the image up for their sake at church but, I never got baptized in the Baptist church and later would not be married with any religion whatsoever.

So, where did my path go from here?

At first, I didn’t what it was I really believed. I was going back and forth on what I wanted to do.

Did I want to look for just a strict religion or was I looking for more?

Was I looking for more of a way of life something that would be so much; a belief system, morals, religion, purpose, your answer to life and being and more?

I wanted more which is why after awhile the traditional religions I had learned about in school and started to study just didn’t seem to quite fit. Not even atheism which I was for awhile in the middle of it all.

This is how I started looking into paganism, magic, and specifically wicca.

I had never in my life doubted that magic, the occult, or mythical creatures and entities were real and existed. That is a truth I have known my entire life and I never thought it was an evil or bad thing either. I wasn’t a Christian who thought reading harry potter was evil and should be banned. I was an over the top fan actually and those books helped me survive my abusive childhood. But, that is for another post at another time.

I just never before this had thought it was something I was capable of having access too or using.

I thought it was a birthright or you had to be lucky enough to be chosen to be taught something that sacred. I also had zero comprehension of how to actually work with energy at this point so, as I look back it makes sense I had this view.

So, I very shyly and under the radar started checking out books on magic, and wicca at the library and would only read them while hiding at school or in my truck. That year was the first year I ever connected to the moon, and cast my first spell. I stayed in wicca for less than year for many reasons, some being I simply don’t agree with a lot of the doctrine, the person who founded it, and I didn’t want to be forced into a coven and space with others.

For a long time I simply looked into mythology and different ways to connect to the seasons, the moon, and the elements. I learned how to make moon water and would secretly make it on my window sill in my bedroom. But, my stepdad wasn’t really paying attention and my mom was in prison so, I was able to experiment a lot more and start to cast more and study more.

I spent the next 5-6 years really just learning and studying and doing it under the radar as much as I could because I wasn’t sure really yet what I thought and I didn’t know if I was a witch and if I was, was I willing to come out of the witch’s closet especially where I live in Central MN? So, in public I identified as Agnostic During this time I had my first encounter with a deity and met two of patron deities hades and Persephone. I met my first demon and Fae.

After, I got married around 25 I got my first altar in my home, started practicing out in the open. I Finally was able to put a name and image to my spirit guide (kitsune named kana) who had been with me for so long and I began to really connect to Shintoism and study intensely this practice and add a Kamidana to my practice. I started my journey down the path of grey witchcraft and duality at this time as well.

I spent the next 5 years studying many many topics I will do my best to list them all below. But first what do I mean by studying?

I live in an area that isn’t the best for access to resources and we tend to be at least a few years behind others as well. On top of that other practices outside of Christianity are passive aggressively tolerated here. And if you have never felt passive aggressive judgement from a Minnesotan before, its more powerful than peer pressure.

So, due to this I have been a solitary practioner until October of 2023. How I have learned and studied while being solitary ( and having very little money always) is this; I take every single free workshop I can, every free class I can. I get and read every book, grimoire, blog, essay, research paper I can find on a topic. When I say study I look at a topic from the many perspectives; magical, historical, anthropological, cultural and more. I have paid for a few programs for reiki and chakra reading/ balancing, sound healing, astrology, and crystal healing.

After, I feel I have done enough study, I have reached out to some mentors I have made connections to after taking free classes and workshops with them, and I have done the reflection, meditation, and shadow work. I get to the practical work. I plan, I prep, I practice, and than perform it. ( keep an eye out for a future blog post on the 4 P’s of experimenting with your magic) Each and every time it is an experiment grounded in the confidence of your intuition, energy and your own power and divinity.

List of topics I have studied

Many forms of divination- tarot, astrology, runes, fire scrying, mirror scrying, water scrying, and many more

Pantheons/ Religions-Greek, roman, Babylonian, Egyptian, Shintoism, Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Norse, Celtic, Irish, Germanic tribes, Hinduism, Mesopotamia, many “left-hand” path practices and many more

Deities- When it comes to deities I can list some of the ones I work the most closely with but, it’s honestly better to just ask me! Persephone, hades, Lilith, Amaterasu, Loki, Kali ma, Pan, Lucifer, Most “dark Goddess”

Sex magic, goetic magic, demonology, mirror magic, elemental magic, moon magic, crystals, Kundalini reiki, sigils, energy work, sacred contract topics, manifestation, the Akashic record, past life regression, Trauma work, shadow work, liminal work, ceremonial magic, ritual magic, deity work, channeling, meditation, building a sacred space, many “mythological” creatures/entities, hermetics, working with the rays of light, womb healing, and so much more.

I will add to this list as I can remember to add!

Where my Path is at Today

I have been a solitary grey magic practioner for about 15 years now.

And this past year I began attending a Pagan Academy as a student where my knowledge and practice was recognized and I have now become a Professor there teaching many topics, summoning deities for others and hosting rituals including casting circles and calling down the moon.

First and foremost, I consider myself a mystic and seeker of all knowledge. I study from many different sources, paths, pantheons, religions, cultures, teachers and practices. Two of my main patron deities were keepers of the schools of mysteries ( hades & persephone). And I dedicated to becoming one with the multiverse through all esoteric and occult knowledge.

I have practiced and studied from many different teachers and masters in areas such as shamanism, magic(k), witchcraft, religion and spiritual practices.

I focus my studies on being as accurate to the culture and religion as possible throughout history and representing it all.

I am a grey magick practioner which means I work with both dark and light energy and strive to maintain constant duality in my practice and life. I live and thrive in the grey.

I do not view things in the terms of “good” vs “evil” I view everything as energy and as either wanted or unwanted energy.

I believe in sacred contracts, and have discovered many of mine and strive to live in a way to fulfill it this lifetime. I’ve done a lot of past live regression and work and continue to do more to this day to unlock more of my past lives and knowledge I have gained through each incarnation. I do this through many way like currently working with a mentor on past life regression therapy, Ive done Akashic record work, studying and worked with auto writing, and astral travel and work as well.

I work with all the dark goddesses and have the ability to channel and invoke deities. I Love the connections I have with many deities and the energy they allow me access to connect to through a different perspective but, I also understand I myself am a goddess and divine being in my own right as well.

My magic is very folk, ceremonial, energy based and elemental based with some chaos magic mixed in and some others. I really do dabble in large variety.

I write every single prayer, spell, invocation, and circle casting personally I use.

I work with many divination tools and practices such as all forms of scrying, tarot, runes, etc.

I work with deity energy, archetype energy, chakras, the collective uncounscious, all forms of nature, other entities such as demons, the fae, and all supernatural entities.

I focus heavily on moon energy in practice and in my daily life and home.

My knowledge is extensive across many practices, topics and paths.

My energy and magic is naturally very healing, purifying and cleansing and I love to provide that to others as it is a key part to my soul contract.

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Imbolc; Midwinter

First, What is Imbolc?

Imbolc is a sabbat on the Wiccan Wheel of the Year but is originally an ancient Celtic holiday celebrating the first signs of Spring. The word Imbolc is believed to mean either “ewe’s milk” or “in the belly”, which obviously refers to the birth of baby lambs around this time in Ireland and Scotland. In modern times, most of us don’t understand the harshness of Winter that our ancestors endured. At this time, they were coming out of a period of brutal weather and their food stores were declining. So when the babies were born and the milk starting flowing, it was a good day. It meant they’d have more food to last the rest of the Winter season. nourishment, survival, purification and protection a big themes for imbolc.

In addition to celebrating rebirth, life, and replenishment, the Celtic goddess Brigid is honored on Imbolc. Another name for Imbolc is Brigid’s Day or Saint Brigid’s Day, as her saintly counterpart is also honored on this day. Imbolc is celebrated annually on February 1st in the Northern Hemisphere and August 1st in the Southern Hemisphere. There are many traditions and practices sacred to this day including making Brigid’s crosses, feasting on Imbolc foods, and making magic.

Brigid the Irish goddess of Imbolc; who is she?

Brigid is also known as Brigit or Bríg.

  • The Bright One
  • Fiery Arrow
  • The Powerful One
  • The High One
  • Great Mother Goddess of Ireland
  • Lady of the Sacred Flame
  • Eternal Flame of Life
  • Flame of Inspiration
  • The Mistress of the Mantle

She is the Irish Goddess of fertility and spring.

A Goddess in Irish tradition, Brigid is one of the most well-known. Pagans know her as Great Mother Goddess of Ireland, and Christians as a Saint Brigid. With this energy, Brigid brings the remembrance of our Oneness and is an awesome affirmation of the Eternal Essence of the Divine Feminine.

Brigid is considered a Triple Goddess, yet many references distinguish Brigit differently than the traditional Triple Goddess aspects of Maiden, Mother and Crone. Rather Brigid is frequently referenced having three sister selves with three distinct roles, Lady of Healing Waters, Goddess of the Sacred Flame and Goddess of the Fertile Earth.

According to famous witch and writer Laurie Cabot, “Brigid is honored in her maiden aspect, but she is a pregnant maiden, pregnant with the young seed of the Sun. At Imbolc, also called the Festival of Lights, Brigid wears a radiant crown of candles. She is wondrous healer, Protector, and Patron of Creative Inspiration. Until her light is fully born again at Beltane, Brigid ensures that the seed is nurtured inside her womb and that the home fires continue to burn through the final days and nights of Winter.”

She is associated with many things; Poetry, Healing, Midwinter/Imbolc, Flames/fire, Fertility, and Motherhood.

Imbolc Magical and Spiritual Themes

Every season and every pagan holiday has certain concepts and magical themes. Which means, depending on your tradition and needs, you can weave one or more of these themes into your personal celebrations. On Imbolc, also called Brigid’s Day, we see the following magical rituals and spells

  • Purification
  • Protection
  • Love
  • Fire and Water
  • Awakening
  • Rebirth
  • Honoring the goddess Brigid and Saint Brigid
  • Prosperity
  • Healing

Imbolc Correspondences

Colors-White: represents the Snow and milk
Green: represents the newly emerging earth and the green of Brigid’s mantle
Pink: symbolizes the female reproductive system
Orange and red: represent Brigid’s sacred fire
Pastel Spring colors

Food and decorations-acorn, bears, deer, Brigids cross, evergreens, grains, dairy, milk

crystals- amethyst, moonstone, ruby, garnet, bloodstone, onyx, turquoise,

Herbs/ flowers- basil. bay leaves, chamomile, jasmine, rosemary, lavendar

Spell workings-
Make a Brigid Cross
Create an Imbolc Altar
Give an offering of milk to the earth
honor Brigid
charge new tools for the year
Reflect on goals set during Yule
Have a bonfire
Light a candle on Imbolc eve to meet Brigid in the liminal space
Take a cleansing and purifying bath or shower

Divination-fire scrying

Scrying by Candleflame

Since Imbolc is a holiday that honors Brigid and her sacred fire, why not try your eye at fire scrying? If you have the ability to have a bonfire, then go for it! If not, a simple candle will do the trick. But keep in mind, a roaring fire outside will have different results from a small flame inside. You could even try both. This form of scrying is as simple as watching the flames and allowing pictures to form. This can be literally in the fire OR images that flash into your mind.

How do I celebrate and honor this sacred day?

Imbolc, also called St. Brigid’s Day, is an ancient Celtic holiday celebrated annually on February 1st. It’s a time when Winter starts to fade and the first signs of Spring pop up to remind us life will blossom again soon. But how do we celebrate Imbolc in our own modern way? Below you will find out some ways you can do this in your own life and practice.

Imbolc wishing ritual

You can use either a box or a Jar

Take the vessel and decorate it with Imbolc and spring correspondences.

Than take a sheet of paper (green if you can) And write out all your wishes for the coming year and/or season. You can also add rosemary and/or bay leaves into the box.

Than take the paper and energetically seal it within your vessel while saying

“ As the sun begin its rebirth I gave my thanks back to mother earth. Embracing change, with the light of hope the seeds of the future I continue to sow.”

Than Take the vessel and add it to your altar or leave it in a place you can see it often and come back to and charge yourself with its energy

Imbolc Spell jar

I love, love, love spell jars! They have so much power and energy packed into such a small space. You get to decide the energy and intention that is sealed off in there for you to be able to come back to whenever you need to recharge with it.

Some things to make sure when you create this spell jar, make sure wash and cleanse the jar before you use it. You can also charge it under the moon and at your altar prior to using it. Before you add each item to the jar make sure to you have created a sacred space, and set your intention energetically.

Once you add the items you can say any incantation, intention, manifestation, or spell while energetically sealing the jar. You can also as a bonus seal it with wax on top and/or sigils. For a more detailed look at how to create spell jars and the simple beauty of their power look at for a new blog post coming soon.

Imbolc Shadow work

Every single holiday and celebration brings it’s own special energy with it and with that comes specific shadow work themes and prompts to work with while in the sacred liminal space of that specific sacred day.

What is shadow work? In case you don’t know.

Shadow work is necessary if you wish to grow spiritually and personally. It will help you better understand yourself, your traumas, and the old wounds you are carrying. Not to mention, help you better understand other people.

The idea of shadow work is to bring your dark sides out into the light and learn to accept and love them. There are different exercises and activities to help explore those aspects of yourself, but you must first acknowledge your shadow.

Everyone has a shadow self. The shadow gets developed in our childhood from our ego while adapting to social norms. We learn to change and adapt our behavior in a way that is acceptable in society. But along the way, we also bury an authentic part of ourselves, our shadow side.

If you want to learn more about this topic check out my FREE youtube class With divination academy and study guide linked here; https://youtu.be/lhPItS33eu4?si=UbdnoUDghlmy5bbz, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dkXzYdb6HAbfJCgkfcdaR0cifj12D5A0/view?usp=sharing

Imbolic spell using Brigid’s fire of creativity

What You’ll Need:
White candle (tealight or spell size is best)
Lighter
Carnelian: small chunk or pendant
How to Cast the Spell:
Gather your supplies. Set the mood with music, incense, etc.
Set your carnelian chunk or pendant close to the candle.
Get into a relaxed state, light the candle and say, “candlelight, fire bright, burst through the darkness and stagnancy inside of me. I ask Brigid to lend me her fire of inspiration and creativity.”
Close your eyes and repeat the prayer two more times. Visualize a small flame in your heart growing bigger and brighter. This is the fire of passion and creative ingenuity. Let it continue to grow in your mind’s eye as the candle burns down.
When the candle is done burning, pick up the carnelian stone and carry it on you. Wear it daily and know that the fire of creativity is inside of that stone. Lending its energy to you.
Now CREATE. Whatever that means to you: writing, arts and crafts, a new project at work, music, etc. etc.

However, you choose to celebrate this sacred day whether it’s honoring Brigid, pouring milk back into the earth, fire scrying, and so much more may this blessing be with you!

May the life stirring
underground stir new
dreams to life within you.
May the flames of inspiration and passion
be ignited in your soul this Imbolc/ Midwinter

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How to make 2024 an actual year of change by turning knowledge to wisdom thru action

How to make 2024 an actual year of change by turning knowledge to wisdom thru action

The year 2023 was a huge one for me that was full of transformation, and so much death and rebirth over and over again.

 But, that’s the way of the multiverse and that’s the beauty of duality. You must have the wanted with unwanted, the dark with light, the sun with the rain, the death with the rebirth.

I spent the last year building a life truly worth living for and to do that I had to experience it all, and turn knowledge into wisdom and action.

Prior to this year I spent a lot of time focusing on gathering every tip, tool, trick and tidbit of information I could get my hands on to tell me what to do with my life. how to become more emotionally stable. How to get healthier. Really just how to build my life in general. I devoured every blog, self help book, podcast, youtube video, and created countless pinterest boards. 

And every year nothing changed long term. 

I would have spans of pockets of time where things would click into place and become a new lifestyle but, after a few months at most. Poof! 

Gone  again!

So, what was so different this year?

First I really sat down and looked at everything I had collected and learned throughout the years and began to realize how many tools I really had learned about and how much information I already knew and that I had available to me. 

Second, I got really brutally honest with myself and let myself realize I had all this knowledge and all these tools at my fingertips and I hadn’t been using a single one of them consistently.

 I had never taken the knowledge I had learned, put action behind it and turned it into wisdom. 

I had all these bullet journals full of quotations.

Full of spreads, habit trackers, goals that were completely empty.

I had notebooks full of notes from self help books, podcasts, and more.

But, I never actually had taken all that knowledge and used it!  I had never actually taken what I learned and applied it to my life actively and intentionally.

So, no wonder all those years I had felt stuck, how I felt like I kept going in this cycle of success, failure, shame spiral, depression, spark of motivation and then mania. 

No wonder all those years I had been so exhausted and drained. 

No wonder all those years most of all I was confused and doubting my worth and capabilities. I had all the information I needed but I never put that information to use to improve my life.

Once you realize this, what in the world do you do?

To be honest, it might hit you hard. You might cry like I did, start to blame yourself, and spiral a little bit. And that is 10000000% okay to feel, just don’t let it consume you. 

Give yourself GRACE!

Do you realize how big of a deal it is to first be willing to even look at and try and figure out what’s been causing a pattern or cycle for you? 

Let alone being willing to realize that there is a missing piece you need to work on and then being willing to work on it?!

So many humans wouldn’t even take it this far. 

So, celebrate yourself! 

Give yourself a high five!

 Do whatever you need to do to let your mind and body know this is a huge deal and a pivotal moment of change for you.

YAY!!!!!!

Next, try to pinpoint what’s causing you not add action behind your knowledge

There are a few ways to do this.

First, do a behavior chain analysis. This is a skill I learned in DBT

step 1-describe the problem behavior

step 2-describe the prompting event

step 3-describe the vulnerability factors prior to the event

step 4-Descibe the main events leading to the behavior

step 5-desribe the consequences of that behavior

Once you can identify what the actual problem is, then you determine what skills to use, and what type of plan you need to make to help you succeed going forward and to have the skills ready when you need them.

Another way you can do this is the why method

I like the why method  a lot because it’s simple and you start to understand why toddlers like to do it so much as well.

What you do is simply keep asking yourself the base question of why until you can not anymore. 

Until you can not find any other alternative answer or explanation for a certain event, your emotions, or why you reacted in a certain way. 

Here’s an example;

My son came to ask me for help to push him in his swing. 

I right away felt my jaw tighten and my eyes roll and heard myself saying no to him. Even though he hadn’t asked for it all day and I could tell from my bodily sensations this was going to be a big explosion of anger if I didn’t figure out why I was so upset and wanting to not just say no but, yell no immediately. 

So, I used some tips skills which I will talk about in another blog post and I began to ask myself why?

Why am I so upset?

Why does my son asking for the swing trigger me?

Why is it triggering me specifically right now?

Why is my body shaking? Am I hungry, tired, anxious, overstimulated?

Why am I really saying no?  

And I kept asking until I realized what was the reason behind my behavior this time. Which was simply I had been so busy that day, I had no idea what time it was, had not eaten and was really just overstimulated.

Knowing this, made me able to solve these issues and realign myself to be able to go and help my swing in his swing so he could use his tools to regulate. 

Now that was a specific example to help you understand how it works. And I am sure you are sitting there thinking “ how in the world does that help me turn knowledge to wisdom through action?”

Well, when you take this method or the behavior chain analysis and apply that to your overall life, and previous year you give yourself the space to reflect and break down to the very core Why you haven’t been able to commit to change and create the life you want. 

Why you haven’t taken things you have learned and know you should be doing and actually applying them. 

If you don’t know the why behind avoidance, or the why behind a failure, or the why behind the lack of motivation or inspiration then how will you ever move through it to your destination?

For me, it really came down too, I needed to believe I was worth it. 

I simply did not think I deserved the life I wanted, the goals I had been dreaming about, or even my basic human needs met. 

This was really hard for me to sit with and ride the emotions of. To acknowledge and understand how deeply I felt this. And how it was influencing every decision I made or did not make and every action I took or did not take. 

But, once I was able to fully realize there is no other why after this one.

I was able to start the work needed to move through it by figuring out what had caused this, why for me in the past and what was solidifying it now. 

Moving through that got me to the place where I could finally make a plan to allow me the space, time and tools needed to take  all knowledge I had learned and turn it into action to completely change myself and my life.

If you want to know how I made that plan and what that plan was, keep an eye out for the next blog post in this section about personal development plans! What they are, how to make one, and what was in mine last year that changed my life so dramatically!

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The Importance of Experimenting with your magic

This is something I have been wanting to find the time to touch on for a little while after I became a professor and stepped out of solitary practice and entered the more public world of magic, witchcraft, and paganism that has sprouted up. 

I am thrilled we now have public facebook groups, and blogs like this one and others, podcasts and youtubes videos for us to learn from and be able to expand our path and practices. 

But, one thing I am coming across often from those who claim to have practiced for a long time and from those new coming to the path. 

Is one; gatekeeping and trying to state there is one way, one path, and universal rules to all pagans, and witches. 

And two

New witches and pagans seem to be looking for an exact blueprint and manual of how to walk this path and how to practice magic and witchcraft. 

In this post I want to address both of those issues and tell you why you should do your best to shatter them. 

Magic is and should be seen as a sacred practice, an artform and a science all in one. 

Which means it is fluid! 

It has no one “right” way to do it.

It has no one universal set of rules 

( well outside the hermetic laws and even that is up for debate in the community)

It doesn’t have one set path.

It doesn’t have one set blueprint.

That is the only thing that is set, and a universal truth. 

Is That this path is going to differ from each and every soul and in each life.

It is going to differ from culture to culture. 

From one geographic region to another. 

Your gifts and affinities will change your path and practice. 

There are countless deities to work with.

Will you even work with a deity at all?

Or do you view you as the only deity?

Do you want to work with planets?

Do you want to work with elements?

Do you want to work with “dark” magic?

Do you even believe magic can be “dark”

Look at how many questions I have here!

And this is just scratching the surface. 

How can anyone gate keep and try and tell others what they can and can not work with, what they believe, what calls to them, and how to do it?

Another reason to stop with gatekeeping and why my mind can’t understand how so many can do it. Most not all pagans, and witches came from christianity. And we did so because it was so restrictive. 

Because, it tried to tell us who we must be and how. 

Because, it tried to tell us who to worship, how and when.

Why would we want to continue that behavior and those sentiments in our communities here? 

Why do we continue to create more religious trauma in some cases?

Now, I have acknowledged how many of us came from christianity first. Myself included. I was even on mission trips, service trips, and did a lot to further their rights in my school district in middle school. 

I want to acknowledge that due to this many new witches and pagans are looking for a manual and a blueprint because that is what they know. That is what they are used to, and that is what they are comfortable with. 

I did it too for a while there in the beginning.

I keep looking for the right beginning

The right practice to start to learn

The right path

I kept looking for the love and light only answers 

( I will do a post on why I think this movement is so harmful to humanity)

And I got nowhere.

I would be told that I must start with chakra work.

Than I was told no you must start with the moon.

Than I was told Shadow work by some while others told me doing shadow work was forbidden and evil.

I was getting so frustrated and about to give up and just go back to what i had known because i could never be given a “right” answer.

And than I read my first blog post about what being a pagan and witch really should mean. 

I can’t tell you now where it was or who wrote it. 

But, i remember reading about how it is all an experiment. 

We all have our own paths. 

We all have our own gifts. 

And I sat there and really had to reflect on that.

How could this not be true

When there isnt another soul who can do what you can do so why would you ever find a manual on how to do it? 

Why would any other soul know exactly what my path is, my gifts are? 

They wouldn’t!

And it was up to me to figure out exactly how to use them!

Now saying this i don’t want to discredit teachers,mentors, and guides. As i am one. They have their purpose and they can help give you the framework and the inspiration you need to experiment and look at what you really can do and what you can connect to.

I also want to add that while we should be experimenting and seeing what we can create and how things interact with us, and other energies around us. We need to honor any closed or restrictive practices and cultures and perform those practices as they teach us to for respect and reverence. 

And we need to always do the research and study the history and cultures our practices come from. 

We need to always be prepared for all consequences both intentional and unintentional of our experimentation and accept them and make amends when it is applicable.

Once we do all that and we honor and keep what must be kept, the world really does become so much bigger in the world of magic and witchcraft for you!

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Top 23 lessons of 2023

The year 2023 was a huge one for me that was full of transformation, and so much death and rebirth over and over again.

But, that’s the way of the multiverse and that’s the beauty of duality. You must have the wanted with unwanted, the dark with light, the sun with the rain, the death with the rebirth.

I spent the last year building a life truly worth living for and to do that I had to experience it all, and turn knowledge into wisdom and action.

2023 was a massive year for me full of transformation, and so much death and rebirth. I had some of my highest of highs and some of my lowest of lowest of lows this past year.

I find it so important to honor and acknowledge both aspects of life so here are some of the accomplishments from this year;

? Graduated DBT

?Cut ties with all toxic family

? Became a professor teaching magic and paganism

? Was a crucial part to getting abortion codified

? Served my community in many ways

? Heard olyver say I love you

? celebrated 13 years with Vincent

?Wrote over 3000 pages for my books and students

? Made great new friends

?Started a business

? Founded a pagan temple

And here are some of the many challenges this year

? Going thru pe trauma therapy

? Being diagnosed with OCD and DID which brought me to 6 disorders being diagnosed with

? This was the toughest year our marriage has ever been thru.

?Finding the right communication method for olyver

?Olyvers official diagnosis

? Gaslighting from family Members and my mother

?Working thru body image issues and an eating disorder

? Financial instability

?Dealing with imposter syndrome about teaching

?Deep feelings of isolation and loneliness

Your life and you really can look completely different in one years time.

I am so grateful to the many lessons in duality this year taught me and I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store. The year of the 3 pillars for me! The year I fully step into my identity as a goddess!

Here are the top 23 lesson I look away from 2023 ( in no particular order)

1.Life is much easier when you assume everyone is both doing the best they can be and they need to be doing better.

This one is still hard for me at times. But, when you start to look at the people around you as doing the best they can, with the knowledge they have, their circumstances, the resources they have access to, and what traumas and triumphs they carry with them. While also recognizing when they hurt you, make a mistake, or cause unwanted feelings they can still grow, change, and do better next time. You connect to others humanity more, you have more empathy for them, and more grace for them. While at the same time holding and keeping respect for yourself in a healthy and symbiotic way.

2. DBT saved my life and everyone should be taught it.

DBT- Dialectical behavior therapy in case you didn’t know what that meant. I had never heard of it until this program was suggested to by my cbt therapist after 5 years of being with her. This therapy quite literally saved my life in every sense of the word. It taught me to think dialectically, skills to actually know what the hell my emotions were, and how to use them in a healthy way. It taught me what wise mind and walking the middle path meant and how to do that.( aka mindfulness) It brought understanding of myself in so many ways. It literally taught me how to REWIRE my brain, my patterns, my behaviors, and my emotions. It taught me how to be present in my life. Most importantly it stopped 30 years of suicidal ideation and taught me how to create a life worth living for and how to maintain it!  If it does all this why shouldn’t we be teaching it to everyone.


3.You won’t heal until you decide you no longer can keep living the way you have been.

There are many stages to readiness I think everyone goes through when it comes to change, healing, growth, trauma, mental instability, and even addiction and to be honest I learned this from dr. phil. He isn’t wrong either. I am living proof of it. ( I’ll do a separate blog post to break down how this actually happened later) I Had for a long time now known intellectually I needed help, and I knew it needed to happen. I read the self help books, made the Pinterest boards, got the supplies, would schedule appts to meet a therapist or to go back, would get back on meds. I would take the steps, gather the knowledge, and the resources but, never follow through with it or act on it. I would get spurts of being emotionally ready for the sake of others and because others told me they needed me to as well. But, until I hit this soul wrenching moment where I was jobless, living in one room with my husband, 3cats, and my newborn son, I had not eaten in 2 days, and I was sitting on the floor with a note in my hand and a plan, and I heard my son make a noise in his sleep while napping and I felt it from the depths of my soul and that I simply could not live like this anymore no matter what. I couldn’t keep feeling that way, and barely existing. Until then, and that moment happened, did I finally have the determination, strength and reason to heal and recover.

4.Family truly is what you create it to be. Blood will not always be there for you or support you.

Family support is not something I am familiar with. Even launching this blog and site, becoming a professor, and all my political work I don’t receive support or even congratulations from my family. It just isn’t something that happens and I’ve come to be okay with it and no longer support those who don’t support me in return and I have done that by creating my family. Truly grasping and understanding that at its core family means those cheering you, supporting you, holding you up, making you feel heard, loved and proud of you. You can get all this and build this with anyone they don’t need to be blood.

5.Boundaries will cause you to lose people.

Plain and simple some people can not handle boundaries and you will lose some if not many when you put them in place AND enforce them. They see them as control or rules and they fight it. Some people can’t handle change and aren’t able to grow and evolve with who you are and can’t give you things they simply do not have like respect for your growth thru boundaries.

6. Letting go doesn’t mean you bury the past. It means you radically accept it and understand that it simply was.

I have heard on a loop in my life from family to just let the past go. First it’s toxic to say to every situation to just let it go. Just letting it goes comes with the huge implication that you don’t need to work thru the emotions and/or events that need to be let go. Not working through things like can cause lasting long term affects. It also implies no accountability for someone to need to take or changed behavior by them which continues an unhealthy relationship and/or abuse. Lastly, it takes away from the impact an emotion/person/ or event had on that person and in some cases you are continuing the abuse in a form of gaslighting.

7.To truly transform your life and you, you must burn it down to the ground in order to grow back in the most fertile soil beneath  the ashes. 

There honestly is a shit ton to unpack with this one and it is one of the biggest lessons I have learned and that I do my best to remind others of when they are struggling or on a healing journey. If they are really truly wanting radical life altering change they will have to burn their whole way of life to the ground, their thought patterns, fear and more to achieve it. We see this in nature time and time again. after a forest fire or a volcanoes eruption happens in that area what happens next? The land is cleansed, it heals, and it comes back more fertile than ever to sustain a whole new ecosystem.

I can speak to this on so many levels in my own personal life and journey. Every single time I have evolved and moved through to my next step in my healing journey my life, me, and my thought patterns have been burnt to the ground. Hell my home has even burnt down twice in my life and each time I was able to rise from the ashes in growth. It is even something they make sure to teach and have you understand in the ORIENTATION for DBT therapy/ treatment. That majority of your time in the program you will be sitting in stage 1 where your world, relationships, and you are burning down, on fire and the flames are almost to much to bear but, you claim through that to a whole new way of being and seeing the world.

“The ashes of your existence will fertilize the soil for the universe to follow.” -Richard Kadrey

8.Every day is about progress not perfection.

This right here is a key factor to me meeting so many of my goals from last year, being able to keep my commitment to DBT and graduate the program, and to so much of my growth and change. I am a chronic people pleaser, a perfectionist, and someone who is very comfortable in routine and control. I live my day to day life with OCD as well which has my brain on high alert, and I have done so much work to get it to a manageable place and the threat level I feel from disorder isn’t so catastrophic anymore. *( Do I still obsessively clean more than others, have rituals and routines I must do and fight to maintain order more than I go with the flow? Yes of course. But, I no longer think quite literally if I a blanket isn’t perfectly straight on my couch I am in severe impending danger if I do not fix it immediately. Will I still fix it? of course but, it isn’t detrimental if I don’t anymore).

Hanging on to this mantra, repeating it to myself daily, writing it over and over in my BUJO, putting it on sticky notes up in my house, and on my goal board helped ground me and give me an IMENSE amount of grace I needed to be giving myself. It allowed me to navigate my emotions without letting them get overwhelming and cause a shame spiral and it brought me back to my own humanity. By reminding myself I am just as flawed as any other human being on this planet that I give grace to each and every day. And I deserve to be given it as well.

It also helped me be realistic with my goal setting, my expectations, and with my true reality and circumstances I was in.

9.Relationships that are one-sided are draining and not worth the energy.

This is pretty self explanatory but, I want to make a distinction with this. I am a very kind soul, I pride myself in that. I am very empathetic and I do many things in my life and with my time to help those from many different communities. I do this because it simply is who I am, I can not do it, and I deeply want to help others. I never help others with any expectation of things in return and I will never be that way. This is not a tit for tat kind of lesson or thing here. This is about simply getting the basics from others in energy exchange within relationship structures. It’s about not always having to be the one making plans to see them, not being the first one to reach out, having them be interested in your life, give you basic support, and simply put treating you with basic human decency. When even those things can not be met, a relationship is so draining it toxic for you and should be removed.

10. Mental health goes hand and hand with your magic and spiritual practices.

These two are so intricately linked you simply can’t work on one without the other. Or have one affect the other. Are there things magic can be the only answer too? yes. And are there things mental health can be the only answer too? yes. But, overall if you are disconnected or unstable in one the other will only be able to flourish as much as the other. I am going to be writing so much on this and break it down for you all on this journey with me.

11. If the soil you are growing in isn’t fertile and healthy you won’t grow.

You can do all the self development in the world. You can do all the therapy programs in the world. You can do all the shadow work in the world. But, if you are living in an unhealthy, unstable, toxic and maybe even abusive environment. Or your environment is populated by one or more unhealthy, unstable, toxic, or maybe even abusive individuals. You will never FULLY heal, evolve, awaken or fulfill your sacred contracts this lifetime around now. You can heal, and use skills to help you through being in those environments and/or individuals because, we may not be able to get out of or away from them. But, until you are able to get out of them or away from them you will can’t FULLY bloom. Just like plants, flowers, and trees around the planet you can’t grow and flourish in poisons and infertile soil.

12. Self care! Self care! Self care! There’s a reason everyone talks about it!

Like it says self care there is a reason everyone and anyone talks about it. There is a reason every therapists and therapy program I have seen and/or been apart of has tried to get my brain to understand this simple yet inhuman concept in our society. It makes such a difference when you recharge your battery and make sure you have enough energy in all ways from emotionally, physically, mentally, to pull from and use. But, just remember it is going to look different for each and every one of us, and it will look different for you at different times. Some days your self care needs will be small and some days they will be great just listen to your energy and do what you need to do.

13. You become a better parent when you are mindful and fully present in each interaction with them.

Understanding what it means to be fully mindfully present in each moment and what you are doing makes a world of a difference in your interactions with your children and their attachment to you. You can do all the “right” things and check them off each and every day in your to do list and schedule but, they won’t have the full impact unless you are fully mindfully there for them to absorb, learn, and attach to you.

14.The universe will keep giving you the same lessons to learn until you respond differently.

If you feel stuck or like your life follows a cycle or pattern and you keep ending up in the same place in life or going through the same hardships over and over again. There is a reason for that. Take stock. Do some shadow work. Notice the pattern and where it isn’t changing and make a plan to change it! Do the work to change it! The lesson will keep coming back and hitting you in the face with that lesson until you finally learn it. That’s the beauty and the way of sacred contracts.

15.Marriage is not 50/50 or equal the goal is for it to be fair

This was really humbling for me to learn this year. And I know so many are going to buttheads with this lesson just by reading that sentence ( which is why I am doing a whole seperate post on this alone). But, let me give you small rundown on why. This lesson was taught to me by my dbt therapist and at first I fought her immediately and did not agree until I let her expand and explain. 50/50 means at all times not matter what the circumstances are things should be split down the middle in responsibility between you and you partner right? That’s how most would view that philosophy, myself included. There are a handful of reasons why there is something wrong with that but, the main few are; if you really think about it if you have a loving, stable, 50/50 equal partnership is it really? every single day? Is every task and responsibility whether its something you are capable of doing shared down the middle with your spouse? For example I know very little about the internet and technology, how it runs and how to problem shoot and fix issues. My brain literally can’t wrap my mind around some of it. Do I help my husband with half the workload of those things? Nope I don’t. And I am so grateful he does that for me since my brain literally can not understand it and than I am his living breathing spell check since its something his brain has a very hard time with.

The other major issue with being 50/50 is what happens when your partner simply can’t carry their half of that weight or even a quarter of that weight? Whether it be due to medical issues, illness, or mental health illnesses. What happens than? When all your partner can do is focus on not ending their own life? When they are in the midst of treatment and therapy? When they are so depressed every ounce of energy and will power they have goes to waking up each and every day so they can’t help with the finances? What happens when all your partner can give you is 5% of their 50%? A lot would say leave , its toxic, you wont ever be happy etc. What should happen is the other partner adjusts, and understands that being fair NOT equal matters so much more when your partner just doesn’t have their equal share to give to your or your relationship. You fill the space and the gaps your partner needs help with, you lift them up, you support them and you carry as much of their weight as they need until they are able to take some or more of it back and you adjust the load distribution again. If my husband wouldn’t have been able to adjust and take a massive portion of my load for over 3 years I would not still be alive today writing this post for you all to read. The gratitude, love, and understanding that he gave me was what a soul partnership truly means and now that I get to carry his share of his load for as long as he needs I am really being shown humility, grace, and a true understanding of this lesson and what a marriage should look and feel like.

16.Being authentically you. Draws other to you wanting to do the same.

17.One person can truly make a huge impact to those around them! And others may never know about it.

18.When you step into your sacred purpose and reveal your sacred contracts to yourself paths open up to you.

I talk about sacred purpose and sacred contracts all the time. If you are reading this and one of my students already I doubt I go one class without bringing it up or talking about it. They are just so crucial to who you are, why you reincarnated this lifetime, who you are meant to interact with, your awakening, and of course true pure happiness this lifetime. And let’s not forget how each of our contracts are meant to benefit the collective as whole. When you do the work, open your energy channels, your heart, your eyes, and your ears to what it or they are and you embrace them with a willingness to move through them and fulfill them paths will simply unfold before you to take or not take. Paths you had never looked to see will suddenly be illuminated for you to no longer ignore. And it’s okay to embrace them and still have some doubt, or fear, or anxiety about them a does of those are healthy to have and they serve a purpose just don’t allow them to reach an unjustifiable level and hinder you.

19.There’s no such thing as a “bad” emotion. Every emotion serves a function.

If you hear this and your whole being rejects it, trust me I get it and you are not alone. Learning this lesson took serious brain rewiring to be able to integrate into my life and I at times still have slips ups of judgmental thoughts towards my emotions. But, this is 1000000000% true. Every single emotion is serving a function and communicating something to you and it is valid. It is your job to determine what the function is, what it is communicating to you, and if it is at a justifiable level of intensity. That is what emotional regulation is. This idea of bad emotions or negative emotions that we should never feel or just do our best to work through as quickly as possible is something we as humans in society did to emotions. Why? I will never know. But, we have to work hard to step away from this and truly understand to be human is to feel and experience the full spectrum of emotions.

20. Learning your worth is liberating.

This one is still a work in progress but, how much freedom it has given me from shame, guilt, and self doubt already is immense!

21.Every birth especially a rebirth requires a death to happen first

Everything in the multiverse is about balance, duality, and this cosmic dance of give and take. It’s the one universal truth I will stand my ground on that is true and it simply can not be fought. It is how the multiverse and everything that is comprised of its energies is able to exist. It is both creating and destroying at all times to keep all this energy moving to exist. and when you create, it is the act of birthing which means something must die first to make space and recycle energy and matter. This is something I will be going really deep on soon!

22.You Can have all the knowledge in the world but, it won’t matter unless you use it to act.

23.It’s possible to create a life worth living for!!

The fact that I even typed this out is such a huge deal! I never in my life thought this would be something I could have. I never even entertained the idea so much so I couldn’t even envision my life, what I wanted, what I could look it, what it could like, none of it. Until this past year, I had ping ponged all over the place with dreams, goals, and who I was going to be because I simply couldn’t see a time or a day where I didn’t want to die and I really truly wanted to be alive and thriving instead of simply existing. how could I have when I had spent my whole life I have access to the memories of wanting to die, trying to die, and wising I simply wouldn’t wake up the next morning? But, guess what?! You can do it! I know that now!