Diary of a Witch

A collection of love, musing & occasional wisdom from my soul’s Book of Shadows.

An artist, writer, yogi & creatrix, Sates channeled over two decades of experience into The Corvus Circle, a deep movement to rekindle our connection with Mother Earth & ourselves, and its accompanying blog, What the Cat Told the Raven, a loving collection of musing & unspoken words.

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WHEN PAIN BECOMES HABIT – AND HOW TO BREAK FREE

Truth: I struggle so much with believing I’m being divinely guided or that the signs I’m asking for are really showing up all around me after all.

Moments when I know I need to do something differently or better for myself, do I struggle because it comes to me less like, “I know this will bring me closer to what I want” and more like, “If only I had the drive to do things differently, things would get better”?

When these moments come, they don’t feel like “divine guidance” or a friendly sign or hint or push in the right direction. It feels like I’m just being reminded over and over again of how I did everything against the flow and fought against every route that showed signs of being what I wanted.

When I want to wake up early and take the time for myself to set the pace for my whole day, but I can’t wake up and I’m so exhausted and have no motivation, I’ll get thought after thought of, “This is what you wanted – wake up! If you get up now you have time to do everything you wanted to do before work! Think of how much better your day will go if you just make that effort for yourself!”

But like a good little bitter procrastinator, I immediately list all the other reasons I should stay exactly where I am: “What I wanted was to wake up naturally and refreshed, not force myself again. So what if I have time? Is having a real breakfast really going to make a difference? Does anyone at work really care what I look like when I come in? Probably not. Why should I care anyway? I’m going to be miserable regardless of what I look like when I get there. And besides, if I get up in a half hour I’ll still make it. Just like I make it every day. So why bother.”

But there’s the point isn’t it – “Just like I make it every day.”

Just like I make it.

Every day.

I want to wake up early, but if I wake up to noise going on or anything that could successfully help keep me awake, I don’t see it as help with what I asked for – I see it as an annoyance, a pain, one more thing to go wrong for me. It rarely occurs to me that I’m receiving exactly what I asked for, and when it does I come to the realization with a strong taste of bitterness towards it. “Thanks Universe, but fuck your methods.”

Ungrateful. Unseeing. Sad. Tired.

So tired.

“Just like I make it every day.”

I have a choice every morning to bless or curse the path of my day. I know the effort that needs to be made, but I feel like I have to validate that effort or it’s a waste. Or often the easiest route I can take is to remind myself that no matter the effort I make, things will not get better.

Thoughts like this fester in our energy and eventually grow toxic and take hold as real, deep-felt beliefs. Once they reach the level of being something we truly believe – even unconsciously – the path to healing becomes harder to find, let alone navigate. We know this, and yet sometimes we just cannot fight the undertow when we’re convinced we’re being drowned.

Am I sabotaging my own future? Or are these the residual feelings of two decades of anxiety, anger, sadness and depression?

Have I let my pain become my habit? Or am I strong enough to make the changes my Soul needs?

I’ve come so far and learned so much, why am I struggling so much with the application of all I’ve found? I know the way. I know how to find my light and follow it. But why can’t I? Why is it so hard?

Is it hard? Or am I making it hard?

Have I let my pain become my habit?

How do I break away from it? How do I find my light again?

I want to give myself advice and say the right things, but already in the back of my mind, “How is this going to be any different than any other time? You’re going to tell yourself the same things, use the same quotes, try to find that perfect piece of inspiration. Still expecting a different result? Insanity much?”

This particular bitch voice might actually have a point, however.

I do look to the same things for inspiration over and over again, hoping one day, this time, it’ll be enough to push me into my breakthrough. But I’m still here, walking in the same tight, dark, sad little circle.

So what needs to change? The inspiration? Maybe. Perhaps it’s too external. Is the key to my lock on the inside? This may sound obvious to some, but when your inner world contains some pretty dark regions, looking for light inside is tricky at the least, if not completely daunting. I know I have a light inside me – it’s the only reason I’m still here. But how do I make it grow? How do I nurture it to expand?

Nurture. Care. Encourage.

Love.

I have always been inspired by love. Without looking it up, without reading about it, without trying to understand it, I have always been inspired by love. Great love, deep love, powerful love. Be it romantic, epic, family, friendships – I am thrilled by the potential of human connection. Love changes everything. Your views, your choices, your beliefs; what you’re willing to do and how far you’re willing to go. Love rewires us, it awakens us. Love makes light grow.

Love makes light grow.

Am I embracing love within me? I choose to focus on everything going wrong, everything that hasn’t gone right – I feel like I haven’t moved though I have many reasons to argue so much progress. But when I focus on what’s wrong, that is where I’m shining my light, so that is all I will see.

When I focus on what’s wrong, that is where I’m shining my light, so that is all I will see.

What if I stopped trying to direct my light? What if I let it be, let it shine, however small, and nurture it from within? Will love do the rest? It might. It could. It’s very possible. I have seen the magic of love, and I have believed in it for much longer.

I focus so much on what I don’t have and where I haven’t reached, that I make myself blind to the goodness, the greatness – to all of the love I have surrounding me. It’s hard to see it sometimes, because it’s so easy to block it with other things I choose to see instead – other things I choose to shine my light on.

But what if I let that love in? Acknowledged it? Gave it power?

I have great love in my life. But I’m letting my darkness (we all have our own darkness) hold all of my attention. And when I think of it that way, am I taking away from the origin of my love? Am I cheating the generous sources around me of the gifts they’re openly sharing? Has my darkness become a symbol of my ingratitude without my realizing it? Have I let it take over to that extent?

Have I let my pain become my habit?

Have I let the deafening shouts of my pain overtake the desperate, quiet whispers of my darkness?

What if my darkness needs my light? Needs my love?

Is there enough love for such darkness?

I have been blessed, at the time of one of my hardest challenges, with true, beautiful love.

I’ve felt it, from the strands of my hair to the depths of my bones, I have felt love in every cell and thought and dream. There it is, I can feel it now. It’s warm and enveloping; it flows through me in a magical current of light and stars.

This love has changed everything.

To say that it’s the best part of me wouldn’t be accurate, or fair to the strongest parts of myself. To say that it brings out the best parts of me would be more the truth. And what it does to me, to my spirit, to my inner light, is breathtaking.

It takes that small light inside me and makes it grow, from candle to cosmos, and shines it into those darkest, desperate parts of myself that I’m afraid to look at too closely; not to expose their ugliness, but to show me all the beauty there that I would never have seen.

It knows the light in me is my true essence and loves it.

Can I?

Can I love my light? My essence? Can I love it enough to drown the darkness?

To heal the darkness?

When I have nothing else to look forward to, I have light. My light. It is always there. I know this.

When I have nothing to be excited for, I have light. And I have love. Such love.

I can do this. I can learn to love my light as it loves me, to help it grow, to let it shine, to let it carry me above my underworld and break through my storm clouds.

I can learn to see the signs I’m given for what they are, to be grateful for any guidance laid before me. I have to let my light be stronger than the residual damage of my past. I have to move forward.

I have to do it for me. Because I deserve it. I know I deserve it. Because I deserve love. And love from myself is a powerful thing.

Please know that.