Raise your hand if you were like me: started a coven with your friends when you were a kid, was obsessed with games like MASH and cootie catchers, watched movies like The Craft and Practical Magic over and over again, and loved spooky stories (especially Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark). Ok, everyone’s got their hands up? Good!
I was a spooky kid-a lot of us were-so it’s no surprise that in my early twenties I decided to get into magick for real real. I bought the books, took notes, practiced with my tarot cards, got into numerology, and eventually I tried my first spell.
I was housesitting for my brother and sister in law for a few days while they got one last vacation in before their first kid, so I thought this was my chance to make some magick. I would have the house all to myself, AKA full privacy and all the time in the world to perform the spell. I set up some candles and crystals on the table, I created an energetic circle of protection around me, and I cast a spell for love-romantic love-to come into my life.
The only problem is, it didn’t work, but single ol me didn’t stop there. I did spells for money and success, I did spells to open myself up spiritually, I did spells to bring opportunities to me… and you guessed it, they didn’t work!
What Was the Problem?
In short, I was asking for the wrong things.
I had a lot of anxiety to work through before I could be comfortable dating. I also didn’t fully realize how much of a catch I am until I was 27 (I met my partner shortly after that realization). I had a lot of my own stuff to work through until I was ready to fall in love-not that you need to be fully and completely in love with yourself before someone else can love you-I was legitimately afraid of men and dating, so I needed to recognize that and work with it before I could make it past date three with a man.
A lot of times we ask the Universe to present us with something we long for soooooo deeply, and since we want it so badly we think that’s enough to make it come true, but that’s not how it works (I’ve found). It’s good to want something (that deep wanting will help to create a lot of energy in your spell work) but you have to work with yourself where you’re at. You have to understand what is blocking you from having this thing or seeing your intention come to fruition in your life.
Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely external factors that we aren’t in control of which can prevent us from getting the thing that we want, but a lot of them are out of our control. A good spell is framed around what you can control. Believe me, there’s a lot of things in the US I wish I could fix with a spell, but I can’t. What I can do is change my approach and understand where I’m coming from and where I’m at right now so that I can be more helpful in the fight towards justice.
So What Can I Do?
Do you want to help fight against the anti-trans bills across the US but you’re deathly afraid of picking up the phone and potentially talking to someone you don’t know? Or maybe you want to make an educational tiktok to help spread awareness and tell others what to do in order to help, but you’re really camera shy and feel too awkward to do it?
Like I said, one spell alone is not likely to change the tides of these horrifying bills being put up for legislation across our country, but you can work some magick to help yourself be more impactful in the fight against them-work with what you can control!
For both of the examples I listed above you might want to consider doing a spell that revolves around bolstering your confidence and creating strength in your voice and messaging. Use orange candles to build confidence, use blue crystals to clear your throat, do some glamor magick to help you feel powerful. Doing magick that impacts yourself and how you show up in the world will be your best tool for creating change on a larger scale.
Work With What You Can Control
The next time you’re thinking about doing a spell ask yourself, “what do I want most right now?” then ask yourself, “what is stopping me from having that in my life already?” You are probably going to think of a few external factors-things that are outside of your control-but when that does happen ask yourself, “what can I do or change to work around that?”
So let’s think about my love spell at the beginning. If I had asked myself, “what do I want most right now?” the answer probably would have been “to be loved by someone else.” So then I would move on to the next question, “what is stopping me from having that in my life already?” I surely could have come up with a slew of answers like “men only want to hook up, tinder isn’t a good place to find true love, and I sleep on a twin bed at my parents house and only have a part time job right now.”
So the first two responses seem like things that are out of my control, right? I can’t control what men want and I cannot control how people use a dating app; however, there is still something there in both those responses that I can work with: my own limiting beliefs. The idea that all men are only looking for hook ups and that tinder is not a place for true love are limiting because they speak in absolutes, making no space for the vastness of human experience. And limiting beliefs can be intoxicating and enticing because they are rooted in some truth, but that’s just it, it’s only true some of the time.
People who call themselves realists often use it as a misnomer because true realism is understanding that the worst case scenario and the best case scenario are both completely within the realm of possibility. Limiting beliefs aren’t realistic, they’re pessimistic because they keep us stuck in a place of believing that what can go wrong will go wrong. The other end of this spectrum is toxic positivity, the belief that everything is going to fall in your favor every time, which is just as limiting as a pessimistic point of view. You need to be cognizant of the fact that life is filled with hiccups and chaos and it's going to suck sometimes, emphasis on the “sometimes.”
So if you find yourself thinking in absolutes before beginning a spell or ritual, remember what your kooky aunt Jasmine told you, realism is the knowledge that a good outcome is just as likely as a bad outcome.
Which leads us to the juicy bit of information in my third reason why I didn’t already have romantic love in my life: I didn’t think I was good enough for it. I felt like I had nothing to bring to a partnership because my life felt a little sad and embarrassing at the time (honestly, no one is doing great in their 23rd year of life, it’s a 12th house profection year in astrology). So if I didn’t think I was worthy of romantic love and I didn’t think that men even wanted romantic love, doing a love spell to bring the perfect partner to me could only go so far.
Say an ideal candidate did come into my life after that spell (which was very possible, there were like 3-5 guys I was talking to on tinder who wanted to take me out), my own limitations weren’t going to make it easy to engage fully and openly in the pursuit of a serious romantic relationship. So what should I have done instead?
I should have done a love spell on myself. I should have focused the magick around releasing the limiting beliefs that held me back from what is possible in my love life. I could have done a cord cutting, paper tearing, or burning ritual to release my pessimistic mindset around love and dating. I could have changed my energy from the inside out and marveled at how, in doing that, I was able to call in a loving partner… but it took me a few years to figure that out.
After at least a hundred trials and errors later I realized that the best spells you can do are the ones that change your relationship to yourself and your view on the world. So be sure to ask the right questions in order to get clear on your intention the next time you do a spell and, of course, work with what you can control!