When life gets dizzyingly busy, I often find myself reverting to Autopilot mode, where I mindlessly go about my days, waking up in the morning, going to work, coming back home, eat, sleep, repeat.
While Autopilot mode can be necessary at times, I do find myself spiritually depleted after awhile. This can lead to low mood, lack of motivation, as I slowly settle into my not so unusual ennui.
This is why I believe living with intention is an essential part of living a fulfilling life, and as a witch, there are so many options to integrate intention to my day to day living.
For example, I set up an abundance altar in my living room to capitalize on the rich harvest moon energy this fall. As a part of caring for this altar, I place a different offering on it every day and/or burn a beeswax candle in its honor. While doing this, I intentionally notice all the abundance in my life that I am grateful for, and invite more abundance to our home.
In the morning when I wake up, I have two boxes set up in the doorway filled with gemstone bracelets. I carefully pick a bracelet that aligns with my intention for the day, to remind myself to live mindfully and with purpose. Sometimes at night, I engage in a similar ritual, where I pick an intention for the next day, and prepare gemstones to bring with me when I go to work that align with that intention – another reminder to shift away from the daily grind to a more mindful state of being.
I hope that your life is also filled with abundance, with more coming your way, and that you allow yourself the space to live with purpose and intention.
The sickness role is a psychological concept that we give to patients to help them recognize the fact that they are NOT to blame for having an illness. Being ill is NOT something to be ashamed of, something to apologize for, and they are certainly not responsible for being sick.
Unfortunately, some people have misunderstood this concept to mean that they have no role in their healing, that “others” should be entirely responsible for their care and recovery, and they avoid taking ownership of the fact that their actions DO matter in how their healing journey will go.
So yes, none of us are responsible for having an illness AND at the same time, we absolutely DO have a responsibility to take ownership of the healing process.
A good example that I often see at the ED are patients who are coming in due to various ailments, none of which are significantly impairing or acute, because they would like a formal diagnosis or a second opinion for their condition. These ailments are often things like chronic pain, tension headaches, mood instability, ongoing relational issues, etc. Many of these conditions have already been looked at by (often multiple times) a specialist/ consultant, diagnosed, and treatments have been offered. Yet, many patients come to the ED looking for another diagnosis, a different “sick role” that they feel would explain their condition better. While it is completely understandable that an individual would want a better understanding of their condition, I am often surprised at how many of these patients believe that their recovery is entirely dependent on receiving the “correct” diagnosis and meeting the “right” specialist.
There is a huge societal role in this as well – we are often bombarded with images of patients coming to the hospital to be “taken care of”, where they are tucked into the bed and nurtured like a child, while taking a completely passive role in their recovery. This cannot be further from the truth. Best care is delivered when the patient takes an active role in and ownership of their own healing journey; when they take steps to best serve their body and mind. I wonder what changes we would see in our society if we start sending this message that patients ARE capable of and SHOULD be taking charge of their own health.
For example, someone with chronically depressed mood that have unfortunately shown poor response to conventional treatments can become angry at the health care system and the doctors for failing them, and this would be completely fair. AND, at the same time, they can take ownership of their healing process, and start actively engaging in psychotherapy, exercise regularly, set up a sleep schedule, explore their spirituality, tap into their social resources, and make a commitment everyday to heal.
One can use this for patients who have terminal illnesses as well. Palliative care is a large part of our training. It is incredible how patients with months left to live can make a commitment to do the best that they can every morning that they are alive. When they could walk, they would take a stroll around their neighborhood daily. When they couldn’t anymore, they got on a wheelchair and sat by the window every morning. When they were too unwell to be on a wheelchair, they listened to audiobooks and enriched their mind.
We can all take responsibility and ownership of our own wellness, and make a commitment. Us health professionals depend on our patients to work as a central piece of the healing journey. Without the patient’s commitment, there is only so much we can do.
As a witch and a spiritual person in general, I deeply believe that we are an active agent of change in our lives and the lives around us. Our will, actions, and energy DO have an impact in our life journey. Just like the spells we cast and the intentions we put forward, our everyday commitment and actions to heal from whatever ailment, physical or non-physical, WILL direct us towards our highest good.
Throughout my life until more recently, I used to evaluate success based on external measures, such as how much money I make, the impact factor of journals I published in, how many articles I produced in a year, etc etc. As I started achieving some of those “successes”, I started realizing quite rapidly that not all of them brought me happiness and feelings of accomplishment that I imagined they would. Even if they would bring a brief spark of joy, it would rarely last longer than a day or two. It did not contribute positively to my self-esteem either. Eventually, these “successes” just became forgettable aspects of my life that added little to my day to day joy, if at all.
The realization of WHY this was came when I was doing a guided meditation on manifesting. During this meditation exercise, the guide asks you to clearly envision what success looks like to you, and pushes you to imagine every small detail of your successful dream life. In this guided meditation, when I was only with myself, with no one to prove anything to, I realized that my vision of success was nothing like what I had defined success to be. Success was having a thriving garden, it was holding hands with my husband and watching the sunset, it was having the time to feel the breeze on my skin on a beach, it was having the luxury of booking travels with my husband, it was being in a home that gave me peace and serenity. These things of course, require some money to achieve, but by no means was money the only part of it. Fame and prestige? Well, it didn’t include those at all.
Law of attraction states that we attract things in our lives that we are in alignment with. Therefore, to manifest, we need to align ourselves with the values and outcomes we wish to attract. With my definition of success having been shifted (or perhaps realized) from what society defines as success to what I believe constitutes a successful life, now I can fine tune myself to attract what I need to achieve this dream.
So tell me again – what is your definition of success?
Ena's worlds 