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?
Culture of incompetence is a phrase that us, as resident doctors, came up to describe certain hospitals that have a culture that encourages a passive form of incompetence by discouraging productive change.
This does not mean that they encourage residents to make mistakes or to be incompetent in a general sense. Rather, it means that we are encouraged, either directly or indirectly, to abide by unspoken rules that are prohibitive of increased efficiency or innovative approaches to patient care. To give an example that I had mentioned in my previous posts, I had once worked in a hospital where working fast to speed up patient care was seen as putting pressure on the team and being a bad learner. Other residents had similar experiences in this hospital, where they were asked to adjust to the team’s pace, even when it was clear that there were areas of improvement needed to make the team more efficient. The hospital had set up an unspoken rule that it was happy with the status quo, despite the fact that it was no longer serving the giant and ever growing population of patients, resulting in months or even year long backlogs of patients to see, and patients waiting in the emergency department for days just waiting for a bed to become available in one of the inpatient units.
How does a culture of incompetence form? I believe that it starts from a seed of “leaders” that believe that what they are doing is near perfect, if not perfect, and that there is no room for improvement. Any attempts at productive change is seen as stirring up trouble or even being a bad learner. This kind of culture in turn produces an environment where those who agree with this worldview are the ones who decide to stay after their mandatory rotation ends, and the saga continues.
This kind of workplace culture can cause traumatic moral injury in young and motivated learners, possibly making them lose that spark that keeps them wanting to innovate and improve. Perhaps the reason why healthcare has seen so few innovative changes in the past many years is because this culture is pervasive in medicine. As residents, we get placed in a lottery system that inevitably lands us at a hospital with such a culture at some point during our training. While I wish I could say that most of us come out of the experience with our eagerness and dreams of a better future intact, it often marks the beginnings of becoming a bitter and burnt out physician.
I noticed this change in myself more recently when I pulled out a garnet bracelet from my jewelry drawer for work today. One of my daily rituals as a witch includes picking out a gemstone to support me at work and to set intentions for the day. Garnet, besides from being a protective stone, also encourages vitality, leadership, and positive growth. Since being burned by this culture of incompetence and many months afterwards, I was afraid to wear this to work in case it would push me to stand out more than a resident “should”, attracting negative attention and criticism. Today, for the first time in almost a year, I took out this bracelet for me to wear to work, feeling finally ready to return to my old self again.
If you feel that a productive and growth-oriented behavior that is appreciated by patients or clients is being met with resistance and even animosity in a new environment, I implore you to take a pause and to evaluate the environment before changing yourself. If you could find a way to hold onto that spark inside of you to ignite torches of positive change, a day will come when you are free to light up the world as you are meant to do.
Stay strong, my friends. Better days are just around the corner.
I wake up and see warm orange sunlight filtering through the clouds. I see my chestnut tree’s softly yellow leaves dancing in the wind.
The season of the witch is upon us.
I am a September child. My husband and brother are also autumn children. September is therefore a sentimentally and spiritually meaningful season for me.
Autumn never fails to stir something deeply magickal inside of all of us. Besides being the harvest season, it is not surprising that throughout pagan history in many different cultures, this time of the year was associated thinning of the veil, spirituality, and magick. I do believe that as humans, we respond strongly to this fantastical time of the year. As the wheel of the year turns, we turn inwards towards ourselves, become introspective, and prepare our body and mind for the long winter.
You may be wondering why I have not posted since late May. During summer, my practice and altar largely move to the great outdoors. I worship by walking on the beach and feeling the harmony between the elements of air and water. I collect beautiful fossils and gemstones that have washed up on shore. I admire the beauty and bounty of nature and feel the presence of the divine. My altar becomes the forest, the ocean, the little happy flowers lining the marshlands of my neighborhood.
As the seasons turn and the leaves turn gold, red, and brown, my altar returns to my home. I start decorating my home and altar to welcome Mabon – especially meaningful this year as my husband’s birthday falls on the harvest moon – and Samhain, every witch’s favorite holiday. I buy my favorite beeswax candles, bring out the colorful pumpkins, and fertilize my garden to prepare it for the oncoming winter hibernation.
I become more introspective and turn inward towards myself. I reflect on the past, present and future. My hobbies slowly change from hiking, swimming, foraging, and photography to painting, reading, and writing. I send my thanks to another beautiful summer in the sun, and look forward to the foliage, then snow and silence of fall and winter.
I noticed that more of you are reading my blogs! I am deeply grateful to you for allowing me to share this journey with you. May you have a bountiful harvest and a beautiful autumn, my friends.
As a doctor, a lot of the care that I provide has nothing to do with prescribing medications or performing procedures. Sure, they form a significant part of my training and my day to day work. However, there are also many times where all I can provide for the patients is my presence, to be a witness to their suffering and to create space for them to grieve and mourn.
This was a huge revelation to me in the earlier stages of training – recognizing that there are many things we can’t just “fix” in medicine, and that care doesn’t end with telling a patient “I am sorry, there is nothing we can do”. I never realized how difficult it is to be truly present to witness someone’s suffering until I had to do it myself. It is so easy to give into the temptation to comfort, or to give false hope or even mislead. At the beginning, I told myself that it is because I care deeply about the patients, and it was difficult for me to watch them suffer. However, the more I did this, the more I realized I was NOT helping these patients by quickly wrapping up their suffering in a neat package to replace it with something prettier – I could see how this made them feel confused and lost. Why then, was it so hard for me to change my behavior?
Problem solving engages the prefrontal cortex of our brain – the part that allows us to reason, filter and regulate our emotions. Being forced to turn away from problem solving therefore leaves us feeling exposed, out of control and yes – vulnerable. However, in turning away from problem solving, we can truly be present and focus entirely on the suffering of the individual in front of us. In psychiatry, this is called “holding space”. Having the space to grieve without feeling pressured to go into problem solving mode can be a deeply therapeutic experience that allows one to just “be” and not be judged.
Think about our daily lives – how often do we simply listen to our friends, family or significant others and be fully present to witness their experiences? As children, how many of us had the luxury of this experience when we tried to share difficult experiences with our parents?
I tried to imagine what it would feel like to have someone fully present to witness my suffering, to have an understanding of how this could help my patients. My mind shifted to when I pray or meditate at my altar. Sometimes, I am looking for answers – but more often than not, what I desire is to have the time to sit in my grief and to let it all out, and to have someone sit WITH me in my grief. The sheer presence of my goddesses and spirit guides had always comforted me in my darkest times, and this is what I could do for my patients when there is nothing else I could offer as a doctor. Simply being present in their suffering was a service I could provide in those dark moments.
Now, when I deliver bad news, I sit with them, quietly, with a tissue box in my hand. I stay present with their grief, and in doing so I hold space for them to process their suffering.
It is true that this is much harder with family and close friends – those who we consider part of ourselves and can make us feel particularly vulnerable when they share their suffering. Practice makes perfect and I am still working on it.
I was reading “Maybe you should talk to someone” by the brilliant Lori Gottlieb this morning just before work, my little morning ritual, when one message really struck me: it is horribly difficult to sit with one’s own feelings, even for psychotherapists. I am no psychotherapist, but as a doctor, I always ask patients to reflect on their actions, thoughts, and feelings, and encourage them to do mindfulness exercises where they try to notice their thoughts and body without judgement.
The practice of witchcraft also asks one to recognize their thoughts and feelings, so that they can be used to enhance one’s craft and power. An aware witch is a powerful witch – she who rules herself can rule the world.
Why then, is it SO HARD for me, to sit with my feelings? I spend most of my days reading, watching TV, scanning through Youtube, or scrolling through my phone when I am not working in a desperate effort to distance myself from my emotions. In a way, working is almost an escape, because focusing my attention entirely to my patients shifts me away from thinking about myself.
A common concept discussed in psychodynamic theory and in family therapy is that a child who grows up learning that their feelings are invalid, internalize this and grow up to be adults who cannot tolerate their own emotions. The act of noticing and acknowledging their internal processes become associated with deep shame, rejection, and feelings of being misunderstood such that they learn to cope with this by becoming avoidant, not just of their own emotions but of that of others as well.
The difficult part of this is that our thoughts and emotions influence our judgement and worldview whether we acknowledge them or not. Being able to sit with, notice, and acknowledge our internal processes help us realize why we see ourselves, others, and the world the way we do, and lovingly readjust if there are biases at play.
This of course, doesn’t come easily at all. I realized my own tendency to avoid my feelings when a supervisor pointed out how I tend to get flustered if I don’t know something I think a patient wants of me, and how I would completely shift my behavior without even noticing that I am doing this. My supervisor asked me to sit and slow down, and notice the thoughts that arise in my head when this happens. This was an EXTREMELY difficult exercise – at the end, I identified a DEEP SENSE OF SHAME that arose when I felt that I wasn’t giving the patient what she/he wanted. Because this emotion was so difficult to tolerate, I avoided it completely, not even giving myself a second to think about it – unfortunately, this did not stop shame from influencing my behavior. Once I did notice the thought, also called “hot thought” in cognitive behavioral therapy, which in my case was “I am a failure”, I was able to lovingly tell myself: it’s okay to not know everything, you are doing the best you can. In slowing myself down and lovingly readjusting myself, I was able to be more present and authentic with my patients, which in turn made them happier.
When practicing magick, we ourselves form as much of the spell as the ingredients, incantations, and the spiritual forces that we summon to help us. When dark thoughts reside behind the spells that we cast without our knowledge, these thoughts can cause the spell to be weakened or even backfire. See the parallel here?
I still find sitting with my emotions extremely challenging, but I consider it an important part of my journey as a physician and a witch to become more self aware. I will be sure to keep you updated on that journey – wish me luck!
It has been grey, grey, GREY the last few days, which, in combination with my monthly cycle approaching, has just sapped the magick right out of me. I used to be REALLY ashamed of admitting that my spirituality waxes and wanes with the rhythms of my body, highs and lows of my life, and of course, the sun and the clouds of the sky. As I grow older, I am however learning to be more accepting and compassionate towards myself when this happens.
Cooking, for me, is the most accessible way to reintroduce magick to my life in times like this. After feeling drained and uninspired for the past week or so (as you may have noticed from the lack of blog posts), I decided to head to our small but cozy kitchen to cook up something magickal.
Truthfully though, what I cook for magickal purposes is actually not much different from what I would cook for sustenance. The biggest difference is the intent that I put into every magickal herb and plant that goes into that large soup pot – my favorites being celery, cilantro, lime, oregano, basil, bay leaf, thyme, star anise, cinnamon, and of course, rosemary. Having my husband, a green witch whose chosen goddess is Hestia, blow on these magickal herbs before they go in adds an additional oomph to my magickal cooking.
Yesterday, for example, I made the soup of protection and prosperity – which really was Laksa, a traditional Malaysian soup. Today, I made soup of love and health – a tomato spring vegetable soup, and soup of prosperity and protection – basil tomato cream soup. See how it works here? These soups are just soups, using regular ingredients that one can find in most kitchens. What makes them magickal is the intention to harness the plant spirits and blessings of Hestia to add spiritual meaning and purpose in our lives. The added protection, prosperity, love, and health of course does not hurt!
I truly believe that magickal food does, in fact do what they are intended to do if the intentions are true and present during the cooking process. After eating my “love” soup, my husband and I had a lovely afternoon cuddling, napping together, and making art. Yes, one may call this confirmation bias or positive psychology – but really, who cares? It makes me happy, it makes my husband happy, and invites a sense of spirituality, peace, gratitude, and wonder to our home. If that is not magick, then well, I don’t know what is.
No, this blog post is not about Lady Gaga’s timeless song, “Til it happens to you”, although I would encourage any soul to check it out.
I feel that we, as humans, are motivated by our survival instincts to engage in victim blaming. Aligning or identifying with the victim feels like admitting our own vulnerability, because if the victim was “victimized”, and we are like the victim, then we are also vulnerable to being victimized.
To cope with this fear, one points out the victim’s flaws, whether it be regarding the victim’s character or behavior, trying to make the victim as unappealing of a human being as possible, one who we can’t possibly be similar to. In short, we dehumanize the victim so that we can feel safe.
I have certainly been guilty of this myself. I did not come from money or anything special, really, and my academic achievements used to be the only thing that made me stand out from the herd and gave me a sense of belonging and identity. Because of this, I had absolute faith in my ability to tolerate whatever hardship my research or academic career otherwise would throw at me. Unconsciously, I was TERRIFIED of ever admitting that I could face a situation that I couldn’t tolerate in academia. Therefore, when I heard about other trainees leave their abusive supervisors, I used to immediately go into victim blaming mode for my own survival, thinking that the abused student/ trainee was “weak”, “useless”, and probably deserved the bad treatment anyway.
If you read my previous blogs, you will know that the goddess eventually decided to teach me a lesson and gave me an obstacle that I could not overcome. I, for once, could not tolerate the abuse that was thrown at me and had to leave that position, the learning opportunities that came with it, and the possibility of a good evaluation in that rotation. When I shared this story with my colleagues, some were sympathetic and offered me words of support and advice. Others however, looked at me with judgmental eyes veiled by fear, almost wanting to scream at me “You deserved what happened to you, that would NEVER happen to a normal resident”. They interrogated me to find out what I had done wrong to deserve this outcome, so that they could be reassured that it was my fault, and that it would never happen to them. It did not escape me that I had also felt the same urge to judge when other colleagues would confide their struggles to me – I was being taught an important lesson that would stay with me forever.
My work in providing compassionate care to my patients as a physician DEPENDS on my ability to identify with them. If a patient with an extensive substance use history walks in the door with yet another overdose – I cannot hope to provide empathy and support that the patient needs in that moment unless I feel a kinship with them. The patient was likely living in highly marginalized conditions with multiple social stressors – the substance use was a way of coping when they had no other resources. I have also been at the end of my rope at the mercy of strangers for my next meal or a roof over my head. This person could be my brother, sister, mother, father, or even me.
What do I do though, when that survival instinct to feel safe is so deeply engrained into my biology? This is when I dig into my identity as a witch and ask for the help of my goddesses and spirit guides – to allow me to transcend beyond my human nature to recognize that we are all children of mother Gaia. Spiritual leaders in witchcraft and other paths often come from dark pasts – I deeply believe that this is no mistake. I believe that these individuals are angels sent to earth to learn a lesson, so that they can alchemize their suffering into healing light.
At the end, brothers and sisters, we are ALL human. We are ALL vulnerable to the same misfortunes and follies, to the same depths of sorrow and loss. This was one of the many lessons the goddess had planned for me when I came to this earth, and I hope to share it with you today.
Have a blessed new moon, child of Gaia. I embrace you.
Lately, I have been noticing that “Shadow Work”, a concept originating from psychoanalytic theory, has been appearing more than ever in mainstream media. I often hear it in the context of Wicca, a modern religion combining witchcraft practices and psychological principles, as well as many other spiritual paths.
In psychology, the Shadow is an analytic principle that identifies the part of one self that has been split from one’s conscious identity. While it is hidden from one’s conscious mind, this Shadow forms a significant part of one’s personality and how they relate to the world. While different branches of psychoanalysis calls the Shadow by different names, they generally agree that identifying the shadow is an important part of psychotherapy as it brings into awareness one’s behavioral patterns, in particular in relationships with others, that has been hidden from their conscious mind. For example, imagine a girl who has been raised by an unpredictable mother who would swing from being verbally and physically abusive to the most loving creature in the world within a split second. A belief forms in her that adults, or authority figures in general, are dangerous and not trust worthy, and that she is not worthy of receiving unconditional love and care. This belief, this way of seeing the world is so painful for her that she represses it deep into her unconsciousness – it becomes her shadow. As an adult, she has recurring issues in her life resulting from rejection of authority figures and accepting love or care from others, particularly from those that remind her of her mother. Unconsciously, she projects her belief that authority figures cannot be trusted and that she is unworthy of love and support whenever she meets a person or a situation that triggers this shadow to reappear, lifting her away from reality and making her see the world through the veil of her shadow.
Shadow work as a Wiccan principle centers around identifying one’s shadows and bringing them into consciousness, so that one can ask for help from spirits, gods and goddesses of the highest good to integrate the shadow into one’s true self. Working through one’s shadow is thought to allow for the emergence of a more whole, and integrated self, which makes them more aligned with the Universe and their magick more powerful.
The concept of the shadow has existed far before modern psychology and Wicca. Many spiritual paths dating back thousands of years and religious teachings have identified the role of the unconscious mind in how we see the world. Many meditation practices, in particular, focuses on making room for one’s shadows to appear into the conscious mind so that they can perceive the world as it is without the cover of the shadow. In Buddhism, it is said that when Buddha was born, he looked up at the sky, down at the earth, and said “Between the earth and the sky, only I exist”. There are a number of different interpretations for this saying. My favorite one is that Buddha understood that he himself, was most responsible for how he sees and relates to the world; that he understood that only himself is the true builder of his Universe.
What can we do then, once we become aware of this shadow? Freudian psychoanalytic theory states that bringing the shadow into one’s awareness, also known as “insight” is enough of a treatment in itself to alleviate the impact of one’s unconscious influences in their psychopathology. Internal family systems talk about making space for the shadow in one’s mind by accepting it and allowing it to co-exist peacefully with the other parts of one’s identity, so that they can be integrated into a more mature and resourced part of themselves. Dialectic behavioral therapy, which incorporates a significant amount of its techniques from Zen principles, suggests that one should mindfully notice, without judgment, one’s shadows as they emerge, accept and honor them, AND at the same time, make an active effort to see the world without the influence of their shadow. In Gabrielle Berstein’s “Universe has your back”, she shares a mantra/ prayer where she beautifully demonstrates this principle of honoring one’s shadow while a making a commitment to see the world without it.
In ancient witchcraft or paganism, the influece of the Shadow or the unconscious was at times descirbed as being “posessed” by the evil spirits and energies from one’s past. For example, exorcims or banishing spells were often targeted at expelling the evil spirits hunting a person’s mind that originated from a traumatic event(s) from their past, such as war or rape, producing anxiety, depression, and even psychosis.
As a physician and a practicing witch, I find myself adopting both approaches. As you have probably already guessed, the above example of the abused and neglected girl is my own story, my own shadow. Using the psychoanalytic theory, I recognize that unconscious beliefs originating from my childhood trauma influences how I relate to others and the world. I try to keep this in mind when I find myself suddenly spiraling into fear-based decisions and judgements of others so that my world is not always covered by my shadows. I embrace my younger self and tell her, Of course you had to guard yourself from trusting authority figures, because trusting them was not SAFE. I understand and honor you, and I also recognize that we are at a safer place now where we are surrounded by wonderful mentors and have the resources to defend ourselves. I also recognize that I am still hunted by the evil spirits of my past, the spirits that hunted my mother, and hunted her mother. I ask for strength from my goddesses and higher spirits to help me see the world in its truth, and to shine light in my path to banish the evil spirits of my past. I used to struggle with consolidating magick and medicine especially with matters of the mind, seated in the brain which we understand so little about. Now, I understand that they are in fact two slightly different paths that ultimately aim to get us to one shared destination – moving us closer to peace and love.
Ena's worlds 