That Witch Podcast
A show for modern witches and mystics of all levels and backgrounds! Learn about witchcraft, astrology, and spirituality in a FUN, casual atmosphere, and how to actually apply it to your life, career, relationships, and personal growth. This is real magick for real life.
That Witch Podcast
132 How A Witch Takes Care of Themselves
Welcome to Season 05, witches đ Things feel nice and fresh around here for this gorgeous autumnal equinox upon us, and we are going to channel that energy right into this first episode. This episode may not be the how-to format youâre expecting, and thatâs because I think until we actually define what the concepts of âself-careâ and âself-loveâ look like for ourselves, we canât really be present for the experience itself.
Today weâll talk about the pros and cons of the self-care trend tsunami, and my own experience from self-destruction into actually giving a shit about myself. Hopefully you see fractals of your own journey and how you can shift your thinking into genuinely caring for yourself and not just performing a bunch of cookie-cutter tasks like some self-care robot.
And if youâre looking to continue exploring a more intentional self-care practice, join us in That Witch School where you can get the Using Your Chart for Self-Care â Soul-Care bonus episode, along with our giant back catalog of incredible bonus education materials. Just $30 per month gets you full access to everything including my entire birth chart course, Astrology with That Witch Next Door ⨠Visit thatwitchnextdoor.com/enroll and subscribe as a Full-Time Student today!
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Hey, do you want to come over and make a pot of tea? Bring your favorite crystals. You know we could talk about our birth charts, spirits, the latest house spells we've been doing. Welcome to the neighborhood. I'm that witch next door. Hello, hello, hello, my most wonderful neighbor. Welcome to season five. I cannot believe that it's here. I can't believe we're here, that I'm here with you.
Speaker 1:If you're listening to me on Spotify or on Apple Podcast or Google Podcast right now and you're probably like, yeah, I know what are you talking about. I'm talking about, if you want to listen to this episode over on YouTube, you can now see my face, my wonderful, lovely face again. If you've been a really, really long time listener of that witch podcast, then you know that we used to do this, actually season one and two, and I think that season three or somewhere along season two is where we stopped doing video. I'm going to just like put all this out there. I don't know if we're going to do a video every single time we record. It's most certainly my goal, because I miss having more of this video content and the podcast is the place that I enjoy being the most. So if I'm going to do video, it makes sense to do it while I'm recording the podcast, and part of the reason I love the podcast so much is because it helps me delve into the Scorpio side of my Leo Scorpio square in my chart. That takes place with my Ascendant, as well as my Jupiter and my Zelt node. It helps me go into kind of a hidden private place sometimes, and sometimes that's when the strongest messages come through for me. Sometimes that's when I feel the best energetically and I really truly plan on continuing to honor that, which actually is a really really perfect example of what we're going to be talking about today on the first episode of season five. So first of all, hello and welcome back, especially if you were with me before our season break. It has been a little bit longer than I had originally been planning and it was so, so, incredibly worth it. Oh my God, it was so worth it.
Speaker 1:I really found the podcast was becoming a task on the to do list and it was losing a lot of its luster and a lot of its creative spark. For me and I have ADHD and if we are heading to a place of boredom, we got to pay attention. There's something that needs to be changed up or let go of or created a new whatever. And at the rate that I was moving and the way I was creating episodes and recording them and brainstorming them, all of that, this was r РОн Natßrlich Ps Wellington8 really becoming unsustainable for me. And if I continued on that trajectory, I knew deep down that eventually, whether it was in a year, in a few years, in a few months, I knew that that witch podcast was gonna go away. Because that's me, that's my pattern. If something becomes way, way, way too stagnant, it ain't happening. It should burn it all to the ground.
Speaker 1:So I am really excited because if you listen to my update, kind of in between seasons, I let you know I've been changing up how I'm recording and so, instead of only recording episodes chronologically, I've been utilizing this time that I've been off to record episodes when I feel really really called to it, whether it's a specific message that's coming through or I just can feel like, nope, this is a good recording day, like I wanna talk. So that's been feeling so, so, so refreshing. And then I still have our Monday Musings episodes, which will be back on Monday, the 25th. So don't worry about that, I still have this beautiful consistency of Monday Musings to give me that stability that I need. I still have a lot of fixed placements in my chart, so I don't need to throw all structure to the wind, but I knew that there was a way to utilize the fact that we do two episodes a week and to let Monday be this beautiful, consistent kind of running foundation that really actually helps my ADHD as well and gives me some time, reference and things like that. But I was able to now also use our second episodes every week to let myself tap into my really just raw, natural intuition and creative flow, and I gotta tell ya, the episodes have been feeling so good.
Speaker 1:Today is one of those days that I was like yep, today's the day we're recording episode one of season five, so welcome, and I'm so happy to have you here with me. Like I said, everything that I'm talking about is actually a really, really perfect example of what I wanted to talk about today anyways, which is, as you saw in the title of the podcast, how a Witch Takes Care of Themselves. So, first of all, if you haven't already gotten your magical merch from that witch podcast, that is where, if you're watching me on YouTube, where I got this absolutely stunning mug for my tea and those of you that already did get your mug cheers. I was so excited when I realized we could be drinking out of the mug at the same time While I'm recording and while they're listening. I love it so much. So head over to that witchnextdoorcom slash shop to take a look at all of the beautiful goodies that we have and rep that witch podcast and stay magical out there.
Speaker 1:So how a witch takes care of themselves, this is really, really important. And before we start diving into the how of everything, I wanna talk about what this is. First and foremost because for me, these terms like self-care and self-love, they just it took a long, long time for them to resonate with me and, quite honestly, I don't even really use them still, although I have kind of healed my relationship to these words a little bit, we have been so desensitized by these terms and I wanna just offer a little bit of understanding to that, because a lot of us kind of tend to get up and be like, oh my God, fuck the self-care train and it's just overused and the word is just such a buzz term now. And while I agree with all of that and we're gonna talk about that in a second. I do wanna say that it needed to happen and I am glad that it happened and I'm glad that it went overboard and kind of did desensitize all of us, because that's how much we were missing this concept in this practice in our lives as human beings. I mean, we really did kind of need to get it a little bit shoved down our throat just so that we finally finally started paying attention.
Speaker 1:And it got a lot of us I'm at least speaking for myself here, I don't know about you, but it got a lot of us so pissed off that we started saying it's not that I'm saying self-care is wrong or bad, it's the fact that it's becoming so trendy and vague and used as a buzz term all the time, used as clickbait all the time. It got me so mad that I just wanted to redefine it for myself. And when I did that, I really was able to heal my relationship and my own connotation of these terms. But I still use my preferred terminology because it resonates even deeper with me. And so I wanted to offer this to you because I have found that the one of the biggest reasons people are not even attempting to practice or heal their struggles around self-care or work through any blockages keeping them from self-care.
Speaker 1:I really do think one of the biggest reasons for this is how trendy it's become. It's gotten so trendy that it bypasses a lot, a lot, a lot of nuance. It bypasses a lot of very important information that we should take into consideration if we're going to go out there and spew self-care from the rooftops. So instead of constantly using this term self-care which again now is like numb, like that term, sometimes it feels meaningless now I like to say actually giving a fuck about yourself.
Speaker 1:So when I'm talking about self-care, whether it's with my clients or with my friends or with myself, to help myself move past that frustration and that friction around the word self-care, I started differentiating it and I started elaborating and I would be talking to a client, for example, and I'd ask them about their self-care habits or any practices that they use. Where we would be talking about is this coming from a place of actual self-care? And then I'd find myself saying right after that, you know I mean actually giving a fuck about yourself. That's what I mean when I'm talking about self-care and anytime you hear it on this podcast, that's what I mean. I'm talking about the acts and feelings and sensation of actually giving a shit about yourself, actually caring about what happens to you, how you're treated.
Speaker 1:And so, because of this, a lot of people, myself included, we really like the term self-respect, because if I have respect for someone or something, you will know it because I treat it with such respect. And so when I turn this concept in on myself, it helps keep me more accountable. It helps me get out of that nasty little habit of giving way too much to other people or giving them so much more love and care and devotion than I would give myself. And so when I use the term self-respect, it's this great equalizer, because I'm like, oh well, I know what treating someone with respect looks like, but I have had such a twisted idea of what caring for myself looks like for so long. And again, object permanence issues. If I can't visualize that, if it doesn't seem tangible to me, it feels like I'm grasping at straws. Respect, on the other hand, this is very tangible to me. I have very clear definitions around my thoughts and behaviors when it comes to respecting someone or something. So I invite you to use this terminology with yourself instead of the word self-care, and the same thing goes for the term self-love. Same thing, same thing.
Speaker 1:I remember telling my therapist in a session a long time ago, like early, early last year or so, that when I think of the concept of self-love, I think of this type of love language that I don't really subscribe to, that I'm not very good at giving or receiving and I almost associate it with being like ooey gooey and I'm just not like this. I am a very caring, fiercely loving, very, very affectionate person, which is why it's very funny to me because I'm like, in tons of ways I'm very much the ooey gooey person and this is all stemming from my own issues with actually developing and fostering and fostering real self-love within myself. That's me describing that like oh, I don't know how I feel. That's actually me describing a blockage. So if you are similar in this concept of self-love, feels the same way, number one, you're not alone and I would venture to say this could potentially be a blockage for you.
Speaker 1:There might be a specific challenge or tension or difficulty around truly having love and respect for yourself and seeing and appreciating your own value. Now, when I want to use a term, that again because I'm still learning what it looks like to love myself, and so, if I can't visualize that, what is a concept or set of behaviors that I am very familiar with that I can really recognize for myself? And this is kindness self-kindness. I may not have the clearest idea of what loving myself looks like. I have a much, much better idea than I used to, and we'll talk about that, but I don't have this crystal clear image. I do, however, have very tangible understanding of kindness. I make a point to use kindness very intentionally and therefore, because this is something I so actively participate in, I know what that behavior looks like, I know what that feels like and therefore I can grasp it and I can turn it around and give it to myself.
Speaker 1:Today's episode is brought to you by Sister Yaro, one of my favorite handmade clothing, home goods and accessories companies. Located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, created by one of my dear friends, owner and artist, madeline Greason, sister Yaro connects you to both earth and spirit by bringing you handmade, one-of-a-kind pieces inspired by nature and all things magic. Now, this autumn, sister Yaro's most recent collection is called the Earth Seasons Collection. It is a mixture of earrings, necklaces and accessories and more that primarily focus on beautiful mixed metals, crystals and other minerals, with an emphasis on simplistic, gorgeous, bohemian designs. Now, in addition to their newest collection, sister Yaro also offers a wide variety of products like sun catchers and mobiles. I have a couple in my home and they are a favorite of myself and my daughter. They cast little rainbows across the room. We've got home goods candles, crystals, clothing and more and listeners of that witch podcast also get an exclusive discount on sisteryarocom. Simply use the code thatwitch10 to receive 10% off your entire order. Go to sisteryarocom, make sure you subscribe to their email newsletter so you never miss their newest collection, newest products or exclusive discounts and sales, and make sure you use code thatwitch10 to receive 10% off your entire order at sisteryarocom.
Speaker 1:This leads me into a little bit of story time and my own experience with all this, in hopes that it reaches the right person or people that need to hear this for themselves right now. I did not again. I am definitely still learning what exactly it looks like to love myself, but the progress that I have made in this arena is huge, huge, huge, huge, and I'm gonna really let myself take a moment to really truly recognize that, because I have done a lot of very conscious and a lot of subconscious work around this, and it's not something that let me put it to you this way it's easy for me to look back and see the ways that I wasn't loving myself and that I wasn't caring about myself and I wasn't doing caring, loving things for myself, and I also have found that the way that I've grown and the way that I have started caring for myself and treating myself with respect and kindness, it's not really how I had pictured it, and maybe we could chalk that up to lack of object permanence as well, because maybe I was trying to before I knew what it looked like, maybe I was trying to create a picture of it and I never could have possibly been accurate because of that. But I say this because I find that in myself and a lot of the people that I work with that it's very, very easy to miss these small but very powerful markers of honoring yourself, especially people that lived life for a very long time through patterns of self-sabotage and self-deprecation. So for me, when I look back on, like my earliest years of adulthood, it didn't take long for me to anchor into this way of thinking and this way of being that I just used my kindness all the time and I'm going to get very transparent with you here.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't have realized this at the time, but I was using my kindness and hiding behind it. I was using it to not have to speak my truth. I was using it to lie to myself and say that I was this kind, loving person. So of course, I also cared about myself. I don't think that at the time I gave that much super deep thought to do I really care for myself. Most of us in our 20s are a little too busy destroying ourselves to think about it, at least in my experience in my generation.
Speaker 1:But if you would have asked me, I probably would have just no hesitation, been like yeah, of course I had this idea that self-care and taking care of oneself and being responsible, that all of those things were tied to and defined by just being a good person, whatever the fuck that means right. And I remember hiding behind this for a very, very, very long time, this notion that, like, I'm nice to people and therefore I'm a good person and therefore I must not have anything to worry about. Seriously. And now that I am, you know, now that I have done just the crazy, vulnerable, cathartic healing that I've done thus far, to really peel back those layers and let myself look at the roots behind all of that, my definitions behind all of that, my intentions with all of that, and let myself really clear it all away and redefine it all for myself. You know, now I have this huge, huge clarity when I look back and I can see it so much more for what it is now this hiding, like I said, this hiding from my own truth, hiding from my own authenticity, hiding from my own alignment. And I mean, my friends, I gave this away for so many years. It didn't matter if it aligned with me.
Speaker 1:I based alignment on the external. Was everything rocky in the external world around me? Would it cause all these waves to things that had found a pattern and some familiarity and comfort? Then it must. Then then don't sacrifice that and keep things going. However, they need to be going to keep that shit going, and this is because of the healing work that I chose to embark on, which, essentially, this was a large, large series of events. I don't have this specific experience. I don't have a near-death experience or some giant moment of truth and clarity that got me on this path. That happens for some people, but for me this was a building, this was a working toward.
Speaker 1:It wasn't like I was one way one day and overnight I started drawing boundaries. It wasn't like that at all. It was a learning process. I started learning more and the more that I expanded my knowledge to as many, I started exposing myself to more people and getting outside of that familiar cycle and pattern that had been in place for so goddamn long. That really is when, in those little micro lessons that you're learning along the way, you're having these small moments of oh. I remember this other situation that happened and that was just like this, but back then I responded to it this way and now I can see why that fucked me a little bit. Or now I can see why that was me dishonoring myself or letting myself down in order to make this person feel better or whatever.
Speaker 1:And then, over time, this finally I had educated myself to a point and worked with enough people at this point that not just in my career but for myself, like in therapy and sponsorship and mentorship and I started learning things about like emotional intelligence and emotional responsibility and heavy lifting and true authenticity and true soul autonomy, and it was through learning more and more about these things and putting them into practice and tiny micro examples and letting those examples really really stack up. That's ultimately the progress. That's ultimately how I changed and again, I hope you can see like this is why I'm definitely not a. It's not a finished process for me by any means. I'm very much just describing up until this currently in the journey right now. But I can look back and I can see how I used kindness, my own caring, my own love, and I used it, quite frankly, against myself and that was like one of the biggest biggest realizations Is not only could I not hide behind this like, oh, I'm a good person, everything's okay and it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:I was raised very religiously and things were very black and white and I've done a ton, ton, ton of religious healing, but the cultures, the practices and the beliefs and the ethics I was raised around you know that they made it that black and white. You're a good person, then you're good, you'll go to heaven, everything is fine. Don't worry about the details so much. It's not a big deal, let it go. You're being dramatic, like all of those kinds of things. Well, enter architectural practices in my life like astrology and tarot, and this has absolutely blown up my healing journey.
Speaker 1:For me, using the archetypes and the symbolism in astrology has brought me, has gifted me, profound self-accountability. It put a mirror up in front of my face that I couldn't deny anymore. It gave me my own humanity back and made me realize you know, you care so much. You have this deep, very real and genuine empathy for other people and you're using it literally against yourself. You're taking responsibility for others' people's experience, which is not your responsibility, danny. It's not your responsibility to take ownership of anybody else's experience, and when you do that, you are robbing them of their own organic growth and learning. That was probably one of the biggest lessons for me in learning how to stop trying to manage other people's emotions. Yes, this developed for me out of a survival state from a young child and a young adolescent. I get where it came from. I hold space and I hold love for that, and I had to get real with myself. This is not helping me. This is harming me. I'm using these very good super power, strengths and skills I have about myself directly against myself, and so truly how a witch takes care of themselves.
Speaker 1:I'm sure we were thinking you know this cutesy episode about skincare and stuff like that, but ultimately this was about mindset. Today's episode is hopefully to help you get real with yourself, to reveal any of these big truths that you may have been hiding from, without realizing these skills or strengths that you may have about yourself, that you really are not only just like giving and giving and giving away to other people. You're using them against yourself to continue patterns and habits that again manage the external around you without touching any of the internal. And guess what? This? You know your little physical and energetic and auric field in your body that resides within it. That's about all that is your responsibility, you know, outside of being a caretaker and that's a whole other episode.
Speaker 1:But I really truly have found that things like actually caring about brushing my teeth every day, doing my skincare and taking a shower and having a routine and giving a shit about having a routine and caring enough about myself to find what my natural, unique flow is all of those things stemmed from this mindset shift. All of those things wouldn't have happened if I didn't have the shifts into starting to actually give a fuck about myself and actually treating myself with kindness. So that, to me is one of the most bad-ass powerful things you can do as a witch. You know the magic. You can scroll back to the episodes with cleansing and protection and I've got loads of episodes with tools and techniques and tips that you can apply directly into your self-care routine and we'll probably go over some of those tips and that's probably gonna be my next bonus episode for everybody in that witch school and maybe we'll do like a workshop with it and everything.
Speaker 1:But I couldn't give you all of that without giving you this first. If I didn't turn you inward first and I just gave you all this external stuff, it would do nothing. It would do nothing. It would be like if you told me that you didn't have transportation and you really, really, really needed a car. We're working up to save and buy a car or some other form of transportation and to help you. I bought you a toolkit for working on your car a car you don't have or without teaching you how to drive in the first place. So I wanted to offer this to you because it's been one of these big, beautiful moments of clarity that I've had for myself recently that I've been sharing with some of my clients and I've been really, really looking forward to sharing it all with you, and today is the last day of Virgo season.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow is the autumn equinox, the first day of Libra season, it's Maybond. It's this beautiful day of equal light and equal dark. The day is split half and half, and it's this gorgeous idea of balance and harmony. What better day than to introduce you to this concept, or maybe even reintroduce you to this concept, because this might be something that you've already been thinking about a little bit more and maybe, just maybe, you needed to hear somebody else who's gone through this too. So thank you for your time today, neighbor, I'm so excited to be back with you in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1:This is such a magical place Remember, over in that witch school. There are no breaks, I mean, other than our bi-weekly integration weeks, but other than that every other week there is new bonus content, whether that's in the form of a live event or an article, or a bonus episode, or a discussion, a group gathering. It is this place just buzzing with welcoming, accessible, this big giant hug of energy, like, honestly, as soon as you get into the community. That's exactly how it feels to me. The fun doesn't ever stop over there. So if you are over here, missing me in between seasons. I'm just saying I was already on Mighty Networks that whole entire time and still interacting with people, still offering out magic. So if that's something you've been thinking about for a while, use this as your sign. Please come join us in that witch school to get full access to absolutely everything. It's only $30 a month and that includes all four levels of astrology, with that witch next door, my birth chart course, which is just the chef's kiss of my career right now.
Speaker 1:So thank you, thank you again for your time today. I am sending you all of my love, respect and kindness and I hope you can really really harness into that and turn it inwards towards yourself. I can't wait to see you on Monday for the Monday forecast and I hope you have a beautiful weekend. Everybody, make sure you stay safe, have fun and stay magical out there. Did you get something valuable out of today's show? Here's how you can help continue to grow our magic. First, you can head over to Apple or Spotify and leave a five-star rating and review. You can also share a shout-out on your social media page and make sure you tag me at thatwitchnet store. And, of course, you can just tell a friend that you think would enjoy the show and send them a link to the episode. Thank you so much, neighbor, for your support. I'll see you next time.
