Somebody came to the Magic Lab last week and asked for help with procrastination. I love this topic, because procrastination is so perfect and so ripe for magic. Procrastinating is when we say we wanna do a thing, we believe it's important, we know there are gonna be negative consequences if we don't do it, and we still can't bring ourselves to do the freaking thing.
Why is that? I know it's good for me. I know I'm gonna get all these amazing results if I follow through. Usually the actual task isn't even that big of a deal, and yet we can't break through whatever that resistance is, whatever that lack of interest or that obstacle might be.
This is where magic comes in so handy. Magic takes some will, in the sense that we want something and we're clear on what it is we want, but it isn't about powering through and pushing through. Anybody who's ever procrastinated knows that just trying to will yourself into doing it normally doesn't work so well.
When we're avoiding a task, I think we're usually avoiding something within ourselves that the task is just expressing or representing. So the exercise we did went like this:
First we thought about our minds, the intellectual part of ourselves, our ideas, our thinking, our communication skills, and connected with whatever about my intellect is not willing to do this work.
Then we connected with our energy, to see if anything particularly uncomfortable there might be blocking us. Maybe your energetic state is so out of balance that it's just not gonna be willing to sit down at a desk and work on, say, a job search.
After that, we checked in with our hearts, because maybe we're in an emotional state that isn't super appropriate for job searching.
And last came the body, with the simplest question of all: am I physically prepared to take this on, with access to the things I need and enough rest to actually get to work?
And then I walked through how to design a spell to help overcome the procrastination. (More on that on next week’s Liberation Letter!)
That sounds so simple that I promise you're not gonna do it, because it's gonna sound like there's not enough “there” there, you might think it’s just a dumb exercise. So let me challenge you. Try it, and let me know how you go.
Because if there's something you say you want to do and you're not able to do it, it's because some aspect of yourself, or some part of your consciousness, isn't completely aligned with getting the work done.
Maybe your mind is like, "Oh my God, yes, of course I need a job." Maybe your body is saying, "Absolutely not. I'm burnt out, I have so much on, and I cannot do another thing." Or maybe emotionally you're carrying a lot of weight in your personal life, and the idea of taking on a new task, a new project, or even starting the new job is super overwhelming. Then your subconscious mind steps in to protect you from something it believes might be damaging to you.
So we look at procrastination from two angles.
The first is the aspects of yourself: is there anything in your mind, your energy, your heart, or your body that is getting in the way of completing the task?
Then you check in with the different levels of your consciousness. There might be something in your subconscious mind that's getting in the way, protecting you, in a sense defending you from your own desire, because it holds an idea or a fear that what you consciously think you want isn't really in your best interest. Or there might be something going on at the supra-conscious level, the level of the divine mind, that doesn't think whatever you're procrastinating about is such a great idea for you right now. In other words, the procrastination instinct itself might be a way you're being protected. So ponder that possibility.
Most of the time, though, that's not the case, and what's really going on is that there's something about ourselves we're disconnected from, some misunderstanding, misconception, or fear (founded or not, and usually not) that's getting in the way of finishing the task.
So rather than pushing through whatever it is you're trying to do, I wanna invite you to sit with yourself and take a deep breath. Let your feelings, your thoughts, and your energy take up some room and be in dialogue with each other, asking how they're all doing and seeing whether they can get on board with the thing you're trying to complete.
If you're procrastinating, try the most basic magical working there is, which is checking in with every aspect of yourself and with the different levels of your consciousness. Maybe do some journaling about it, and see how you go with that.
And if you do try it, hit reply and tell me which part of you turned out to be in the way. I read every one.
Courage, truth, and infinite love,
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Magic is not a belief system, it’s a practice that works.
Don’t believe me? Come try it out. If it doesn’t work, you lose nothing. But if it does… your dream life is about to begin!
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