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Author Topic: Hi, and a beginner's question  (Read 2270 times)

Catkin

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Hi, and a beginner's question
« on: July 26, 2020, 12:59:19 am »
Hi, I'm newly studying to join a Gardnerian coven in WA State. (I'm cismale, married, young kids, have not had any magickal practice my whole life and no religious affiliation for many years). Discovering the world of Wicca, paganism and magick in the last month or so has felt like a bit of a homecoming -many threads of belief and interest from my life are uniting now. I've been excitedly reading a lot of material in the last month. Both Traditional British wicca material and other types of magickal writing.

So I have cast circles solo a couple times, spoken politely to the four elements, and done meditation focusing on chakras and just "feeling the energy", which I have done before, years ago. I can feel the energy,  which is exciting, and I want to work with it.

I am not sure if it's my imagination but I think I am having more-than-normal fatigue in the last week or so and my question is: could this be due to my neophyte witchy practices? Did I do something bad ? Does energy work cause fatigue?

Thanks for reading and any thoughts. Happy to be here, I've already read lots on the forum and hope to learn lots more.

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Re: Hi, and a beginner's question
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2020, 06:10:27 am »
Hi

Hi, and welcome - I'm afraid I'm not in a position to respond to your energy work/fatigue query, but hopefully some other peeps will be along soon-ish with some input for you.  Just wanted to offer you a greeting  :)
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Re: Hi, and a beginner's question
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2020, 01:47:33 pm »
So I have cast circles solo a couple times, spoken politely to the four elements, and done meditation focusing on chakras and just "feeling the energy", which I have done before, years ago. I can feel the energy,  which is exciting, and I want to work with it.

I am not sure if it's my imagination but I think I am having more-than-normal fatigue in the last week or so and my question is: could this be due to my neophyte witchy practices? Did I do something bad ? Does energy work cause fatigue?

Energy work can indeed cause fatigue (and several of the things you list are more than just energy work, to boot.) Think of it like anything new you learn: you use your body, your mind, and the rest of your self in new ways. You're using energy to do that (a new thing by itself) and using energy to learn to do the thing (which is a separate process from doing it).

Plus, when we're talking magic and ritual, those are 'muscles' many of us haven't really developed before we start doing things in this realm. Just like taking up a sport that involves new muscles, it's going to take time to build them up. (Just ask anyone who's had one or two sessions of archery or horseback riding that's never done it before...)

This is a great conversation to have with the group you're in contact with. First, this is a good thing for them to know (it may be helpful to them in other things they suggest down the road). They may also have suggestions for what to do to help with the fatigue that would fit better than others with their long-term training approach. (And if so, take their suggestions over mine.)

But if they don't have particular suggestions, this is usually what I suggest to people I'm working with.

1) Get good at self-awareness and at checking in with your energy levels in all sorts of different times of your day and week. When you get up, before and after you eat, before and after you do something that requires concentration, exercise, where your personal high and low points tend to be. (Lots of people have a fairly consistent dip some point after lunch, for example, for all sorts of biochemical reasons.)

A journal is a really good tool here, but there are also phone apps that can let you do a quick checkin. You don't need to be super detailed, but a phrase for when it is, ("after lunch" or "after work meeting" or whatever)  and a value (1 to 5, sad face/neutral face/happy face, thumbs down and thumbs up, whatever works for you.)

The goal is to get a sense of the patterns without magical or energy work, and then what changes when you do magical or energy work (usually there's an effect right after you do it, but there may also be effects on how deeply you sleep, for example.

2) Think about the patterns of when you're more tired. For some people, starting energy work shakes a bunch of older stuff loose - and that can cause fatigue in and of itself. (Think of it like the soreness after energetic exercise: your body needs to repair some of that damage and effort, and flush out the waste products from the exercise.)

Drinking more water (or something else hydrating and restorative, like some herbal teas) can help. Eating sensibly (whatever that means for your particular body) can help. Getting more rest and more sleep can help.

Some people find, especially early on in their witchy work (first six to twelve months is usually what I've seen), that they may be particularly tired at specific points in the lunar cycle (for me, full moons were just exhausting for a while.) If you know this pattern, you can do some stuff to support yourself. (Not plan anything else complicated you can avoid,  make sure get more sleep and rest, etc.) But you need the data to do that.

3) Consider backing off and trying one thing at a time. Your list is relatively broad, especially if you haven't had any previous experience with most of it. Trying one thing at a time makes it easier to figure out how things are affecting you, and whether you need to make adjustments.

(That said, that's why I said "Talk this through with the group and people who are guiding you: there are multiple ways to approach this, and someone who's aware of the specific stuff you're doing/can go through it with you step by step can often help clarify which things are maybe doing what pretty efficiently.)

4) If your practices have not included centering and grounding, in specific, those are good things to spend some time with.

The way I teach it, centering is 'what's you and what's not you', grounding is 'connecting yourself to the energy around you, and either taking some in from useful agreeable sources when you're low, or getting rid of your excess in manageable ways when you have extra'. Shielding is more like filtering - it can be a solid wall, or it can be more like "let me turn down the volume on that'.

More on my website here. (Feel free to ask more questions in the thread, but this way I don't need to dump several thousand words of explanation and variation in this post...)

You mention having small kids, and small kids can be balls of energy wonkiness sometimes (in the sense that they're learning how to manage their own energy and attention, and in the sense that what and how they want things from you can unbalance you, too. All of which you can work with, but means it might take you a bit longer to sort out what's causing what than someone who lives alone, because there are more possible factors.)
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Catkin

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Re: Hi, and a beginner's question
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2020, 02:00:33 pm »
Energy work can indeed cause fatigue (and several of the things you list are more than just energy work, to boot.)
Thank you for this helpful answer! I tend to try to squeeze as much as possible into my rare quiet moments. I'll talk to my group and break up my practices for now!

Voren

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Re: Hi, and a beginner's question
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2020, 08:01:55 pm »
Hi, I'm newly studying to join a Gardnerian coven in WA State. (I'm cismale, married, young kids, have not had any magickal practice my whole life and no religious affiliation for many years). Discovering the world of Wicca, paganism and magick in the last month or so has felt like a bit of a homecoming -many threads of belief and interest from my life are uniting now. I've been excitedly reading a lot of material in the last month. Both Traditional British wicca material and other types of magickal writing.

So I have cast circles solo a couple times, spoken politely to the four elements, and done meditation focusing on chakras and just "feeling the energy", which I have done before, years ago. I can feel the energy,  which is exciting, and I want to work with it.

I am not sure if it's my imagination but I think I am having more-than-normal fatigue in the last week or so and my question is: could this be due to my neophyte witchy practices? Did I do something bad ? Does energy work cause fatigue?

Thanks for reading and any thoughts. Happy to be here, I've already read lots on the forum and hope to learn lots more.

Hello and welcome!
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sevensons

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Re: Hi, and a beginner's question
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2020, 08:42:38 pm »
Hi, I'm newly studying to join a Gardnerian coven in WA State. (I'm cismale, married, young kids, have not had any magickal practice my whole life and no religious affiliation for many years). Discovering the world of Wicca, paganism and magick in the last month or so has felt like a bit of a homecoming -many threads of belief and interest from my life are uniting now. I've been excitedly reading a lot of material in the last month. Both Traditional British wicca material and other types of magickal writing.

So I have cast circles solo a couple times, spoken politely to the four elements, and done meditation focusing on chakras and just "feeling the energy", which I have done before, years ago. I can feel the energy,  which is exciting, and I want to work with it.

Hello another form of getting energy is getting a notebook and writing spells haven't you tried that out.

I am not sure if it's my imagination but I think I am having more-than-normal fatigue in the last week or so and my question is: could this be due to my neophyte witchy practices? Did I do something bad ? Does energy work cause fatigue?

Thanks for reading and any thoughts. Happy to be here, I've already read lots on the forum and hope to learn lots more.
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Re: Hi, and a beginner's question
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2020, 12:01:53 am »
Hi, I'm newly studying to join a Gardnerian coven in WA State. (I'm cismale, married, young kids, have not had any magickal practice my whole life and no religious affiliation for many years). Discovering the world of Wicca, paganism and magick in the last month or so has felt like a bit of a homecoming -many threads of belief and interest from my life are uniting now. I've been excitedly reading a lot of material in the last month. Both Traditional British wicca material and other types of magickal writing.

So I have cast circles solo a couple times, spoken politely to the four elements, and done meditation focusing on chakras and just "feeling the energy", which I have done before, years ago. I can feel the energy,  which is exciting, and I want to work with it.

I am not sure if it's my imagination but I think I am having more-than-normal fatigue in the last week or so and my question is: could this be due to my neophyte witchy practices? Did I do something bad ? Does energy work cause fatigue?

Thanks for reading and any thoughts. Happy to be here, I've already read lots on the forum and hope to learn lots more.

Welcome to the forum! To answer your question you might not have grounded. Make sure you have a snack after you do energy work or perform a ritual or spell. This could be the problem. Welcome again!
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Micheál

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Re: Hi, and a beginner's question
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2020, 11:41:19 am »
Hi, I'm newly studying to join a Gardnerian coven in WA State. (I'm cismale, married, young kids, have not had any magickal practice my whole life and no religious affiliation for many years). Discovering the world of Wicca, paganism and magick in the last month or so has felt like a bit of a homecoming -many threads of belief and interest from my life are uniting now. I've been excitedly reading a lot of material in the last month. Both Traditional British wicca material and other types of magickal writing.

So I have cast circles solo a couple times, spoken politely to the four elements, and done meditation focusing on chakras and just "feeling the energy", which I have done before, years ago. I can feel the energy,  which is exciting, and I want to work with it.

I am not sure if it's my imagination but I think I am having more-than-normal fatigue in the last week or so and my question is: could this be due to my neophyte witchy practices? Did I do something bad ? Does energy work cause fatigue?

Thanks for reading and any thoughts. Happy to be here, I've already read lots on the forum and hope to learn lots more.
Hail and welcome! Staying hydrated, having a good diet, grounding, and centring are agreeable good things to include in energy work. One way to do all of those, is eating immediately following a working. It's a good way to replenish, and ground at the same time. 
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