In my magical work and in my life I’ve learned that the most dangerous thing that can derail a working isn’t a spirit, an outside influence, or a technical mistake in ritual.
It’s the emotions I don’t acknowledge such as fear, grief, shutdown, paralysis and over-identification with whatever I’m feeling in the moment.
Most magicians are trained to “push through,” suppress, or bypass these states in order to keep the ritual clean and controlled. But the longer I’ve practiced, the more I’ve discovered that ignoring emotional states doesn’t make our magic stronger.
It fractures it.
Magic works best when we bring the whole of ourselves into the working.
And that includes the parts of us that feel overwhelmed, afraid, numb, or uncertain.
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Emotions are Diagnostics for what is happening in our lives
When a strong emotion rises up in the middle of a working, such as fear, doubt, depression, or anxiety, it’s tempting to frame it as the problem:
“If I weren’t feeling this right now, I’d be able to do the magic.”
But emotion isn’t the enemy of the working. Emotion is data that you need to get curious about. It’s a diagnostic signal pointing you toward something unresolved in the situation, the intention, or your own internal landscape.
Fear might be signaling:
a limiting belief (“I’m not enough,” “I can’t do this”)
a conflict between your stated desire and a hidden resistance
an outcome you say you want… but don’t fully trust yourself to receive
Depression may be pointing to:
grief that hasn’t been metabolized
exhaustion that needs rest, not ritual intensity
a season of inner winter when the work is calling you to slow down
When we treat emotions as interruptions, we miss the message. When we treat them as indicators, we gain insight into what actually needs to shift for the magic to land.
Curiosity becomes the core troubleshooting skill.
Instead of “how do I get rid of this?” we ask:
What is this feeling showing me about my relationship to the result?
Where is this emotion rooted in lived experience, trauma, or identity?
How does this state want to move in the magic: act, pause, rest, or transform?
This turns emotion from friction into information.
Over-Identification vs. Integration
One of the most common emotional pitfalls in magic is over-identification.
When a feeling becomes so intense that it takes over our sense of self, the fear isn’t something we’re experiencing, it becomes who we are in that moment.
When that happens, the emotion doesn’t just influence the working.
It runs it.
The solution isn’t suppression and it isn’t indulging the emotion either.
The solution is integration.
We acknowledge:
“This feeling is present in my body, my mind, and my experience, but it is not the totality of who I am.”
From that stance, we regain agency and we give the emotion a role it can perform for us.
Turn Failed Spells into Magic that Works
It’s frustrating when a spell fizzles and you don’t get the result that you want. It can make you question whether your magic is working and even cause doubt around your identity as a magician.
And a lot of the time the problem can be solved when you learn how to diagnose what isn’t working in your magical process.
Learn our system for troubleshooting magic, where we walk you through our methodical process for diagnosing and resolving problems in your magical workings so you can get back to getting results.
Bring the Whole of You Into the Work
We are humans doing magic, not machines performing procedure.
When we suppress emotional experience inside ritual space, we create resistance and fracture ourselves from the present moment.
When we include everything including the fear, the doubt, the shutdown, the tenderness, and the curiosity we bring more power, more coherence, and more honesty to the working.
If you’re going to do magic, go all in.
Bring all of you with you.
Because the more of yourself you allow into the work, the more capable you become of transforming possibility into results.
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