The Importance of Gratitude and How to Include it In Your Practice
You’re in the right place if you want to…
learn about gratitude and how to include it in you practice
understand how to use Cinnamon both magically and medicinally
discover how the tarot can show up in your daily life
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To start off the show, we look at our Tarot Card for the week and we look for moments that relate to this card in our daily lives.
For this week, we chose the Six of Wands. The theme The theme of this card is accepting praise and celebrating an achievement or a win.
Success looks different to everyone but it usually comes as a culmination of hard work. Whether it’s graduating from high school or college, getting a promotion or award at work, completing a project or presentation, writing a book, healing from sickness or injury, leaving an abusive relationship, or something else, this card is a reminder to celebrate. Take time to celebrate and enjoy the stuff that you're working so hard for.
You can hear Erica’s and Maggie’s stories related to the Six of Wands by listening to the episode.
What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is one of the most powerful ways to shift your focus. You are literally focusing on the things that are going well, which leaves less room to focus on the not so nice things. The more you focus on the good, the more you will attract the things you appreciate.
When we’re ungrateful or when we find it hard to find things to be grateful for it’s because our scope of awareness is very small. As such, we can only see the world from our own perspective and can’t hold the bigger picture or be grateful. Therefore, gratitude is often dependent on your perspective
You can easily feel grateful for your health if you’ve gone through long periods of unhealthiness.
You can easily feel grateful for your loved ones if you’ve had traumatic experiences with people you thought loved you.
You can easily feel grateful for your job or your home or your wealth if you’ve ever been unemployed or homeless or broke.
You can easily feel grateful for your running water or food in the cupboard if you’ve ever been without.
But even these feelings of gratitude can fade once we begin to become accustomed to the current set of circumstances and our previous experiences grow dimmer in the past.
So, try to continue to recognize these things as blessings even after they have been normalized. Or if you’ve never been without these seemingly basic blessings, learn to recognize them as what they are.
How to Recognize Blessings in Your Daily Life.
Because there are always things that can be viewed as blessings, even in the most challenging of times. We often just take them for granted if we aren’t in the practice of thinking of them as blessings.
They could be those basic blessings already mentioned, your health, your loving partner, your friends and family, your home, your source of income, running water or food in the cupboard.
They could be small moments in your day that don’t seem to have significance but still made you feel good like a smile from a stranger, an easy commute, or a good cup of tea.
Related: Blessings and Protection Magic
Try making a ritual of listing 3 things you are grateful for every morning when you wake up and/or every evening before you go to sleep. You can write them down if you want, or just say them in your head or out loud.
Pay it Forward
When you receive a blessing, do your best to pass it on to to someone else. I don’t mean directly, if you live in your dream house, you don’t need to give it away. But think about what living in that house enables you to do, and how you can now share that with your community. Do you have a plot of land that you can grow food on? Can you set up a stand with produce to share with your neighbors? Or donate to food banks?
Think about it in terms of the gratitude you would feel toward another person. The gratitude you feel when someone saves your life, or teaches you something life-changing, or helps bail you out of financial trouble, or gives you an extravagant gift, or bestows some other sort of blessing onto you.
Saying Thank You
Another way to express gratitude, to simply say thank you to the source of your blessings, whatever or whoever you believe in. Whether you believe blessings come from an external source, or yourself, or somewhere else, just say thank you. And a smile doesn’t hurt either.
The Full Moon
When we follow the lunar cycle, the Full Moon offers an opportunity to express gratitude for all the wonderful things that have happened during the waxing half of the cycle. It also helps us prepare to release the things we are maybe not so grateful for.
Related: Working with the Moon’s Energy
Things to Consider
This brings to mind all sorts of questions:
How long do you express gratitude to the other being for what they have given you?
And how do you repay them?
Does it eventually become a burden to you to feel indebted to that person?
Does it eventually become embarrassing to them to be thanked forever?
Is it a never-ending cycle of gratitude and exhaustion?
So, sometimes it’s not the right path to pay someone back for the gift they’ve given you, but to pay it forward. When someone gives you an immeasurable gift, find a way to pass it on to someone who hasn’t received it yet.
And again the source of the blessing could be anyone, a spirit realm entity like a god or goddess, the universe, or whatever you believe in, a person in your life, a group or organization, yourself, etc.
If you think about the source of blessings in the same way, express your gratitude by passing it on. Use your life, and all the blessing you receive while you live it, to work toward your higher purpose.
Gratitude is one of the most important aspects of magic. As you practice, you will find it easier to see things to be grateful for, and as you see more things to be grateful for you will find that more come into your life as well.
This post is brought to you by Cinnamon
MEDICINAL -Analgesic, antibacterial, antibiotic, antifungal, antioxidant, antiviral, aphrodisiac, decongestant, diaphoretic, digestive, diuretic, emmenagogue, expectorant, hemostatic, stimulant, vasodilator. Appetite loss, arthritis, bedwetting, colds, colic, cough, diarrhea, flatulence, flu, halitosis, headache, hypotension, irregular menses, lumbago, malabsorption, nausea, poor circulation, prostatitis, rheumatism, tuberculosis, and vision problems.
MAGICAL - Active, Fire, Sun, Aries, Capricorn, Leo. Spirituality, success, healing, protection, power, love, luck, strength, and prosperity. Burn as an incense or use in a sachet to raise spiritual and protective vibrations, draw money, and stimulate psychic powers. A popular herb for use in charms to draw money & prosperity. Wear in an amulet to bring passion. Cinnamon can be used in spells for protection, love & lust, and prosperity. Cinnamon is a very versatile ingredient.
Send us a voicemail
We play one listener voicemail on each episode of Talk Witchcraft, with a few exceptions. To send us a voicemail, record a voice memo on your phone and email it to welisten [at] talkwitchcraft [dot] com. Please keep in mind that we only choose voicemails that are two minutes in length or shorter (even if they’re great!).
What we’re looking for in a voicemail
Share from your personal experiences (especially experiences that we could never have) and use that to illuminate the zodiac season or theme in new ways.
Ask questions of Erica and Maggie, so we have an opportunity to respond meaningfully to your voicemail during the podcast.
Use one of these prompts: Is there something happening with you and your life that aligns with the current zodiac season or a Tarot card? How do your experiences show us something new about the magic, something that we haven’t talked about so far?
Send a voicemail even if you’re behind on the podcast. If your voicemail is about a previous episode, zodiac season, or tarot card; that doesn’t mean we won’t choose it!
Tips for recording a great voicemail
Make sure you’re somewhere quiet.
Plan what you’re going to say ahead of time, because two minutes goes quickly.
Opt for talking freely based on a bullet pointed list rather than reading word-for word from a script.
Let us know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.
Wait, don’t go yet!
Thanks for hanging out with me today. If you’ve enjoyed this post of Talk Witchcraft, I invite you to check out mumblesacademy.com.
Mumbles Academy is the place to be for intuitive souls at any stage on their WitchPath. Whether you are a Wildling at the very beginning of witchcraft journey and looking for a safe learning environment, a Creator who is already committed to their practice and wants to develop their witchcraft skills even more, or a Sage who full of wisdom already and is ready to share that with others, Mumbles Academy was designed for you.
With monthly masterclasses and live Q&As, an extensive archive of courses and training, and a supportive community to help you along the way with encouragement and advice, Mumbles Academy is the perfect place for you to be as you as you continue on your WitchPath.
Now it’s your turn!
What was the first spell/ritual you ever utilized?
