How to Overcome a Magickal Rut: Getting Back into a Regular Practice

Like most arts and other areas of life, we’re susceptible to falling out of magickal routines and finding ourselves stuck in a rut.

Writers blame writer's block, artists blame lack of inspiration, and magickal practitioners blame mundane areas of our lives.

Sometimes factors such as grief, emotional imbalance, financial responsibilities, and even our relationships with others can prevent us from sticking to good habits and maintaining regular, healthy routines.

For those of us whose magickal practice is integral to our spirituality, we become lost when our routine is disheveled and struggle to find our way back.

The following tips offer ways to overcome the ruts that take us by surprise and get back to making magick a regular, daily practice.

Lose the Negative Attitude

The first thing we do when we stumble into a rut is judge ourselves harshly. Avoid doing this at all costs. Tell that inner critic of yours “Thank you, but no thank you.”

If you’ve been asking yourself questions in a pattern like "Why did I let my practice go?” “Is this really the path for me?” “Should I even bother?" stop immediately.

Questioning isn’t inherently bad. The first two of these questions are good to ask, but only if you stop to reflect on and answer them. They do you no good if you only ask the questions and let them prevent you from getting back to your routines.

Telling yourself that a rut means you’re not good enough or not dedicated enough is self-defeating. Approach such questions from a more positive angle.

Why did you let your practice go?
Did a major life event disrupt your routine?
Are you grieving?
Would a change in or new practice be more suitable for you?
Is the path you were on the right one for you?
Would another path be more suitable?
Is your magickal practice a high priority in your life at this time?

When you take the time to change your attitude from one of criticism and self-defeat to one of curiosity, you can begin analyzing your situation. You can decide if you’re ready to make your magickal practice a regular part of your everyday life and find ways to go about it.

Briefly Consider New Routines

If you had a regular magickal practice previously, you could simply jump back into your old routine. However, if you fell out of the routine, you may want to consider changing things.

Was there a part of your practice that didn’t work for you? Did you incorporate too much of one thing and not enough of another?

For example: perhaps you focused too much on casting spells and not enough on meditation, study, practical skills like visualization and energy work, and self-reflection.

Or maybe you've since entered into a new phase of your life, such as parenthood, and you don't have the same flexibilities you once had. Maybe some of your old routine doesn't fit into this new part of your life. Or maybe you need to modify your practices a bit to better suite your current lifestyle.

Consider changing up the routine you had before and look into other areas of practice worth making a habit of. Try to remember what it was about the path that drew you to it in the first place, and take the next step to pursue that passion.

Challenge All Excuses

Before starting a magickal routine or after a rut, one major obstacle is overcoming excuses, like:

I don't have time.

The only time I have conflicts with other life priorities.
I feel moody/sick/tired when I go to begin any new routines.
Someone or something always seems to distract me right when I get ready to start.

The list can be endless.

When it comes to a matter of time and other priorities, consider instead how you can incorporate your magickal practice into those other tasks.

For example, the only time for meditation, spellcasting, and ritual are times when you spend with your family. Instead of forcing yourself to choose between your magickal practice and your family, find ways to bring the two together.

Will your family join you in a ritual? Does your family have any shared interest in meditation? Would your loved ones join in a prayer or blessing before meals? Perhaps you could share roles in a ritual or in guiding meditations for each other.

As for feeling moody or under the weather, these could be your body's way of telling you that it needs you to get into your routine. Regular practice in areas like meditation, divination, and even spellwork create a state of mind that relaxes the body, clears worries and distracting thoughts, connects you with positive energy, and helps you become and stay grounded.

Take those moody feelings as a sign that you need to step away from the mundane and into your magickal practice to get your physical, emotional, and spiritual health into alignment.

When you find yourself not doing what you intend to, start listing all the reasons why. Then one-by-one, see if you can challenge those reasons.

If you can, then they’re just excuses. Brainstorm ways you can overcome them. You can also reach out to others about whether they’ve dealt with the same excuses for ideas to help you overcome them yourself.

Start Small

Finally, the biggest mistake in overcoming a rut is jumping back in with a fury. It makes sense why we do this. You’re probably thinking that everything was going so smoothly before when you did all the things so you just need to do all the things now to get there again. But doing this nose-dive back into “all the things” quickly can create a lot of unnecessary stress, burnout, and even resentment over “having” to do your routines.

Avoid this mistake by taking everything one step at a time: Slowly incorporate each bit of your practice into your daily life.

A cleansing or purification of the self, magickal space, and home are great ways to start. From there, choose what to add. Daily devotionals can help get your spirituality in order and can be as short as a few seconds or as long as a couple hours.

If you’re the type who wants to do it all, take some time to understand that you can do it in smaller increments.

A previous routine that involved an hour of meditation, regular spellcasting, observing all ritual occasions, daily, weekly, or monthly cleansings and blessings, an hour or more of divination, and focused prayer before all activities is intense to start with after a rut.

Ease back into such routines by incorporating each element one day at a time and increasing the time spent on each as you move forward. Start easy and let each component of your practice unfold naturally.

We can’t expect to remain perfect in all of our routines at all times. By taking it easy on ourselves, reflecting on what may or may not need adjustments, recognizing excuses for the time-wasters they are, and slowly reintegrating our past routines, we can overcome the ruts that stop us from living as we choose--or feel called--to live.

Be your best magickal self one step and one day at a time!