nd-witches

[nd-witches]

Magic Associations List

"You asked me to put magic associations to the things I love, but Willow, what *are* some magic associations cuz my brain can't think?"

I gotchu fam!

Keep in mind, this isn't a perfect list as I am also bad at thinking of things and there are a *lot* of things you could use, but I hope this is enough to at least generate ideas :) (I bolded every other word for reading convenience)

Positive

Balance • **harmony** • patience • **self-worth** • courage • **strength** • prosperity • **problem solving** • health • **clarity** • creativity • **energy** • fertility • **grounding** • growth • **healing** • happiness • **intelligence** • friends • **protection** • support • **truth** • life • **purity** • light • **confidence** • independence • **composure** • potential • **forgiveness** • meditation • **success** • hope • **spirit** • calming • **intuition** • sleep • **understanding** • luck • **banish/ward** • kindness • **inspiration** • communication • **relationships** • gifts • **wishes** • motivation

Negative

( * Some of these may be triggering * )

Issues • **fear** • bitterness • **evil** • anger • **sadness** • ill intent • **negativity** • depression • **infection** • illness • **grief** • loss • **tension** • phobias • **confusion** • hiding • **running** • stress • **lies** • obstacles • **blockages** • destruction • **dispare** • gossip

Mixed/depends

These are ones that are more dependent on the situation or your views on the subject :)

Emotions • **wealth** • potential (positive or negative) • **dreams (good or nightmare)** • relationships (good and toxic) • **accidents (can cause good things)** • invisibility (can hide if you need protection but also bad in relationships :/) • **detachment (from good things or bad)**

Sorry y'all, I started this post a month ago and got busy 😅 (and by "busy" I mean scrolling Reddit and procrastinating school work, work I'm still procrastinating rn-)

Edit: I *thought* I bolded every other word for reading convenience, but ig idk how tumblr works- I'll fix it later

[nd-witches]

If doing complex spells is too distracting, don't do them. Maybe you have some sort of disability that makes movement or concentration difficult, maybe you don't. It doesn't matter. If using a million ingredients and doing a hundred steps doesn't work for you, that doesn't make your craft any lesser, in fact, doing what works best for you will be more effective in the long run.

[nd-witches]

Energy jar!

For all of you spoonies out there like me, this is something I have that helps me out a bit if I’m starting to run out of spoons early in the day. For this you’ll need a

-jar with a lid (pretty much anything with a lid) -crystals and stones of your choice (optional) (Quartz is a good one) -sigil or rune of your choice (optional)

So what you do, is you put anything you have in your jar and close it up. Now, if you have any extra energy on you, channel it into the jar. Other ways to energize your jar are putting it in sunlight, moonlight, playing music to it, running it under running water, wind, placing it on top of any charging electronics, and pretty much anything!

Any crystals in the jar will help magnify that energy, so when you need it it’s there! And sigils will do the same!

[nd-witches]

The idea that mentally ill people can’t practice witchcraft is a complete myth, and a very harmful one at that. It’s spread primarily by people who aren’t mentally ill themselves (and really have no business speaking for the experiences of actual mentally ill people).

Sure, it can be hard, but never once have depression or anxiety affected my magic in ways other than they affect my mundane life. I get tired, worried, hopeless, etc., but magic is a huge help in times like those. Witchcraft has been monumental in improving my mental health. It can ease anxiety and make me feel less helpless and give me a boost when I need it.

Not to mention that intense emotions can make for really powerful spells. (Fear and desperation really pack a punch in protections and curses, let me tell you.)

It can be hard to balance mental illness and a spiritual life, but whether or not mentally ill people do so is up to the *individual*, not a person making sweeping generalizations, to decide.

[nd-witches]

Witch Tip

Never underestimate the power of That Cool Thing You Found on the Ground ™.

[nd-witches]

do you have any advice at practicing visualization (especially when aspiring to astral travel) when one has ocd and intrusive thoughts often disrupt visualizing? (like for example, i'm imagining a door, i go over to open the door, but intrusive thoughts make it appear that i slam the door closed before i am able to walk through it)

This may not be the advice you are looking for, but I have very similar experiences with ADHD and so I will tell you what works for me is kind of to just go with what you are thinking until your thoughts kind of stable out. 

So for me it can take a bit before I am ready to astral travel because I spend a bit of time first just going with the flow of my thoughts. So for example, if you slam the door shut in your thoughts maybe look around for something else that is there. Hopefully eventually you will get to a place where you can control your visualizing enough to astral travel.

if anyone else has any other advice that would be great I know this is what works for me and it may not work for you. 

hope this helps

-tristin

[nd-witches]

How to Meditate When You’re Neurodivergent

For those of you who may or may not know, I am autistic. Because of this, there are a few aspects of the witchcraft experience that can be, well, tricky for me.

When I started about 5-ish years ago, I figured that you had to do witchcraft exactly the way people told you. Some of the time, this wasn’t an issue. Other times, it was.

Because I was diagnosed at a young age, I have learned a lot about how to mask my symptoms. This meant that my craft was also very heavily centered around neurotypical approaches to the craft (rituals, spellwork, etc.). It was fine for a while. However, recently I have been slowly working on unmasking and getting a better sense as to how I truly function, and I’ve found that more neurodivergent ways of doing witchcraft actually work better for me!

Recently, there have been many posts circulating around that focus on how traditional meditation doesn’t work for all minds, and people sharing their own ways of mindfulness without sacrificing things their neurodivergent mind needs.

I figured I’d share some ways I’ve been practicing “new mindfulness” and how it’s been working for me, as well as other techniques I have seen that could help others.

1. Lots and lots of stimming

Meditation/mindfulness requires a certain amount of brain power. Not much, but enough. The traditional ways of meditation normally involve you “staying perfectly still” and “clearing your mind”. For me, they did work, to a point. But coming out of meditation didn’t always leave me relaxed or more aware. A lot of the time it felt exhausting, like I was holding my breath.

For me, stimming is almost equivalent to breathing. I do it constantly, and if I’m not doing it in some capacity, my brain goes beserk. Stimming helps me to focus on something. It keeps my brain occupied, that way I can do other things that require an x amount of brain power. Stimming also helps me deter any anxiety/panic attacks that may arise!

Something you can do, which I’ve been testing out, is doing very “intense” stimming exercises to help practice mindfulness. What I do is put on some noise cancelling headphones, cover myself in blankets, and do some sensory stimming. The only thing I can sense is what I am feeling, and I focus on that to a strong degree.

2. Hyperfocusing

This is kinda related to stimming, but this is a bit different, and more like how traditional mediation actually works. In normal mindfulness, you pick something to focus on, and then you focus on it. You’re not necessarily “clearing your mind”, you’re just finding something to fixate on, and letting thoughts go past you without paying attention to them.

Normally what I do is focus on a sound or sensation, since a lot of my stimming habits revolve around these two things. I’ll either put on some music or some form of white noise and just focus on it. Or, when I’m charging something during my meditation, I focus on how it feels.

However, don’t force yourself to focus on one thing! I know that sounds hypocritical, but if you make yourself hear your ceiling fan and only your ceiling fan, you’re not going to meditate well and you’ll end up not feeling great when you come out of the session. 

Instead, let your mind focus on something else. If your mind instead wants to focus on the traffic outside, let it. If your mind wants to focus on how the bed feels underneath you, let it. With practice, your mind will do these jumps less frequently, but jumping from one focus to another isn’t a bad thing, as a matter of fact it is 100% normal!

3. Movement

Contrary to popular belief, meditation doesn’t always have to be when you’re standing still. If it is easier to be calm while in motion, then do so! This can be something small as stimming to something big like going for a run. Ridding yourself of any internal or external distractions is key to successful meditation sessions. So, if motion helps you to focus and helps ease the mind, the motion you should do!

A lot of the times when I stim, I pace back and forth in one spot. I find that when I do that, I get a lot less brain fog. I can be more creative, think things through more efficiently, and help to fight back against any anxiety my brain tries to wrap me into. I end up focusing on one thing for long periods of time, which, in a way, is kinda like meditation if you think about it!

So, the takeaway…

When I’ve done some of these things stated above. I feel a lot more calm. Some of the grounding/charging exercises I did in the past would sometimes give me trouble. Now, I can do them a lot more easily I find I can practice my craft more effectively than before, meaning I can achieve better results in anything I do with it!

Am I telling you you should do exactly what I do to help you meditate? No, not in the slightest. However, it might give you some ideas as to how to better approach meditation and mindfulness. It may also help broaden your perspective a bit onto how meditation really works, and that’s there’s no “one size fits all” way of doing it either. 

Happy witchcrafting!

~Aspen~

[nd-witches]

Special interest craft (tv, comics and books)

For those with special interests, it can be hard to do things that don't have to do with your special interest. If witchcraft isn't your special interest and you want to be involved, just add your special interest, it's your craft after all! For this, I will be using TV and comics/books, since I have a lot of ideas for this already. I will make one for other special interest types, I just have to figure out the logistics first :) (feel free to submit suggestions!)

Characters

Give your characters magical associations! You can do this based on personality, or their importance to you. Then you can use something that represents them in your spells (eg. anime figures, related symbols, colors, etc.). Your choices are limitless!

Book/comic series, and show episodes

You can give each book/episode magic associations, or use their numerology if you're interested in that. You can play your favorite scene, have your favorite page open or a specific page/time based on the numbers during spells. There's a lot you can do with this as well, so get creative!

Magic System

Does your show have a cool magic system? Incorporate it into your craft! One of my special interests is Magi: Labyrinth of Magic, and the magic system involves ruhk, which is basically the flow of life energy, and all beings return to the ruhk once they die, and I believe in a similar concept (this is actually based on a real belief system too, just the name and how it works changed a little)

Just like my other posts, feel free to add/change!

[nd-witches]

Stimming things

Some common stims and how you can add a little magic to them (or really just how I associate them magically lol) Feel free to add your own stims to the list or change to your needs :)

Nail biting: Removing the old and allowing new growth

Hair twirling/chewing: Self protection

Food jiggling/leg bouncing: shaking off negative energy

Knuckle cracking: Activating spells/sigils, little bursts of magic

Rocking: Calming, stress relief

Hand flapping: Happiness and joy

Flicking/snapping: Spell activation, removing negative energy

Pacing: Mental energy

Repeating words/phrases: Make a chant to stim to!

Rubbing/scratching: Removing negative energy, removing the old

Blinking: Refreshing

Keep in mind, this is just a vague list, and my not work for typing since different stims serve different purposes for different people. This is really just to get the gears turning on the possibilities, so edit to you needs! :)

[nd-witches]

Welcome all!

My name is Willow, I've been practicing witchcraft for about a year now. I've found it difficult to do somethings due to my lack of focus, things like meditation and rituals. I wanted to create a space where we could share our experiences, spell hacks, resources, etc. :3 All backgrounds are welcome, as long as you're not NT or a bigot