Let’s not be stupid, folks. If you’re bleeding heavily or seem to keep feeling worse no matter what you do, please put down the internet and go ahead and call a medical professional.
If you’re still here, let’s assume that you feel OKish but would like to feel better. Maybe you’ve already gone to a doctor or therapist but still don’t feel all that great – or maybe you feel pretty good but are wondering if you could feel even better. Here are four times you might want to consider calling a witch instead.
1. When you want to be treated like a whole person.
These days, it can be hard to get a doctor to look past a particular bacterial infection toward something as simple as diet or exercise. This isn’t entirely the doctor’s fault, of course, since the whole medical system is designed to divide and conquer, usually one microbe at a time.
The magical view of health, though, is much deeper. Your habits certainly impact your body, but so do your energetic systems, mental state and even your spiritual outlook. Unresolved feelings and blocked energies can absolutely contribute to physical pain and other symptoms. Even your social scene, natural environment and dominant culture can have a big impact on your health.
Magical health workers acknowledge this type of interaction and look for the deep roots of discomfort before working on a course of action.
2. When you want to enjoy the process.
A neat thing about this multi-layered approach is that we end up with a lot of different ways to work on a problem. If an issue has physical, emotional and spiritual roots, we might be able to address it though trance work, herbs, dietary change, conversation, movement, healing touch, creative expression, divination, or ritual – or, for that matter, a lot of other ways limited only by our imaginations.
Sometimes we need to work on things that are challenging or uncomfortable, but it’s generally possible to choose a method that you enjoy or at least feel a little bit excited about. In fact, what you feel drawn to or curious about is probably a good sign of something to explore in more depth.
3. When you feel pretty good already.
I’ve often heard the criticism that magical people are obsessed with health and healing. This can definitely be a problem when it means we’re getting trapped in a drama cycle about feeling bad.
What it actually comes down to, though, is the understanding that there’s no real end to the healing process. Even if your body is free from pain and you often feel happy and productive, there’s probably room for improvement somewhere. Can you think of a place in your life where your energy feels stagnant or blocked?
If you call this sort of thing a health problem and think about its physical, energetic and spiritual roots, healing can be an unbounded approach to spiritual development. Continuing to heal these subtle issues allows you to grow naturally in the direction of your full potential and dreams.
4. When you already know the answers.
Are you sick of talking to professionals who don’t even listen when you tell them how you feel or what you need?
According to the magical model, you probably know best how your healing needs to proceed – on some level. Sure, there can be resistance at times (and you might want to check in with someone else to see if they can point out any huge blind spots). But most of the time, you get glimpses of something that calls to you in dreams, or in a pattern of desire and synchronicity, and it points the way toward your own internal medicine.
This sort of knowledge isn’t always easy to access, though, especially when we’re used to a medical model and culture at large that teach us to distrust our intuition and bodily wisdom. Magical health workers can provide a safe space and tools to get in touch with this sort of innate knowledge and healing power. When this power is allowed to unfurl naturally, it connects us with our inner vitality, and often leads in surprising new directions.
IN CONCLUSION
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