A Spell for Making a Big Change

It has been a minute since I recorded a new spell,

but the break did exactly what I hoped it would.

It allowed my creative brain to rest and recharge,

and now it’s ready to share with you once more.

This spell will help you take the big idea you have in your head

and turn it, bit by bit, into real, sustainable, effective change.

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Mentioned:

The Sunday Letter in which I discuss the decision to break my streak of publishing Mind Witchery episodes: https://view.flodesk.com/emails/65429f1de484ef9e19790990

timewitchery.com/planner, where you can get a Time Witchery anti-planner to help you revolutionize your definition of success.

Make Magic:

Big changes happen tiny step by tiny step.

Whenever change is impeded, it’s ALWAYS

because the step you think you need to make

is Just. Too. Big.

Transcript: A Spell for Making a Big Change

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.

Hello, my love. This is me coming back to record anew. It has been many, many moons since I have felt inspired to record a new spell for you all. I've done some interviews, I have been interviewed, but I haven't been sitting down solo to share my thoughts.

And, whew, I did have to give myself kind of like big permission [laugh] to do that. It is super meaningful for me to show up consistently for creative pursuits, and it's super meaningful for me to connect here with you. But I have to say, in September, I felt my creative reserves were just spent, and I wasn't feeling excited to come and to show up. And I knew that if that's how I was feeling, that you would feel it too.

So, as you probably know, if you listen regularly, I did a bunch of rekindlings, meaning, I went back and I found episodes that I hoped would resonate in this moment. And then I aired a bunch of interviews, and I did my best to keep releasing something each week, until last week.

And last week, I broke my streak. I had a 138-episode streak. [laugh] I had released a Mind Witchery, whether an interview or rekindling or a solo episode, 138 Thursdays in a row. And then last week, I did not release one. And if you would like to read about that decision, we will put a link in the Show Notes to the letter that I wrote about it.

But, in any case, somehow taking an actual break, even for just a week, sort of jump-started my creativity, and I'm really excited to share with you a spell for making a big change. And I don't know what this change is for you. It might be a change in your personal life. It might be a change in your business. It might be a change in your everyday life, like, the way you move through life. It may be a change in your home, in your environment.

I don't know what it is for you. But whatever it is, I do know this. Big changes happen step by tiny step. Enormous shifts happen move by small move. And really, truly, whenever change is impeded, like whenever there's a change that you want to happen, and it's not happening, I'm telling you, always, it's because the step that you are thinking you need to make is just too big. I mean, really, I could end this episode right here. [laugh] But I will talk a little bit more about it, and just about the phenomenon as I see it, both for myself, for my clients, for my beloveds, yeah?

So very often, when we want something, we want to make a big change, we think of it in its fully resplendent glory. [laugh] Yeah? So, for example, the other day, I was talking to someone, and she is unhappy in her living situation. And what she really wants to do, what she's always wanted to do, is to have a house in the country where she can have goats and chickens, and basically like live the bucolic rural existence.

And right now, she does not live that. Right now, she lives in the city. So when she thinks about the change she wants to make, she wants to make that big change from city mouse to country mouse. She wants this enormous shift. And/but, (a) she doesn't know exactly where to begin, and (b), and I think this is this is actually key, while she loves the idea of this, there is in her a little bit of a question mark around whether or not it really truly is what she wants.

So what does it look like to make a tiny step from city mouse to country mouse? Because what it looks like right now for her is getting on to Zillow, and looking at properties, which, I mean, is fine as kind of a—I don't know—research, I guess. But it's not really a step, because I think the step she's asking herself to take after Zillow is buy a property, and that step is way too big. And so what happens for her, she gets stuck in, you know, fantasy window shopping on a real estate app, rather than actually making moves toward the change.

So, OK, again, what would it look like to make tiny moves? Well, one, in my opinion, would be to go live in the country here and there. So that might look like getting an Airbnb for a day or two. And even though it's only for a day or two, this is her actually living out in the country, like she's dreaming of.

Maybe then a next step would be to expand that into a week, and try it for a week. Maybe then try it for two weeks. Maybe then look for some kind of opportunity where she can be on a farm. And so while maybe she hasn't sold her condo, and moved out to the country, she is more and more living the life she wants to live. She's trying it on. She's taking these tiny steps toward it. Yeah?

At the same time, she might be taking tiny steps to really think through what it would take to be able to invest in a rural property. And, listen, there are so many things to learn here. Maybe one part of it is financial. So, OK, what are the steps I will need to take in order to be able to sell my condo? And then once I have those steps, let me start, action by action, taking those steps.

Here's another place. OK, I want to have chickens. I have this idea, this dream of having chickens, but maybe I've never actually had chickens. Well, let me find someone, some neighbor, someone who has chickens, and let me volunteer to help with them. Let me learn more about them. Let me—I don't know—chicken-sit while those friends go on vacation. Let me try it out. Let me begin to do it.

Do you see, all of these different avenues of action help me to begin moving in the direction of the big, big goal. And this is so helpful for two reasons. Like, number one, I'm no longer stuck in the fantasy. I'm actually doing something.

Number two, I'm trying it out. I'm trying it on for size. I'm seeing how it feels. I'm verifying that this might actually be something I truly, truly want to do. Both of those effects are enormously empowering. I get more knowledge, I get more self-knowledge, and I get momentum building.

OK, let's do another example. Let's say what you really want to do is write a book. And–I don't know–for the sake of example, let's say it is a novel. You want to write a novel. Here you are, maybe with a vague premise or a character in mind, and what you really want is to write a novel.

Now, that is not a step for most of us. For most of us, that is a leap over a chasm of ignorance [laugh], right? I say with love, because I kind of would like to write a novel someday. So where might we begin? So many places, right?

You could begin with your idea, like, really fleshing out your idea. So you could begin with this character you have in mind. You could take the tiny step of making a list of things that you'd like to flesh out about the character. And then, step by tiny step, you could begin to flesh that out: their appearance, their home, their history, their tendencies, their dreams, their traumas. Yeah? You could just begin step-by-step to flesh it out.

You could also begin by learning more about writing. You could begin by researching classes to take about constructing stories. You could begin by finding and reading books about writing novels. And I will say, finding would be one step, and then actually reading would be another series of steps.

Maybe you can't imagine getting yourself to do either of those things, and what you really need to do is to find a writing group, or to create your own writing group. Yeah? So, again, the key is the tiny steps are totally doable, and the tiny steps get you into action. They get you moving toward the bigger goal.

They get you building the muscle you will need to get to the bigger goal. And you need that muscle. We need the muscle, and we also need the knowledge, and we also need the confirmation that, yes, this is the right track. Yeah?

So tiny step by tiny step, my love, that is how eventually I left my marriage. Once upon a time, my friend, I was not happy in my marriage. And I remember so well this one session with my therapist where I told her I wanted out, but I had no idea how to get out.

And this is actually really helpful [laugh], this part right here. As we talked, I talked about all of the obstacles, all of the ways in which his and my lives were interwoven. We owned a business together. We owned a house together. We shared a bank account. I did not have my own bank account. We had children together. We had cars together. We had pets together.

And while I had this kind of dream idea of what it would be like to not be together anymore, I felt completely stuck in terms of what step I could actually take. And, again, it's because going from completely intermeshed to separate, like in my fantasy, it was just way too large a step.

However, by seeing all of those different ways that our lives were interwoven, I had many different places that I could begin to take tiny steps, tiny steps like establishing my own business with its own bank account, and my own money-making initiatives. And in the beginning, they were very small. In the beginning, I only had a handful of one-to-one clients.

Once I had that handful of one-to-one clients, I started to offer a retreat here and there. Once I offered a retreat here and there, I offered more retreats. Once I had more than a handful of one-to-one clients, and once those one-to-one clients were really committed, I could create a group program for them. And so bit by bit by bit, step by step by step, I was able to become more and more financially independent, yeah?

On the family front, I started to travel with my kids alone more and more. I was always wanting to take trips and do visits and things like that. He wasn't as into that, and so I would start to take them on my own. And, again, it was small. It wasn't enormous. It wasn't me moving out, but it was me going away with them for three or four days, taking them on little adventures, just with me.

For that matter, I also traveled more and more on my own. So I traveled, leading retreats, but I also traveled, taking myself on retreat. And by doing this, I got more and more felt experience, more and more actual experience of what it was like to be on my own. This was really vital and important because, yes, I wanted out of my marriage, but, you know, that's easy to say from here, retrospectively.

At the time, I think there was a part of me that was not completely sure. I think there was a bit of ambivalence there, a bit of confusion, quite a bit of emotional entanglement. And so now I can tell you, yes, I wanted to leave and I was taking steps. But really, at the time, those steps were trials as much as anything else. I was trying out what it was like to be on my own.

Throughout this time, especially when the marriage was more volatile, I would go to see apartments that I might live in. So I wouldn't just look on Zillow or Craigslist. I would make an appointment. I would go put my body in the place to feel it, to imagine it, to see how far it was from the house, to imagine where my children would sleep, to look at the numbers, to look at the security deposit and the rent, and really think about, OK, how would this work?

I probably saw six or seven apartments before I ever signed a lease on one. And even when I signed the lease, I asked for a shorter lease. I asked for six months. I just wanted to try. A 12-month lease felt like too big a step, but a 6-month lease felt like a step I could manage. Yeah?

And that actually makes me think of another aspect of these small steps that is really important. It's the co-creativity, right, because that's another thing we can do sometimes, is when we are in our heads, and we're thinking about this big change that we want to make, this big step that we want to take, it is so difficult to remember the co-creative nature of reality. Yeah?

If you are all by yourself, thinking about how impossible it could ever be to live on a farm, you are totally closed off to the idea that—I don't know—there is someone who has a farm in the country, and what they really want is someone to come and take care of it for the summer. And so you actually have this ability to give it a good solid try.

But when you're in your head about it, instead of out in the world about it, it's so easy to forget the co-creative nature of reality. If you're in your head about your novel, and you're not taking any steps, well then, you never get the magical exercise from the fiction teacher that really unlocks your idea, and gets your creative juices flowing.

When I was in my head about to separate or not to separate, right, I was unable to see how my then-partner would respond. I just didn't know. And it turned out that as I took my step-by-step toward changing our relationship, so did he. He also took steps. And then together, we co-created what eventually became our divorce.

This actually may be the most important reason that we've got to go step by tiny step, because it never is all up to you, my love. And probably part of the reason it feels so daunting, so overwhelming, is that you've forgotten that. [laugh] You've forgotten that, no, actually, you will just be co-creating with the universe, with your community, with your resources, with luck, with serendipity, with magic. You'll be co-creating in a different way.

OK, my love, this is it. This is your spell for making a big change. You make a big change by taking small, embodied, informative, co-creative steps. As you step by step, you get clearer on what you actually want. You build the muscle of doing the new thing, the muscles you will need to be able to sustain and support the big step.

As you step by step, your change comes out of your head, and into the world. And that is where we all want it because this change that you want to make, if it is in your best interests, it is in our best interests. I know that for sure.

Well, that felt really good. [laugh] Speaking of step by step, I'm back, and so happy to be so. Thank you so super much for listening, and bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world.

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.

End of recording