In this blog we'll discuss 10 amazing ways you can replenish your energy, boost your self-esteem and maintain a healthy balance of mind, body and spirit with a regular witch-inspired self-care routine.
First off, what is self-care?
Self-care involves dedicated and intentional time for yourself. This is time to focus on your needs and to pursue the hobbies and activities that interest you. It’s time you set aside for yourself when you don’t have to focus on the needs of others, your duties or your responsibilities. This is the ultimate chill time reserved especially for you.
Self-care is important to the extent that you if you neglect yourself and consistently put your own needs at the bottom of the to-do list in order to ensure that everyone else is taken care of first, you can become exhausted and severely deplete your energy stores. Making time for yourself is important to your overall emotional and psychological well being and helps you to maintain a healthy energy balance.
Your self-care routine will be unique to you because it’s all about engaging in your favourite activities and how you prefer to unwind and relax, whether that’s reading a book, enjoying a cup of tea or taking a soothing bath. Whatever helps you to rejuvenate your mind, body and spirit is what you will use in your self-care routine.
What are some witchy self-care practices?
Working With The Moon Phases. The two main phases of the moon’s cycle – the full and new moons – are perfect opportunities to practice witchy self-care. During the full moon, for example, you can practice releasing what no longer serves you such as bad habits, negative patterns of behaviours, past experiences you need to heal from in order to move forwards and to grow emotionally, as well as releasing any fears so that you can learn to trust yourself and the world in which you live.
Any of these can be accomplished simply by setting your intentions to do so and reminding yourself that these thoughts, feelings and behaviours are simply draining your energy and do nothing to move you forwards.
The new moon is a perfect time to set new goals and take action towards making your dreams come true. Any manifestation techniques you use should be implemented at this time such as working on a vision board, creating a manifestation box, and being mindful of steps you can take towards creating the life you want.
Energy Cleansing With Smoke, Sound or Visualization. Clear out draining, stagnant or downright negative energies with an energy cleansing practice. You can clear out energies using smoke by burning bay leaves, rosemary, white sage, or incense. You can also clear energies with sound including ringing bells, tuning forks, singing bowls or just by clapping your hands. You can also visualize your sacred space being filled with white light while clearing out any dark or draining energies.
Herb Baths or Salt Baths To Cleanse Your Aura. Ritual bathing for cleansing and purification purposes has been practiced for thousands of years. Salt is well known for its cleansing and purification properties and ability to draw negativity out of your energetic field and taking a bath with salt is an excellent way to cleanse your aura of negative energies and attachments. You can add herbs like rosemary, sage, hyssop or rue as well for added purification and protection.
Grounding Practices. Grounding helps you to maintain and restore your energy field by connecting you with the energy of the earth and drawing upon those energies for strength and protection. Standing outside in the dirt or on the grass barefoot is one way to practice grounding.
You can also conduct an effective grounding ritual indoor while standing firmly on the floor in your home and visualizing any unwanted energies leaving your body out through the bottom of your feet and then imagining positive, loving, helpful and supportive energies coming down through your crown chakra at the top of your head filling you up with positive energies.
Letting go of your fears and remembering your own power and having confidence in yourself will also help you to feel more grounded, safe and secure.
Journaling is a good way to keep track of your thoughts, feelings and experiences. The idea is to keep a journal where you write out your feelings and experiences and make notes about how much progress your making towards whatever your chosen goals happen to be. Maybe you did well on a test or at work and you want to make a note of it so you can look back and reflect on this positive experience later, or maybe you had a good idea and want to remember it for later, maybe you had an interesting dream you want to write about before you forget it.
A journal is a personal diary for you to keep notes on whatever important events are happening in your life so make it your own. It’s also a useful tool for checking in with yourself and gives you the opportunity to ask yourself how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking and become more aware of your inner world. Your journal is essentially a safe space where you can be yourself and learn more about yourself, what you’re learning and how you’re growing as a person.
Mantras, Inspirational Quotes and Positive Affirmations. These are ways of overcoming negative self-talk and for fostering a more positive mindset and to establish healthy thinking habits. Your emotions are largely controlled by your thinking, so if you can get into the habit of thinking more positively you’re more likely to feel better and have more positive and uplifting emotions more often. If you see something that resonates with you write it down or make a note of it on your phone or device.
Collect sayings, poems, quotes, and affirmations that suit your needs and goals. Get into the habit of repeating positive and uplifting statements to yourself, especially if you find yourself in the nasty habit of negative self-talk.
Working With Crystals. There are many crystals you can work with in your self-care routine. There’s a crystal for every occasion, so choose crystals that support your goals, meet your needs where you are on your path and help you get to where you want to be.
For example, clear quartz is a good all-around crystal to choose as you can program it with any intention you want. Simply hold the crystal in your hand and visualize what it is you want it to help you accomplish and ask it to do so. Then you can carry the crystal with you or leave it on your altar or on a shelf and hold it when you need it’s help and support. You can also wear crystal jewelry and charge it with your intentions in the same way and have that help and support everyday.
Rose quartz, green aventurine, rhodonite or morganite would be a good choice when you need help with matters of the heart. If you need help with protection, shielding and grounding, most black crystals would be useful including obsidian, smoky quartz or tourmaline. If you want to boost your confidence then you might want to choose orange coloured crystals like carnelian, citrine or sunstone.
Aromatherapy. Scent is closely associated with mood, so having enticing and uplifting aromas around you can seriously help boost your mental state. You can work with aromatherapy with scented candles, incense and essential oils. Keep some of these on hand for when you’re taking time for your chosen self-care routine such as when you’re reading, in a bath, enjoying your favourite cup of tea or meditating. You can also get aromatherapy jewelry including lava stone beads which hold the scent of essential oils so you can smell uplifting aromas you enjoy throughout the day.
Meditation Practices. Meditation is all about quieting the mind and being present in the moment. The idea is to try to not think about things you have to do, what happened yesterday, or what might happen tomorrow, and simply be still and relax.
If you have trouble getting your mind to calm down you can try and focus on your breathing. You don’t have to control your rate of breathing, just put your mind on how you breathe naturally. Notice yourself taking a breath in, your chest expanding, the sound of the air entering your lungs and then simply notice your breath leaving your lungs, your chest contracting, and how it all feels and sounds. You don’t have to try to control anything – just notice, be aware and be in the moment. Simply by noticing your breath in this way your mind will automatically calm down. There are also a number of guided meditations online if that suits you best. Meditation is an excellent self-care practice as a calm mind creates a calm body.
Commune With Nature. Spending time in the great outdoors is a great way to practice self-care – fresh air, sunshine, the feel of the wind on your skin - all contribute to your overall emotional and psychological well being.
Even if you can’t get outside you can still commune with nature just by looking out the window, appreciating the colour of the sky and enjoying the sunlight, or even the shape of the clouds and sound of the rain. It can be soothing to the soul to simply listen to the sound of the wind in the leaves, the birds chirping and see the wind blowing.
And there you have 10 amazing ways to replenish your energy!
Hopefully some of these witchy self-care suggestions will help you create a self-care routine that you can use to restore your energy balance, uplift your mood and give you a greater sense of self-worth, confidence, and self-esteem. It’s natural to set time aside for things and people that matter to you, just make sure you include yourself on that list too.
Try a regular self-care routine for 6 weeks and see what difference it makes in your energy levels!