Today’s topic is love spells for difficult generative conversations. Because, as we so often hear, we are living through divisive times. And there is a bracing that I sense is present now in so many of us that it has become a collective experience. We are braced against the next impact, our systems preparing to fight or flee moment to moment. In the face of the forces seeking to enrage and divide us, and the constant bombardment with horrors and urgencies that can feel outside of our control, we are braced, and that bracing can make us feel fragile. Little things become the last straw, and we have little grace for our fellow humans; we are seemingly losing what capacity we had to allow space for their humanity, and for our own.
It can feel harder than ever to have hard conversations, or conversations that we anticipate might be hard. The stakes are too high. We would rather retaliate or retreat in the face of upset – and besides, we’re all hustling. It can feel so much easier to let a conversation, and perhaps a relationship, slide.
And yet. We are also living in times rich in urgency, urgencies of a scale that cannot be faced alone. On a collective level, one of the biggest impacts that forces designed to divide and distract us are having is rendering us incapable of working together to solve collective problems. And on an individual level, we are lonely. We need to be able to talk to each other in ways that allow us not just to connect, but to be interconnected and interdependent, to be co-creative, to collaborate – and to keep doing so when the going gets tough.
To help us keep talking to each other, here is the first in a series of two posts packed with sex-magical tools and tips for tough and tender conversations. This first post will focus on witchy ways to approach any given encounter as your best and most grounded self. The next post will explore how the arc of ritual magic can be used to create generative containers for more intentional communication.
We begin with two of the values that are cornerstones of this work: Consent and kindness.
When you become aware that you need to have a potentially challenging conversation with someone, get consent in advance where possible. Of course, life won’t always allow us the luxury of anticipating such conversations – at some point most of us will have the experience of lying awake in the early hours imagining all the things we could have said differently in that discussion that blind-sided us earlier! But noticing how you feel when a difficult conversation comes out of nowhere may give you some insight into why it’s a good idea to start with consent. When we are surprised by that kind of communication, we’re more likely to default to our defensive patterns. And whether we tend towards fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, none of these responses are likely to support us in having the conversation we want to have, or feeling like we brought our best selves to it. On the other hand, when we ask someone for a conversation, we’re extending an invitation to do something together, rather than starting from a position of opposition. This gives the other person (as well as you) a chance to reflect, ground, or do whatever they need to do to show up as their best self. It gives us the best chance of being allies in the conversation, and making it out the other side together.
An example: “Could we have a conversation when we meet tomorrow about that thing that happened on Tuesday night? I’d like to clear the air and figure out how we would like to deal with stuff like that together next time it comes up.” Notice the two parts of this request, one being about the content of the conversation you want to have, and one being about the purpose for which you want to have it. Including the latter will give the other person the best chance of getting on board with the conversation, especially if it’s a goal they can get behind. More on this in the next post, where I’ll be talking about the magic of intention.
Now to kindness. I want to start by calling out a common misconception about what kindness means in the context of a challenging conversation: Those of us who were brought up with a version of the story that our feelings were somehow bad or wrong – this may have particularly applied to our anger, fear, and/or sadness – may be at risk of conflating kindness with skirting around our feelings or needs, especially if we’re talking about something that has made us feel angry, afraid, or upset. We might think of being kind as trying to somehow soften our experience or protect the other person from how we’re truly feeling. Years ago, I came across the sentence “clear is kind; unclear is unkind” in the writings of Brené Brown. It was a challenging concept for me, but I see the truth in it, and I try to practise it accordingly. Kindness is not being unclear about your feelings, needs, boundaries, or desires; in the long run, that’s more likely to set your relationships up to fail. Here are some alternative ways kindness can look in a challenging conversation: Practising staying grounded and/or coming back to centre, to give you the best chance of not getting reactive or retreating. Using I language and non-violent communication. Regulating your breath, which will support the other person or people in doing the same. Practising apologising where appropriate. And most of all, expressing care – in your stated purpose for the conversation, by reflecting the other person’s feelings back to them and indicating that you are hearing them, and by expressing empathy with their experience (without negating your own).
Here’s another sweet and ever so slightly magical way to include kindness before the conversation even begins. This one came to me from Louise Hay through chosen family and spiritual lineage, and I am particularly grateful for it when stepping towards conversations I’m particularly nervous of: Before your meeting with the other person, bring the meeting and the other person to mind, and send love ahead of you. Imagine love in whatever way works for you – warmth, sparkly pink light, a gentle exhale – moving ahead of you, surrounding the other person, and filling the space between you. Visualise that love will already be in the room when you walk in.
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Other magical ways to support yourself going into a conversation include plant medicine, talismans, and invocations.
Plant support: You may have your own relationships and rituals with plants, your own sense of how they can best support you – and if you don’t, get your witch on and get curious and playful with the plants that await you in your environment and/or cultural traditions. In the meantime, I’ll offer a few examples of how I might reach for some plant support in advance of a challenging conversation:
If the conversation in question was happening in my home, I would almost certainly take a moment to cleanse the space by burning some cleansing herbs from the garden. I might also get an oil burner going with some essential oils that felt supportive of my intention for the conversation. I would probably make tea beforehand, and might brew a herbal blend that would support our nervous systems during the conversation.
If the conversation was taking place in someone else’s space, I could carry some plant medicine with me. For example, one form of plant support that lives permanently in my bag at the moment is a roll-on oil. I tend to reach for this before crossing the threshold of an experience I want to feel safe enough in and also be intentional about; I’ll rub some on my wrists, take three deep breaths of the scent to ground and calm me, and remind myself of my intention for what is about to unfold.
Talismans: What I’m specifically inviting you to reach for here are objects that will do one or both of two things: Support your nervous system, and help you to come back to your intentions for the conversation. For example, if you have a meditation or other resilience practice that helps you feel how you would like to feel during the conversation, at the end of doing that practice you could “charge” an object with that feeling, imagining the feeling flowing into the object in whatever way works for you. Or you could choose an object that reminds you of an intention that you have for this conversation – e.g. to keep checking in with yourself, or to remember that you are loved, or to stay open to curiosity – and dedicate it to that purpose. Your talisman could be anything you choose – from a pretty rock to a fidget spinner to something you have made specially – but I would recommend something you can either have in your pocket, hold in your hand, or even adorn yourself with – e.g. a piece of jewellery that you wear somewhere you can see, so that each time you spot it or touch it, it acts as a reminder.
Invocations: Rituals and other magical acts will often begin with or include invocations – calls to unseen forces, prayers for benevolent support, invitations to deities, spirits, ancestors or archetypes to join us in our circle and crafting. What unseen support might you like to call in in advance of this encounter? Who would you like to take with you to be a loving presence in this conversation? Whose cosmic hands would you like to place this experience in? You do not have to face this alone. You are loved. Invite some of that love along to keep you company.
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May some of these magical preparations support you in having brave and generative conversations in the coming months. Look out for my next post exploring how the elements of ritual magic can be used to build safer and more co-creative containers for communication. For more principles and practices for communication that is intentional, clear and kind, see the Being Heard and Clearing The Space Between Us sections of my book, Igniting Intimacy: Sex Magic Rituals for Radical Living & Loving.