For some reason Tumblr won’t let me reblog this so I had to cut and paste. Too good not to spread around.
What are you not succeeding in? Are you failing to practice and perfect your banishing ritual, or are you practicing it but just not feeling it?
Are you failing to sit down every day or two, or are you failing to achieve a sufficiently altered state of consciousness to satisfy your desire for meditation? Try zazen, which (AFAIK) is free-form and without so many rules. Yeah, it’s hard to ‘stop thoughts’, so don’t worry, just don’t dwell on a thought. Try zazen before you seek ‘deeper’ med. I believe we can sabotage ourselves.
A part of us is saying ‘no’. We have to use all our selves, all our balanced selves, to work out if this is our higher Self trying desperately to guide us (when the higher Self should have a better route to your selves) of if it’s the ego screaming for more attention and control over your selves. The squeaking wheel gets the oil, so the ego will scream and scream. Mine breaks things.
With your wisdom, you’ll need to decide how to satisfy or close down your saboteur. Sometimes it’s wise to distract the saboteur with other shiny things; other times it’s wise to enter into a deal (I’ll give you a little sugar if you’ll buy more fruit and proteins) and some times it’s time to master it, and say ‘no, absolutely not under any circumstances’.
Sometimes you have to go through the motions of what you want even if you don’t get the results. If you’re self-sabotaging then you have to work hard to overcome the blocks. Sit down every day, even if you don’t meditate yet. Design a sigil every other day, even if you don’t charge and fire it. After a few days, your selves will realise that you’re serious and that the practice ain’t so bad, and you’ll be able to achieve meditation and start casting sigils and designing greater magicks.
I speak from some success and failure. I’ve sworn to meditate (and perform some astral rituals) every day for the next year or so. I’m doing it too. I have some days when I’ll actually do *anything* (like cleaning) rather than start my ritual, but I find that if I say to myself ‘hey, just get the candles out and sit down, that’s all’ then I overcome the inertia and have a good session. Some sessions are poor and I shame myself, but at least I didn’t skip a day. I promise, one bad session is better than a skipped session.
Here’s an idea; name and shame the ‘demon’ that is sabotaging you. Have a word with hir and find out what zhe’s afraid of and what zhe wants.
Here’s an idea; stop everything. Do some art, read some books. Do not do anything. Set a date for when you’re allowed to start up your magick. Look forward to it. Do not dare do any magick afore this date.