A Witch, An Alcoholic and a Channel

Imagine a witch, an alcoholic and a channel.

Use any of those three labels and it's likely that you can make someone's eyes dart and see them squirm in their seat a bit. I don't ever call myself a witch and it's rare that I call myself an alcoholic anymore and I definitely don't call myself a channel. Ever. 

I do however live my life by the phases of the moon, I stay very connected to nature and trust it to guide me back to my truth, I listen to my dreams, I use herbs, oils and salts and I'm not talking about cooking. 

These things qualify me as a witch. 

I don't drink alcohol because I learned I'm powerless over it and I continuously broke promises to myself. I decided I was an alcoholic before anyone else got a chance to call me one. I also got sober.

Likely because I got sober and do all those witchy things on a regular basis, when I focus and listen I have access to higher consciousness and get information that I wouldn't normally get through logical thinking. That makes me a channel.  

Because of the "witch wound" it can be a bit scary to talk about these things in the general public. You may be wondering why I lumped alcoholic in between witch and channel. I'll explain in a bit, but first let me define the witch wound. The word witch carries a lot of history and stigma (I'd venture to say even more stigma than alcoholic). But remember those witches were the healers, the herbalists and the midwives. They followed the same moon that we do today. As women returning to our true power, the witch wound ignites fear in us due to the ancestral trauma we all carry in our cellular memory.  

Why did I lump the alcoholic label between the other two? While I don't think all witches are alcoholics, I do think many alcoholic women are witches and channels. Here's how I came to that hypothesis. Through my own recovery, I discovered that I was actually highly sensitive, empathic and intuitive. I didn't have language for it at the time. I just knew that I was overwhelmed by everything and drinking was an excellent way to numb out and turn the volume down. After being in recovery for a while I discovered that most of the women I encountered who struggled with addiction were also highly sensitive and had wicked strong intuition and a natural affinity to the natural healing world. I've continuously seen when women are open to this path their world is lit up by connecting to their primal gifts.

But back to the witch wound. It's time to heal the wound, to rise up and show up as our true, powerful selves. But it's so hard. No, we won't be burned at the stake now, but there is risk of not being taken seriously, of being written off as "woo woo," of being passed over for jobs and raises and other mainstream things. So it's easier to play it safe. But playing it safe often means we're not being authentic and when we're not being authentic, the soul will start nudging us. It can lead to anxiety, depression and illness. 

As the consciousness continues to awaken on the planet we've got to reclaim these gifts. I don't know if we need to recycle these labels or not. Perhaps we need our gifts rebranded and it's time to let go of the witch label. "Alcoholic" got rebranded as Alcohol Use Disorder...but the difference is AUD is a condition I have but Witch isn't a condition, it's innately who I am. 

Honestly, it doesn't matter to me about rebranding and labels. But what does matter is that I push myself to fully show up as who I am and not be fearful of the judgement. If I do it for me, it gives you permission as well. And if you do it for you, it gives me permission.