Welcome to The Re-Enchant Your Life Podcast with me, Rebecca Anuwen.

I’m back with some inspiration and intuitive guidance for your week ahead.

Last week in the SHEro Toolkit, we looked at the symbolism of The Standing Stones and the importance of committing to your own path. Today, we move on to the card, The Broom; clearing outdated patterns.

Where in your life are you ready to clear out outdated patterns or beliefs?

Perhaps you’ve been repeating old patterns, time and time again, making choices that lead to the same or similar outcomes. Perhaps there’s a family pattern that you just can’t seem to free yourself from.

Take a moment to ask your question about clearing old patterns, and then we’ll look at the guidebook to get the wisdom and guidance from it. Then I’ll draw a second card, so that we can explore that first card in more depth, and then to add a deeper layer I’m going to pull a charm, so we’re working with three items to really access your intuition in a deep symbolic way for you.

The card is The Broom, and it’s a proper witchy broom, wooden handle, and branches for the bristles, like a bessom broom.

The Broom – Clear Outdated Patterns

What do brooms represent to you?

The guidebook says; Live life on your own terms and in your own way.

Brooms clear out spaces of things we no longer need, in preparation for fresh starts and new beginnings. They clear away the dust and the dirt to free us from old patterns. They protect us from the past and call in new energy.

It’s time to check your habits and routines, to clear out the ones that no longer align with who you are. Unhelpful patterns, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and responses that were once useful to you, many of them were set up in your childhood when you had limited experience and understanding of how to navigate challenges and situations, but now, many of those habits and patterns no longer serve you. You’ve outgrown them. And there are more productive ways for you to respond and behave.

We’re not taught to recognise these unhelpful patterns or the work that we can actually undo them. Maybe you don’t even realise that your responses are just unconscious and routine.

Become aware of these patterns, notice how they influence you and your life, so that you can replace them and get a different, more joyful results.”

The SHEro Action suggests; to clear outdated patterns of behavior. Notice where you fall into habitual patterns and responses. These will often be areas that trigger you and leave you feeling upset, annoyed, or frustrated. When this happens, get curious about where the response came from. It will often be rooted in fear, ask yourself what you’re afraid of. Some common fears include not good enough, being abandoned, not being loved, not being free and not being heard.

Just notice whatever you notice. Often just witnessing these patterns and habits is enough to loosen their grip on you. But if you’re ready to replace them, remind yourself as you notice each pattern of when it hasn’t been true for you. For example, if you feel not good enough, remind yourself of all the times that you have been good enough. Remember when you completed something, made something or receive praise about something.

How do those words resonate for you?

Are you ready to clear outdated patterns? To get that broom, to sweep way in all the nooks and corners of your life, of your beliefs, of your habits?

Now of course, some of those things you’ll want to stay because they’re supportive and nourishing and nurturing, and they’re aligned with the truth of who you are. But what are you ready to swot away with your broom?

What is that lingering pattern, or behaviour, or memory, that you’re just like, okay, enough, that’s done finished. Let it go. Because that’s the energy of the broom.

Fresh start, new beginnings, start with cleansing away the old. One of my favorite phrases is; making the space for the magic to happen.

You’re clearing away these old patterns, the old beliefs , so you can call in new energy, new opportunities.

So that’s the first card. Now let’s shuffle the deck and see how the second card adds more depth and more flavour to The Broom.

We have The Unlit Candle; embrace the darkness.

ADDITIONAL CARD: The Unlit Candle

Now the darkness is an interesting idea because we’re very much taught to fear the darkness. It’s where the monsters live. And whilst I’m not advocating going down, any dodgy, dark alleys, it is about not being afraid of the darkness, because the darkness is really just the unknown.

And so when we’re clearing away outdated patterns, it seems very relevant that we have to also embrace the darkness, because those patterns that we’ve done, those habits, those reactions that we’ve always had, whilst they might not be healthy for us, whilst we might not like them, or who we become when we’re in that pattern, it’s known to us; this person does this, I’m going to react like this.

You may end up feeling terrible about it, but it’s a tried and tested method. You know the outcome.

If you stop doing that, if you quit a bad habit, it’s like, who are you without that response? Without that safety blanket, who are you when you’re doing something different?

Who are you when you don’t have that old pattern of behavior to rely on, to blame, to give your power away to?

So part of this idea of clearing outdated patterns, is allowing yourself the space to enter the darkness, that space where the seed of potential is, the energetic womb space, where we can create anything.

When you think of an unlit candle and the being in the darkness, how does that make you feel? Is that a comfortable place? Because if it’s not, if you don’t like being in the darkness, if it’s uncomfortable, uncomfortable for you not to know exactly what’s going to happen next, it’s probably going to be hard for you to clear those outdated patterns, because you don’t know who you are without those habits, without those reactions, without that family conditioning.

Let’s draw a charm to see what added guidance we get on top of this.

Ooh, there’s two charms today. One stuck to my finger, and one stuck to my thumb… And it’s the word grace and the other one is a wishbone.

ADDITIONAL CHARMS: ‘Grace’ and The Wishbone

What feels really significant here is the word grace.

I talked about clearing outdated patterns and stepping into the darkness. This really feels like habits. What habits do you have to get rid of? What unhealthy habits are they? I mean, they might be things like, smoking. It’s clearly a bad habit for people, and the charms says, give yourself some grace while you go through the process of releasing those habits.

Now they might be a habit to a substance, but also they could be habits of blaming yourself, habits of not giving yourself the benefit of the doubt, a habit of not having your own back. And the charm is saying, grace, give yourself some grace, take a moment to pause, to come back to centre, to be your own best friend, to know that if you want to clear that outdated pattern, but you fall back off the wagon, so to speak, give yourself a moment of grace, because you can always try again.

You can try something and if it doesn’t work the first time, or second time, or third time, there’s always a fourth time. You can keep having a go. There’s no hard and fast rules of how many times you get to try if that’s something that you really want to do. So give yourself some grace.

And then it’s really curious, because what does the wishbone mean to you, when you think of wishbones?

People usually break wishbones with their little fingers and make a wish, hence they’re called ‘wishbones’. What is your deepest desire? Your deepest wish?

It’s asking you to let that wish, let that desire, be bigger than your fear, and your needs to stay the same. Because often, the wish, the choice, the intention, is the easy part. When you actually have to do something, when you have to commit to something, that’s when it becomes more challenging, because that’s when you come up against the obstacles.

How can you give yourself some grace, let yourself dream your biggest juiciest dream?

What are those wishes that you’re putting out to the universe?

Because to make those wishes come true, to make those intentions come true. It’s going to require that you clear those outdated patterns. All of those patterns that have prevented you from moving forward, from claiming those wishes, and to clear those outdated patterns, that is the energy of embracing the darkness.

And actually, it’s interesting as I looked at the candle, I’m like, Oh, it’s an unlit candle. It’s like, you make a wish, don’t you with the wishbone, just like you make a wish on a birthday cake. As you blow out the candle, you surrender your intention into the darkness, you’re setting that seed of potential into the darkness so that it can grow, be nourished and flourish.

What is the wish that you’re putting out into the world right now?

When you think of the question that you asked at the beginning of this episode, what patterns do you need to clear?

Because those are the patterns that are going to move you towards your wishes. Clearing those patterns is what’s going to get you what you actually desire.

How does any of that resonate for you?

Come and find me on Instagram @themodernwitchway, and let me know what you think about The Broom, what you think about The Unlit Candle, and what you think about the word grace and the wishing bone. Come and share with us how that has influenced your question, how your intuition is speaking to you through these cards.

Perhaps some of what I said resonated for you, perhaps it didn’t. Take what I say that’s useful and ignore the rest, because it’s how the cards speak to you, that’s important.

I’ll see you again next week for another dose of intuitive guidance for your week ahead.

I hope you’re finding them useful. It really is important to practice your intuitive skills, to practice listening to the answers because that’s how you learn to trust yourself and make better choices.

Until then, I’ll see you again very soon.