Welcome everyone, and happy birthday to my mother. Today, November 17th is her birthday, happy birthday, Ma. You guys would love her, everyone does. She is a pistol. What else is going on? We have Sagittarius season coming next Tuesday, I believe, Wednesday is the New Moon, and of course next Thursday is American Thanksgiving if you celebrate that.
I will be with family that day, but there will definitely be a new episode next week, I’ll just be recording it a day earlier than usual. We are going to talk about Abundance Magick next week, which is a really fun topic and I think it fits with the holiday season. It’s really easy to get bogged down in the commercialism and the consumerism of the holidays, but we have got to remember that the genesis, the source, of all abundance work is gratitude. So it kind of goes together.
But that’s next week’s story to tell. This week we are going to talk about energy vampires. What they are, how to recognize them, how to know when we’re being affected by them, and most importantly, how to block their access to our energies. And I said last week that it’s important to visit this topic right now, just before we are all thrown together at big family dinners and work parties and such, amongst a bunch of people who we may not usually choose to spend a whole lot of time with socially.
I personally require an entire day to recover from social events like that. Being in crowds or meeting new people costs a lot of energetic and psychological currency. And sometimes being with certain family members is also incredibly taxing. So let’s arm ourselves, with information and with magick. But before we talk about that, I want to read an email:
I’m writing to you today because I need help with seasonal depression. I have been working on being more self aware this past year and I told myself I was going to beat my seasonal depression but alas here it is and I don’t have the strength to stop it. All I want to do is sleep and stay home. I don’t want to cook or clean, or hangout with my friends. And I don’t have the energy to practice my craft. Please if you have any ideas or spells that could help it would be greatly appreciated.
Okay, like obviously, seasonal depression is legit and we should definitely be seeking professional treatment for this issue. But we can also support that professional treatment ourselves in a pretty low-effort kind of way. Seasonal depression is so awful to deal with. Even beyond how horrible the depressive episodes themselves are, it’s just so TEDIOUS to deal with every time it rears its head. So let’s explore a solution. It’s a bit of an unorthodox solution, but hear me out.
Placing yourself in a crystal grid, while this may seem odd, is a really great way to recharge the emotional and energetic batteries during times like this. Like I said, I know it’s a little different, but come with me on this. Get yourself at LEAST three pieces of selenite, although four is better. They don’t need to be large or expensive and they don’t need to be any specific shape. These can be the four smallest, most mismatched pieces of selenite, it doesn’t matter. If you’ve got three pieces, place them in a triangular formation on the floor large enough for you to sit inside.
If you’ve got four pieces, arrange them in a square shape, with one corner of the square at each of the compass points, North, South, East, and West. If you have any other crystals or stones that you feel called to add to the arrangement, go ahead and do so. Especially stones with happiness and healing properties, such as rose quartz, moonstone, agate, citrine, amethyst, sunstone, or tiger’s eye.
You can sit inside, or lay down inside, this grid for as long as you like and as often as you like. Spend this time in meditation or just allow yourself to rest and recharge. Selenite is incredibly cleansing, and also self-charging. It charges the other stones around it, but most importantly, it charges you. While you’re inside the grid, allow yourself to feel supported and refreshed. Feel the way the energy of the selenite moves around and through you, and creates an energetic barrier of protection. Allow yourself to release the stagnant, unwanted emotions and energies and be renewed.
This is not a ritual that calls for a lot of preparation or forethought. You can throw this grid together in 30 seconds and start benefiting from it immediately. And incidentally, this is also a great method of self-care for after those stressful holiday dinners, so keep that in mind, too.
And if you have a question, a comment or a concern, please write to me at eli@middleagedwitch, or on socials at @middleagedwitch. There’s also a contact page on the website, middleagedwitch.com and you can get in touch with me there as well. And now let’s talk about energy vampires.
First and foremost, I have a love-hate relationship with the term energy vampire. First of all, it’s such an overly-dramatic expression. Secondly, it’s one of those phrases that’s been so overused that it’s nearly lost all meaning. However, I also really love this term because it so perfectly encapsulates precisely and concisely who these people are and what they are doing. An energy vampire is a person you dread seeing because you know that one hour with them is going to feel like five. These people sap your energy, your happiness, your vitality.
How do they do it? Well they have different methods. Some of these people are really great at completely monopolizing a conversation. You are not a conversational partner for this person, they are not interested in listening to you or hearing about what’s going on in your life in the slightest. And sometimes all they’re doing is bragging about their accomplishments and how great everything is in their lives. They just got a raise, they just bought a house, they just got engaged, their son just graduated from med school, blah blah blah, and you start to feel incrementally worse about yourself by comparison.
It can feel really awful and alienating to stand there for 30, 45 minutes with a smile plastered on your face while this person recites their highlight reel. Now do not misunderstand me, this is not about being unable to feel happy for someone else when they’re life is going well. This is about someone holding you hostage while listing their successes and never so much as pausing to ask how you’re doing. This is not an actual, two-way conversation. You are just there to be an audience for them to talk at. By the end of this conversation, you are buried under a heap of their self-importance. Meanwhile, they walk away feeling fantastic because they’ve just spent an hour hyping themselves up and receiving accolades for a life well lived.
Sometimes that one-sided conversation is actually just an opportunity for the energy vampire to dump all of their emotional trauma on you. This person just unloads all the awful shit that’s going on, they can also tend to be huge gossips, because they’ll tell you all the awful shit that’s going on in everyone’s lives. Once again, at the end of the conversation, you’re left feeling horrible and they feel like a weight has been lifted. You’re buried under a pile of their emotional shit and they’re lighter than air.
Others take a different route, they just pepper you with questions that become increasingly personal and because you’re too polite to tell them their questions are offsides, you end up divulging a lot of personal, private information to a person that you would never, ever voluntarily expose yourself to. And this is a really insidious kind of energy vampire.
This kind of person delights in all the bad things that are going on in your life. They want to hear all about it. And they excel at getting all the details. They’re going to get it all out of you. And they’re also going to tell everyone you know about all the horrible luck that’s befallen you. Now everyone gets to rehash your bad breakup, and they’re all talking about how your hours have been cut back at work, they’re all whispering about your child’s illness, or whatever the case may be.
This kind of person doesn’t only want to know the bad things though; they’re also going to hear about anything good in your life and they’re going to poison it with their envy, their bile, their hateration. Whether this person is a witch or not, whether this person has any idea of the kind of damage they are capable of, this is the sort of person that will fuck you all the way up. This is the person who can derail your goals, if you give them access and information. And I’ll tell you how it works.This person hates when you’re winning. It may not even be personal, this person probably hates when everyone is doing well. They think daggers at your success, they obsess over your achievements and envision your downfall with crystal clarity.
And if we think of how we manifest our intentions in our own lives, we recognize what the energy vampire is doing and how they’re able to affect us in very real ways in the real world. We don’t even realize we’re feeding the beast. But we are. We are pouring our energies out into them when we reveal these things about us. They drink it up and it nourishes them, even as it destroys and depletes us. And I know that I’m getting very melodramatic in the way I am describing this, but please do understand that it is a very real transaction, it is a transference of power from you to them.
So now let’s talk about how to protect ourselves from this kind of attack in really easy ways. Like, we’re going to cover protection on the go. This ain’t gonna be a bunch of long drawn out processes. Nobody has the time or the energy to waste, and we don’t really need to. We have talked about protection magick more times than I care to recount but that’s because it’s so vital in so many aspects of our lives. I always argue that protection magick is the first kind of witchcraft we should probably learn and it’s most definitely the magick we should practice most. Like brushing our teeth, we’ve gotta do it daily.
So we are going to focus on ways to protect ourselves when we’re out and about amongst others. It’s easy to ward our houses, but we gotta really turn up the juice when we step outside our homes and when we expose ourselves and our energies to people other than our dear friends and the close family members whom we love and who love us.
A very simple way to do this is to wear black. Black is very grounding, and it’s incredibly protective and shrouding. I don’t personally wear a lot of black usually, I’m a very pastel and jewel tones kind of gal, but when I’m going to be in crowded environments, when I’m going to be around a lot of people or around people that I don’t really vibe with too well, I wear black. And incidentally, a lot of black stones are very protective as well, so black tourmaline and black obsidian, black jade is another stone that carries strong protective properties.
If you don’t have any of those, pyrite, hematite, clear quartz, smoky quartz, amethyst, selenite, and citrine are also very effective. If you have a small stone that you can carry, or even better if you’ve got some jewelry that’s made with any of these stones, you would do well to wear them. And I would even take it a step further and I’d charge them under the New Moon which is next Wednesday, the 23rd, mark your calendar, to give them a little more zest.
We can make any piece of jewelry into a protective talisman though, we spoke about how to do this on the Amulets episode, but let’s recap quickly. For a protective amulet, we start by anointing a black candle and the jewelry in question with Protection Oil, and here’s how to make it. Add about 2oz of olive oil to a small saucepan and then add a very small amount of each of the following: dragon’s blood, either a few drops of the oil or a small piece of the actual resin, frankincense and myrrh, again, either the oils or small bits of resin, cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes, a little black salt, and I’ll explain how to make that in a moment, a couple cardamom pods, a little cinnamon, a little ginger, a bay leaf, a little rue, a little sandalwood, and a little angelica root.
Only use the herbs that you have on hand already, don’t make a special purchase for this. Use what you have and omit what you don’t have; your oil will be fine without it.
Stir these items into the oil and warm it through on very low heat for a good 20, 30 minutes, and then strain everything out and add it to a little bottle or a jar once it’s cool. To that little bottle, I like to throw in a couple extra flakes of the red pepper, just to keep it spicy while it’s on the shelf, and a very small chunk of black obsidian or tourmaline if you’ve got it. You will use this oil to anoint your amulet as we’ve already discussed, but you can also anoint yourself as long as you’re not allergic to any of the ingredients that you used.
To make that black salt we talked about, pour equal parts regular salt, charcoal, and then the used ashes of your old spells. I’ve said many times to save the ashes from any spells you burn, and from old incense. Keep it in a little mason jar because it’s great to have on hand for this purpose. Those ashes are still charged with energy; don’t waste them. Anyway, grind all that together with a mortar and pestle or put them together in a ziploc and bash it with a rolling pin until it’s all powdery. Then stick it in a jar and use it as needed. You’ll only need a little for the oil, and the rest can be used for banishings, for cord cuttings, mix it with a little baking powder for a protection floor sweep, all kinds of stuff.
So from there, cleanse your protection amulet by either passing it through incense smoke or by dusting it with regular salt to purify it. Then dress your candle with your Protective Oil and light it. Then, as you’re speaking your spell of protection using whatever words you choose (something simple like “I am protected from the negativity of others” is fine, but you can and should choose your own words), jam as much protective energy as you can create into the amulet.
Draw the energy into yourself first. Close your eyes if it helps, and envision this energy being pulled into your body through the palms of your hands, moving through your arms, into your abdomen and chest. A blinding, white-hot ball of energy inside your torso, building and becoming bigger and stronger. Then just blast that energy back out through your palms and direct it into the object.
Once you’ve created this protection amulet, you can charge it as often as you need to to keep it strong. Charge it monthly under the full moon, charge it whenever you’re going to be around especially awful people using selenite to just keep it maxed. But just keep it charged and wear it.
This is such a wonderful time of year, but it can be really challenging for us. We don’t need to give so much of ourselves away unintentionally that we end up just this desiccated husk of a human being after the New Year. Take some defensive measures, prioritize your wellbeing, and be proactive in the way that you approach these social situations. And finally, my last bit of advice is to practice saying no. Practice flipping the script when some vampire starts poking their nose where it doesn’t belong. Have your defense prepared.
When great grandma Edith says, “So, are you seeing anyone new?” you don’t have to tell her shit. You can say, “I have nothing to report, Edith, why don’t you tell me how you’ve been?”
“How’s the job search going?”
“Oh, it’s going.”
“Why haven’t you given me any grandkids yet?”
“You know, the lord works in mysterious way.”
Just don’t answer any questions you don’t want to. I know it’s hard sometimes if we’ve been conditioned to answer any rude, prying, inappropriate questions that are asked of us, especially from certain people. But a simple yet firm, “Oh lord, that’s the last thing I want to talk about,’ works. As long as you stick with it and get through the uncomfortable moment that follows. Because if people aren’t used to you setting those boundaries, they’ll try to get around them a time or two before they give up. And you have to decide that you’re going to wait it out.
It’s taken me a lifetime to figure out how to do this and it is not easy. I’m a people-pleaser and I was raised that way. But it has changed the way I approach social situations and I am much happier now. And people don’t ask me those questions anymore. One thing I don’t mind doing at all is being deliberately evasive in the face of an energy vampire. I don’t care if these people don’t like me, I don’t care if they think I’m difficult or cagey, I don’t even care if they talk shit about me behind my back. At least I know none of it’s true, because I haven’t told them anything.
I can enjoy the company, I can enjoy the conversation, I can spend time with the people I do love and I don’t have to worry about that one person who gets under my skin anymore. It’s so empowering. And it’s kind of gratifying to watch a known energy vampire walk away disappointed. In fact, I love it. So please, protect yourselves this holiday season, starve the vampires, and take your power back.
Thank you so much for joining me today, you can find transcripts of this or any episode on the website at middleagedwitch.com. We will meet again next Thursday to talk about abundance magick, and I can’t wait. My name is Eli Ro, and this has been the Middle-Aged Witchpodcast.