Everyday Magic

I love magic. I know how nerdy that is supposed to be, but it’s true. It isn’t that I love the idea of tricks or illusion, but that when we are introduced to something unexpected it sprouts wonder and wonder becomes curiosity which can then develop into innovation.

Even if it didn’t go so far as to become innovation, though, wonder alone is amazing. Do you want to know why?

Because wonder is a way of engaging with the world. It is an opening of yourself to new experiences and it moves you away from stagnation and despair. Wonder means that there is an intriguing unknown. It takes the fear that we typically associate with unknown experiences away and replaces it with, well magic. We are brought back to a time when the world was full of mystery, but not in a bad way, in a way that was wonderfully mesmerizing and left us looking for more understanding, more explanation, more joy. We engaged and lost our fear of engagement because the magic itself was so joyful and enchanting that we didn’t go to thoughts of worry or criticism.

This is the true magic found in magic—it isn’t that it is deceptive but that it is fascinating enough to draw you into it and outside the boundaries of yourself. When you are deeply engaged with curiosity about the world around you, you aren’t thinking about yourself. In that moment when you are startled by something seemingly impossible taking place before you, your mind does not focus on who you are or what you are doing, it focuses on that impossibility. This can teach you that impossible things are not actually impossible which is a great thing to learn, but it also gives you a feeling memory of what it is to be connected to something outside of yourself.

Feeling memories of this sort can be the life raft you need when you are stuck in periods of despair or stagnation. In those moments when life feels unrelenting, if you are able to recall even a little of what it felt like to be enchanted by some form of magic—not to think about the actual magic itself but the feeling of it—then in that moment you will have just created a slight shift in your energy. The conjuring up of that memory of excitement, joy, curiosity, is like a spark of yellow in a gray room and if you can hold it long enough in your feeling to let it grow you will find yourself not only feeling a few degrees better but suddenly wondering about possibilities and solutions beyond the grayness.

It might take a little while to learn to focus on energy enough to grow it, but you start by remembering as much of that feeling as you can and expanding it. Feel where it impacts you in your body, describe the sensation, examine the movement. Imagine that you were a poet writing a beautiful poem about this magical feeling in your body. As the emotion of wonder grows, you will find your thoughts change. Instead of repeating all the things that are keeping you stuck, they will recall a time when you believed something was impossible and yet you saw it happen. Then you will know that it is possible for that this impossibly heavy place you are in won’t last forever and you will naturally start looking for possibilities to move out of it. It could lead you to a solution that you did not see before, or a change of mindset, or a breakthrough in some aspect of yourself that was holding you back and creating pain. Follow the feeling to the thoughts and the thoughts to the actions and you will find yourself becoming the magician in your own life—transforming an impossibly difficult situation into something beautiful and empowering.

Maybe you were not like me as a child and you did not watch magic shows with awe and amazement. You can still create the magic inside yourself by recalling a time of great joy and wonder. Remembering someone or thing that inspired you and focusing on the inspiration will have the same effect. But if in your moments of despair any joyful recollection is too hard, you can also remember this: magic exists all the time, everywhere. All you have to do to see it is look around.

We don’t think of our everyday world as a magical reality because we have gotten used to it. It doesn’t fascinate us the way it did when we were young because in our minds it is predictable and normal and there is nothing to engage with. But what would happen if you actively looked and tried to find the magic in the world around you?

Do you know why the plants grow or where the color comes from? Did you ever contemplate that blade of grass springing from beneath the sidewalk, how it arrived there and, in its resilience, emerged from beneath concrete to splash green over the gray? Or you could look at kindness. What motivates a stranger to be kind to another? What force of love causes a parent to take a child’s hand or a dog to curl up at your feet or lick your face? Even if you have not experienced enough of it in your own life, isn’t it magic that kindness exists at all? Isn't it magical to know that people and animals have the capacity to take on concern for other life forms and do their best to express it?

It might seem silly to think about ordinary things in such a contemplative way, but you could also look at it this way—we didn’t have to live in a world where there was color and growth. We don’t need to exist in a creation with the potential for kindness and love. The world could be only dark and cold. Others could only be centered on themselves without a thought for any other. I know that in times of despair it can seem like we do live in a world that is dark where kindness is only a myth—but that is why the contemplation of everyday magic is so necessary then. Because the magic of life is that there is color and there is love and kindness and a desire for good. The more you can recognize the small occurrences of everyday magic, the easier it becomes to pull yourself out of the bleakness and recognize that you do not have to stay in the dark. If you can see that the light exists somewhere, then you can know that you have the ability to reach it and that knowledge alone can pull you towards it.

Even if you aren’t there yet, if you know it is possible, if you can recognize that the world is filled with magic, then you can see that anything is in fact possible. That same force that encourages flowers to bloom, birds to sing, and puppies to love; that same force exists within you and the untapped magic that you hold inside of yourself every single day can bring about impossible changes that unfold in surprising, wonderfully unexpected ways.

Becoming a magician in your own life may have its challenges, but if you can see that it is possible to bring about your own transformation then you can see that you don’t have to be stuck and once you see that you don’t have to be stuck you won’t be able to stay stuck for much longer. If you are ready to take on this transformation but could use some help and guidance please reach out. I would love to work with you to find the everyday magic in your own life and unleash the magician within.

Thank you for reading and have a magically transformative day.