I used to think that offering spiritual advice and casting spells on behalf of others was a high form of magic. I used to think it was selfless, meaningful, loving. I used to think my magic could speed others on their journey.
I was wrong.
The Spiritual Development Trap
Standing on the outside looking in, I thought I could see what others needed better than they could. I thought my perspective gave me clarity—that I could see their problems while they stumbled blindly through their struggles. I believed I could save them, if only they would heed my advice and accept my instruction.
But real spiritual development means recognising my limitations. I couldn’t see the shadow work they needed to do, the lessons hiding in their struggles, or the spiritual contracts their souls had made before incarnation. This is their path. True spiritual development means attending to my own business and supporting my own spiritual growth. That way I make meaning from my own life and I can be present when someone needs a listening ear.
Avoiding Your Own Spiritual
It is not spiritual to pour your energy into changing someone else’s life and then wonder why you feel drained and resentful. I was casting spells for others to make me feel better—to avoid the discomfort of watching them struggle, to maintain the illusion that I have control over life’s uncertainties. That’s not spiritual growth, it’s magical codependency.
The Spiritual Excuse
“I can’t focus on my own spiritual development because people need my help.” What a convenient way to avoid real spiritual work! I stay busy with other people’s problems because I’m too afraid to face my own shadow work. Offering advice, spiritual guidance or even worse casting spells to ‘fix’ others feels easier than doing the hard work of transmuting my own pain, healing my own wounds, or confronting my own limiting beliefs.
Helping others magically lets me avoid my own growth. I tell myself “I could have achieved great spiritual heights if only I wasn’t so busy helping others.” The alternative is risking the discovery that my own spiritual development isn’t as advanced as I thought—and having no one else to blame for my spiritual stagnation.
When Help Hinders Spiritual
I received no thanks for the unsolicited magical work I did, nor should I. I thought it was caring. Now I see it often shows a lack of trust in others’ ability to navigate their own spiritual journey. They didn’t ask for my intervention. They didn’t want it. Real growth means respecting others’ path while walking my own.
The Distraction from Growth
When I offer unsolicited magical “help,” I often become just another distraction from the inner work someone needs to do, interrupting their personal development process with my anxious need to fix them.
What Does Real Spiritual Development Look Like?
Many of us build our magical identity around being the helper, the healer, the one who fixes everyone else’s problems. In this way we avoid focusing on our own spiritual path.
Do we choose to live vicariously through others’ magical breakthroughs to save ourselves the discomfort of our own growth? Do we tend to others’ spiritual wounds because we’re too afraid of facing our own spiritual development work?
There’s only one way to find out.
The Spiritual Development Path Forward
Stop offering unsolicited magical advice. Resist the urge to cast spells for others without clear invitation.
Your spiritual development has been neglected for too long while you’ve been focused on everyone else’s journey.
Get out your tarot deck, your journal, your meditation cushion. Map the territories of your own psyche that remain unexplored. Cast spells for your own healing, protection, and growth. Risk the discomfort of shadow work, the vulnerability of self-love spells, the uncertainty of career magic when you don’t know what you truly want.
Focus your magical practice entirely on your own spiritual development and transformation.
Why Your Own Spiritual Development Matters
When you focus your magic on your own spiritual development:
- You stop enabling others’ spiritual bypassing and allow them to follow their own life path uninterrupted.
- You model healthy magical boundaries
- You learn your own life purpose and develop genuine power instead of borrowed purpose
- You become someone who radiates healing rather than someone who desperately tries to ‘fix’ everyone around them
- You learn to trust the universe’s timing for everyone, including yourself
The most radical magical act is taking full responsibility for your own spiritual development. Everything else is just distraction dressed up as service.
Your magic is meant for your spiritual development first. Everyone else will benefit far more from your authentic growth than from your anxious intervention. And if someone asks for your help. Listen carefully to what they have to say. Don’t jump in with advice based on your experience. Instead, explore their path with them – you may both learn something new along the way.
Blessed be
Eva x