Stay the Course Sigil
The Stay the Course Sigil is a shadow work sigil designed to aid those who are struggling with self-destructive or damaging coping mechanisms, habits, or behaviors. Sometimes it can be hard to stick with things that we know are good for us in the long run, because we sabotage or undermine our own efforts, or have difficulty remaining on course. This sigil aids in efforts to address the root causes of self-sabotage and lack of follow-through, so that you can follow through on what you know is best for you.
Because this is a shadow work sigil, it is focused on aiding with trauma response, cultural conditioning, and internal narrative. That means as you use this sigil, it may bring up baggage that will need to be worked through in a constructive manner, especially as you cycle through having missteps, giving yourself grace, gathering your resolve, and continuing onward.
If you have access to mental health care, the Stay the Course Sigil can be a way to boost the professional help you have when addressing self-destructive or damaging coping mechanisms, habits, and behaviors, or simply to help you stay in therapy if you have difficulty making your appointments reliably. Be sure to process anything that comes up through your regular appointments under the guidance of your chosen professional.
If you do not have access to mental health care, the Stay the Course Sigil can still be used to help address self-destructive and damaging behaviors, but be prepared for the potential need to do self-guided shadow work to heal related issues that arise. If it becomes overwhelming, I strongly recommend trying to find a way to access mental health care, because doing the work is worthwhile, and there are tremendous benefits to being able to follow through on tasks you set for yourself.
The Stay the Course Sigil can pair extremely well with the I Accept Good Things Sigil, especially if you also struggle with feeling that you do not deserve to achieve anything beneficial in your life.
These are articles I have written specifically about shadow work:
- Shadow Work and the Magic of Critical Introspection
- What Chronic Pain can Teach us About Avoiding Shadow Work
- Practicing Loving Honesty Instead of Brutal Honesty
- Working With Fear as a Positive Force for Good
- Making Room for Anger in Your Life and Practice
- Explorations of the Subconscious
- Tarot Spread for Problem Solving and Shadow Work
- All Articles Related to Self-Awareness and Introspection
Intentions and Symbology of the Stay the Course Sigil
The overall form of the Stay the Course Sigil is reminiscent of a barbell balanced on a fulcrum, holding up the good things you want to accomplish. It may not be easy, but everything you need is at hand.
Increased awareness of damaging habits and behaviors
This intention is symbolized by the “!” in the fulcrum. The use of the “!” encourages “Ah-ha!” epiphanies, which bring complete awareness to all levels of consciousness of what you have been doing that directly contributes to the difficulties you have in accomplishing tasks. It is placed in the fulcrum base to emphasize that awareness is critically important to both achieving equilibrium and balance, and to making changes. If you are unaware of what you are doing that directly contributes to your difficulties, you cannot deliberately make changes, and are stuck stabbing in the dark hoping something works out.
Strength to move towards the most beneficial actions
It takes strength to make changes in your life, especially when those changes involve challenging ingrained coping mechanisms, habits, behaviors, and thought patterns. This is represented by the pentagrams and the barbell, which together indicate the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual strength that such endeavors can take. You do have what it takes to follow through, even when it does not seem like it.
Ability to change behaviors and habits for the better
When we engage in shadow work, it is with the intention of changing for the better. You can change for the better. Everyone can, if they are willing to put in the work. This is represented by the snakes, a symbol of transformation by the shedding of their skin, that which once served them well, but is now restrictive and damaging, and so must be discarded. It is also represented by the compass rose in the center of the heart, indicating that you can find your way, even if the path ahead seems cloudy or obscured.
Ability to give yourself grace with missteps
Challenging ingrained coping mechanisms, habits, behaviors, and thought patterns is difficult and painful, and it can often seem like you are getting nowhere, or even sliding backwards. That is a natural part of the process (I know, it sucks – I’ve been there too), and in no ways means you are a failure. It takes time to make changes, and missteps are going to happen, so it is important to give yourself grace. That is, allow yourself to make those missteps and mistakes, but then follow through with further changes. Be accountable, recognize where things went wrong with loving honesty, and use that knowledge and experience to do better the next time. Beating yourself up helps nothing and can be incredibly self-destructive. By approaching yourself with grace, you can make the changes you need or want to make with less drama and trauma.
This is represented primarily by the heart shielded by moons, indicating compassion and love for yourself, which is protected, but also has a natural ebb and flow, especially when doing shadow work on those aspects of yourself you do not like.
Strength to keep going even when you mess up
Even when you give yourself grace, it can be hard to get back on track after a significant misstep. You do have the strength, and you can do it! This is represented by the pine-tree shaped arrows growing out of the heart. When you give yourself compassion and grace, you are sewing fertile fields from which the strongest tress can flourish and grow! The arrowheads are barbed slightly to indicate that they will stick, and you will keep reaching towards your goals.
Balance indulgent self-care and chore self-care
It is important for all people to engage in self-care. Sometimes this involves loving indulgence, like taking a nap, playing a video game, taking an extra long bath with fancy salts, staying in instead of going out, going out instead of staying in, having your favorite food or drink, buying yourself something you want, etc. Sometimes this involves chores, like making sure you get enough sleep, getting exercise, making that doctor’s appointment and keeping it, clearing out some tasks that have been causing anxiety, etc.
If you do too much indulgent self-care, it can create a situation where you don’t take care of business, and things start falling apart. If you do too much chore self-care, it can create stress and anxiety from lack of rest and joy, and things start falling apart. Balancing the two is important, but can also be incredibly difficult.
This is represented by the amphisbaena, or two-headed snake, that instead of a tail has a head at both ends of its body. It is wrapped around the fulcrum and barbell to represent that nothing in life is a straight road, but instead, like the snake, moves in different directions depending upon what will be the most helpful. It can see and shift directions in a moment’s notice, adapting to changing needs and circumstances. Like the snake, if you try to move in one direction without fail, the heads can end up fighting each other and you get nowhere, but if they work together they can hold up everything you need to create transformation and follow through on the goals you set.
How to Use the Stay the Course Sigil
You can use this sigil in any way that is in line with its intent and makes sense for your practice. You can dedicate its use to a particular task or problem, or just apply it to yourself to generally aid with follow-through. Some ideas are to:
- inscribe it on a candle
- print it or draw it on a piece of paper and place it on your altar or somewhere you see regularly
- put a copy in your wallet
- use it as the wallpaper, login background, or screen saver on your phone, tablet, or computer
- make something crafty and include the sigil in your creation
- use it as a focus for meditation
- draw it on the body using salted water, anointing oil, an herb blend, makeup, body paint, henna, markers, temporary tattoo pens, etc.
- print it onto temporary tattoo paper and apply it to your body
- and so on
Your rendering of the sigil does not need to be perfect. Intent is what matters, so do not worry if you cannot draw it “perfectly”. As long as all the elements are there, you are good.
Like any sigil, it will be most effective when it is used in conjunction with real-world actions. Be sure to do what you can to stay the course, and seek out mental health care if possible. The sigil alone is not going to fix everything, but it can give a powerful boost to the actions you take.
If you wish you use it as a focus in workings to help the world in general and anyone who needs it, you are welcome to do so. Instead of focusing the sigil for a single person/situation, send the intent to help anyone who is struggling and could use the benefits of the sigil.
Please read On the Care and Use of Sigils for more information about how to use sigils.
Tattoos and Body Art of the Stay the Course Sigil
If you want to get a tattoo of any of my sigils, you do not need to ask me for personal permission. Permission is granted. However, I do recommend that you carefully consider whether or not the sigil in question is actually something you need working on you constantly for the rest of your life. If the answer is no, temporary body art is probably the better way to go, even if you recreate it on a frequent or semi-regular basis.
I also strongly recommend using a temporary body art method to test-drive any sigil before getting it permanently inked. This can let you test the impact of the sigil, including how placement changes the effects. This isn’t just some cool design that you like. It is a piece of magic and will have impact beyond aesthetics.
If you do decide getting a tattoo of one of my sigils is the way to go, I would love it if you showed me how it turned out! You can send me a message through my website or social media. If you post the photo to the internet, please tag me on social media so I can see.
Print-on-Demand Purchase of the Stay the Course Sigil
I have set up the Stay the Course Sigil print-on-demand in my RedBubble shop, so it can be more convenient to use for those who do not have the time/skills/energy to redraw or recreate the sigil. I have set the items in the shop to 0% commission, so the prices you see are the base prices. Due to my own health problems, I am incapable of doing order fulfillment or running a business, and as a spoonie witch I want the convenience of purchasing for myself as well.
Print-on-demand is provided purely as a convenience, not as a business endeavor. That means I am unlikely to rush to meet any requests for available items or sigils, and I have no control over RedBubble’s order fulfilment processes. I have not purchased or tested the vast majority of products available from RedBubble, but I have set them up in ways that I hope will be issue-free.
Sharing the Stay the Course Sigil
The sigil graphic does contain enough text to help clarify it when it is shared out in the wilds of the internet, but best practice is to include a link back to this article. That way others who see it can find out exactly what it is intended to do, in detail. Sigils are most effective when the user understands the symbology and knows exactly what they were created to do, and that is also the only way they can be certain this sigil is right for them and their situation.
This sigil is Creative Commons licensed:
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as they credit Sidney Eileen and license their new creations under the identical terms.
Want to Make Your Own Sigils?
I use the method described in the excellent book Sigil Witchery, by Laura Tempest Zakroff. You do not need to consider yourself an artist to make your own sigils.
Want More Sigils?
Go to my Sigil Magic page to find all of the sigils I have created and shared publicly.