In the wake of being diagnosed with disk degeneration disorder, I am dedicating myself to consistently doing physical therapy exercises. As a witch, I am using magic to boost those efforts, to support reaching my goals spectacularly and with minimal difficulties. Adding magic to a physical therapy routine is something anyone can do, benefiting the practitioner on both spiritual and physical levels.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, and this is not medical advice. This is magical advice, and no amount of magic is a substitute for proper medical treatment. Whenever possible, conduct all medical treatment and therapies under the supervision of an appropriate professional.

No Quick Solution

Physical therapy is not a quick solution to anything, and for best effect is often a life-long commitment, especially when it is undertaken to treat chronic conditions like mine. However, even if you are using physical therapy to recover after injury or surgery, it usually takes weeks or months of consistent exercise to achieve the best possible results.

For best effect, magic for physical therapy is also a long-term or ongoing commitment. One of the benefits of this is daily magical practice, which is fantastic since daily practice can be very difficult for spoonie witches and many others to do manage. I know that when I am fatigued I often do not have the spare energy for deliberate magical practice, and by “spare”, I mean anything left over after I take care of physical essentials.

Since physical therapy is an essential thing that I am doing twice a day, the magical aspects become daily practice. Exactly what that means, though, will vary depending upon what your personal practice looks like. I will be giving some suggestions below, but adapt everything to what works for you, especially in regards to how much extra effort you can and want to give to it each time you do your physical therapy exercises.

When you are talking about long-term spellwork, a small amount of magic done with sincerity on a consistent basis can move mountains. A large amount of elaborate magic done resentfully on a handful of occasions is unlikely to accomplish much and can leave you burnt.

Sticking With It

One of the difficult things about any long-term or indefinite endeavor is sticking with it, especially if it is tedious or difficult, not fun, or it takes a long time to see results. It can also be hard to stick with it when you do accomplish the results you are after, because the impulse is to think, “There! It’s done! I can stop now!” even when you know the reality is that now you have to maintain what you have achieved.

The daily practice aspect can be used to help weather periods of time where it is tempting to give up or take a long break, even though you know doing either is a bad idea. It can also help you get going again if/when you do take a break. Taking breaks does not make you a failure, but it is important to resume your physical therapy quickly so you lose as little progress as possible.

If you have patron deities or supportive ancestors or other spirits in your corner, you can ask them to help you keep focused on the task. They may be able to give you strength when you want to stop, or lend you the courage to start up again when you need it. Meditations and spiritual dedications can also help, even if no spirits or deities are involved.

Give Yourself Grace

There may also be times when, for whatever reason, you need to skip a session, or maybe even a few sessions. At times you may find that you need to do fewer exercises, or fewer repetitions than normal.

Life happens. It can be unpredictable. It has its ups and downs. There may even be conflicting important needs happening simultaneously, so something has to give, and sometimes that something may be your physical therapy. Balancing conflicting needs and desires is an important, if frustrating, part of self-care.

In an ideal world you would be able to do your physical therapy absolutely consistently every day, but the reality is that is unlikely to happen for most of us, so give yourself grace. Life is not about perfection. Life is about living.

Even if you stop entirely for a time, it is never too late to start up again. As long as you breathe, there is always today, or even tomorrow, to pick up your physical therapy and support your best possible quality of life. It is worth giving yourself that gift, even though it takes hard work and consistent dedication. Physical Therapy is an act of self-love and self-caring, so be kind to yourself, especially when you take a break. Guilt trips or self-depreciation are unnecessary and will only drag you down. Acknowledge what has happened, pick yourself back up, and keep going.

Sigils to Help you Stick With It

If self-sabotage or lack of self-worth are significant barriers to doing your physical therapy consistently, I recommend doing shadow work to address those issues. If you have access to mental health care, it can be invaluable in helping to overcome such difficulties.

I created the Stay the Course Sigil to help those who are struggling with self-destructive or damaging coping mechanisms, habits, or behaviors that interfere with making beneficial changes in their life. This and other emotional/psychological sigils are extremely compatible with the goals of physical therapy.

The I Accept Good Things Sigil is designed to aid those who struggle with feeling unworthy of good things, or have trouble accepting help from others. If you need physical therapy, odds are good that you need help from others. The results of physical therapy are very much a good thing, so if you feel unworthy of good things it can be particularly difficult to stick to your exercise routine, especially after you do achieve those benefits.

Although magic can help to speed up the benefits of physical therapy, it is still going to take time, and probably a lot of it. Focus on each step, stay committed to the process, and you will find yourself where you want to be. Stay committed to the process, and you can continue to see those benefits long-term.

My Physical Therapy Routine

At the level of disk degeneration I have, physical therapy is far and away the most likely treatment to make a significant difference in my mobility and pain. The goal is to strengthen my pelvic floor and core muscles to ease the strain on my spine. In that way, I should be able to greatly increase my quality of life, and also slow or prevent further degeneration.

I am currently trying to get access to a physical therapist, but I have had trouble finding an office that takes my insurance, and even after that happens it will potentially be months before I get an appointment. I’m not willing to sit on my hands and wait on “health care” in the USA, so I looked up physical therapy videos on YouTube that are focused on pelvic floor and core muscle development. After watching several, I found one produced by a physical therapist who is able to clearly describe how to do the exercises, what they do, and how they feel when you are doing them correctly. This is particularly important for these kinds of exercises because very little of the motion is easily visible.

Dr. Jo has a lot of videos on her channel, covering lots of common needs for physical therapy. Some videos, like this one, are detailed descriptions of the exercises. Others give real-time exercise routines you can workout with each time you do your exercises.

Ideally, when you are in need of physical therapy, any physical therapy or exercise routine you undertake will be overseen by a licensed, professional physical therapist. Look to them for the ideal exercises and intervals for your specific needs, and follow their advice.

Failing that, I am approaching my physical therapy in a very, very slow way. I started with a single exercise, the pelvic tilt. By having only one exercise, I could more easily make sure I was doing the exercise correctly, and that it was not causing any problems. It was a week before I felt confident and added a second exercise, the pelvic lift. As of writing this article, I have been doing those two exercises, twice a day, for a couple weeks. I am sore, but I am not experiencing the radiating pain of a flare-up.

I plan to continue with just the two exercises until I am confident I can do them both properly, and I am not weak from exertion after doing the two. Currently I am not strong enough to even do a full 13 reps on the pelvic lift, so it will not surprise me if I take two or three weeks more, or even longer, doing only the two exercises. Since I do not have any professional supervision at this time, I feel it is far safer to take it extra slow and make sure I am in the best possible position before taking on the next exercise. The last thing I need on top of the disk degeneration is to give myself a strained muscle that prevents me from doing my physical therapy exercises at all, and adds to the inflammation and swelling in the problem area.

The other reason for my cautious approach is my longer-term chronic health problems, which include chronic fatigue syndrome and post-exertion malaise (I have had this for well over a decade following anaplasmosis, but it is common with people who end up with long covid, so the most current articles focus on covid). CFS/PEM means if I overexert myself I experience an uptick of chronic symptoms and a severely decreased capacity for physical exertion. If I take it slow, I can be consistent. If I push to much, I am likely to create a situation where I can do little to no physical therapy for several days. If I push slightly too much, it is a good idea for me to skip a session or two before I hit full fatigue.

Keeping my personal fatigue issues in mind, there have been a few days where I skipped the evening exercise session. It’s not ideal, but it is the best approach for my specific circumstance.

Numerology and Exercise Reps

Every video I have looked at has suggested a range of repetitions to aim for, usually 5-15. They also suggested doing the exercises more often throughout the day if you are unable to do very many reps in a single session. Your physical therapist will likely give you repetition objectives that are appropriate for your particular needs.

I do not consider myself a numerologist, but I do see magical significance to some particular numbers, especially 3, 5, 9, and 13, so I am aiming for those numbers on my repetitions. If there are numbers that are significant to you, especially for wellbeing or good luck, aim for those to give magical intention to the layout of your routine.

Currently I am doing my exercises twice a day. I would love to do three, but I am sore enough with two that I am confident three would be too much.

I am currently doing 13 reps of the pelvic tilt, and 9 reps of the pelvic lift. I plan to increase the reps of the pelvic lift to 13 before adding a third exercise.

Depending upon the difficulty of the next exercise I add, I will likely start with either 5 or 9 reps. My hope is 9, but as I stated above, I am much better off erring on the side of caution if I have any doubt. If I can only do 5 reps in a single session, I will hopefully add in a third session each day, focusing on just the pelvic tilt plus the third exercise during the extra session.

If you associate 13 with bad luck, or there are other numbers which are more meaningful to you, aim for those instead.

Timing Incantations for Exercise Intervals

Most of the physical therapy exercises I have been looking at involve timed intervals. That is, you hold a position for so many seconds, and then release for so many seconds. Or, you take a certain number of seconds to slowly complete a motion. Each cycle of hold and release, or one completed motion, is one repetition. The particular exercises I am doing at this time require a 3-5 second hold and 3-5 second release.

You can ritualize counting the seconds, but another option is to repeat a short incantation that is spoken within the interval period. At the moment I am using, “Bone to bone, sinew to sinew, flesh to flesh,” which takes me about 4 seconds to slowly and deliberately think/speak. That particular incantation comes from a translation of Irish mythology which I read years ago and stuck with me. A different translation is given in this recounting of Airmid and Miach healing the arm of of King Nuada Airgetlam.

I wish to strengthen my muscles to prevent the bones of my spine from grinding, and also reduce inflammation and irritation in the nerves and connective tissues, so that incantation seems very appropriate for me. It is also very rare for my brain to retain an incantation perfectly for any length of time, let alone for years. When it does, those incantations tend to be very potent for me.

If that incantation makes sense for you, by all means use it. If there is a different incantation you like, whether you learned it from mythology, a book of spells, a class you took, a mentor or leader in your tradition, a dream, a meme, or even graffiti on a street corner, by all means use it if it takes you the correct amount of time to recite.

If you are making your own incantation specifically to suit your needs and intentions, consider making a poem with a cadence that matches the interval timing and has enough lines to match the number of repetitions.

I am signing the repetitions with my hands (1 finger, 2 fingers, etc.), but that would not work well if my hands were involved in the exercises I am doing. There is a lot I must focus on, from the physical movements of the exercise, to the visualizations I am doing, to timing each repetition, to counting the number of repetitions. If I tried to do that all in my head I would end up losing track of something, and that something would most likely be the number of repetitions. Counting on my fingers keeps it clear, and also adds in the magical power of hand motions with intent.

Sigils, Energy Work, and Visualizations for Physical Therapy

I am, for the most part, keeping my magic around physical therapy as simple as possible so I am sure to do it consistently. For me, one of the easiest ways to do this is with sigil visualization and energy manipulation, because I naturally visualize like a champ despite perceiving energy mostly in a tactile way.

I am primarily using the Sigil for Healthy Bones and Joints for my physical therapy. So, at the start of each exercise session I visualize the sigil centered on the lowest part of my spine. I feel the healing energy of the world around me focus in on that sigil, organizing it towards the intended purposes, and penetrating my body.

I do my best to hold that awareness throughout the repetitions. When the exercises are over, I let go of my focus, but I do not dispel that energy. By leaving the sigil energy in my lower back, it will continue to work. It not only helps with the disk degeneration, but also helps with the soreness and fatigue of exercising, and encourages rapid, healthy strengthening of muscle.

If you do not want to use sigils for your visualization focus, use whatever visualization works for you. Common visualizations I have read about involve healing waters, chakra or other energy modality visualizations, colors, helpful spirit allies, helpful deities or mythical figures, and more. Whatever visualization speaks healing to you, use it.

Non-Visualized Sigils and Energy Work for Physical Therapy

If you have a hard time visualizing or cannot visualize at all, accommodate yourself in whatever way you are accustomed to when working magic. Just because I primarily use visualizations, that does not mean everyone does, or that everyone needs to. There are always multiple ways to achieve the same magical effects, and non-visualization methods can be extremely useful even if you are good at visualizing.

It is generally very effective to have a sigil physically present. This can mean placing it on your altar, placing it where you can see it while doing your exercises, wearing clothing with the sigil on it, placing a sigil adorned blanket or cloth under you for the exercises, wearing jewelry of the sigil, or drawing it directly upon your body.

Do not feel like you have to pick just one. You can place the sigil on your altar, wear the sigil, draw it on your body, and visualize the sigil. Or, you can place it where you can see it while exercising and place it on your altar. Or, whatever other combination makes sense for you.

Personally, I would love to draw the sigil on my body, but I cannot draw on my own back. I also use lidocaine for pain management, so the creams and patches would not be compatible with most temporary ways of marking my body. This problem will not be going away for the rest of this life, so hopefully at some point I will be able to get it tattooed there.

I am also intending to make a pendant with that sigil, but I am not physically up to that yet. Using sigils does not have to involve the act of doing your physical therapy, so if you feel inspired to use them in other ways, please do so.

You can make or use magical items consecrated or enchanted to help with healing. Just have them present to use as a focus, or so that they can impart the magical energies they are attuned with. This can be statuary, amulets or other jewelry, art pieces, crystals, stones, pillows, cloth, clothing, wall hangings, etc.

Kitchen witchery like teas or special snacks can impart healing energy in association with physical therapy. Just take them before and/or after your physical therapy session, and focus on boosting those efforts when you make/buy and eat/drink them.

If you know an energy healing modality or tradition, that is a natural choice to add in alongside anything else.

You can pick music you find soothing and healing to play, or create a meditation recording for yourself that directs the healing energy (and can also act as a timing and repetition aid). If you find it easier to focus on perceiving energy through senses other than sight, focus on feeling or hearing or tasting the energy, willing it to heal, support, and build. You can burn incense or light candles, say a prayer before exercising, or do a working at your altar. You can anoint your body with oils or lotion, or do a ritual bath. There really is no limit.

There are also many other things you can do to help with energy work during physical therapy exercise. These are just a few ideas to get you started. If you have an idea not listed here, explore using it.

Ritualizing your Physical Therapy

Ritualization can be as simple as acting with deliberate intention. It can also be as complex as a full circle with all the ceremonial tools, correspondences, and traditions you wish to include. How simple or complex you get is entirely up to you, based on your practice and capabilities. However, please do be mindful that you do not burden yourself with so much extra stuff that it interferes with the routine of doing the physical therapy when you need to.

A small amount of magic done with sincerity on a frequent basis will always get you further than a lot of magic done rarely with a reluctance or resentment.

If you do love all the big ritual components, but find it is not feasible to do multiple times a day, every day, then pick a pattern or criteria for when you will do the big formal ritual, letting the other sessions be less formal. For example, you could do the formal ritual on the full and/or new moons, or on special holidays, solar days, or astrological days. You could do it once a week, or just in the morning or the evening, or every other day. It just has to make sense for you, and be spread out enough that it does not overload you or burn you out.

Ritual does not need to be complicated to be effective. Simple ritualization might involve praying, lighting a candle or incense, starting specific music, laying down a special mat or blanket where you exercise (I have a unicorn throw blanket I’m using), or just a minute of meditative breathing to bring you into the moment.

Let the Magic Flow/ Magic is not Static

Be willing to adjust your routine or ritual practices as you go along, especially if you find yourself feeling stressed out or overwhelmed by the volume of it, or particular aspects of it. It can also be worth adjusting if you feel like you need or want something more. Simple is powerful. Complex is powerful. Both get the job done, but in different ways. Find a balance that works for you.