TLDR (READ THIS FIRST)
- Living life as a spiritual practice means treating your everyday life as the ritual itself, not something to rush through so your “real” practice can happen later.
- The shift is easy to name and hard to do: move through your days as a practice, not a to-do list.
- Use the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) as a check-in for how grounded, playful, lit up, and emotionally nourished you actually feel.
- Start making decisions from how you want to feel, not only from what needs doing. That is not ignoring your responsibilities, it is choosing where your energy goes.
- Where your attention goes, your energy flows. When your life becomes your practice, even the hard stuff becomes part of the ritual.
Hi, I’m Sara Walka, founder of The Sisters Enchanted, and since 2016 I’ve helped thousands of women lean into their intuition and make everyday magic feel, well, actually magical. Here’s the thing I keep circling back to, on the podcast, in our programs, in my own kitchen at six in the morning: I want us to create lives that are a spiritual practice.
Now, I know. That sentence can land a little vague, maybe even a little woo for woo’s sake. Let’s create a life that is a spiritual practice. What does that even mean? Stick with me, because once it clicks, it changes how you move through an ordinary Tuesday.
Because let’s be honest, life can feel anything but enchanted. We’ve got bills to pay. People to take care of. Our own needs sitting quietly in the corner while we tend to everyone else’s. There are expectations. We’re getting older. Time is slipping between our fingers. It costs ten dollars just to walk into a grocery store before you’ve bought a single thing. And we’re out here trying to make it all happen, and none of it feels like magic. That, right there, is where being a witch comes in.
DEFINITION: LIFE AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Living life as a spiritual practice means treating your everyday life as the ritual itself, rather than something you get through so you can “do” your spiritual practice later. Instead of moving through your days as a to-do list, you move through them with intention: choosing what you want to amplify, deciding how you want to feel, and paying attention to where your energy goes. When your life becomes your practice, even the hard things, like paying the bill or making the difficult phone call, become part of the ritual, because you have filled your own cup enough to have something to give.
What does it mean to live life as a spiritual practice?
Living life as a spiritual practice means you stop separating your “spiritual life” from your regular life and start treating the whole thing as sacred. It’s the difference between rushing through your day to get to the good part and realizing the day itself is the good part.
We have to be the priestesses of our own lives. Nobody is going to hand us the enchantment. We have to be the beacon for the energy we want to attract, the one who calls in more of what we actually want to experience. So how do we do that? It comes down to intention, to presence, and to looking around and making some decisions, which, let’s be real, is challenging for a lot of us women for a lot of reasons. But that’s the work: deciding what you want to experience, how you want to feel, and what is actually going to get you there.
“We have to be the priestesses of our lives.”
— SARA WALKA, THE SISTERS ENCHANTED
Why does life stop feeling magical in the first place?
Life stops feeling magical when we live it as a to-do list instead of a practice, moving from task to task on autopilot until whole days disappear and we can’t remember where they went.
You know the days I mean. They’re not even bad. They’re just neutral. You go to work, you make the same four things for dinner, life is fine. And also there’s some sparkle missing. Some glimmer gone. You climb into bed thinking, ah man, I wish I’d done that thing, I wish I’d been more present, I don’t even know where this day went. If that’s you, you’re not broken and you’re not doing life wrong. You just haven’t been handed a way to bring the magic back into the ordinary. That’s what the rest of this is for.
How do the four elements help you live life as a practice?
The four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, give you a simple, witchy way to check in on your life and notice what’s thriving and what’s running on empty. Instead of a vague “how am I doing,” you get four specific questions. Think of this as a Sisters Enchanted approach to living life as a practice: four familiar elements, turned into a quick read on your own energy.
Earth: how grounded and present do you feel?
Earth is slow, steady, and grounding. It’s the cozy, rooted, feet-on-the-floor feeling, the part of you that can be still and present right here on this earthly plane. When you check in with earth, you’re asking: do I feel grounded, or am I floating three inches above my own life?
Air: are you making room for play and words?
Air is playful and quick. It’s words, messages, conversation, the unexpected. One minute there’s no wind at all, and the next there’s a huge gust, and air can change outcomes fast, just like thoughts and words can change outcomes. When you check in with air, you’re asking: am I making room to be playful with words, to laugh, to have a little fun?
Fire: is your inner fire burning bright or burning out?
Fire is how you’re experiencing life right now. Are you meeting it as something full of possibility, or as something heavy? Is your inner fire dying down, burning bright, burning out of control and causing chaos, or is it well tended? When you check in with fire, you’re asking: is there a beautiful flame glowing in me, or do I need to feed it?
Water: is your emotional cup being tended?
Water is the emotional center of the body. It asks whether you’re nurtured enough and hydrated enough, both the literal kind and the emotional, spiritual kind. How is your emotional well doing? When you check in with water, you’re asking: is my cup well tended, or am I pouring from empty?
How do you use the four elements in everyday life?
You use the elements by bringing one of them to mind before an ordinary activity and asking what you want that experience to do for you. That’s it. That’s the practice.
What would it look like to make a meal with one element in mind? Or to notice, before you head to the movies or the bookstore or lunch with a friend, which element you’re actually working with? Are you looking to stoke that inner fire? To fill your emotional cup? To have a playful, air-and-words kind of conversation? You can do the very same thing with the four suits of the tarot minor arcana, since they map onto these same elements. Look at the stories of the suits and ask, which card do I want to feel like walking into this? How do I bring some of that energy to the moment I’m about to step into?
Underneath all of it are a few simple questions I come back to again and again: Why am I doing this? To what end? How do I want this to feel? And what is this actually doing to my capacity, emotionally and energetically, as a person who has a whole lot on her plate?
“Where your attention goes, your energy flows.”
— SARA WALKA, THE SISTERS ENCHANTED
What does it mean to be the center stone of your own life?
Being the center stone means seeing yourself as the middle of your own crystal grid, with every part of your life arranged around you like stones you are intentionally charging.
Picture it. If your life is a practice and you are the center stone, then everything else, your work, your people, your rest, your rituals, your Tuesday errands, is a stone in your grid. Which changes the questions. Not just what’s in the grid, but what am I, at the center, amplifying? What am I highlighting? How am I tying it all together? What experience am I actually cultivating and creating here?
DEFINITION: THE CENTER STONE
In a Sisters Enchanted approach to living life as a practice, you are the center stone of your own crystal grid. Every element of your life, your work, your relationships, your rest, and your rituals, is a stone arranged around you. The question is not only what is in your grid, but what you, at the center, are choosing to amplify and call in.
What’s the difference between deciding from your to-do list and deciding from how you want to feel?
The difference is the starting question. Deciding from your to-do list starts with “what has to get done.” Deciding from how you want to feel starts with “how do I want this to feel,” and then lets that guide how you actually approach the task.
And here’s the important part, because I don’t want anyone running off with the wrong idea. When we choose to act based on how we want to feel, that does not mean we ignore the to-do list. This is not fake life. We have real responsibilities here. The bills still get paid. The hard phone call still gets made. What changes is the order we do things in, the amount of energy we spend, and how much we worry or overthink along the way. We bring the minimum energy necessary to the draining must-dos, and we pour more of ourselves into the parts of life that actually fill us back up.
“Life as a practice rather than life as a to-do list.”
— SARA WALKA, THE SISTERS ENCHANTED
If deciding from feeling instead of from the list is new for you, I go deep on it in how to plan your week with intention as a witch, where I make the case that your calendar is really a vision board.
Can you really live this way when life is genuinely hard?
Yes, and honestly this is when it matters most. Living life as a practice doesn’t mean life stops being hard. It means you get to choose how much of your energy the hard things get.
We all have real challenges. We take care of people. We face health scares. Circumstances pop up that are well beyond our control. And yet you still get to choose how you respond, and how much of your energetic capacity you’re willing to hand over to each thing. That’s the quiet power of filling your cup first: when the genuinely hard stuff hits, you have something left to meet it with. When we live this way, life gets a little easier. We start to feel like witches again, and things begin to shift.
If you tend to be the one carrying it all, you might also like why you always end up doing everything (and how to reclaim your time and energy), and if you’re tired of running on urgency, stop urgently reacting to your life is a good next read.
What this looks like in my own real, unmagical-looking life
Let me get personal for a second, because I never want this to sound like theory. Thinking about all of this, I pulled out my good witch, bad bitch summer list for 2026. (The original went missing somewhere in my summer travels, so I started a fresh one and I’ve been filling it in backwards, living the list and then writing it down.)
When I look at what’s on there, some of it was hard. Plenty of moments this summer where I felt like I didn’t have the time or the capacity, or like I was failing at something. But there were also these moments where I couldn’t help but think, how lucky am I to live my life as a magical practice. River tubing. Taking my grandmother on a trip into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Paying my quarterly taxes on time, which, I’m not kidding, makes me feel powerful and put together and genuinely proud of myself. An escape room with my nephew and my kids. Mini golf well after my bedtime. Reading Outlander (that famously long book) in about two weeks, which felt very bad bitch of me. Saying yes to a really vibey restaurant I might never have gone to if I hadn’t decided, I want this, let’s figure it out and go.
None of that is fake life. It’s the same real life with the bills and the taxes and the caretaking. The only thing that changed was the question I made my decisions from: am I choosing from my to-do list today, or from how I want to feel? So this is my invitation to you. Look around. If my life is my practice, if my life is the energy I’m amplifying, what does all of that look like right now? Is there enough space in it for me? And if the answer is no anywhere, that’s not a failure. That’s just the next place to bring a little magic.
Where to go next with this
This is part one of a three-part series I’m doing on the Stay Magic Podcast. Here, you’re the centerpiece, the center stone of your life as a practice. Next, I’ll talk about you as the altar, and how that changes things. And a couple of episodes from now, we’ll get into assembling your allies, calling in the past, present, and future versions of you to support you on the journey.
If cyclical, non-linear growth is your thing, you’ll like spiritual growth is a spiral, not a straight line. And if you’re wondering whether everyday magic even counts as a practice, I answer that in do you have to do rituals every day to be a real witch.
This whole series leads into Expedition to Soul, our free event where we go all in on creating magic in your daily life and making your life feel like the ritual it already is. It’s open to the public, with a free option and an upgraded option, and it begins September 21, right on the autumn equinox. The season of the witch is upon us. If you want company while you do this work, come join us.
KEEP THE MAGIC GOING.
If this resonated, there are a few good ways to stay close. Come read my weekly letters on Stay Magic on Substack, find everything we’re up to on our links page, learn the full framework inside Holistic Witchery, or gather with us every month in the Enchanted Journey membership. Until next time, stay magic, Enchanted Sister.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do the four elements represent in a witch’s practice?
In a Sisters Enchanted approach, the four elements each represent a different area of your life and energy to check in on. Sara Walka of The Sisters Enchanted describes earth as slow, steady, and grounding, the cozy feeling of being rooted and present. Air is playful and quick, the realm of words, messages, and conversation, and like thoughts and words, it can shift outcomes fast. Fire is how you are experiencing life right now, whether it feels full of possibility or heavy, and whether your inner flame is burning bright, dying down, or burning out of control. Water is the emotional center, asking whether you feel nurtured and hydrated, both literally and emotionally. Used together, the elements turn a vague “how am I doing” into four specific questions about how grounded, playful, lit up, and emotionally nourished you actually feel. Sara teaches them as both a daily check-in and a lens for planning ordinary activities with intention.
Can the tarot minor arcana help you live more intentionally?
Yes. Sara Walka of The Sisters Enchanted teaches that the four suits of the tarot minor arcana map onto the same four elements, so you can use them the way you use earth, air, fire, and water: as a lens for how you want to move through a situation. Before an ordinary experience, whether it is a meal, a meeting, or a night out, you can look at the stories of the minor arcana and ask which card you want to feel like, then carry that quality in with you. The point is not to pull a card and passively read your fortune. It is to use the imagery and energy of the suits as a prompt for intention, choosing how you want to show up rather than moving on autopilot. In a Sisters Enchanted approach to living life as a practice, tarot becomes less about prediction and more about presence, a tool for deciding what you are cultivating in the moment you are about to step into.
What is a “good witch, bad bitch” summer list?
A good witch, bad bitch summer list is a Sisters Enchanted tradition Sara Walka created as a playful, witchy spin on a summer bucket list. The idea is to write down the experiences you want to have, both the ones that make you feel grounded and wise (good witch energy) and the ones that make you feel bold, indulgent, and a little audacious (bad bitch energy), and then actually live them. Sara often builds hers vision-board style, filling in the list and then living into it, though she has been known to fill it in as she goes. On her 2026 list you will find everything from river tubing and taking her grandmother into the White Mountains of New Hampshire, to paying her quarterly taxes on time (which she says makes her feel powerful and put together), to reading Outlander in two weeks. Underneath the fun, it is a tool for making space for yourself and deciding from how you want to feel.
Is living life as a spiritual practice the same as toxic positivity or ignoring your problems?
No. Sara Walka of The Sisters Enchanted is direct about this: living life as a practice is not fake life, and it does not mean ignoring your to-do list or pretending hard things are not hard. As she puts it, we have real responsibilities here. The reframe is not about denying your bills, your caretaking, or the circumstances outside your control. It is about changing the order in which you do things, the amount of energy you spend, and how much you worry or overthink. You still make the difficult phone call and pay the bill, and those become part of the practice too. The difference is that you get to choose how much of your energetic capacity the draining must-dos receive, and you deliberately pour more energy into the parts of your life that fill you back up. It is the opposite of bypassing: staying honest about reality while refusing to hand all your energy to the things that drain you.
How is living life as a practice different from a daily routine or self-care checklist?
A routine or self-care checklist is still a to-do list, it just has nicer items on it. Sara Walka of The Sisters Enchanted teaches that living life as a practice is a shift in orientation, not a new set of tasks. A checklist asks “did I do the thing, yes or no.” A practice asks “how do I want this to feel, and what is this doing to my capacity.” You can drink your water, journal, and light your candle and still be on autopilot if you are only checking boxes. The practice is what happens when you bring intention and presence to whatever you are already doing, ordinary or not, and let how you want to feel guide your choices. That is why the same activity, like making dinner, can be a chore on a checklist or a small ritual in a practice. Nothing on your calendar has to change. The way you meet it does.
What is Expedition to Soul?
Expedition to Soul is a free event from The Sisters Enchanted, created by founder Sara Walka, focused on creating magic in your daily life and treating your life as a sacred practice. Sara has hosted it in various forms since around 2018, and it has taken on different shapes over the years. The current round is open to the public with a free option and an upgraded paid option, and it begins on September 21, right on the autumn equinox, as the season of the witch arrives. It is designed to help you make the exact shift this article describes, moving from life as a to-do list to life as a practice, with you as the center stone of your own crystal grid. It also opens a three-part series on the Stay Magic Podcast, where Sara explores you as the centerpiece of your practice, then you as the altar, and finally assembling your allies, the past, present, and future versions of yourself.