Slow Magic & Mental Health with Psychotherapist and Author Anthony Rella

In this conversation, author T. Thorn Coyle speaks with Anthony Rella, a magical worker and psychotherapist, about his journey as a writer, his creative practices, and the importance of spiritual rituals. They explore the concept of 'slow magic' and how it relates to personal growth and mental health in today's fast-paced world. Rella shares insights on balancing ambition with patience, the significance of self-care, and the power of intentional action in the face of chaos.

Connect with Anthony Rella at https://anthonyrella.com
Connect with Thorn at https://thorncoylebooks.com

Transcript

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Hello everybody, T. Thorn Coyle here. Welcome to another episode of Magic, Creativity, and Life. Before we get into the show, I have some personal news. First of all, I just finished a draft of Bookish Baddies, which is the latest Pride Street paranormal cozy corgi mystery. I had a lot of fun getting back into Marsha P. Johnson, the corgi's head, and writing from her point of view. That should be out sometime in the spring of 2026. So you can look for it then. And meanwhile, I am working on book two of my Thomas the Rhymer, the Rhymer of Ash Grove trilogy. Book one, The Winding Road is out now on all retailers. book two, and hopefully if I write well, book three, um Should also be out sometime next year. So I'm loving that magical world as well And still other news this podcast while I've been really enjoying the conversations I've had I feel like it hasn't really gotten the traction I hoped for part of which is my fault. I haven't recorded probably enough episodes monthly to do that, but mostly It's because I juggle too many things business-wise, writing-wise, publishing-wise, and this podcast ends up getting to the bottom of the list. I'm just not making enough time for it. So I'm putting this podcast on hiatus. If you are one of the people who've been supporting this podcast, I thank you. And if you're really going to miss it heavily, please write and let me know. thorn@ thorncoyle.com But I feel like I need a break and maybe we'll come back and I'm not sure yet when. But meanwhile, my Patreon, I have very exciting things planned for 2026. I have already mapped out an entire year of the spell of the month, which will take us on a big magical arc, give us a focus for every month. some meditation and manifestation work to do. I'm really looking forward to that. And I'm also going to be digging into my kicking out perfectionism material again and doing a deeper dive into that. So if you want to join me for either of those, please join my Patreon. We will continue with our monthly community creativity sprints. Those are terrific people. stop by, we hang out and chat for a bit, and then we all get to work on whatever our creative projects may be, giving each other support. So if that's interesting or any of this is interesting to you, please go to Patreon or patreon.com backslash thorncoyle Now let's head toward today's interview, which is with Anthony Rella, and it's really insightful and I hope you get a lot out of it. Let's dive in. Hello everybody. Welcome back to Magic, Creativity, and Life. Today I am happy to be talking with Anthony Rella, who is a magical worker and psychotherapist working in private practice. He's been studying and practicing in the Western esoteric traditions of witchcraft and magic for more than two decades, and is a long-term student and senior teacher in Morning Star Mystery School. Anthony is also a founding member of the Seattle Temple of the Fellowship of the Phoenix. His books include Slow Magic, cultivate lasting transformation through spell work and self-growth and Circling the Star. and you can find him at anthonyrilla.com. And as always, you can find me at thorncoyle.com. Tony, thank you so much for joining me today. thank you for having me. So I always start by asking people about their creative roots. And I'm wondering, I know you're a writer. I know you've written fiction, you've published non-fiction, but I'm not sure what other forms of creative practice you use. And I'm wondering as a child or a teenager, what were your main creative expressions? Well, I think when I was about seven or eight, I just had this sense that I wanted to become a writer and I remember getting a notebook out and starting to write what I imagined would be a novel and I think I got a paragraph in and I was like, yeah, that was great. And I never went back to it. That was a time in which a lot had changed in my life and I was a pretty lonely and I turned to books for solace and inspiration and learning and escape and books really filled my life in a lot of good ways and I felt this call that I wanted to be someone who could contribute and also write books and so that was uh where it started. also, like many kids, had a rich imaginative life and this is... still before the internet was... So I had a lot of free time to kind of wander, know, to wander in the backyard or in the woods near our house and kind of imagine I was on these journeys and fighting monsters or talking to beings or what have you. And so that was a, there was a lot of, I'd say, in that regard. And that continued, you know, that dream of being a writer. particularly in novelist and writing fiction was the original longing and that stuck with me for a long time and I ended up in my undergrad studying creative writing and that's where I also wrote poetry and I still write poetry that's still something I do is just to keep myself engaged in kind of like I love language and a well-crafted piece of writing, of language, just to me feels magical and greater than the words. I keep being drawn to that. But these days it's mostly nonfiction. Mm-hmm. So, do you have, when you're writing, do you have a creative practice? Like, do you write every day? Do you write every Tuesday? What's your pattern? These days, there was a time when I really made myself write every day and the goal was 500 words. At some point today, I'm going to write 500 words. And I really gave myself permission for those 500 words to be not very good or to not lead to anything. I have just a whole document folder full of I mean, I have an uncharitable way of calling it, those writings, but just to get the practice of writing 500 words and not censoring myself and not needing it to be perfect. sometimes, you know, it's just, I did that and I moved on and it didn't lead to anything. Sometimes I would spend more time with it and try to craft it into something. And then when I started, especially with the last book I was writing, I... that I got the outline before I wrote the book, which usually doesn't happen to me in my process. Usually I spend a lot of time writing and then I figure out what the book's about. So when I had the outline come to me first, it really made things work better or more. Yeah, I found I was able to write a thousand, sometimes two thousand words a day just because I knew where I was going. And then after that whole process of publishing it and editing it and spending so much time with it, there was this period of kind of fallowness where I just felt I said everything in this book and I don't have anything else. I felt there was a part of that felt like I should force myself to write. But then I remember when I was younger, I read this interview with the rock artist, PJ Harvey, and she talked about Sometimes between albums, she just doesn't do music. She'll garden, she'll make sculpture, and she just trusts that when it's time to make an album, it'll happen for her. So I thought, why don't I try that? That sounds nice. Yeah, that's an interesting part of the process. It's something I do too with the non-fiction. It needs to emerge and evolve over time. It needs to emerge from my spiritual practice. It needs to emerge from my daily walks, from listening to music, from other input. And slowly it starts to... something starts to emerge that says I need to be said, right? And I need to be written in a form. And what's interesting for me is these days, because I've written so much, I find with nonfiction, like if I sit down to write an essay, my essays used to be, you know, 1200, 2000, 3000 words. My essays now are like 600 words. I've gotten very succinct and I think part of it is the thing you touched upon, which is, I've said what I need to say. And I feel that way a lot about my nonfiction. So it's always a revelation to me when, well, maybe there is something else to say because I've changed. I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago, 10 years ago. my practice has deepened. Right? So that also shifts my relationship with the world, which then shifts my relationship with my writing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The other thing that you touched on is writing with an outline. With fiction, I'm a discovery writer, but with nonfiction, I tend to start the book, reach a certain point, and then I have to impose a structure on it. Right. I'm just like, yes, I know. five things need to come before this thing, but this thing needs to come before five other things. And I just need to impose a fake structure on this so I can actually get this book crafted and done. And then once I have that, I can more easily figure out the component pieces. So nonfiction works for me in a similar way, but I've never had an outline come to me as a form of inspiration the way you talk about. Whereas, you know, I took a masterclass with James Patterson and outlining is his creative outlet, not the writing of the paragraphs and all the characters. I was like, wow, no wonder he's an outliner. That's his creative process, right? Whereas for me, it's the opposite with fiction. Mm-hmm. Yes fiction in particular I is such a you know when I studied with In my undergrad with some writers, you know, one of my writers writing teachers Brian Bouldery talked about sort of Gosh, I remember he talked about the the safety of staying in exposition and how some writers do a lot of exposition because once the characters start talking then surprising things happen and it's It's scary and it starts to change the story. And that was, that felt like a nice, yeah, it's, when the characters come alive and they start to tell you where the story goes. And that's very exciting and also can bring up the insecurity and kind of where's this going versus, you know, with a non-diction piece, there is a, not always an argument you're making, but, there's a the reader will only tolerate so much wandering in the woods. Yes. Yes. I mean, I'm even that way. Sometimes there are some podcasts I want to listen to, but I'm like, my gosh, enough context already. Will you please get to the point? Right. Yeah. m connects to everything else. uh Yeah, and my characters definitely drive the bus when I'm writing fiction. And I feel like it's a dance and a conversation between my rational forebrain and my subconscious and then some whatever it is in the ether, you know, that wants to come out and play. Yeah, it's the most exciting thing to me. think when I was young and writing fiction more actively, that felt the most exciting. Those were kind of my first really profound spiritual experiences of somehow this this particular theme or this particular image. I didn't know what was happening, but it came through and it just organized the whole story and it felt like being in partnership with something deeper, something bigger, and it really lovely. Yeah. So speaking of being in partnership and spiritual process, what is your current practice if you care to share anything you care to share about your current spiritual practice? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I do a daily sitting meditation. I usually sit for, I'll set a timer and just sit usually about 20-25 minutes, sometimes less if uh circumstances are challenging. And I start with the prayer to God herself, to everything, and I sit with myself and increasingly with my sitting I'm focusing on just being present with what's happening within me and noticing the parts of me that want to not be present and then also the parts of me that are trying really hard to make me present. And yeah, and they actually, like the one that's trying to make me present, like feels like it's trying to help me do spiritual practice. But I'm also noticing, oh, that's that's also disturbing the waters of consciousness here. So I'm just trying to sit with what is and what's happening. And then I end with my soul alignment and that's my daily work. I have an ancestor altar that about once a week or so I'll leave offerings and just say hi to everybody and just appreciate them. And there's a... Lately I've been saying a prayer to Isis, the goddess Isis. I just felt sort of called to do that. She's been someone who shows up for me a lot in my life. And I find her very mysterious, even though she's very widely known and has been widely worshipped throughout the classical world, because Rome spread her worship throughout Europe. But she's still a... quite mysterious to me, but that feels really grounding. And I have some cleansing practices that I kind of forget are spiritual practices. They're so practical. Cleaning my body and then energetically cleaning my space. I have a little spray in my office, my therapy office, just a little hydrosol I made out of lavender and rosemary from from our yard and just spritzing that about and asking for the space to be clear so it can be a space for healing and whatever is not in service to that to go find somewhere else to be. Even those things feel very, I mean it's sacred work, it's making the space dedicated to the work that I'm doing. In that regard, a lot of things become part of the spiritual practice, but those are the things that help me remember it's a spiritual practice. Right, it's when you are talking, what I'm hearing is a consistent showing up and refocusing your attention and your intention, right? Which is really helpful for me. That's my practices are so integrated now after over 40 years, but I still set aside time to do specific work. Because if I don't do that, my ability to tune in throughout the day starts to fracture, right? Especially, you know, in our current conditions that we're living in, there's a lot that can fracture our attention and intention. So just a simple act of sitting quietly with myself or holding a stone or doing cleansing practices or saying prayers, right? All of that reminds me. to pay better attention. Yeah, and I keep having this kind of mantra I come back to for years of I need to focus on what I want and what matters to me and not what I'm afraid of or what I'm angry about. And it's not that I ignore what I'm afraid of or angry about because it matters, but the center of my focus is what I want to move toward. And then my peripheral vision can be aware of the threats to that. But if I, if I don't, as you're saying, if I don't intentionally focus my attention, then it's easy to just focus only on what I'm afraid or angry about, which actually makes me more stuck. It kind of gives those things my power and my creative potential. And it's unfortunate. It also makes you less helpful and effective. You know, and the way I put it is, what is actually central to your life? You know, what are you actually making important? Is it doom scrolling? Is it constantly feeding the terror of the situation? Or is it, how can I be centered enough that I can help someone else today? Right? Yeah. And what feeds that presence? Is it going for a walk? Is it reading a book? Is it listening to music? Is it making a prayer? um Is it actually making food and feeding it to someone, you There's so much to distract us from the work at hand. And so, you know, as a mental health professional, I'm sure right now you're dealing with a lot of this in your office as well as in yourself. And I want to get to that at some point, but first I want to touch on the spiritual practice part, making things that are actually important to us central and your book, Slow Magic, because just that title is evocative. know, things are moving so quickly. We're bombarded constantly with a flood of data and information. em And a lot of it is false. A lot of it is sent out to inflame us and cause us to, you know, press the levers for whatever treats we want, even if the treats are toxic and poisonous to us, right? So there's something about, you know, I always return to the Dina Metzger poem about there are those who are trying to set fire to the world. We are in danger. There is no time not to work slowly. There is no time not to love. And just the title of your book, Slow Magic, conjures all of that up for me. So I'm wondering if you have anything you'd like to share about why slow magic? Why is that important to you? Mm-hmm. Yes, so there's a lot of layers and similarly the title came with the outline to me and it feels very mystical to say but it was an unusual experience in my creative life and as you were talking about earlier, sort of being in the world and just sort of being present and taking in all these influences and then sort of the cauldron of consciousness suddenly births this idea that That was where slow magic came from, where it was this weekend in which my partner and I were on vacation. We had listened to... a lot of the talking about things that were going on politically in the world that were concerning and then this big thing happened, this big change happened that people thought, I thought, I had grown up with this law being settled around reproductive rights and suddenly it was changed and I had this thought of these people who were for that change have been working for this for decades, even though everyone thought it was hopeless. And all of sudden, there's this change. And I thought, I need my people to be working with that level of diligence and commitment and doggedness. And so that sort of became, I think, the lightning that catalyzed all these thoughts into this really reflecting on how I've had to learn and I keep having to learn how to slow down and to slow down and it shows up in almost every part of my life. It shows up in my therapy practice. It shows up in my magical practice and it's this, you know, I have an airy sun so I have a lot of impatience. I really want the things now and I feel discouraged easily by setbacks and what I've learned over the years is Part of the reason I feel that discouragement is because when you move too quickly, you're more likely to make a mistake, you're more likely to get injured, you're more likely to move faster than where you're at in whatever work you're trying to do. If I want to lift weights, if I want to lift a certain amount of weight, but I can only lift half that amount of weight, then what works better for me is to move at the edge of my tolerance, then rest, and then move at the new edge of my tolerance. And every time I do that cycle, that edge of tolerance moves faster. But if I just go and I try to lift the weights that the weight I think I should lift them, then I'm going to hurt myself. I'm going to have to rest a lot more. And it's going to take a lot longer to get to my goal. And that is true of many things in life. You know, that's true, in spite of like wanting to be a writer my whole life, it took a while until my late thirties to actually publish a book. And similarly, I had points when I was getting ahead of myself, I was moving too quickly. wasn't assessing where I was and what the next step is. so, so those things together, thinking about If I have a really big goal, something that really matters to me, I want to validate that that's a use, that's a okay thing to want. And I should have ambitious goals or should I get to, I get to, if I have an ambitious goal, then that's great. And, and holding that ambitious goal, I need to realistically appraise where I am right now and what's the next step. And to give myself that permission to just take the next step. instead of getting caught up in this, it's never gonna happen, or all kinds of stories that get in the way of actually moving. So it's another return to simple practice. What is the next thing in this larger plan? Right, I can't leap from point A to point Y. um And I may even have detours and pathways I need to explore to teach myself some things I need to learn in order to get there. And that letting that process happen is what actually gets you there faster. That's the hard thing. It shows up in therapy a lot where clients get, we spend a lot of time doing great work on something that feels too small or too simple. And sometimes that's discouraging for clients, but it's these, I want to call them micro skills, which doesn't do a service to them, but it's like, if they... These are the skills that will help you to do this much heavier lift. If you don't have them and then you for some reason are doing the heavier lift, then you're going to struggle a lot more. But if I can, if I know how to rest when I need to rest, I know how to ask for help when I need help. If I know how to value myself appropriately, if I know how to listen to others, you know, all of these we could say are small skills because we ideally learn them in kindergarten, but In truth, we all spend our entire lives constantly having to relearn them and go deeper into them. But without them, then having a huge responsibility is crushing. So it's good for us. You know, it strikes me that of course part of the problem is what I call the overculture. Part of it is capitalism telling us we need constant growth and progress, right? And we internalize that even those of us that try our best not to and even those of us that don't believe in those systems, right? And are trying to live in different ways. It's hard to not internalize that push. And it's also hard, I think, to find a balance or some equilibrium between ambition and exploration. I wonder if you have any thoughts about that. Hmm... Mm-hmm. That's an interesting distinction and that feels like part of thinking about it, connects back to some of the creative process we were talking about earlier because I think that's what's exciting about what I call slow magic is I can set this ambitious goal and I can say I want to do this really audacious thing but I have no idea how to get there and And doing the magic is what starts to create the pathway to get there. And you only know the next step in front of you. And you can imagine 10 steps ahead. But even when you have an outline, your book changes as you write it because things come up that you couldn't have planned for. And it's more interesting because they come up. And sometimes it serves the ambition better. And sometimes it really... uh Sometimes just setting the ambition, it's not actually what you really wanted, but it's just your best approximation of what you think you want today that leads you to what you really, really wanted. Yeah. Yeah, which is why I returned to curiosity and listening, know, listening to what is my relationship to this project today and what is my relationship to the knowledge that I am either studying or trying to transmit. It's interesting. I realized as I age, I still have my strong opinions, I still know the world I want to live in, the world of, you know, love and justice and creativity and mutual aid. And along with that, I also carry a lot more open questions. I have a lot more. I don't know. Right. Here is my way to get to my ideal world. Here is my way to try to co-create with the cosmos. But I can't always say that someone else's way is incorrect because I just don't have the whole totality of information, right? Whereas I used to be, I think more black and white. I'm still just as radical as I used to be. Like I have certainly not grown any more conservative. think I'm more radical now than I was even, but I also hold that more lightly. If that makes sense. Yeah, it important to have a clear perspective and also to hold that there are many clear perspectives that each point to something that is true or valid. And that doesn't mean I have to agree with everyone's reality or solution, but Right, hell no. Yeah, right. But that if there's something I can find in their perspective that's useful to clarify mind, then that's that's useful to listen to. And and even disagreement is a clarifying process. but I find... The idea that multiple things can be true simultaneously is so freeing when we can really accept it and allow it because that becomes true even inside of me that it's okay that a part of me is really happy this thing's happening and also really disappointed this thing's happening the way it's happening and that doesn't make me weird or broken it's just Normal to have multiple perspectives that all make a lot of sense But then when I can hold the field of those perspectives then some useful truth emerges But when I'm in this black or white, you know This can't be true because my thing is true Then it just it makes me more isolated. It makes me more rigid and it makes it hard to embrace that field or that deeper truth can emerge. Yeah, and I find that is especially helpful. This holding more open questions or holding things more gently is especially helpful when we're having disagreements with people who are actually working towards a similar goal. Right. I want to listen to your perspective on it. I don't just want to hold to my vision because I want my vision and my thinking and my practice to be enriched. by your questions and your ideas and your practice, right? Because your practice is slightly different than my practice. I'm less interested in doing that sort of work with people who, you know, I feel are actively trying to harm those around them, right? I don't find that to be a very fruitful practice, but I do find it to be fruitful among people who really are people of goodwill. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the other facet of that, as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, it's also become important for me to turn that lens on myself. You know, that yes, I have my ambitions. Yes, I have projects I want to get done. Yes, I have people I want to help. Community I want to build. A world that I want to... nurture and save in whatever ways I can. But I need to hold that lightly too, because I need to keep those open questions for myself, right? Some days I have greater capacity than other days. Or my perspective might shift, or I may find actually this tactic is something that's going to work better for me. And I'm wondering in your own personal work or your psychotherapy practice, do you find people have greater or lesser difficulty in holding those questions externally or internally? Hmm. which is a huge question that I just threw at you out of nowhere. I want to acknowledge that. yeah, I'm just gonna digest that for a moment. I think. there's a I think we have sort of tendencies about where it's easier for our focus to be and So yeah, there's a lot in your question and there's a lot of both and-ness, but I do think... What's coming to mind is I think of people who are really strong activists and advocates in the world and speak really fiercely and bravely about other people's needs. But then in their personal relationships, they really struggle to ask for what they need or speak up for how they're being hurt. it feels, and then the other side is, for myself, My tendency is I can spend a lot of, or historically can spend a lot of time ruminating and reflecting on myself and coming to clarity. But it's really hard for me to tell someone, to confront somebody about anything, uh to deal with the conflict. And so those aren't the only two ways of being, but I think people have like instincts of whether they focus out in the world and what needs to change out in the world or whether they can focus. on their own inner experience of what needs to change about that. And also just to accept it, to accept our experience internally and be willing to sit with it. and accept our tendencies or acknowledge our tendencies, right? Because then we can push ourselves the way you were talking about weightlifting, right? You know, we more easily recognize what our challenges are and how much weight we can add this week, depending on the conditions around us or inside of us. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think there's just tempering or exploring both recognizing your tendencies and embracing what's useful about them, what's helpful about them, also then helps us to relax what's unhelpful about them or too intense. You know, there's a way that... me taking responsibility for every conflict in my life and just trying to change myself to make it go away. I mean, just saying it that way, sounds exhausting. That is useful though. I I think a lot of relationships get served by my willingness to do that work. And when I lean too hard on that, then I'm taking responsibility for things that I can't possibly be responsible for. I'm not giving other people a chance to take their own responsibility. And so then it's a benefit to me to try speaking up, to try leaning into the confrontation and seeing how that goes. And similarly with some, some activists, think some of their fire out in the world is, it's, it's really lovely and good. And I'm so glad it's happening and I don't, I don't want to judge it. And I think sometimes it can be so sharp and it can become kind of out of connection. And I think sometimes that's because there's something going on in themselves or in their life that they're having a hard time being with. And so that energy is kind of moving towards where it feels more comfortable. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that. That's clarifying. Are there current mental health practices or techniques that you find are helpful for our current, the current maelstrom we're in? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. And there's a lot of, I'm going to try to be succinct and not do a lot of qualifying, but there's a lot of yes-ands I'm noticing. You know, for years, I've been a therapist since before the first Trump presidency. So I feel like I've been kind of in the trenches for a long time. I live in Seattle and in 2020 we had, you know, a lot going on. Everyone had a lot going on, but of course then we also had in Seattle a lot going on. And so it just, I've been working with people throughout this whole process. So we've had a lot of opportunities to talk about what's it like to think about my mental health in the midst of all of this going on. That was a long prelude. So here's one of the yes and things. One thing I think controlling, minimizing your exposure to news and social media is important. As you were saying earlier, there's a lot of information coming to us constantly. don't think... our brains and nervous systems are capable of holding the amount of information and horror that you can consume in 10 seconds just looking at Instagram every single day. I just, you know, we evolved in this world where we're only reacting to what's in front of us. And when you see something, when you see something horrible happening that you can't do anything about, those are the conditions that lead to a traumatic response. And it's hard enough when it's happening right in front of you in physical space, but then seeing something on a screen, I believe, this is my personal belief, I think our animal selves don't know the difference between what's happening on a screen and what's happening right in front of you. And of course, both things can be true, but if somebody was getting hurt in front of me, I could do something about it. Potentially, but on the screen it's just helplessness so and so here's the both and and I think a lot of us have learned or believe and I think there's truth that to some extent we need to keep track of what's going on in the world and these are the avenues to do it and I can't fully ignore the internet because the internet is having political consequences in my life, so So it's being in that dialectic of how can I allow myself to have breaks to really intentionally take in information when that feels like enough or that it's appropriate and to really intentionally take a break from this flood of information and do something even Boring. think boring, being bored, I think is healthy for us right now. think yesterday I put my phone aside and for the first time, I think in years, I read an entire book and it was so soothing because the book didn't have ads pop up. It didn't have text messages from friends asking for my attention. I couldn't multitask in the book and just respond to an email, it just, I just sat there reading and it was so relaxing. And so it doesn't have to be reading, but I think the overstimulation of tech is not helping our nervous systems. And, and we need to deal with that in this particular moment. So intentional breaks is helpful. The other piece that's come up a lot when people feel really powerless and kind of overwhelmed by what's going on in the world, what I think is really needed or helpful is to do something that you feel you have some kind of control over or power over. And that could be just as simple as I'm just going to sweep the floor. And I think there is research behind this particular piece that just seeing my floor and sweeping or vacuuming or wiping, clearing a counter, just anything where you can see a tangible difference that you can exert effort into, that kind of helps our animal cells feel this restoration of, I do have impact in this world. I'm not 100 % powerless. Of course that doesn't change these bigger things that are happening necessarily, but it helps us to get back into a mindset where we're not. Because if you're just flooded by powerlessness and fear and rage, that becomes really diminishing of your capacity. Yeah. That's helpful. It's why I use the phrase often, do what you can, when you can, where you can. Right? It's if all of us do something, we're all going to help community. Right. And also being constantly bombarded and overwhelmed tends to send us into states of shutdown or numbing, which is not helpful in the long Mm-hmm. So I like the reminder of the small acts. It's why I sit and meditate. It's why I go for my daily walks. um It's why I make the bed every morning and wipe down kitchen counters every evening. It is that restoration of order in the world. And then recently, I've actually been blocking myself out of social media for large swaths of the day. Mm-hmm. Like if I'm on a five minute break, I don't then go check social media, which is what I used to do. So it's helping me keep focused and it's helping me, I think, be more effective. So, yeah, I can check it or post something first thing in the morning. I can check it for a brief period in the late afternoon and that's it. And then I can access the news. by going to a news site if I want to. But that is more of an act of will, right? Rather than I'm just being in this wash of whatever's coming across my feed. Yes. And the one additional piece that comes up to me, it comes up as we're talking, is really spending time in validating my fears and anxieties and worries, which can be provocative to people when they hear that, because some people are like, I'm always doing that. what I'm... When I think about that, it's a level of intentionality that I don't think we always bring when we're just in the worry. It's really sitting down and, you know, one practice I'll do sometimes, I'll sit down and I'll just write at the top of a piece of paper, like, this is what I'm afraid is going to happen, or this is what I'm worried about. And so that I can see that I've, it's something about knowing that I'm taking it seriously starts to help your system and just identifying, okay, if this did happen, what's scary about that? What are the dangers? What are the threats? And then making sure those are all listed because sometimes just naming our fears actually starts to take away their hold on us. It's something about externalizing when it's just in your head. It seems like completely true or you're trying to prove it's not true. But when you see it outside of yourself or you hear it outside of yourself, like someone says it back to you, you can start to have a little space from it. doesn't, yeah, it doesn't make it less true, but it makes it less charged. And yeah. and sometimes it also helps you get to what's beneath it. Instead of just spinning with whatever the fear is, you can start to ask questions of what's actually underneath this fear and why do I need to keep chewing on it repeatedly? And then is there something practical I could do to address this, this, the deeper concerns? Yeah. And then that really helps. Yeah, yeah, that's helpful. I'm always looking for a call to action. Right, whether it's for myself or for someone else, if I'm going to share something, I'm not going to share what a lot of black thinkers and activists call trauma porn. Right, trauma porn is not helpful to anyone. What I'm going to share is something that has a clear call to action. Right, here's the thing we can actually do. or here are five things we can actually do to help this situation that we're all freaking out about right now. If I don't have that, I don't post it. That's just my rule to try to be um as much signal instead of contributing noise. Yeah, it reminds me of that movie, Sorry to Bother You, where there's a line where he says something like, if you expose people to something awful and don't tell them how to change it, then they'll just get used to it. Yeah. exactly. Yeah, I love that movie and I loved the album first. If people haven't listened to the album, it's terrific by the coup. The other thing I want to just bring back to the forefront is you didn't say this explicitly, but you implied that reading a book is slow magic. And I love that. uh you know, immersing ourselves in someone else's world or someone else's words, whether it's poetry or fiction or nonfiction, it's a form of slow magic. And I like that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And so beautiful too, when you can connect over time and distance and experience and just inhabit a world that somebody created. I really have started to think of that as almost more intimate than the sort of confessional memoir that's been kind of more popular in the past decade or so. you're inhabiting how somebody is thinking and imagining the world rather than just hearing their story. Of course, hearing their story is also really intimate, but it's so different to just be inside of that. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I love that. So we're starting to wind down here. This has been a really fruitful conversation. I'm wondering currently for you, whether it's in your spiritual practice, your creative practice, your psychotherapy practice, all of the above or some other area of your life. What currently is your why? and just taking a moment, that's a really tender and deep question that... So yeah, yeah, this touches on a lot. So I used to sort of have this fantasy that I could sort of change the world in a way... How do I want to say that? So let me say it a slightly different way. uh I feel like these practices bring light into the world and light is love, is presence, is something that makes living worthwhile and because there's just so much care and attention in all of this work and spiritual practice and therapy and writing. It's, care about you enough to listen to you. I care about this world enough to be here and And as humans, really thrive on that care. And what I wanted to say earlier is that I used to sort of imagine I could somehow change the conditions of the world so that everyone cared that much. I'm not so sure about that anymore, but what I've come to is if I don't do it, then that care and that light doesn't enter the world. So even if... this act of caring is the only spark of light that is left. And then when I'm gone, then the world is in darkness, metaphorically, which is, I don't believe is actually the case, but it's sort of even, even if that were true, then it's better that this spark of light be here now. And that's what I'm bringing as best I can. Beautiful. Thank you. Well, thanks again so much for joining me today. And I'm sure our listeners got a lot out of it. I know I did. Thank you so much. really appreciate you and appreciate your work. And once again, I've been talking with Anthony Rella and you can find his work at AnthonyRella.com and you can find me at ThornCoyle.com. Thank you. Thanks again for joining me. I hope you found Tony's insights into creativity, magic, and mental health as useful as I did. I find it's great to pause and reflect and ask how our own mental health is doing, especially during times of upheaval or change. I know a lot of people are out of work. There's many other things happening in the world right now, as well as we all have our own personal issues. I hope we all give ourselves a chance to reflect and take a breath and pause as we head into December and January, which is winter here in the Northern Hemisphere, or summer in the Southern Hemisphere. You can join me at Patreon, patreon.com backslash thorncoyle You can also buy books directly from me at thorncoylebooks.com I'm expanding that store every day. So if you haven't checked it out recently, please do. And I wish you well, even as we go on hiatus, and I wish you a magical creative day.