Our pesky subconscious mind really does get in the way, a lot. Without realizing it, we have an overwhelming amount of underlying stress. This is stress in which we don't usually even notice, since it is always there.  Also we busily hide it away with our myriad of distractions.  Distractions such as non-stop social interactions, whether they be online or in person, tv watching, video games, and so forth.  All of these things are obviously good for us (except perhaps the tv lolol), but when they take up every waking moment of our life, then they really do work to sap our spirit, soul, energy body, and magick.  

We are naturally geared towards spending time with ourselves, relaxing and thinking about our magickal path, things we need to work on withing ourselves, how we are going to move forward, as well as the various Deities, Daemons, and so forth that we work with.  Time connected with the various insibiles is extremely important to our practice, but how much time do we really give them 100% of our undivided attention?  It is awesome, when we always have our thoughts about magick, our spiritual growth, and the invisibles in the background of our mind throughout the day; however, even more essential is the 100% undivided attention, and connection with the magick and universe.

However, this means a lot of letting go, a lot of surrendering, and a lot of what our minds tend to view as losing control. It is terrifying for us to allow that much change within ourselves, our environment, our life and so on. We really do like to keep things the same, and everything comfortable.  However, we are instead, creating more and more energetic shells around ourselves, and closing ourselves off, and creating more and more of this underlying stress.

We have this continual stress day in and day out, in which we don't allow ourselves to relax and just be. We are always instead, concerned about what we should be doing, thinking about your job even when not at work, worrying if we are doing enough, good enough, or have gotten enough done in the day.  Other stressors (this is all usually not even noticed by us, as it is constant) is worrying about the past, were we good enough, did we do the right things, all of the times we screwed up, how we haven't moved our life forward as much as we should have, or is standard for someone. We are busily comparing ourselves to others, or the norm.  Then there is the worry about the future.  What if things don't work out, what if we screw up, what if we aren't good enough, what if we aren't moving forward fast enough, what if we don't get what we want, and so forth.

All of these thoughts and worries, no matter how much they are in the forefront or the background, so create a closed off state of being, most especially when we use our distractions non-stop to keep ourselves even further disconnected.

So what is the solution to this?  Regular mediation, regular spiritual work, mini spiritual / magickal retirements, regular connection and working with our various Deities, invisibles, Daemons, ancestors, Lwa, Vodous, or whichever we wish to call them at the time.  Also of course regular magickal work, spellwork, altar work, ritual work, and so forth.  All of this helps us to get past the illusion which we are far too comfortable keeping ourselves closed into.

It's not easy to break out of the standard (thought of by the society we live in etc.) way of living and thinking, so generally if this is not our usual way of being, one starts slowly and works up. While we may want to jump right in, doing so can cause cognitive dissonance as our ontological reality starts to break apart. It is most definitely in our best interest to start out slowly, perhaps even just 5-15 minutes per day of practice, then working up by 5 minutes per week until we are at half an hour per day.  For those who don't have young children at home, perhaps eventually even an hour per day of practice, but this would be the long-term goal, and in no hurry to get there.  A slow and careful quality buildup is far better than rushing into things, then losing focus or motivation.