Highs and Lows in Faith

There are times within a Pagan's faith that they begin to somehow feel distant from their God, practices waning and dedication flailing.

Its almost like a creeping rot disease where as much as you practice, celebrate, and study, you feel as if somehow its not enough. As if you are doing something wrong, how does one deal with something like this, and why does it happen?

A while ago, roughly a year or so, I went through this same exact thing, loving the Divine with all my heart yet feeling like the progress I was making wasn't enough. It got to the point where I thought about leaving Wicca (at that time I hadn't left it for general Paganism) and just floating around life to no end.

Thankfully that didn't happen and I eventually got out of the rut, able to fully implement my faith practices without discomfort.

So what happened? Well, though I'm by no means an expert, when it comes to my situation I can formulate a general theory. See, before the rut I was so into the Divine, so willing and ready to dive into whatever faith practices I came across that I left little time to live.

When people get into something they really like and something that they are really getting returns in it becomes hard to stop. In my case I allowed faith to get in the way of socializing, working on myself in a secular sense and essentially drowning in Wicca this, meditation that.

Over an extended period of time I believe that I naturally became repelled by it, mentally tired of always doing religious stuff, I needed separation. At that time I didn't understand let alone care to, I had what made me happy and I'd be damned if I decided to slow down.

For me at least, this was the very problem, lack of moderation. When doing anything you must take it in bites and pieces, do too much and you risk choking, keep piling it on and serious drawbacks become apparent. The same us especially true with faith, learn to restrict some things and live a multi-faceted life, expanding in secular, religious, scholastic and social arenas.

Sometimes even that is not enough and you may need a break from it all to work on new endeavours, but dont think that you have to be in pagan mode 100% of the time. Realize that you're not a robot, and as such you need some downtime to take a vacation.