Montrose Witch Shop

10/14/2026

10/05/2026

Sometimes it’s easier to create a “public” story about me than to admit what is actually happening internally. “Different lifestyles” and “different beliefs” are comfortable explanations. They’re certainly easier than admitting to exhaustion, hormonal changes, mental or emotional struggles, shame, overwhelm, or simply not having much of yourself available to give. Those things are deeply personal, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to keep them private.

Over the years, I’ve had people come through my shop and my life carrying all kinds of struggles. My philosophy has always been: How much can you give toward leveling the f**k up? Seventy-five percent? Twenty percent? One percent? If 1% is genuinely all someone has available, then give that 1% everything and we start there. I’ve never required anyone to live like me or believe like me first. I’m the Montrose Witch in a town with a church on practically every corner. Christians, homeless, alcoholics, and addicts have trusted me with their grief, health, families, fears and darkest moments. These actual true differences have never prevented me from showing up for another person. Difference is never something I need to turn into a flaw.

Maybe that’s why I understand more than most why someone struggling privately might not want to announce it publicly. Hormonal changes, exhaustion, mental health, emotional capacity, feeling like life is falling apart, those are vulnerable things to admit. I understand why saying, “Our lifestyles are just too different” might feel safer. Sometimes it’s psychologically easier to externalize all of that: move the problem outside of yourself, attach it to someone else, and create an explanation that protects your pride and keeps your shame private.

There’s no shame in protecting private struggles. But I also shouldn’t have to become a false version of your story just to make that privacy easier for you to maintain.

A half truth is still a full lie.

10/02/2026

Chris Watts was an overweight, seemingly ordinary family man who dramatically transformed his body, started working out, lost a significant amount of weight, and became intensely focused on fitness and his appearance. But getting physically fit didn’t mean he was emotionally healthy or capable of dealing honestly with the problems in his life. Rather than confronting his marriage, communicating openly, ending the relationship honestly, or accepting the consequences of the choices he wanted to make, he ultimately murdered his pregnant wife and their two daughters.

So when someone says a person has “Chris Watts energy,” the comparison can be about that disturbing contradiction: a man can become physically fit, disciplined, attractive, and outwardly put-together while still being profoundly unhealthy in how he handles conflict, resentment, responsibility, relationships, and difficult emotions. A healthy-looking body is not proof of a healthy person.

Be careful judging someone else’s “lifestyle” based on physical health alone. Chris Watts is an extreme reminder of why that logic is bu****it: physical fitness and mental / emotional health are not the same thing. A person can completely transform his body while being profoundly unhealthy in how he handles relationships, conflict, honesty, and responsibility.

09/28/2026

Over the years, countless women have come to me for tarot readings, love spells, relationship questions and every other variation of “How do I get him back?” Sometimes they were heartbroken. Sometimes they were angry. Sometimes they were convinced that if they could just find the right ritual, the right words or the right spiritual intervention, they could change the outcome. I have worked with men, too, because men have wounds, fears and relationship patterns just as deeply as women do. But what I have learned through all those conversations is that the real work usually begins when the question stops being, “How do I get them to change?” and becomes, “Why am I willing to abandon myself to keep this person?”

The majority of my work as a witch has never been about putting together little love poppets and sachets, throwing crystals into a bag and sending someone home with a romantic spell. The deeper work has always been sitting with people while they confront themselves. It is talking through the abandonment wound, the fear of rejection, the need for validation, the tendency to chase, the tendency to withdraw, the inability to tolerate uncertainty and the old belief that another person’s choice determines our worth. The ritual may be meaningful, but no candle can do the inner work for you.

And this is where relationships become a mirror. They show us exactly where we are still operating from old wounds instead of present reality. A boundary can feel like rejection. Space can feel like abandonment. Vulnerability can feel like danger. Someone else’s fear can trigger our own. The masculine and feminine can fall into their own wounded patterns as well: one person retreats into silence, control or self-containment while the other reaches harder for connection, reassurance or answers. Neither person necessarily understands that they are reacting from protection rather than responding to what is actually happening in front of them.

Healthy masculine-feminine polarity requires something far more difficult than playing a role. It requires two people who are willing to become responsible for themselves. The masculine can be steady without becoming emotionally unavailable. The feminine can be open without becoming dependent. Vulnerability does not mean handing someone responsibility for your emotional stability, and a boundary does not mean withholding love. The ability to remain connected while still remaining whole is part of the work.

The uncomfortable truth is that very few people who come looking for a way to change someone else are actually prepared to change themselves. They want the relationship to heal without having to examine the part they played in creating the pattern. They want the other person to communicate differently, love differently, commit differently or stop triggering them, while continuing to respond from the same wounds that helped create the problem.

That is why the hardest spell is sometimes the one nobody wants: the spell that changes you.

Not into someone more convenient. Not into someone who will tolerate anything. Not into someone who can finally convince another person to stay. Into someone who can recognize their own patterns, hold their own boundaries, tolerate uncomfortable truths, receive vulnerability without trying to control it and love another person without abandoning themselves.

You can come to the witch asking me how to bring somebody back. But eventually, if we are going to do the real work, I am probably going to ask you a much harder question:

What are you willing to change in yourself if they never come back?

Witch’s Wisdom
Montrose Witch

09/27/2026

Vulnerability is hard for both men and women, but there is something fascinating that can happen in the masculine-feminine dynamic when a woman feels safe enough to become vulnerable with a man. When she says, “I miss you,” “I want to see you,” or even, “When you do this, it makes me feel this way,” she isn’t demanding anything—she is allowing him to see what his actions mean to her. When a man feels safe with that vulnerability, it can naturally draw him deeper into his masculine role. He sees that something he does matters to her, and he often wants to do more of it. Her vulnerability gives him information about how he can show up for her, and his response creates even more safety for her to open up.

But then there are men for whom vulnerability triggers the exact opposite response.

She says, “When you do this, it makes me feel loved,” and instead of thinking, I want to give her more of that, he thinks, Oh s**t. This matters to her. That means this is becoming real.

And suddenly, the thing that created connection becomes the very thing he starts pulling away from.

He may do less. Communicate less. Initiate less. Create distance. Shut down. Or even deliberately move in the opposite direction—not because her vulnerability was wrong, but because her vulnerability made the emotional significance of the relationship impossible for him to ignore.

That’s one of the cruelest misunderstandings about vulnerability: the same vulnerability that makes a secure person want to come closer can make a fearful person run for the door.

So when a woman finally says, “I miss you,” or “I appreciate you,” or “When you do this, it makes me feel safe and loved,” and the man responds by withdrawing, she can be left wondering what the hell she did wrong. Sometimes she didn’t do anything wrong.

Sometimes she simply became vulnerable enough to show him that his presence matters—and he wasn’t prepared for what that meant.

And this is where vulnerability needs to be paired with boundaries. Because yes—she did nothing wrong. But if this happens once, it may be fear. If it happens repeatedly, it becomes a pattern. And a woman cannot build emotional safety by continually offering vulnerability to someone who repeatedly responds by creating distance.

At some point, the question changes from, “How do I make him feel safe enough to come closer?” to, “Is this person actually capable of giving me the emotional safety I need?” She doesn’t have to stop saying, “I miss you.” She doesn’t have to pretend she doesn’t care. She doesn’t have to become cold, detached, or less emotionally honest just to keep a man from running. But she can stop chasing the withdrawal. She can stop over-explaining her feelings in an attempt to make him understand. She can stop trying to prove that her vulnerability isn’t a threat. And she can stop doing all the emotional work required to maintain a connection that only feels safe when she asks nothing of it.

She can simply observe what happens. “I opened up, and he pulled away. Then I gave him space, and he came back. I opened up again, and he pulled away again.” At some point, that isn’t something she needs to solve. It’s information. Because vulnerability is supposed to create the possibility for deeper connection—not require one person to repeatedly absorb the pain of the other’s retreat.

A woman can have compassion for a man’s fear without volunteering to be wounded by it indefinitely. She can understand why he runs and still decide that being repeatedly left behind isn’t something she is willing to keep experiencing. The answer isn’t to become less vulnerable. The answer is to become vulnerable with discernment. Let him show you what he does with what you give him.

If he responds with greater openness, care, consistency, and connection, there is something to build on. If he repeatedly responds by withdrawing, creating distance, or making you feel that having feelings is somehow too much, believe the pattern. You don’t have to punish him. You don’t have to chase him. You don’t have to harden yourself. You simply get to step back and protect your own heart.

Because being vulnerable is an act of courage. But knowing when vulnerability is no longer being met with safety? That’s wisdom.

Witch’s Wisdom
Montrose Witch

09/26/2026

Sometimes men repeat the very things that once hurt them. A man can be deeply hurt by a woman who starts a relationship, builds a connection, and then suddenly walks away—and later find himself doing the same thing to another woman. This is one of the things women struggle to understand: how can a man tell you, in detail, how deeply this exact thing hurt him, explain that he never understood why someone would do that to him, and then turn around and do essentially the same thing to someone else?

The uncomfortable truth is that this is not uncommon. Men can carry unresolved hurt into their next relationship and unconsciously recreate the very pattern they once suffered from. Not necessarily because they consciously intend to hurt someone, but because unresolved pain can become a pattern. When a man has learned that closeness can end in abandonment, he may protect himself by keeping one foot out the door, avoiding difficult conversations, or leaving first when vulnerability and emotional accountability become uncomfortable.

And that is why women can be left completely confused. We see the man who understood the pain. We hear him explain exactly what was done to him and why it hurt. We trust that understanding means he would never do the same thing to someone else. Then suddenly, we’re standing on the other side of the very wound he once described to us.

The painful irony is that someone can know exactly what it feels like to be blindsided and still recreate that experience for someone else. Being hurt may explain a behavior, but it doesn’t erase its impact. Breaking the cycle requires recognizing the pattern, taking responsibility for it, and choosing not to pass the pain forward.

Witch’s Wisdom
Montrose Witch

08/17/2026

Monday is National Black Cat Appreciation Day! 🐈‍⬛ Aug. 17 celebrates those sleek felines: https://www.9news.com/article/life/pets/black-cat-appreciation-day-photos/73-5124e5be-d987-4533-8499-892dc9caaffc?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_9NEWS_(KUSA)