Maybe our obsession with witches isn't even about witchcraft. Maybe it's about our longing to reclaim the parts of ourselves we've learned to suppress in order to be good, successful, acceptable women.
We aren't drawn to witches because they're magical. We're drawn to them because they're free.
Oof. Read that again.
The witch is the woman who doesn't quite fit. She knows things she's not supposed to know. She wants things she's not supposed to want. She trusts herself. She has power outside the systems designed to contain her. She doesn't necessarily behave, and she definitely doesn't ask permission.
Throughout history, people accused of witchcraft have been caught up in a complicated mix of religious beliefs, social tensions, local conflicts, gender expectations, and fear. The history is far messier than the familiar story of independent women being burned at the stake.
But the witch has also become something beyond that history: a cultural symbol of the woman whose knowledge, desires, independence, or power unsettles the status quo.
So when a 35-year-old woman—who has spent the first half of her adult life checking boxes—starts watching Practical Magic and thinking:
Damn, I want to be her.
Maybe what she's actually saying is:
I want access to the parts of myself I've been taught to suppress.
The witch is the woman who stopped checking the boxes.
Get good grades.
Go to college.
Build a career.
Find a partner.
Buy the house.
Have the kids.
Be a good mother.
Be a good partner.
Be successful, but not so successful that it makes everyone uncomfortable.
Take care of yourself.
Take care of everyone else.
Have boundaries.
Have hobbies.
Exercise.
Eat well.
Maintain your career.
Be emotionally intelligent.
Be available.
Be independent.
Don't drink too much.
Don't work too much.
Don't curse so much.
Don't ask for too much.
Don't need too much.
Don't be too much.
And somehow do all of it while looking relatively well-rested and ageless.
Then you hit 33. Or 35. Or 38. Or 42.
And something happens.
You start asking:
Wait. Who made these rules?
Maybe that's the real magic we're responding to.
Not spells. Not potions. Not the ability to summon the dead.
Freedom.
The possibility that you can know yourself well enough to decide what actually belongs in your life—and what you've simply been very, very good at performing.
Our favorite witches, from Sabrina Spellman to the Owens sisters, aren't aspirational because they're perfect. They're aspirational because they're unapologetically themselves. They're emotional, intuitive, powerful, connected, a little unconventional, and not particularly interested in becoming more palatable.
They have traditions. They have rituals. They have their own ways of understanding the world.
And importantly, their power isn't granted by an institution, a credential, a husband, or anyone else's approval.
That's a pretty potent fantasy for women who have spent years deriving their sense of worth from achievement.
Because what happens when you've spent so much time becoming the woman you're supposed to be that you lose touch with the woman you actually are?
Would you or I have been considered witches?
Now, before we get carried away with the whole “independent women were burned at the stake” thing, a little historical nuance.
Witch trials varied enormously across time and place. The people accused of witchcraft were not all women, and accusations were not simply punishments for being outspoken or refusing to conform. The reasons behind accusations were complex and often deeply rooted in the social and religious realities of the time.
Still, the witch has taken on a life of her own in our cultural imagination.
She represents the woman who knows things she isn't supposed to know. The woman who asks questions. The woman whose knowledge and influence exist outside accepted structures. The woman who doesn't automatically accept that because something has always been done a certain way, she has to keep doing it that way.
And sometimes, she's simply a woman who is difficult to contain.
Which makes the question feel oddly personal:
Would I have been considered a witch?
Not literally, necessarily. I'm not suggesting that every woman with a strong opinion would have ended up in a historical witch trial.
But would some version of me have made people uncomfortable?
Would I have been the woman who asked too many questions? Who wanted more than she was supposed to want? Who was too independent, too outspoken, too ambitious, or too unwilling to accept that's just how things are as an adequate explanation?
Would I have been considered too much?
Maybe that's part of why the witch feels so familiar. She gives us a way to explore the parts of ourselves we've learned to soften, hide, or edit to fit into the world around us.
And I think a lot of women in their 30s and 40s are beginning to understand just how exhausting it is to spend a lifetime abiding by rules they never consciously chose.
Maybe we're not obsessed with witches because we want to become magical.
Maybe some part of us wants to become uncontained.
So what does reclaiming your power actually look like?
Maybe it doesn't mean quitting your job, moving to a cottage in the woods, and becoming the mysterious woman who knows which mushrooms are poisonous.
Although, honestly, some days I could see the appeal.
Maybe it looks a little less cinematic than that.
It might mean recognizing how often you say yes when every part of you is screaming no.
Questioning the rules you've followed so faithfully that you forgot they were optional.
Letting go of ambitions that look impressive on paper but leave you feeling strangely empty.
Allowing people to be disappointed in you.
Saying what you actually think. Wanting what you actually want. Taking up space without immediately wondering if you're taking up too much.
Trusting your body. Listening to your intuition. Learning to distinguish your own inner knowing from the very loud voices of anxiety, obligation, and everyone else's expectations.
And maybe it's finding your coven.
The people who remind you that you're not difficult for having needs, selfish for having boundaries, or ungrateful for wanting a different life. The people with whom you don't have to perform competence or make yourself smaller to belong.
Because reclaiming your power doesn't mean doing everything alone. And it certainly doesn't mean becoming a new, perfectly optimized version of yourself.
Sometimes it means finally making room for the person you've been editing out.
The parts of you that are curious, messy, opinionated, sensual, creative, ambitious, rebellious, tender, or just a little weird. The parts that may have been inconvenient to the version of you who learned how to succeed by being agreeable, dependable, and endlessly capable.
And that's where things get interesting.
Because shedding an old version of yourself isn't always a dramatic, candlelit transformation. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. Sometimes it looks like grief. Sometimes it means disappointing people you love, questioning a life you worked hard to build, or realizing that the things you once wanted no longer fit.
That doesn't mean you made the wrong choices.
It means you're allowed to keep becoming.
And maybe that's the magic we're actually after.
Not a spell to make life easier. Not a potion to make us more productive. Not another ritual designed to turn us into better versions of the women we're already exhausted from being.
Maybe we're longing for permission.
Permission to stop performing.
Permission to question the rules.
Permission to want something different.
Permission to trust ourselves.
Permission to be ambitious without sacrificing ourselves to achievement.
Permission to be soft without being powerless.
Permission to be powerful without apologizing for it.
Maybe the magic isn't becoming someone else.
Maybe the magic is remembering that the power was ours all along.
And maybe, after spending years learning how to be good at everything we're supposed to be, there's something incredibly radical about asking:
What if I actually want something else?
If that question is stirring something in you—a little curiosity, a little resistance, maybe even a little oh, shit—it might be worth paying attention to.
You don't have to burn your whole life down to begin building one that feels more like yours.
Sometimes the first step is simply getting curious about who you are beneath all the roles, expectations, and carefully maintained versions of yourself.
And sometimes, that kind of curiosity is exactly where therapy begins.
At Refined Wellness, I work with women across Maryland who are ready to move beyond simply holding everything together. Through integrative therapy for anxiety, burnout, stress, and life transitions, we make space to understand old patterns, reconnect with what matters, and explore what it looks like to live with more intention, agency, and room to be fully yourself.
If you're in Stevensville on Kent Island, or elsewhere in Maryland and you're ready to stop following a script that no longer feels like yours, let's talk.
You don't need to become a different woman.
You might just need the freedom to be more of the one you already are.
