your practice needs to be something you enjoy doing. it needs to be fun. a sense of obligation (to yourself, to your gods, whatever) might get you through it for a while but ultimately, it needs to be fulfilling, engaging, and worthwhile on its own, as an activity, for you to stick with it long-term. regardless of the form it takes, it should be as much for your own (emotional/spiritual/physical) well-being as it is for any gods, spirits, or other beings you choose to honour. perhaps not every individual prayer, invocation, or ceremony will feel enjoyable in the moment, that's perfectly normal, but neither should it feel like drudgery or compulsion.
taken as a whole, your practice should be something that nourishes and sustains you, that you can commit to for its own sake. I would even say that (in my experience), intentional & meaningful engagement with ritualized behaviour - the performance itself, whatever that looks like for you - is beneficial without even knowing whether it 'works' or is 'real'. belief and doubt can be entirely secondary when the action of practising brings a sense of accomplishment, purpose, mental fortitude, confidence, emotional regulation, and so on. and maybe those are the divine blessings we've sought and asked for; maybe it's an indication that our methods are working, or the gods are responding. perhaps it's just a mundane side benefit of spiritual life, a psychological phenomenon influenced by our physical, cognitive, social, or environmental realities.
I think those can all be viable positions, but it's immaterial to the larger point: if you're not getting any relief or pleasure from what you do, if your craft feels like a burden or an inconvenience, you probably need to take a break, figure out what's not working and why, and make some changes. make it your own, and make it serve you, because you're the one who has to put it in all the effort.
gracieabrams
amandla
