Black Tourmaline Is Supposed to Help You Set Boundaries—But What If You Go Too Far?
It’s easier to cut people out than to learn to differentiate between the chronically demanding and the occasionally needy. It’s war, we tell ourselves.
This is Personal Facets, a monthly column by Jaya Saxena exploring emotions, the magical properties and promises of crystals, and the real reasons people seek their powers.
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You’ve Got Maill’esprit de l’escalier
I recently saw someone tweet about how it felt “empowering” to cancel on a birthday party to stay home and watch a movie. These sentiments are sloganized and tweetable. Oh, the emotional labor of it all! Doesn’t everyone know it’s not my job to explain things to them? Don’t they know “no” is a complete sentence?
They told me they had no place for liars in their life, and that if I was lying I could get out.
They made it seem so easy. It hadn’t taken a history of abuse for them to cut me off, or threaten to at least. One teenage lie, stemming from one moment of justifiable anger, was enough.
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Jaya Saxena is a writer from New York. She's the co-author of Basic Witches.
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Citrine and the Cost of Happiness: How Conflating Money with Success Keeps Us All Trapped
If citrine is supposed to bring you abundance, what might it bring if you didn’t need so much wealth in our capitalist hellscape?
Obsidian and Finding the Truth Beneath the Surface
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Opals Are Said to Make Us Everything We Are All at Once, and There’s Nothing Scarier
I’ve been wondering what my edges really are, and finding they don’t exist. I feel myself shimmer with every conflicting thought.
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There’s a motif in Texas that your car is a part of yourself—it’s a coming of age. Where you learn what you’re made of.
The Rose Quartz Ceiling: When It Comes to Love, Men Are Praised for What Women Are Simply Expected to Give
When love and femininity are intertwined, only some of us are expected to do the job of loving.
Banchan, the Only Food I Like to Share
“You can tell a lot about a Korean restaurant based on the banchan it offers.”