Some of my clients are on journeys they don't understand. I recall pulling cards for a client before we did her channeling session and the result was *loudly* "there are two paths and one leads to your alignment with Will directly, and the other will test and push you because it will be the result of attempting to avoid failure at all costs". Our channeling session said much the same, with the ancestors actually hemming and hawing over whether or not she could even handle the truth at this moment in time. Though, as she was eager, it was decided she should be tested to see if she could navigate desire and ultimately hold strong to her values and purpose.
The tattoo session was incredible, a solar plexus opening, an invocation of her ancestors and their guidance, a swearing to let go of the desires that were killing her spirit and mental health. For weeks she experienced intense mood swings, and her menstrual cycle returned immediately after the tattoo. She returned to live here again, and sadly things broke down, but it gave me the glimpse: she thinks it isn't working anymore, but it is. Everything she *needs* is showing up: the right interpersonal challenges, the right hurdles with her career, the right pressures to get her to stop obsessing about material gain because she's privileged enough to not need to worry and part of her path is relinquishing such things so she may focus instead on spiritual attainment and teaching.
She thinks it isn't working because we have this assumption that magick just "works like that" - we see the positive "synchronicities" and go "whoah, magick!" but when things are hard we imagine we failed somehow, that this couldn't possibly be a part of attending to fate or Will or purpose because it's hard. Sometimes a spell works so well that you get pulled through a gauntlet of suffering and don't find until years later that that's what it took for you to really do that work and accomplish the magickal working. Call it coincidence if you wish, but those of us doing this work and doing it earnestly and doing it well can feel the threads entangling all things, and we see when something is the result of our interference or not.
But this is also why this magick is *not* for everyone. I gatekeep my practice because I don't *want* to send someone out to suffer who isn't ready. The risk of a mistake or my being out of focus feels significant. Someone must be ready and willing to accept what comes and also do their own Work. That being said, despite that they're off on journeys they don't understand, I have never encountered regret after our time together. Because I think we all know magick when we see it on some level of our being, at least.