Hello, my dear friends!
How is your New Moon? Yesterday March 2nd was the New Moon in Pisces! I'd say mine is nurturing, supportive, and a call back home. This is a dreamy, intuitive, magical, and spiritual time to connect to our heart's desires and our biggest dreams. How can we take practical steps to accomplish this? How can we manifest our thoughts into things? How can we support each other? How can we support ourselves?
I had a powerful Full Moon in Leo a couple of weeks back with clarity that hit me like a bolt of lightning illuminating things in my experience that I wasn't quite aware of. I realize again how self-critical I am. How much I need self-love, self-regulation, and healing. How I could use therapy. (I'm on a waitlist! :D) How I have co-dependent tendencies in my relationships and how I get validated by making others around me feel good or cared for over the need to tend and befriend myself. I noticed I didn't know when I was overwhelmed or past my own threshold. I was willing to practice compassion and forgiveness towards others but didn't access it myself. I noticed how much it hurt and how it caused me suffering. I found myself admitting it out loud in between tears talking to my husband on the phone"this hurts and it really sucks". Yeah, I went all the way in. I traveled back into my shadows and was reminded that "shadow work" and healing is an ongoing organic cycle that never really ends.
So, with this New Moon, I'm ready to let go and get clear. Time for me to write up my forgiveness and gratitude lists! I'm ready to practice radical acceptance, observe what comes up, and listen to what my feelings are telling me. The radical part is consciously going against my programming and what I've ingrained to normally do. I realize I still have huge emotional reactions to judging how much I like and don't like things in my experience. This doesn't give me much space for compassion or grace, then next thing you know I'm reactive because like the Hulk, I've become my emotions instead of using them as tools and identifying them. I'm reminded that I am the whole ocean and I don't have to become the wave. All the waves are different parts of me. I can notice. I can watch. I can be curious and lean in. I can invite Mara to tea.
This reference is a story of the Buddha who was often visited by the Demon God Mara who fought him with all his might the night before the Buddha became enlightened. In this Psychology Today article written by one of my favorite teachers, Tara Brach says:
"Instead of ignoring Mara or driving him away, the Buddha would calmly acknowledge his presence saying, “I see you, Mara.” He would then invite him for tea and serve him as an honored guest... when Mara visits us, in the form of troubling emotions or fearsome stories, we can say, “I see you, Mara,” and clearly recognize the craving and fear that lives in each human heart."
It's important to remember that our individual emotions, hurts, and fears are universal in nature too. If you catch yourself feeling self-conscious, worried, or fearful create some space from it being YOUR fear and instead remind yourself it's THE fear and these are emotions and experiences every human feels. We are not alone.