Have you been feeling ALL the emotions this past week?? If so, you’re not alone. On Tuesday morning we had a full moon. The moon was the closest it will be to the earth for the entire year! At the best of times, full moons result in a lot of impact. Even if you don’t know if you believe that, consider that the phase of the moon impacts the tides of the oceans.
Last time I checked, we’re all made up of mostly water, and we’re all existentially smaller than any ocean. So yes, the phases of the moon DO have an impact on us and the oceans alike.
In a previous post I shared a powerful practice that I’ve used to actualize major accomplishments in recent years. If you haven’t read it, you should check it out. That post is all about how to sync up the kind of reflection and goal-setting you do with the phases of the moon.
Today’s post is about why we were all feeling so much this past week, and what to do with all that energy. First, let’s review the moon’s phases.
Key moon phases
Here’s a simplified way of understanding the moon’s phases. This is very high level as there are actually eight phases of the lunar cycle. But we’ll just focus on the two key phases for the purposes of today’s post.
The New Moon is the start of the moon cycle. That’s when we’re starting to see a sliver of the pearly white of the moon on the right side of the visible moon face.
The moon continues to wax (the sunlit sliver gets larger) for about two weeks, until the full face of the moon is sunlit. This is called the Full Moon. The Full Moon is the middle of the cycle.
Then, the moon begins to wane (the sunlit portion becomes smaller and is now on the left side of the moonface) for about two weeks. In the last three days of this waning phase, the moon is called a Dark Moon because it’s at its least visible.
And then the cycle resumes with another New Moon.
Moon phase correspondences
As I mention in the other post, the New Moon is all about new beginnings. The New Moon is a great time to begin new projects, set new goals, and generally to start things.
The Full Moon correspondences are two-fold. First, the Full Moon is about bringing things to fruition, to their fullness. The other side of that is that it’s about shining a light on the situation and drawing out all the nuances.
That means the Full Moon is a time of reflecting on what’s working and what’s not. It’s also a time when everything that’s been buried or ignored gets drawn out. Things are amplified. Like everyone’s emotions this past week, for example.
In case you didn’t personally experience any emotional amplification this past week, here are a couple other examples of how the Full Moon (and the three days in advance of and after it) can affect people:
- Fatigue (even moreso if that’s something you experience generally)
- Poor sleep quality (from whatever your norm is)
- Increased vivid dreams
- Higher energetic sensitivity for empaths who are still working on developing healthy boundaries
- Generally “whacky antics” in professional, social and medical experiences
What to do with all these moon-induced experiences
The number of people in my professional and personal life this week who remarked at how tired and emotional they felt all week was eye-opening. The majority of these folks don’t currently identify as following any particular esoteric or metaphysical schools of thought. And yet here was everyone, in the same boat, particularly exhausted, emotional and stressed.
The moon is full 13 times a year. This cycle was particularly noticeable because of how close in proximity the moon was to the earth this time around. So it’s important to be prepared and know how to get through these phases fully grounded.
1. Allow yourself to feel it
Years ago, I took some basic martial arts. The first month, all we did was learn how to fall. That’s right. We learned how to fall in a way that firstly avoids injury and secondly allows us to get back up and continue to defend ourselves.
I learned the importance of going with the energy. The instructor explained that injury only happens if you resist the energy. The instructor understood the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed in an isolated system. It can only be transferred or transformed into other energy.
If someone is taking a swing at you, if you brace for it, all the energy transfers into you, resulting in injury. But if you move in the same direction as the punch, you won’t absorb that energy, and you’ll be able to continue engaging.
Our emotions are no different. If we try to steel ourselves against emotional impact for whatever reasons (usually because we’re “shoulding” on ourselves or afraid), we’re actually doing the opposite. That energy is going to impact us that much more than if we go with the emotional flow.
Acorn+Burdock
Resist nothing. Allow the emotions to be heard and felt.
2. Remember you have a choice
If you’ve read my content for awhile, you know how big of a proponent I am of being empowered in every situation. I truly believe we can each be empowered in ANY situation. Even if we can’t always control the external circumstances of the moment.
Why? Because no one else has control of how you choose to see things. Most of us also have significantly more choice in our actions, with the exception of those who are literally incarcerated or otherwise literally limited in actionable ability. But those exceptions are rare, and even folks in those situations have total choice of their thoughts.
In Tarot, there’s this card called the Devil card. The image on most decks shows a laughing creature with two people who are loosely in chains.
This card is an important reminder that we’re not as trapped as we think we are. It’s a card that reminds us to question what illusions we are believing. Those illusions could be presented to us by others, or they could be self-created illusions.
The important thing to recognize is that you alone determine your perspective. If you perceive you’re trapped with no options, then guess what? That’s exactly the situation you will have created for yourself.
But it doesn’t need to be like that. At any time, you can choose to change how you think about a specific situation. Or about your life. Either way, that choice is totally and completely yours. And you can make that change now.
I don’t say this from a high-horse place. These lessons have all been hard-learned for me. And after years of struggle, I realized that it was me who was inadvertently creating a lot of that struggle, or the environment in which those limitations existed.
Acorn+Burdock
Maybe you can relate?
3. Choose your path forward
Some people think referring to “how we move forward” as redundant, because they think people can only move forward, because time carries on regardless. My thoughts on this are different.
Lots of people never move anywhere, figuratively. That’s not a judgment, it’s just an observation. That was me during my short “tour of duty” with the federal government (before I ran away screaming, but that’s another story).
For example, age doesn’t automatically mean you’ve moved forward as a person.
If someone is 50 years in age, but they’ve never pushed themselves to grow in adulthood, they’ve perhaps only repeated the same year 30 times.
Whereas someone who has actively pushed themselves at their edges and expanded their perspective in adulthood may well have lived 30 very different years in their adulthood.
Pretty different pictures, right? I bet we can all think of folks in our lives who embody both of these examples.
The point is that each of us is steward of our energy, regardless of whether we’re being wise stewards, or perhaps taking less than an active role in our own lives.
But consider that we’re always doing something with our energy, whether it’s an investment in a positive direction or not. Our energy in our emotions, our decisions, our finances, and beyond. How that stewardship looks to each person will be different, but the input is the same. It’s the choice that matters.
Either we’re working toward a constructive place for ourselves, or we’re moving into decline. Especially since not moving anywhere moves us into decline due to entropy).
So my advice is to figure out what it is that we DO want, and not on how bad we’ve BEEN feeling. I’ve said it before and I’ll encourage us all again that we can honour our emotions while simultaneously pushing toward a constructive future.
Once you realize you have choice always, you can recognize the latent power that’s within you and has been all along.
Acorn+Burdock
A grounding tool you can use right now
I advocate for all things conscious tools and spiritual practices, as you know. So here’s one tool you can use right now to ground yourself.
This tool works because it encompasses all that we’ve discussed in today’s post, and it works regardless of whether you’re extra sensitive to others’ emotions/energies.
You’ll see that, contradictory to many energetic schools of thought, I recommend releasing negative/others’ energy to a place of healing, and NOT back to its source.
As I explained in this previous post, I believe it’s an act of violence to send negative energy back to someone, even if they sent it to you. And you simply can’t go wrong in any way by sending it to a place of healing. Everyone wins.
My recommendation is to use it at the end of the day when you get home/before you go to bed.
- Take a few slow breaths (or do some square breathing).
- For just a moment, notice how you’re feeling. Just allow.
- Silently or out loud, say, “I love you” to yourself, as if you were saying it to someone else. But say it to you.
- Then say, “I welcome all of my own, loving energy. I am loved and I am free.”
- And then say, “I send all the negative energy, and all the energy that isn’t mine, to a place of healing.”
- Take a moment of gratitude and breathing.
Now notice how you feel. Better?
Conclusion
In sum:
- Remember that the phases of the moon absolutely affect us, and it’s completely natural to notice how you’re feeling.
- You can both honour your emotions and allow them just to be, while you also figure out the best path forward for yourself. CHOOSE YOU!
- Give the grounding and energy releasing tool a go and let me know how it works for you!
Blessings and empowerment to you.