A note: I wrote this about the time leading to a New Moon. If you’re reading this at any other stage of the lunar cycle, it won’t resonate as hard. Come and read it just before a New Moon for maximum impact.
How are you feeling today? Like, how are you ACTUALLY feeling?
What’s going on in your body? Where is there tension or discomfort?
What’s your nervous system doing? Are you calm, curious and regulated?
How’s the breath? Long and slow? Shallow and tight? Had you noticed before I asked?
What’s your emotional state right now? Are you anxious, relieved, sad, angry, stressed, happy?
Right now, I’m feeling good. My body is peaceful. There is no tension or stress anywhere. I’m in my parasympathetic nervous system – feeling safe and secure. My breath is slow and relaxed. My emotional state is peaceful.
Me today chilling in rest and ease. (Finally)
But I didn’t come to this place by accident. And I certainly wasn’t here yesterday or even the day before.
You might not know this, but today is a New Moon. The New Moon marks the start of the lunar cycle, and an ‘invisible’ moon characterises it. We don’t see it because the moon is directly between us and the sun. The part of the moon that faces Earth does not reflect sunlight.
To many people, it seems woo-woo. But actually, everything about life is about energy. And Earth is powered energetically by the sun. Even at night, when the sun is not visible, we still receive energy from it through its reflection on the moon.
A new moon gives no reflection and no sun/ energy in the evening.
A full moon gives a total reflection; therefore, energy is cast down to us.
Yes, this is light and energy from the sun being cast down onto us at night time, More energy means more energy.
When I first created and started using my Awareness Journal Practice, I included the moon phase as a metric to note down. I knew, in theory, that a New Moon is associated with lower energy and a Full Moon is associated with higher energy. Still, I’d never paid any attention to how that played out in my own life.
But having paid attention and increased my awareness, I’ve noticed just how significantly the lunar phase influences my state.
Leading up to the full moon, I generally feel creative, expressive, powerful, and motivated. It’s a real creator’s energy, and it feels incredible to feel so limitless. This energy peaks on the full moon itself and then slowly wanes until I get to the other end of the scale: the new moon.
Leading up to the New Moon, I tend to feel the opposite. I don’t have a lot of energy. I don’t feel expressive or creative. I want to disappear from the world and cancel all my plans. Unfortunately, reading too much into this energy and creating stories about it is also easy.
“I’ll never feel good again”.
“I’ll never do everything that needs doing”.
“I’ll never get what I want in life.”
That last one might seem like a bit of a stretch, but I imagine I’m not the only one with some kind of “story” running like that. What makes me think that?
Because our society teaches us that being productive is the key to success, we are taught, in conscious and unconscious ways, that hard work equals results. You need to hustle to get what you want. Burnout is glamorised, and multi-tasking seems to be the only way to DO IT ALL.
I even saw a quote on Instagram today: “You get what you fight for, not what you wish for.”
But what if humans aren’t meant to “fight” for 30 days of the month? What if we, like every other form of life on Earth, are designed to flow with the energy of the world we live in?
What if the RESISTANCE to this flow is the very obstacle to our balance and happiness?
The human experience seems so complex and unknown. And many of us leave it that way, rarely stopping to question WHY we feel the way we feel.
My journey with asking why over the last 13 months has been profound. There have been many realisations outside of the moon, but it felt pertinent to share that one today.
When the energy is objectively lower on planet Earth, you will experience that. No matter who you are.
Your personal perception and STORIES about what low energy means will dictate what happens next. Most of this will happen in your subconscious.
You’ll make it mean something. From that meaning, you’ll have thoughts and feelings. Those thoughts and feelings will trigger an emotional response, which will activate your nervous system. Now, your state will dictate what action you take, and the action will perpetuate the cycle you’re in.
Here’s my New Moon cycle:
The energy wanes. I start to feel overwhelmed, like there’s a lot to do and I will never be able to do it all.
The stories start. I make it mean something about me, like that I’m weak, and I’ll never amount to anything. This will, understandably, make me feel anxious. The anxiety will trigger a fight or flight response, and I’ll escape the discomfort by doing all the things.
Yes. When my energy is at its lowest, I will take on the maximum number of tasks.
Because I lack energy, those tasks will be harder than ever. My nervous system is dysregulated, so my executive function will be impaired, and I’ll become scattered and unfocused.
This state makes the work laborious and difficult, solidifying my belief that I’ll never get it all done and that I’ll never amount to anything. From here, I’ll either stay in this loop or kick it up a notch and get into an even more dysregulated state of Freeze and disassociate with screen time.
Luckily, I’m aware of this particular cycle. It doesn’t stop me from occasionally forgetting, like yesterday when I completed a day’s worth of meal prep in three hours, but it does help me snap out of it much quicker.
Yesterday I cooked all of this.
And all of this. Wtf.
I woke up this morning thinking, “WTF was yesterday? How am I still making this same mistake?”
That thought alone could have kicked off a new, disempowering thought pattern and cycle – I call it the “I’m stupid, and I’ll never change” track.
But instead, I journaled, listened to myself, and honoured myself with an easy morning and an affirmation of “I don’t have to DO anything.”
How does this all apply to you? Obviously, this is a personal story. But you know what? Around six months ago, I got so familiar with my own patterns around the two extremes of the lunar cycle (Full and New Moon) that I started to have space to observe my family.
It started with Dreamboat. Every month, around the New Moon, he starts to complain about how tired he is.
“I feel so tired for some weird reason” – Dreamboat, two days before the New Moon every single month.
Eventually, he’ll start to catch up on sleep and usually clock in a handful of decent sleeps, but he’ll still complain of being tired.
Then he turns inwards and gets emotional, grumpy and closed off.
Can you believe it? Whenever I quip, “You do this every new moon,” he doesn’t instantly snap out of it and go back to enjoying his life. Instead, he usually just gets pissy.
Until this month! Today at the beach, he finally admitted that there might be more to this “moon business” than he had thought.
Looking around, I see Pop taking day naps, Grandma leaving the dishes until later in the afternoon, and my kids sleeping and crying more. It’s not just me. We are all affected by this phenomenon. And so are you.
The lower energy is true for everyone. What is not true is whatever story you have made about it. What you’ve made it mean about you!
Thoughts are not true.
Emotions are not true.
The nervous system is, unfortunately, true but easily regulated with Breathwork.
If you want to increase your awareness, this is a great place to start with the lunar cycle. It happens every month. Pay attention to how you feel, don’t make too much meaning out of it, and HONOUR IT.
(In other words, don’t jam-pack your schedule and exasperate your anxiety, then tell yourself that you’ll never get it all done. You will. Especially if you align your “doing” days with those higher energy weeks close to the full moon.)
I could talk about cycles for days on end. I pay attention to the interplay of the lunar cycle and my menstrual cycle, too. I also pay a lot of attention to how my thoughts, emotions, and nervous system interact with each other. It’s interesting stuff.
The best tool I’ve ever used.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed this week, that’s understandable. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by life when there seems to be a lot to do and little energy to do it with. Let some stuff drop, and remember, this (New Moon) too shall pass.
The New Moon is a powerful time to let go of old, disempowering patterns. Let them go. Choose something different. Rest, you crazy, beautiful weirdo.
Love Lauren xx
**Originally published to my email database on the 1st of November, 2024**
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