🌕 Hello Scorpio Full Moon... 😬
Ready to peer into your murky emotional depths with gleeful abandon? No? It's ok if you're not ready, the Full Moon is here to push you into the pool to clear your resistance.
The Scorpio Full Moon Eclipse is Friday (May 5) @ 1:34pm EDT- so if weird shit is happening that's to be expected.
Sometimes, we don’t know what’s truly important to us until we’ve been thoroughly rattled to our core. Shaking loose all the things we *thought* were important to leave behind only what is truly essential to our heart.
This Full Moon is rattling us to bring up all the muck that is getting in the way of what the last New Moon asked of us:
🌀 Is there a part of our heart and soul that yearns for something different within us and in our lives?
💥 Is there somewhere we could be choosing to bring some new aspect of ourselves forward?
If your life is feeling a bit wobbly this week, I've got you covered. Read on for tools to handle the ups and downs.
The anatomy of a Full Moon in Scorpio breakdown
Tomorrow is the Scorpio Full Moon, with a lunar eclipse on top of it. The energy of Scorpio is unafraid to peer into the darkness to see what lurks there that needs clearing out. When the light of a full moon in this sign is added to it, it’s like walking into that forgotten corner of your soul’s basement with a flood light so you can see it all clearly, there’s no where to hide.
Add the eclipse energy and it means there is nowhere for even the cockroaches to hide.
And that’s when you see those old boxes down there that you’ve been carrying around that need unpacking. Maybe you’ve been carrying them your whole life, but this is the week Scorpio says, “No more, it is time to just throw it out or compost it”.
So this week in particular is more likely to invite a breakdown for you to breakthrough to a new way to live your life. Maybe it’s your relationship to your work, to love, to money, to family, or even to your self.
Whatever sludge has been gumming up the works of you living your life in a way that aligns with who you truly are (and not what others tell/expect of you) is what is coming up and out.
Shedding this weight will leave you feeling lighter, clearer, and with an expanded sense of purpose and possibility in your life. It also invites you to tighten up the boundaries of what/who is acceptable in your life and what is not.
Don’t cling to the people or situations that mysteriously fall apart this week - there’s a reason they are exiting your life, let them go with grace.
"Recipe" for a Full Moon Breakdown: 🙈
Put a happy face on everything (read: spiritual bypassing/good vibes only/toxic positivity/avoidant optimism) AND/OR your iron-clad will and mind suppress emotional information and body feelings, which creates….
Denial about your reality, where your mind leans into believing it can power it’s way through anything, but when the full moon light shines into it…
Overwhelm kicks in when you see the truth and scope of a problem are beyond what you *think* you are capable of, and when your mind is stuck in this space for a long period of time your body gives way to….
Exhaustion like a ship with no wind in your sails, you feel adrift at sea, which spirals into an official…
Breakdown, like cracking the top on a shook up soda can. Congratulations you have arrived at the ugly-loud-snot-crying stage where a lifetime of rage, fear, and grief can pour out of you in wailing, screaming, and drippy-nose-puffy-eyed crying. It may be the suckiest hour of your life, but when supported (see TLC tips below), it can also just be an intense 20 minutes that leaves you feeling magically lighter once it moves through.
😭 Know that once you've been able to fully presence what needs to be felt, it will crest and break like a wave, moving on, leaving behind a new perspective and wisdom on some aspect of your life.
To be clear, this isn’t always linear, in fact you can cycle around from steps 1-4 depending on your innate coping skills, resources, and the pressure being applied by the issue.
Personally, I tend to visit steps 1-4 in layers as I am finding new levels of awareness or blockages with a pattern, then back around again from a new angle, peeling the proverbial onion. This will intensify with each Full Moon as I am seeing what’s getting in the way of my New Moon intention for that month.
But the body can only take so many rounds of this nervous system activation and whatever daily energy needs you ask if it, before it will just close the doors for business and let you know it’s Breakdown Time to purge the emotions, exhaustion, and history that are at the central core of these deep patterns.
Sometimes we are so good at resisting this (because society or our families have trained us to do this) that it can go on for a few months before something big enough happens to make a crack in the damn of repressed emotions.
And oh boy, did I have a doozy of a breakdown this week, apparently I was long overdue.
For me, I notice certain things that are dead giveaways to emotional tension from stress (the precursor to having a breakdown, see steps 1-4 above):
Headache behind/around the eyes and temples.
Stiff muscles, especially in the hamstrings, jaws, neck/shoulders
Tight hips - feeling uncoordinated, bloated, stiff, or unable to connect to this part of the body
Waking up between 3-5a (1-3a is another good window for this) and the time indicates the type of emotion that needs release.
Hard time settling to sleep at night, feeling heart palpitations at bedtime, or a fluttering in the chest when you go to bed.
Your family seems tense and picking at each other an/or just about everything sets you off (to yelling or tears).
You can’t sit still, can’t put your phone down (or frequently check it), or keep yourself so busy with things you can’t take a break or get to bed at a decent time.
TLC for your emotions
And as a recent recipient of a fairly intense breakdown, I have this fresh in my mind (thank you, Full Moon).
So here are some tips I can share for how to best support yourself this week, and whenever you feel yourself touring around Emotional Repression Land:
Give yourself the time to cry when it comes up. And allow someone you trust to witness you (in person or over video/phone) without needing to fix it. If you don’t have people, sitting under a large tree, cuddling a beloved pet, and laying heart-down on the Earth can also do wonders. For me, the advice to cry/scream into a pillow/towel or underwater triggers feeling unable to be seen and makes me so f’ing angry that it’s counterproductive to me. Use the tools that work for you.
Honor your body when it’s tired. Let the chores go, ask for help, leave things undone - don't just push through it, give your body the rest it needs to process everything life throws at you. When we sleep, we process in our dreaming and the body can reorient from a busy day.
Move your body in a gentle way that feels good. This could be walking, swimming, or yoga, but my favorite is dancing, or anything that allows you to move your hips. Doing exaggerated circles with your hips so you can feel the stretch in all those muscles around your hips, lower back and belly, and thighs are also really lovely.
Pay attention to what is triggering you to look for patterns or clues as to what emotions need tending to. Once you can see the theme “Feeling respected”, “Feeling valued”, “Feeling supported”…etc, then you can acknowledge what’s coming up to be seen and where you feel your body holding onto it.
Listen to music that really moves you to help the emotions flow out (except super intense music or death metal type stuff that can just add gasoline to the fire of your nervous system).
For more detailed tips for regular emotional and nervous system self-care, you can check out my Substack article on Love Notes from Mama Earth: My Top 15 Tactics for Taming Stress.