Do You Believe in Life After Love? pt.2
THE ARIES FULL MOON: SELF- COMPASSION AND CHOOSING TO MOVE POWERFULLY WITH YOUR OWN FULL AGENCY
I’m reissuing a past newsletter from the archives with some updates - because the themes are super relevant to what is happening now with the Aries Full Moon (and post eclipse season portal) that we’re currently moving through.
I know a lot of us have been in a really crunchy space. For me, since August, it has felt like near non-stop agitation and tension (but it turns out that tension and agitation are not to be avoided or dismissed as they are powerful messengers which can usher in critical clearing and clarity)
In the two(ish) years since writing this post, I’ve really gone to work on my patterns and I emerge from the other side to say this - if you are in a cycle of perfectionism or shame or self-punishment - THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH LOVE AND FORGIVENESS TOWARDS YOURSELF.
I have tried everything to avoid feeling my feelings I’ve been running from since my youth. The only thing that has ultimately moved the needle is surrender. Allowing the feelings to come up without immediately trying to cover them up or drown them out. To feel and listen to my body and my inner child without judging myself or fear that they (my “bad” feelings) would overtake my life and never stop.
Resources for Healing:
In these past two years - I’ve really gone hard to unpack and what’s helped the most are the following tools and resources:
The work of Louise Hay and Gay Hendricks (both these authors opened the door to my heart more than a decade ago and laid the ground work for everything else)
The Seed Level with Atarah Valentine
1:1 therapy - I’ve been blessed to work with an EMDR and IFS trained therapist
Energy and body work - tending to your physical vessel is really important when you are releasing years of guilt and shame (or whatever it is that you are working through) - I work most often with Rachel Frey here in LA
Somatic exercises have been huge in helping me become more present and move through this process - I swear by the workout witch - if you want a 10% discount on the courses - I recommend the foundational course, Release Stress & Stored Trauma, which you can get when use my link: https://theworkoutwitch.com/JENIGAGE
I preach it almost every newsletter - but To Be Magnetic changed my life when I found it in 2016 (and is subsequently how I found Human Design)
(the last two of these links are affiliate links and when you use them you support me + my work)
and last but certainly not least - surrounding myself with people who want me to win
Full Moons typically are a time of completion. Letting go and harvesting. It’s time to really look yourself in the eye and genuinely say thank you - you’ve gotten yourself this far. Review all your accomplishments. Tell yourself you are proud. You are doing it!
I wrote the following post in August 2022. Reading it back this week - I see how this outlined the work that I knew I needed to do and HAVE DONE. Reviewing where we’ve been is INCREDIBLY POWERFUL ESP. AROUND FULL MOONS! Knowing how much I’ve faced about myself makes me so proud.
Challenges don’t end the more “enlightened” we become. There is a myth that if you are in the healing world that there is unhealed/healed. No. This is patently false. The healing journey is about continually choosing to choose yourself and back yourself with faith. When we hit bumps along the road, we can keep learning and pivot with the grooves of the path.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE?
Last night as I was walking around my neighborhood, Cher’s iconic song popped into my head. I laughed out loud to myself as it percolated in my brain, teasing me, inviting me to see a deeper insight.
Spirit, Angels, Guides, God, the divine within, myself, whoever it is, has such a good sense of humor, because this was the answer and the question to my year, to my life and of course, it was Cher.
I’ve been pulling cards recently that have pointed to the fact that I am my own block (which, I KNOOOOOOW, TRUST ME)
So, having my angels sing me some Cher was a nice lil reframe with - DO YOU BELIEVE - being the operative phrase here. I may be the block, but I can choose to have faith that I can work through it.
I always have the CHOICE to move forward with faith, even when the past has left me hurt, disappointed, sad.
No matter what happens to us, no matter what knocks us down, we can always CHOOSE to heal, choose to believe in life after loss, after love has been broken.
As someone very much still putting the pieces together after getting blindsided by the end of my marriage last year, my life IS this question - can I open myself up again or do I want to keep my heart closed on the same loop?
And while you may not be experiencing the loss of a partnership, there are so many ways we have to birth and rebirth ourselves, navigating through disappointments, blocks, obstacles…
And as the full moon’s revelations have moved through me over the past week, I’ve realized my past miscalculations1, the flaws in my young thinking due to cultural pressures and norms, my own perfectionism and internalized narrative - and finally not from a place of self-shaming, but from a place of actual self-forgiveness, from a place where I can truly grieve for my youth that wasn’t picture perfect.
What’s up in the SKY?
With the full moon revealing a path forward - I see the beauty and power in the simplicity of Cher’s message, can you choose yourself? Can you keep going even when things get tough?
We always have the choice.
I’m prone to ruminating (help me, I have gate 24, “The Return” activated on HIGH)
And what has been coming through to me is this - EVERYTHING IS LETTING GO.
“ENERGY WORK” boils down to an ability to constantly release attachments, to the past, to the future, to the material world, to your own expectations.
Energy work is an ability to travel lightly. Being present and fully in the now. When we are in the now, we detach from creating the same loops again and again.
I’m no stranger to hitting rock bottom.
The world of energetics is not all high vibes and crystals.
ENERGY WORK IS COMING TO TERMS WITH YOURSELF, because we can’t manifest, we can’t timeline jump, we can’t improve, or experience the highs without facing the duality of life. Shadow/light - you know the drill.
I got massively smacked in the face recently with the fucking feeeeeeels. At first glance, I thought it was for my marriage. While I sat with it, something deeper was revealed, something I’ve been dancing around this summer; I had to allow myself to grieve my teens + 20s. Something I’d absolutely refused to do because “I can’t believe I’m still hung up on something that happened so long ago.”
WE CANNOT HEAL BY FORCE. WE CANNOT HEAL THROUGH SHAMING OURSELVES. WE CAN ONLY HEAL THROUGH LOVE AND SELF-COMPASSION.
It doesn’t matter that intellectually I KNOW THIS (and wrote my graduate thesis on how NOTHING can happen if we do not feel safe in our bodies/environments)
I have absolutely refused myself grace on the events of my teens into 20s and it’s finally time to sit with it, forgive myself AND forgive the people who caused and perpetuated harm, intentional or not.
MISGUIDED CALCULATIONS OF THE PAST:
I had not been facing and fully processing my trauma (whether big T trauma or little t trauma) because I was afraid my growth and processing might make OTHER PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE (people pleasing dialed up to the highest setting). And unfortunately, I would rather choose to be uncomfortable than upset other people around me, which is how I am here- realizing that I need to forgive events that happened long ago.
I’m a runner, folks, and I don’t mean it like I lace up my running shoes and do something healthy with my time like exercise. hah hah hahaaaaaaaaaaaa.. hahahahahahah. NOOO. IF FUCKING ONLY.
No, I am a runner like, I will do everything I can to run from myself, from my feelings, from my past until I am so physically exhausted that I have to face myself (that and the universe WILL keep dumping you out at the same crossroads if you do not learn your lesson - Groundhog Day)
So, as someone who attempts to run and distract myself no matter the lengths, I also have a paralyzing perfectionist loop that runs, undercutting everything, HOW WILL I FEEL WHEN I LOOK BACK AT WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?
The fundamental issue of course is - if I am so wrapped up in projecting out what might happen and guessing how I MIGHT feel, I can’t make the best decisions in the moment. I am in both the past ruminating and I am in the future, casting predictions about shame. When I am splitting my energy both backwards and forwards, I have completely cut myself off from my power source, ESPECIALLY AS A SPLENIC PROJECTOR.
FURTHERMORE - funneling my energy into protecting myself from processing old memories, creates a distortion and a disturbance in my energetic frequency. The layers upon layers of protection I put up to protect me from my own judgment ends up becoming farce as the body, my dear sweet body, will always tell me the truth.
While it’s painfully difficult to admit how much time and energy I’ve wasted spent keeping up the charade of a controlled image, trying to keep anything bad from happening, what I’ve actually accomplished is keeping myself hostage, stuck in a loop, performing life, not actually LIVING my life.
WHAT’S UR HOBBY? SELF-PUNISHMENT BY UPHOLDING PERFECTIONIST TENDENCIES, U?
My perfectionism is imagining all the mistakes I could possibly make and then being absolutely paralyzed with fear of making the wrong choice.
It’s giving invisible death spiral through being a shut-in, it’s giving screaming into the void via doom-scrolling.
It’s the flawed logic of the self-protective - if I hide myself, If I run from the truth of my feelings and emotions - if I put up enough armor, I can move through the world unscathed! HAHA JOKES ON YOU. I’M FINE, YOU DIDN’T HURT ME (I already do that to myself)
When I’ve finally acknowledged the price I’ve paid; suppressing myself so deeply in an attempt to outsmart further hurt - I forget that the price paid is sacrificing the pleasure of being seen, of being known. I’m denying myself the pleasure of truly EXPRESSING myself.
And while the amount of energy I funnel into this protection/paralyzing/pursuit of perfection is daunting - it’s a suppression self-fulfilling cycle, there’s always a breaking point for me. I can only be the dog in the burning room for so long before I have to admit that the room has burnt down.
There’s a lot of talk now about gaslighting - but what we don’t talk about is how it both possible and extremely harmful to gaslight yourself.
(CW: references through out the next few paragraphs to depression, s*xual assault, substance abuse, emotional abuse)
When you go through a harmful experience, like being s*xually assaulted by someone you thought was your friend, our 2000s (and before) culture said, that’s on you. When these things happened to me, I was told explicitly AND implicitly to STFU and look at what I did that these things had happened to me. AND REMEMBER, worse things had happened to other people. Don’t be such a baby. You’re not special, you’re just stupid.
So when you find yourself being told nothing that bad happened to you, and you do your best to soldier on and you don’t allow yourself the space to grieve, you start a cycle of self-blaming that just leads nowhere all that great.
When we’re told (by ourselves or others) that other people had it a lot worse, so what’s YOUR PROBLEM, we do ourselves a massive disservice.
I’ve spent most of my time as an adult in semi-arrested development, trying to make sense of the string of bad luck that hit from 17-22, how the good church girl got bullied, ostracized, systematically broken down… I did mental gymnastics every day trying to prove to myself that I didn’t deserve what had happened to me but kept coming up with answers that said, yet, I must have done something to deserve this because it didn’t seem like anyone else was experiencing this… wading around in the gray space wondering, am I a victim or not?
In the early 2000s, we didn’t have the messaging around power dynamics and hidden abuse that we do now. Girls/women who suffered traumas were branded difficult and were subtly and not subtly tossed out of communities. So if this happened to you- you had essentially two choices; rock the boat and label yourself other or silence yourself. I learned first hand that people, even the people who say they love you, they don’t actually want to deal with the consequences, they want you to deal with it by yourself, by sweeping it under the rug and keep going.
BUT YOU CANNOT DON DRAPER LOGIC YOUR BODY.
And while we still do this, while we continue to have a culture that implicitly says - DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE ROCK THIS BOAT, we’re having more conversations that bring these dynamics to the light of day. I had these experiences that were confusing, that broke my brain, and instead of receiving healing, instead of getting to process it properly, I received the message that I just needed to GET OVER IT. So, I filed myself under broken and went to work trying to hide my pain (extremely poorly) in plain sight.
Now I have to darkly laugh that of course my body “betrayed me”2 when I couldn’t hold the pain in any longer. First, by falling into “inexplicable” deep depressions, paralyzing anxiety attacks (leading me to bolt out of my college classes, attempting to choke down my tears until I could barricade myself in my room alone…), I didn’t know then how to connect the dots that my body was trying to get my attention, to process the experiences I had.
Instead, I felt so alone, so isolated in my pain that the world told me was my fault, that all I knew how to do was to pretend I was ok.
It seemed like no one wanted to help me or validate my pain, so instead of validating myself (I didn’t have the tools I have now) and because I was 19/20 years old, I chose to drown out my entire being, silencing my spirit and mind with any substance I could get my hands on, making my cycle of feeling broken even more chaotic. If I wasn’t valuable to others, then I sure as hell wasn’t valuable to myself.
I went to work to gloss over what was happening to me by attempting to create a controlled image from the outside - finding a “normal” boyfriend, getting a “good” job. Moving to a new city where the past wouldn’t catch up with me… but the thing about trying to outrun yourself and your problems, is there you are.
We’re constantly telling on ourselves subconsciously - until we can bring it to the surface and heal it with love.
And that’s what this supermoon is all about - forgiveness.
THE ONLY WAY I CAN CHANGE THE CYCLE OF (SELF) PUNISHMENT AND ABUSE IS THROUGH FORGIVENESS, LOVE AND COMPASSION (TO ME)
Perpetuating the cycle of abuse upon myself and continuing my suffering by shoving it down and layering on the shame would not cut it any longer.
I don’t need to keep punishing myself for the past.
My practice, my energy work, is channeling all my energy into the present moment. What that means practically is feeling my way through things that maybe don’t make sense and allowing everything that is there, to be there. I can’t change if I’m simultaneously split up in the past and future.
We can only change when we pull all our energy into the present and let it flow naturally. We can only change when we put down our armor and look and feel and surrender. It is the most vulnerable position to be in. Being fully present. It is radical and radical is magical.
sending you full moon blessings, wherever you are on your journey, you are right on time. I love you.
if you want to support my work - consider working with me one on one or hiring me to read human design for your family or office - my goal is for everyone to see that they are a unique gift with a unique purpose and that the world is a better place when you are operating with your energy.
to book you can send me an email - hello@jenigage.com
My miscalculations were this -
#1 making comparisons. (This is something I still struggle with - but at the time of my young 20s, comparisons thrust me deeper into my struggles - comparing my experience to what I perceived other’s experiences were.)
#2 - thinking that because bad things happened to me, that I was broken, damaged, ruined FOREVER.
#3 - thinking the only way through these obstacles was denial or erasure of the past
If you haven’t read the body keeps the score - do this immediately. Our body is our wisdom and our truth teller. The more I understand myself, the more I realize our body is always communicating our truth and we are the only one who can answer our call. We can seek help, but no one else is going to do it for us. Listen to your body. You can save yourself.