At 2:49pm yesterday, the moon was New. The last time I was this close to the actual date was in May, but this theme hit me like a ton of metaphorical bricks over the weekend and needed to come out now.
In this last cycle, I focused on Mattering. I wanted to feel some inherent sense of relevance – not so much to other people but to myself. I wanted to find a space where I didn’t always feel like I needed to overextend.
This over-extension comes from a need to be all things to all people as flawlessly as possible. This brings with it a seemingly never-ending torrent of contingencies – over-anticipating every possible perceived need. Every need, of course, except my own.
This flurry of the chess board inside my head was presented to me on a screen this weekend when I watched “Inside Out 2.” Without really giving away the plot, the primary conflict in the movie was between Joy and Anxiety. Seeing this play out on a screen broke me. Those films are hard enough for me because I have always seen the personification of emotions and motivations in my own head. The clarity and succinctness of this was jarring.
When I related this to a most trusted soul, I was asked where my higher self was in those moments. I explained that in many ways my higher self had bailed out and was sitting in a bar in Sydney waiting for me to get it together. This is kind of true. There was a completeness in Sydney where there were no contingencies or expectations – I was free to walk the streets with no agenda at all – as myself, not a customized version of me created for someone else. I know that isn’t a sustainable way to live a life; we all have responsibilities and obligations, but I feel like I’m always missing the obligation to myself. It always feels like it’s a battle to justify and attain what feeds my soul. This, in turn, leaves me spiritually malnourished to Define my own path.
So the theme for this cycle is Definition. How do I Define myself to myself? What parameters exist that make me “me”? Put most simply, who am I? Or, which “me” am I? I seem to keep coming back to this question. I asked exactly the same thing in July of 2021 in a post on Identity. This feels different though somehow – more evolved maybe, or more urgent? I am increasingly aware of my components and motivations, it’s just how to integrate them into a more cohesive whole. To Define which me that I present is genuine, or Define which elements of all of the versions are common and come together to be my most authentic self.