Has time been weird for you lately?

It definitely has for me.

The last two weeks, in particular, have been extra time travel-y, and I’ve experienced, both in dreams and in waking life, powerfully visceral reminders of what it felt like to be me as a kid.

For instance, I woke up from a dream with a full-body sensation that I was a burden, that I needed to make myself veryvery small and veryvery quiet, or I might be cast aside.

If I did say something, I had better do so only after vigilantly tuning into the adults around me, making extra sure that I was sharing something in keeping with their mood and interests in that moment.

As an adult, I don’t consciously feel this way, and I’ve done a lot of work around this pattern…

…and yet, my dreams were inviting me to go deeper.

Waking up, being immersed in that burdensome feeling, it emphasized for me how intellectual some of my healing explorations can get at times, especially around tender areas like this.

It’s so much easier to just think my way through these patterns!

I’m an airy Libra Sun and a philosophical Sag Rising…

…but I also have a watery Scorpio Moon that, when I’m paying attention to things like my dreams and inner currents, always beckons me deeper.

In a moment, I’ll tie this into the Leo Full Moon, but first…

…after journaling on these childhood time-capsules I was unearthing, I noticed a theme:

I was being gifted with intimate reminders of how it felt to live with my core complexes.

A complex, in Jungian psychology, is like a mini solar system, deep within our psyche.

Each little solar system has its own emotional theme, the glue that keeps all of the psychic planets and chunks of life debris orbiting together.

In my case, one of my complexes is centered around feeling like a burden, and spinning around this core are things like a certain tone of voice or facial expression that my inner child interprets as the cue: “You’re being a burden–STOP!!”

Or perhaps it’s a somatic memory, like tension in my jaw or a jumpiness in my stomach.

All of these things can get sucked into orbit around the emotional theme of feeling like a burden.

The gravity of all of these bits and pieces swirling in tandem, glued together by this emotional theme, can magnetize other content into their orbit as well.

Maybe my husband makes a comment with “that tone” of voice, and–bingo!–it’s enough of an energetic match that it gets pulled into the pattern, adding more momentum to the overall complex.

In daily life, when this complex gets activated (or “constellated,” in Jungian language),

…its energy of it can temporarily usurp my conscious control.

In that moment, I will believe that I really am a burden, and sometimes–here’s the sneaky bit–without my even consciously registering this belief.

You’ve probably heard Jung’s saying, when we don’t make the unconscious conscious, it will rule our lives, and we’ll call it fate.

That’s the thing about unconscious material:

Less than it being “good” or “bad,” the simple fact that we’re not conscious of it means that it wields uncanny power over our ego, and we often misinterpret its invisible hand as external events happening to us, not through us.

Which brings us to the Full Moon.

Full Moons are oh-so-handy when it comes to shedding light on stuff that’s otherwise hard to see.

And that includes material in our psyche that might be yanking hefty-yet-invisible strings, influencing our thoughts and behavior in surprising ways.

Bringing in some of the specific astrological energies of the Full Moon in Leo, this a potent time to uncover what’s keeping us small and quiet.

Where do we feel like we don’t have a right to take up space, to be heard, to have needs?

For me, uncovering new aspects of my “I’m a burden” complex is shedding light on how it plays out in my work.

I mean, it doesn’t exactly take a rocket surgeon to see how fear of “burdening” people by being seen or heard could make it kinda tricky to do, like, every aspect of my job as a writer and teacher.

And being invited into how this complex feels has made it even more clear how it has shaped me.

Being immersed in that feeling once more, even for a few moments as I woke from a dream, brought with it this bone-deep knowing of how stiff and awkward I felt simply existing, growing up.

I remembered how, having to walk in front of people–even just crossing the kitchen to get orange juice from the fridge!–felt stilted and robotic.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with my gangly arms and legs while people were watching.

And what about my face? What am I supposed to do with my face–smile? Try to look smart? Why are my teeth getting in the way of my lips right now?? AHHH, I give up!!

I just knew that however I was supposed to be, it was most certainly different from how I actually was. That much was clear.

As an adult, when this complex gets constellated, it can pull me into a social media comparison binge, where, instead of feeling inspired by cool stuff other people are doing…

…I start to view it all as “mandatory things I, alone, am not doing because obviously I’m fucking up and my only options are to give up entirely or immediately do everything starting this morning.”

Extreme much?

(Yeah, that’s the other thing about unconscious material: It tends to be pretty polarized, but that’s a topic for another post.)

Shocker–this internal tailspin doesn’t put me in a very creative head space, so then I get to feel like garbage for procrastinating.

But as soon as I step out of the complex’s orbit, even just a smidge, my entire perspective shifts, ushering in new possibilities, greater clarity, and creative solutions.

I’ve come to call these “portal moments,” because they truly feel like stepping into an alternate realm.

Jupiter is sextile Uranus right now, meaning revelations and unexpected blessings are a’ brewing.

And with Mars conjunct Venus, we have access to fiery strength to be channeled into what we genuinely value and desire, as opposed to living out someone else’s agenda from a place of fear and not-enoughness.

What better time to tap into the planetary powers to unlock new pathways of flow and abundance, shifting our energy from re-treading past patterns to, instead, forging new ways of being and doing in the world.

How you do this is up to you (meditation, ritual, journaling, taking a bath, making some art, making some love…), and I’ll leave you with an evocation that can help you tap into the cosmic currents of this Full Moon.

Start by chanting the following on repeat, until you feel yourself slipping into an “other-y” state of being:

Jupiter, Uranus, Mars and Venus

Jupiter, Uranus, Mars and Venus…

Then, intone the evocation:

I call upon the cosmic powers!

Planets above, planets within,

Silvery moon and stars of Lion.

Guide my knowing

To patterns unseen,

To words unspoken,

To gifts unlived.

My path is clear,

The way is bright.

I embody my Wholeness

This Full Moon night.

So mote it be!