This morning was the New Moon in Aries, so today is an emotional New Year’s Day for us all. It’s an opportunity to reset your internal self and connect more deeply to the person you want to be projecting out into the world. That basically means that now is the time to take all that you have learned about yourself this past year, the good and the bad, and reconfigure it so that you can release what isn’t working and start amplifying what is working. That means confronting some pieces of yourself that you just keep holding onto (feelings, jobs, relationships, habits, etc.) and you know are not serving your best self, and just letting those motherfuckers go. It’s time. You need to make it so. This isn’t one of those times where you sit back and let Jesus take the wheel. You are in the driver’s seat of this life, my friend. So drive.

A big piece of this process is being up front with yourself about where you’re at right now. Ask yourself, “Are you happy?” If you’re not entirely so, then dig into what area of your life is making you unhappy. I know it isn’t easy for all of us to do this kind of internal work on ourselves. Or we feel we’ve done it to death. Either way, start anew and digest this question so you can be present to the answers you are harvesting right now, in this moment. Then start to see what areas of your life are suffering. Where do you need to focus more? What outdated shit is blocking the flow? Can you be adult enough to own these truths and make the necessary changes? The good thing is, in this moment, the planets are supporting this process for all of us so we should all take advantage.

You can’t expect new results from old, tired actions. You just can’t. You can’t expect that new job or man or woman or home or feeling of happiness to come in if you’re approaching it all with the same ideas and attitudes. And yes, it’s easy to say, “Just change the way you think about something and the life change you desire will smoothly follow.” But the more you get into that flow, the flow of believing in yourself and that you’re deserving of your goals, the more you will see them come into your life. And also just admit it, the old shit you’ve been doing and thinking ain’t working anyway so why not try out something new. A fresh approach is always a smart move for any blocked project. So why shouldn’t that work on some element of your life? This is the kind of thinking you should be engaging in for this New Moon.

There was a time when I suffered from insane anxiety. I’m talking crippling, debilitating anxiety. I used to believe that any day would be my last. One day was an earthquake. The next, a heart attack. There was even a day where I found myself curled up against a wall on a very busy sidewalk, afraid that I was dying. I must’ve just looked like some lost, homeless youth, since it was San Francisco in the 90’s and people were curled up on the sidewalk on a daily basis. But that didn’t stop me from having these thoughts and anxious feelings. I was just convinced that my world was going to end.

During this time, I was writing a play and working out all my angst through it. I was also working at this metaphysical bookshop near my house. One night, I stayed late to help with some inventory. On the way home, it started to drizzle. I only lived a few blocks away, so it didn’t bother me. It was two am and the streets were empty. I felt as if the city was mine. At an intersection, my walk light lit up and I stepped into the street to cross. I didn’t realize that the car coming toward me wasn’t aware of my existence, and I was struck and thrown fifteen feet into the intersection. It was a hit and run. A witness said that after landing, I stood up and walked out of the intersection, into some nearby bushes. My memory begins from there, with people standing around me, flashing lights, and an EMT asking me questions. I’ll spare you the details, but I didn’t look pretty. The EMT however was, so I of course asked him to hold my hand through the entire ambulance ride. He obliged. Again, it was San Francisco.

Weeks later, I was still laid up in my bed. My sister and friends were taking care of me. I was on the road to recovery. And I had a lot of time to think. But my mind shifted away from all the negativity that had been filling it before. Something terrible had happened to me, but my world didn’t end. I got back to work on my play and read through what I had written. I shit you not, in some of the last few pages, a character I modeled mostly after me went on a tirade to his friend about life. “I just feel like my life doesn’t matter. Like something terrible is going to happen to me. I bet I get hit by a car tomorrow.” I was stunned. I had written that shit. I couldn’t believe it. Some part of me couldn’t help but to think that I had called this experience in and was also just very blessed and lucky. That experience of reading my words while lying in bed with a wounded leg shifted me. Over time, the anxiety didn’t go away entirely, but it changed and it became manageable. Thankfully, I realized that my mind had a lot to do with the world I created for myself. And I needed to be responsible for it.

Our personalities are the reflections of our mentalities

I’m not saying that we are magicians. I am not saying that we are entirely responsible for our pain and suffering. There are forces at play that call us to our destiny and sometimes it’s a rough one. However, I do believe we must choose how we approach it all and manage it. I believe that how we treat ourselves on the inside does affect our outside, whether it’s the situations we call in, the people we pull close to ourselves, or simply the person we reflect out into the world. Our personalities are the reflections of our mentalities. And we can shape and shift these elements, as we get closer to our true selves.

That is the New Moon in Aries. May it be good to you. And you, be good to you too.