In honor of the last full moon of the year, I figured it would be no better time than now to not only write my first substack article, but to write it on how astrology completely transformed my life and was an incredibly effective tool that helped me heal, rewire and shift SO much. In addition to that, it also brought me so much clarity to better understand myself, and was the initial gateway into my spiritual awakening and journey to becoming an expert in manifestation.

Before diving deep into the astrology world at the end of 2020 and early 2021, I had a mere basic knowledge of what it was. I always enjoyed reading the horoscopes in Cosmo magazine, but quickly realized that they were super general and not always relevant. I knew my sun sign - Gemini - but also took that with a grain of salt because so many people were Geminis, my mom included. I knew it couldn’t be possible that everyone who is a Gemini would have similar personalities and similar life events occurring when reading the horoscopes. It wasn’t until I dove deep into astrology that I began to understand all the layers and nuances that would help me better understand myself, and others.

And while astrology was a great tool to better understand myself, where I really saw the highest levels of growth and expansion was in the implementation of my new moon and full moon practices I began to do every month.

As my passion for manifestation and spirituality began to grow parallel with my expanding astrological knowledge, I found a lot of success in combining the two. Each month, I would follow a new moon practice to plant new seeds, new intentions, new manifestations; and for each full moon, I would diligently do my shadow work. This full moon shadow work practice was my first exposure to doing the deep level of reflection, releasing and shifting work that was SO needed to completely transform my life that year.

With that foundation laid out, what I really want to share with you in this article today, is more about these practices and how they can and will completely transform your life too. I also want to share more about why using astrology combined with manifestation is such an effective practice and why you would benefit from doing this over just doing intention setting or releasing work on any random day. And with that, let’s get into it!

So why use astrology you might ask? 

Well, my favorite analogy for astrology is to compare it to the weather - an astrological forecast, if you will. I like to describe it like this because the astrological events that take place tend to have a powerful effect on the collective energy. The most popular event - Mercury Retrograde - where all the technological and communication issues seem to arise is a great example. However, there are so many other events that could be affecting your energy that you aren’t aware of. And just like with yesterday being the last full moon of the year, you’ve probably heard a lot of high-level things about how full moons usually bring out erratic or irrational behavior from people. You also probably know that the moon will dictate the tide of the ocean. And personally for me, that was scientific enough for me to really grasp the idea that if the moon can affect something as massive, powerful and vast as the ocean, it can surely affect us humans - especially because we are about 80% water ourselves.

At the end of the day, just like the weather, astrological events have an effect on us. But they aren’t the end-all-be-all, just like snow doesn’t necessarily have to stop you from leaving your house - it just might make it more difficult. So with all of this in mind, why wouldn’t you want to build a higher level of awareness around astrology so that you could move more easily throughout life?

Ask yourself, do you want to work against extra resistance? Or are you open to there being a path that flows better?

So with that - that’s why even years later, and a lot more advanced in my spiritual, energetic, and manifestation knowledge and skillsets, I still find astrology as an effective tool that compliments these other topics incredibly well.

Now that we’ve gotten the astrology foundation laid out (even though there is so much more I could say about this topic), I want to go deeper on the new moon and full moon practices that helped me uplevel and heal many things that held me back for the majority of my life.

To share a little more background on me and my story, (and if you’re new here, I have a few podcast episodes on my story as well as the about me section on my website if you are interested in hearing the deeper synopsis), essentially, I hit my rock bottom at the end of 2020 into January 2021. That January, I had to get surgery on my hip, leaving me not only bedridden, but also the most stuck, confused, and unfulfilled I had ever been in my life. I was willing to try just about anything to change my life. And that’s really what opened me up to start studying astrology and manifestation at such a deep level and accelerated pace. It immediately provided positive shifts. And with where I was at in that point in my life, I had nothing but time to learn anything and everything there was to know about these two topics.

After I did my initial deep dive and had a good foundation of how to use astrology in my daily life and what the art of manifestation was, I began to implement my monthly schedule where I would manifest and set new intentions each month on the new moon, and do shadow work on every full moon.

There were a few reasons this was so powerful:

For one, I had a cosmically set schedule every month that I stayed accountable to where I actually followed through on getting clear of what I wanted in life, what new things I wanted to implement, as well as doing the reflection of what wasn’t serving me and what it was time to release. It was a beautiful balance of clearing out the old and bringing in the new, and the Universe runs on that kind of balance. So by running on a nature-style rhythm like that, it allowed me to uplevel, heal and reprogram at an accelerated pace.

The second reason why this worked so well is because in addition to the frequency, commitment and consistency to doing these rituals, I also had a nice balance of looking at all different areas of my life based on what zodiac sign the moon was sitting in. Each month, the full moon and new moon would sit in a different zodiac sign bringing a different theme and vibe to focus on. And when I began basing it on my own individual birth chart, I gained an understanding that some moons would have a higher effect on me than others depending on what sign it was in, and what house that zodiac sign was in for my chart. This was the second piece that allowed for more variety in what areas of life I was focusing on. For every moon, I would not only look at what zodiac sign the moon was in, but also what house that zodiac sign sat in my chart. By doing that, I’d be able to see what area of life this moon would be bringing shifts in the most.

For example, yesterday was the Full Moon in Gemini. I was able to look at my chart and see that Gemini sits in my 5th house. The 5th house is all about creativity, joy, inner child stuff, as well as romance and self expression. Each house rules different elements of life which is why it’s really cool that when you actually stay committed to doing this work on each full moon and new moon, you’re always looking at a different area of life which ultimately gives you a 360 view on your entire life by the end of the year (if you do it 12 months in a row).

And as a side note, something even more fun I’ve been implementing now when I do these practices now that I’ve trained my intuition to be a highly precise and accurate tool is that I can read into the collective energy as well as my own individual energy to get an even deeper read on what I can do and where to focus on that will provide me the greatest healing and life changes.

You may be wondering - ok so she looked at all different areas of life and did this consistently each month…why do I have to do it based on the moon’s schedule? 

Can’t I just do it whenever I feel like it instead? Well, yes, you can. The reason this helped me so much was because I was following the moon’s schedule, I stayed way more committed to following through on doing the work versus if I were to schedule it in on my own time. As humans, our brains tend to procrastinate inner work like this because it can feel uncomfortable. So it’s a lot easier to put it off and not end up doing it consistently when you schedule it in outside of the astrological events. The other piece of this goes back to what I said in the beginning about how powerful the moon is. The moon’s energy is SO powerful that it affects something as strong as the ocean. Wouldn’t you want to harvest some of that energy for your own manifestations? While yes, doing this work on the lunar events isn’t the end-all-be-all of how it has to be done, it certainly is a great way to get an extra boost of additional energy behind what you are calling into your life or releasing out of it.

Especially when you are newer to this type of intentional creation and manifesting work, it can really benefit you to utilize this additional cosmic energy because a lot of times when we first start out doing this, our own energy is working against us because of our programming and limiting beliefs, as well as lower frequency emotions. So even if you don’t follow the lunar events forever when doing these types of exercises, it can be incredibly beneficial in the beginning - like it was for me during my first year of my spiritual awakening.

Now that I’m going into year 6 of doing this work - I’ve shifted a lot of my own energy, belief systems and emotions so that I can (and naturally just end up doing) this type of work outside of astrological events, but I still find it helpful to have a pulse of what is going on astrologically because it will always be helpful to work with the energy, rather than against it.

I hope you enjoyed my first substack article :) Please let me know what your biggest takeaway was and what you’d like to hear about from me next! If you’re interested in getting a personalized birth chart reading - I highly recommend you purchase a session with me which you can find here: Born to Be & Built to Do

Talk soon & happy manifesting!