Tonight is the full moon eclipse in Scorpio and as a hardcore Scorpio rising it feels fitting to get viscerally raw about something I’ve mostly not wanted to talk about.
If you’ve ever secretly thought in the back of your mind, “Chelsea sure seems to talk a lot about the life-changing growth she’s had, but what are the odds it all wears off at some point and she goes totally insane?” you’re not alone. I spent a lot of the last year wondering that myself.
Last May through November, my body was pushed to its absolute limits with the most debilitating symptoms I’ve had by far and doctors couldn’t give me any definitive answers. Intuitively, I knew what was happening but it was an excruciating experience where most doctors were denying my reality and telling me what I knew was happening wasn’t true. I still wince at the thought of openly talking about all the details of that because it was the deepest, darkest hell I’ve ever been in, but I hope to one day. Maybe in 75 years. *uncomfortable laugh*
Just when my symptoms eased up to a moderately livable state, I moved to Mexico and was swiftly taken through what felt like the most aggressive hazing of my life. Again, more life events that were so horrific that I don’t even want to share the details. Not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to put anything in your head that you won’t be able to get out. You signed up for a nice little newsletter, not to get scarred for life.
Anyway, I’d been sort of dreading this full moon lunar eclipse in Scorpio, but also feeling like, what more could possibly happen? I’ve already been pushed to all of my physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual limits and I’ve mostly survived it intact, but not without some seriously concerning close calls.
So today came and other than feeling some heaviness and exhaustion, I’ve felt pretty good. In the last hour, right before the eclipse started eclipsing, I felt a chaotic wave of thoughts roll in seemingly out of nowhere. It reminded me of a very old version of myself who had absolutely no control over my state of mind.
Instead of reacting I just witnessed it without attaching to it or trying to change it. It felt like a culmination of all the intensity and suffering of the past year was bubbling up to the surface to be processed. When I was younger, this would happen all the time, except I didn’t know this is how the body processes difficult things. I used to try to push everything down which resulted in playing an endless game of whack-a-mole with my pain for decades.
For me, processing looks like letting every single thing come up into my awareness without trying to push it away. Watching every feeling and thought come up without reacting to it or judging it. There is no, “This is bad! I want this to stop! I shouldn’t be thinking or feeling this!” There is only watching it all with radical acceptance and breathing through any discomfort until it passes on its own.
Most of the time, this happens pretty quickly. Tonight, it happened while I was eating dinner with family and even though it was perhaps four times more intense than a typical processing session these days, it wasn’t bad enough to leave the room or for my external demeanor to visibly change. Then it passed right through and left.
There were times in the last year where all of the progress I had made was put to the test in a way it never had been before. When I began experiencing full body pain, involvuntary spasms, convulsions, an irregular heartbeat, and then completely lost the ability to sleep for months, there was no such thing as calmly witnessing my thoughts and not reacting. All of that went out the window.
I can’t say that I handled it all with total grace. There were moments where I felt I’d lost myself completely, and turned into something closer to an animal than anything resembling human. There were tsunamis of emotions coming up to be processed while I was so physically and mentally deteriorated that I couldn’t remember my own name let alone remember to detach and surrender.
There were several points at which I felt like I’d permanently lost every last bit of the mental/emotional progress I ever made. This was my ultimate fear and the worst possible thing that could happen to me, beyond just debilitating physical illness. The guilt and shame I felt about this were as deep as they could possibly be. I felt like I’d completely failed and that every ounce of progress I’d ever purported to have made was an illusion, a sand castle that had just been completely washed away.
After months of averaging one hour of sleep a week, I started to revert back to a version of myself as a child where I was irrational, consumed with the fear, viciously angry, and at times, nonfunctional. I lived in this limbo of feeling like I’d lost every part of myself I ever felt pride in and only the weakest parts I despised still remained.
With the help of my soulmate holistic healthcare practitioner, Lindsea, who believed every single instinct I had about what I was experiencing, I very slowly worked my way back to health. But in some ways it felt like the mental and spiritual damage would be the hardest to recover from.
For me, this was the ultimate test. Could I so majorly regress in all the progress I’d made and then forgive myself? Could I find my way back to any sense of peace or trust in the universe after entering the deepest hell I’d ever known?
I believe that we decide what meaning we give events in our lives and that the meaning we make will determine whether we hold on or move on. I see this illness now as yet another portal of transformation I’ve had to pass through in my life, one with a purpose so great it may take years for me to fully comprehend.
The most drastic transformations turn you inside out so completely that it’s like being reborn. I’ve decided that whatever writhing and hysteria happens while you’re in the birth canal isn’t a reflection of what you will be once you’re out. It’s pure survival. There’s no point in judging the panicked final gasps for air the part of you that’s dying makes. It’s the ugly price of admission to the next level of knowledge you’re receiving.
Now that I feel more firmly on the other side, I don’t think my advice for anyone who’s really struggling would be the same as it was a year ago. Back then, I probably would’ve said, “Surrender to your experience, detach from all expectations, and see where it takes you.” But now I know that when shit truly hits the fan, when your life is in your hands and death feels closer than it’s ever been, there is no amount of surrendering or detaching that will get you anywhere. I didn’t really get that before.
Now I say this: If you want to find your way out of hell, you need to believe that there is a reason you were brought there to begin with. You must believe that this is an intelligent universe that has brought you to this exact place for a purpose far bigger than the mundane day-to-day existence you were living before. When you find this meaning, you must whole-heartedly commit to making whatever changes its asking of you. Then humbly surrender any control over how or when you will make it out of this hell. Your fastest way out is by treating every single step on your journey as a necessary lesson you must learn in order to make it out alive.
As difficult as this was and as much as it felt like I was moving backwards into the last place I ever wanted to be, I am grateful for the things I learned. In some ways they feel like the final frontier of what I needed to know and in other ways it feels like just the beginning.
Anyway, happy full moon eclipse in Scorpio. Wishing you all grace in whatever transformative effects may be sent your way now or in the future.