Monday, January 17th
Full Moon in Cancer at 3:49 pm PST

Happy Full Moon—the first of the year. This Full Moon takes place in the midst of winter externally, but also in the middle of our own internal winter—the places within us that might feel a bit foggy, hibernated, stagnant, or dark. Because of the tender place so many of us find ourselves in during this time, the Full Moon might illuminate that tenderness more deeply and, in turn, create spaciousness to explore, nurture, and uncover what is needed to surface. In other words, this is a potent time to cultivate a more compassionate relationship with even the darkest parts of us.

I have found that during winter, I am teetering between wanting to stay cocooned and aching to re-emerge. There is a liminal space—an in-between energy—that swirls within and around me. It is during this time that our deepest hurts and sharpest pains become less dull, calling for us to find new ways to care for ourselves and our hearts. This Full Moon invites us to reckon with what has been uprooting within us during winter and to honor the depths we find. It asks us to not look away… to not minimize… to not brush under the rug, but to instead stay with what is here.

It is during this time that we most need to remember how to return to ourselves.

One of the biggest tools I lean on during this time is self-compassion, which is all about cultivating a more loving, kind, and grace-filled way of being with ourselves. It allows us to meet ourselves exactly where we are, exactly as we are, without needing to change in order to be deserving of our own care and compassion. It creates a more nourishing way of connecting to the parts of us that need to be seen, heard, and witnessed. The Full Moon grants us the opportunity to witness our inner parts and vulnerabilities in a new light. Self-compassion is the lighthouse that allows us to see through the judgments, criticisms, self-doubt, and shame that often erode our vision in order to come back to our true, whole, innately enough selves, over and over again.

In the midst of our depths, it becomes easy to lose sight of the power of our wisdom, the richness of our own knowing, the depth of our intuition, and the sweetness of our own magic. Self-compassion is like a portal into who we truly are underneath all the stories, messages, and conditioning that gets piled on top. It realigns us with the way we want to be with ourselves, especially during times of potent energy and transformative possibility.

—Excerpt from the 2022 Many Moons Lunar Planner. To read Lisa Olivera's exclusive practices and magical suggestions to honor this lunation, grab your copy of the Planner by clicking here or download the January Guide by clicking here. 

Lisa Olivera is a writer, therapist, and creative who guides people to radical acceptance, deep compassion, integration of their stories, and embracing of their full humanity. She is the author of Already Enough: A Path to Self-Acceptance. You can find more of her work on @_lisaolivera as well as www.lisaolivera.com.