Soul Purpose Workout | Celebrate the New Moon in Gemini by Sowing the Seeds of Self Certainty
Soul Purpose Workout | Celebrate the New Moon in Gemini by Sowing the Seeds of Self Certainty
a three-step SOUL FLOSS workout by Dr. MLE | Beach Witch
In honor of PRIDE MONTH and in celebration of Thursday’s Full Moon in Gemini—a BLANK SLATE on which we can SET CONCRETE INTENTIONS in alignment with our DEEP INNER VALUES—I’m sharing my Soul Purpose Workout: Sowing the Seeds of Self Certainty in three simple steps.
Think Vitamin B shot, for your integrity!
(And, for the writers in my audience—you just might find yourself penning your Next Great Poem/Story/Essay in the process!)
According to psychologists, “self-certainty” is built from and grounded in internal values—such as integrity, optimism, community, courage, purpose, compassion. Research shows that people with high levels of self-certainty are better at remaining calm in adversity than those whose identity is drawn from external values such as professional status, fame or financial assets. Researchers at Stanford University found that “attitude certainty” provides a psychological safety net that can help us keep fear in check-in and remain more confident under pressure.
In Trust Yourself: Stop Overthinking and Channel Your Emotions for Success at Work, executive coach Melody Wilding explains: think of your internal values as your why: “they impact every aspect of your life, helping you to show up as your full self, to set and reach personally meaningful goals, and, most importantly, to drive the direction your life takes.”
Personally, I like to think that “self-certainty” involves taking risks and learning as much from our failures as our successes. “Self-certainty” hinges on our capacity and willingness to self-reflect, to stretch our minds in search of the questions hidden by the answers.
There are many ways to do this. The New Moon in Gemini invites us to meditate, pray, listen, dream, vision, create, sing, play.
As the multi-faceted storyteller of the Zodiac, Gemini is a window into thought processes, beliefs, expectations, and overall mindset; it’s the wisdom of asking the right questions and, combined with the New Moon, an invitation to dive into our personal undergrounds and speak our intent from a deep inner place.
As the Magician of the Zodiac, Gemini is a powerful reminder that you have all the powers (and you know it). The question is: how will you use them?
Image courtesy of Cristy C.Roads.
Workout Overview
I’ve helpfully chunked this self-certainty workout into three 20-minute steps, which I encourage you to space out over the course of three days leading up to the New Moon on Thursday, June 6, when the morning sky goes dark in Gemini. That’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, babes! (Though, of course, carving out twenty minutes a day to grow your self-certainty muscle is ALWAYS a good idea. You can do this workout anytime you need an instant boost of integrity!)
This workout could become a welcome companion when you wake up in the morning, or just before bed! Of course, it’s ideal to complete this workout under the beneficent light of the moon! However you schedule it into the fabric of your life, I encourage you to treat it like an appointment with yourself. See what happens when aligning yourself with your internal values becomes a daily habit.
See how you change.
See how the world changes.
And remember, if you’re short on time or an ingredient, it’s okay to skip it or to substitute or really just spin the whole thing in a direction that feels even better for you.
This workout is just a jumping off point.
All of my instructions are 100% customizable.
Every ingredient is optional and you can improvise with what’s available.
Day #1 | Self Reflection Sprints feat. Ester Dean
This twenty-minute writing sprint is designed to reconnect your mind and your body, flush out the emotions and experiences that are on the surface, and prime your imagination for the deep work of self discovery. As you write, you might imagine that you are clearing away psychic clutter, all the “white noise” of everyday life, the thousand petty concerns and to-do’s and knee-jerk reactions that distract us from our soul purpose as human beings: which is to connect and to create, to make and to relate!
Exercise Overview + Celebrity Inspiration
For each prompt below, set a two-minute timer, and write as quickly as you can, with your hand moving wildly, like a child’s. This way you can get ahead of your internal editor. Ignore grammar, spelling, punctuation, and anything else you’ve learned about writing “right.”
Drawing them as images is ok, too!
If you get really stuck, draw a spiral circle until you are ready to write again.
If it helps, you can give yourself a self-reflection timeline, like the last month or the last year or the last decade or last moon cycle or last season (spring). Or you can reflect over your entire lifetime!
Finally, whenever I take an emotional deep dive in the physical environment that is language, I like to GET COMFY. I put on work pajamas, brew a strong cup of black coffee, pour myself a bowl of blueberries, and cue up an uplifting playlist, like Dorothy Ashby’s afro-harping or French indie pop. However you like, get physically comfortable so you can get existentially discomfortable.
As singer songwriter Ester Dean—aka The Song Machine—explains: “I always have an electric heater behind my feat, because I like to be comfortable so I can be vulnerable.”
Ester has written for an all-star roster of stars, including Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Christina Aguilera, Florence + The Machine, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, and Lil Wayne.
Ester’s hits include Beyoncé’s “Countdown,” Britney’s “(Drop Dead") Beautiful,” and Katy’s “Firework.”
Writing Sprints
There’s a spark inside each of us!
Let’s ignite that light with some writing sprints! (That are guaranteed to FLUSH your emotional immune system and that just might lead to your own chart-topping hit!)
Ok, get comfy, get out your notebook and your pen, set your timer for 2 minutes, and start SPRINTING across the blank slate of the page.
Flume of awe. List things that bring you joy, that fill you with wonder, that make you excited to get out of bed in the morning.
Flume of rage. List things that cause you to feel ugly emotions, like anger, fear, jealousy, anxiety, etc.
List things you never thought you’d do, that you did.
List moments you found a friend in an unexpected way. I invite you to think unexpectedly about what qualifies as a “friend.” This might be a person, but it also might be an animal, a plant, a place, like your favorite beach.
List moments you made a tough choice, for the right or wrong reason. Especially the wrong reason. Gemini season, is, after all, an invitation to listen to ALL of the parts of ourselves, even and especially the messy, paradoxical, counterintuitive sides.
List advice you’d give to your younger self—pick a specific age, like 12 or 23 and list as much advice as you’d give yourself, being specific.
List moments you failed or made a mistake or lost and everything worked out.
List moments you let go of things that were keeping you from being yourself: people, habits, places, beliefs, objects, etc.
List moments you discovered you were stronger than you thought.
Write a thank-you letter you never wrote.
You just wrote for 20 minutes continuous; congratulations!
Step #2 | I Believe Speech feat. Bill Durham + the Crooked Hearts | 20 minutes
Ok, now you are ready to tune into your integrity, your internal values. This exercise is adapted from Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux’s excellent The Poet’s Companion. It’s based on the premise that few of us really know what we believe until we're pressed into thinking about it. To evolve as humans, we must know what our boundaries are, even if only to break through them. If we expect ourselves to act with integrity, rooted in our soul purpose, we need to know what we/believe and then question, without mercy, those very beliefs.
Bull Durham
Consider this exchange the movie Bull Durham, between a baseball player named Crash Davis and his love interest, a woman named Annie.
Crash: I don't believe in quantum physics when it comes to matters of the heart.
Annie: What do you believe in, then?
Crash: I believe in the soul, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone; I believe there ought to be a congressional amendment outlawing astroturf and the designated hitter; I believe in opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve; and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
Crooked Hearts
In the novel Crooked Hearts by Robert Boswell (which later became a movie), a character named Ask has a list of rules he carries in his wallet.
These are his rules:
1. Never make a complicated thing simple, or a simple thing complicated.
2. Wear white at night.
3. Take care of Tom. [Ask's brother.]
4. Eat from the four food groups.
5. Be consistent.
6. Never do anything with the sole intent of hurting someone.
7. Floss.
8. Always put the family first.
9. Clean even where it doesn't show.
10. Pursue the truth.
11. Wear socks that match your shirt.
12. Take care of Cassie. [Ask's sister.]
13. Look up words you don't know.
14. Never put out electrical flames with water.
15. Get to the bottom of things.
16. If a person changes his or her hair, tell him or her it looks good.
17. Remember.
18. Forgive.
Play It As It Lays
Then there's Maria in Joan Didion's novel, Play It As It Lays (which also became a movie).
“She would never: walk through the Sands or Caesar's alone after midnight. She would never: ball at a party, borrow furs from Abe Lipsey, deal. She would never: carry a Yorkshire in Beverly Hills.”
And finally, here's a short poem by Steve Kowitt.
CREDO
CREDO
I am of those who believe
different things
on different days.
I Believe
Ok, your turn to craft an I Believe Speech!
For each prompt below, set a 2-minute timer, and write as quickly as you can, with your hand moving wildly, like a child’s.
1. List everything you seriously believes in.
2. Now list some silly/outrageous beliefs.
3. Make a list of rules.
4. List some disbeliefs.
5. List things you would never do.
Set a 5-minute timer, review what you wrote, stir your beliefs, disbeliefs, rules, etc. all together and see what comes out of the mix.
You just wrote for 15 minutes continuous, congratulations!
Pause and read your I Believe speech out loud, like you mean it.
Step # 3 | Tarot Meditation feat. Your Soul + Year Cards
Start by doing some simple math to generate your Soul Card and Year Card.
Add your birthday and month, and reduce until you get a single digit. (This is called theosophic addition, and I learned it from Tarot reader Mary K. Greer.) This is your Soul Number, which corresponds to the card in the Tarot’s Major Arcana that has the same number. For example, I was born on July 17:
7 + 17 = 24
2 + 4 = 6
My Soul Number is 6, which corresponds to the Lovers archetype in the Tarot. The Lovers is thus my Soul Card.
Reduce the current year to a single digit. 2024, for example, reduces to 2 + 0 + 2 + 4, which is 8, which is the Overall Year Number. 2024 is thus a Strength Year. This is the Overall Year Card.
Add your Soul Number to the Overall Year Number to divine your individual number and archetype for the year, again reducing to a single digit if needed.
6 (my Soul Number) + 8 (the Overall Year Number) = 14, Temperance.
1 + 4 reduces to 5, the Hierophant.
(Sigh. It sounds like this year is going to be a lot of work for me!)
Now you have three or four Tarot cards to play around with.
Mine are the Lovers (6), Strength (8), Temperance (14), and the Hierophant (5).
Get out your Tarot guidebook or hop online, take 15 minutes to get nerdy about your cards, and jot down NOTES NOTES NOTES. How are these archetypes shining a light on your internal values, your integrity, your personal undergrounds, your deep inner wisdom. What questions do these archetypes bring up for you?
As you read about the cards, pay attention to whether or not you feel comfortable with the archetype, if it’s something you find yourself in unconsciously, by default—or if it’s something you unconsciously reject, by default. How good are you at listening to this archetype, about being in relation with this archetype—and what does that have to say about you? The Tarot’s archetypes are permission slips and secrets that, as Jessica Dore explains in Tarot for Change":
“shapeshift with time and in context, depending on what you are ready, willing, and able to receive. Each card is like an old brass bell that, when rung, holds the potential to send a ripple through our being that activates latent pools and pockets of wisdom, experience, and memory.”
What latent pools and pockets of wisdom, experience, and memory get activated when you read about your cards? PAY ATTENTION! This is the rarest, and most powerful form of self certainty: your attention!
Write down the name of each Tarot archetype on a slip of paper. Distill your archetype into a single positive imperative and write that on the back.
Generate three things you can do, on an everyday basis, to tune into these archetypes. Write these on three slips of paper.
For example, after spending some quality time with my Tarot cards, I write:
1. Lovers: Willfully enrolling in the lessons I most need! (Aka driving lessons…)
2. Strength: Write negative thoughts down on toilet paper and flush whenever I get stuck in twilight energy!
3. Temperance: Embrace the paradox of positive and negative experiences and feelings to evolve spiritually and make better choices for self and others!
4. Hierophant: Extend validation when inner critic goes off! (I.e. talk to myself in the voice of a best friend, who loves messy, paradoxical, counterintuitive you unconditionally!)
And how about you?
Seriously! And how about you? I’d love to hear what you come up with in this alchemical, three-day Soul Floss workout!
That’s all for now, babes!
You can access the rest of my alchemical FLOSS rituals here on Substack, and all of my transformative SAUCE workouts on Youtube.
Please join me: in reclaiming the power that is RIGHTFULLY YOURS!
ONE SOUL FLOSS WORKOUT AT A TIME!
xxxO, Dr. MLE | Beach Witch
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