The main theme for March is “DISCERNMENT”
In February, we looked at how we manage our time, resources and energy. Now it is time to make good on our intentions to set appropriate boundaries and have some serious discernment about where and with whom we spend our time, resources and energy.
What is discernment? Discernment is the ability to use good judgment regarding choices, decisions, boundaries, actions, intentions, ideas, commitments, other people, your intuition, thoughts, emotions, and self-reflection.
Good judgment comes from self-observation and deep reflection on what is your truth as opposed to what others want or think. March is a month to examine the motivation behind all your actions, reactions, intentions, habits and patterns. Discernment is refining how you manage what is on your plate by setting boundaries around what you wish to keep as well as what you have cut loose, always from a place of pro-action instead of reaction.
Good judgment requires pulling your energy back out of initial reactions and contemplating decisions, choices, and consequences from a place of neutrality. Those of you who have a tendency towards passionate impulsiveness will need to strongly pay attention this month. Gratefully we have Mercury retrograde for most of the month slowing things down so we can take the time to reflect on what we need, don’t need, and what is ours or not ours to carry, to fix, or to solve.
Discernment is especially important this month in relationships. Times have not been easy and we will continue to be challenged with our own fear reactions as well as those of others. Your own truth and intuition should make up the foundation of good discernment and should be the driving force behind many of your choices and actions. Discernment is not a mental practice but rather an understanding of what needs to be done based on what feels right to you. When you make choices from healthy discernment that is true to you, those choices are always honored on some level even though you may have to deal with reactivity from others in the process.
Yes, others may be disappointed or react negatively to you. Yes, you will have to strengthen your boundaries around certain attention points or judgments from others that don’t agree with you or have different beliefs. And, yes, you should always stay in your own lane this month and stay out of other people’s business. Don’t be looking over the fence and judging what others are doing in their yard. Take care of yours instead and be discerning about what stays, what goes, what gets completed and cleaned, what you start and whom with. If you don’t stay in your own lane this month, it may be because you are avoiding looking at your own personal environment and dealing with the backlog of your own discernment, truth-telling, and boundaries. So, be responsible and take care of your own business. (there is a good exercise on boundaries and weeding out what isn’t yours on this month’s support audio)
Examining your motivation for managing certain things on your plate will determine where your discernment comes in. There may be some very hard choices to be made this month. If you insist on being distracted or in resistance, you will never experience the freedom those choices can bring. We have the opportunity to have a preview later this month of what is possible in the future if we play our cards right. (For a beautiful opportunity to prepare and experience becoming free, join Jose at 1440 Multiversity March 6-8 for a workshop with this timely focus)
Everyone needs a lot of support this month, from friends, family, wise ones, teachers, healers and those that have your best interests in mind. You may also feel the pull to support others. Support is not fixing it for them or carrying their burden. It is being available energetically with compassion and neutrality. Don’t give advice unless you are asked and don’t project your beliefs onto others.
The same goes for you receiving support. Beware of support that comes with strings attached or a very strong judgment about what is right for you. Beware of projections and people sticking their noses into your business because they are not dealing well with their own. This is where your discernment can set boundaries. However, you need to be connected with your own truth before you can trust your own intuition and know that you are discerning from a place of emotional clarity. On the other hand, don’t expect others to fix it for you or carry your burdens. And, stay away from blame.
In a way, this theme is not so different from where our focus has been in the last few months. We are just approaching it from a different angle and adding a refining action step (discernment) to last month’s theme of “management”.
Where can you practice more discernment?
What you read or listen to in the news. Practice neutrality when possible and balance negative triggers with news that is inspiring. Focus on the inspiration rather than the negative.
Whom you spend your time with. Some relationships are necessary even though they may be difficult. Minimize your time with them to what is necessary and practice compassion rather than resistance. Cultivate and put energy into the ones that feed you.
What you do in your free time. Decrease screen time and increase the time out in nature. Be creative.
What you eat or put into your body. This needs no explanation.
Your thoughts. Discipline where your mind goes and practice gratitude whenever possible.
Your feelings. Let go of the past, let go of the past, let go of the past. Allow yourself to be loved and supported by you and others with your best interests in mind.
Your actions and motivations. Reflect a bit before you act. Are you acting, moving towards something from your truth? Or are you reacting?
Your self-care. What is enough? Too much? Where are you obsessive?
Your fears. Do whatever you can to turn your fears into proactive discipline and action. Fear is a frequency that can spread collectively and is not useful in solving anything. Practice discernment so you are not connected to, or affected by the fears of others. There will always be a part of us that is connected to the collective, however, if you handle your own fears and your own business, that in itself has a ripple effect on all your relations. Be an example and not part of the cause.
How the month shows up:
YOU PERSONALLY
On a personal level, this is a month of reflection, choices, and truth. If you don’t practice good discernment, you will definitely notice your life getting out of whack. This could lead to depression, anxiety, and confusion. This month requires making sure you get enough alone time to sort it all out without the confusing influence of others. We are not suggesting weeks alone, but a little time every day to reflect on what is true for you would be extremely helpful.
Think of this month as a preparation. Consider all of your resources, inner and outer, and how you are using them. What talents are you not sharing, where are you overspending in physical energy output and resources, where is your mental and emotional wisdom going, where are you still addicted to your own suffering, where are you present or not present as you show up in daily life? These are all contemplations that will bring you the clarity you need to make the right choices, some of them challenging, but necessary in the long run.
Forgiveness and compassion are strong influences this month and should be worked with daily as you reflect on ways you can be more discerning in your life. Past situations still in need of reconciling will surface and if you don’t do the work and handle them, they will continue to plague you. It is not a good idea to take unfinished business into future dreams and intentions, so clean it up. Do it now.
The other important aspect of personal work this month is working on your boundaries. This is putting additional commitment behind your “no”, and more permanence around the choice of moving away from something or someone. There is a difference between moving away from a situation and being reactive against it. Moving away is a proactive choice, a reaction puts you in a passive position of being affected by something that was not your choice. So, choose wisely.
(there is a good exercise on this in our monthly support audio)
RELATIONSHIPS
The issue of relationships is always an area where there is a little (or a lot) bit of “damned if you do” and “damned if you don’t”. We need relationship as it forms the foundation of all of our lessons, karmic agreements, and experiences that make us who we are. They are a necessary complication and provide us with endless dilemmas, amazing emotional adventures, cooperative support, challenging situations, and great learning experiences.
This month we have the opportunity to clean up, complete, begin, feed, revitalize, or let go of relationships that we discern to be either important, not important, supportive or not. We have the opportunity to discern what karmas are complete and how to put the past behind us. We also have the opportunity to reflect on who we wish to spend more time with and who is an energy leak for us. A most important discernment is around who we have been enabling, trying to fix or carrying burdens for. Boundaries are an important practice this month around relationships as well as always coming from a place of compassion, forgiveness, neutrality and proactive choice.
HEALTH AND THE PHYSICAL BODY
This is an interesting month for health and the physical body. What can we no longer digest or swallow? As we reject some of the more negative patterns we see in the world, this rejection hits us in the gut and in our digestion. Be aware of non-descript nausea and digestive issues that don’t seem to be related to anything. On the other hand, listen to your gut as it has its own intuition and truth.
It is an important month to be discerning about what you put into your system. And this is not only food. Nourishment for the physical body also includes beauty, inspiration, love, support, exchange and the energy that nature and the natural environment can give you. Be discerning about the locations and environments you spend time in and decrease your presence in toxic spaces whenever possible. The body processes patterns, karma, and past and current information in a very physical way. Find out more about the body in Jose’s Webinar coming up in April “The Body as a Map”
The lungs are another part of our physical body that are affected this month And, here, we address the flus and viruses that have rattled our instinctive centers recently.
Consider that the lungs are related to the element of air, are masculine in nature, and carry grief. We have recently experienced a great susto (trauma) around the “lungs of the earth” in the fires in the Amazon. We have a backlog of unprocessed grief from two-thousand years of war, brutality, suffering, genocide and other karmic events. Our air is polluted and we have been inhaling toxicity both literally and figuratively. It is not surprising that we have something now in the field related to lungs that is capturing our attention on a global scale. What can you do? Support your lungs by paying attention to and having gratitude for your breath and the life-giving spirit of air, cleaning and clearing collective and personal grief.
Join me in a Shamanism without Borders call to action on working with the Spirit of Air where we will include working with the lungs. Sponsored by The Society for Shamanic Practice (SSP) Become a member if you are not already one. (link here)
BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS AND PROJECTS
Discernment in this area will include how and where you spend your resources, both inner and outer. For business owners, if you have an employee that is not using their talent or does not have the one needed for the position, your discernment requires making a change. If you are self-employed, use discernment to see how you can be more practical in the use of your resources.
Look at all the projects on your plate. As you use discernment, contemplate which ones still inspire you and which ones need a change of some kind. Discernment is not only about how monetarily successful something is, but how it makes you feel and how much joy and satisfaction you are getting out of something. Your own enjoyment is an energy that feeds you and should be thought of as a huge resource.
This is a good month to both complete something that needs to be finished, including anything legal or related to a contract, as well as a project or a relationship. It is also a good month to begin something new which could be a business project but also a new creative endeavor more in the realm of a hobby.
ENVIRONMENT
We have to consider the whole environment, not just weather and climate, but the political global environment, the financial environment, the environment of our resources, the environment we live and work in, our emotional environment, our mental environment, and our physical and energetic environments as well. The discernment of the month requires us to ask these questions. What is my environment? Does it serve me? What can I change about it? What do I need to accept with compassion and forgiveness? Where do I need to be flexible and resourceful? Where do I blame my personal situation on my current environment? Where can I take more responsibility?
DATES AND TIME FRAMES
March 1-8: The month starts with a feminine emotional quality of fluidity that can help to dislodge stuck places and old patterns. It can also bring about depression, despair, confusion and a lack of dynamic active energy if we are not careful. Take the time to be diffuse and in the state of not knowing. But balance it with action even if it is simply the discipline to move your body, take a walk or get some exercise.
The more you have on your plate that is not managed well, the more you are likely to feel this negative aspect. It is a good time to begin examining your boundaries and perhaps use some discernment to help you eliminate a few energy leaks. Be strong in your truth, don’t forget your self-care and don’t be afraid to say no.
Note: Daylight Savings Time begins at 2AM on Sunday March 8. Don’t forget to turn your clocks one hour AHEAD.
March 9: Full Moon in Virgo is Monday, March 9 at 11:47 AM Mountain Daylight Time (MDT). This is a practical moon good for supporting discrimination and discernment. Spend some time taking an inventory of your resources. Identify the ones that are not really resources, the ones that are already spent, the ones that need to be acknowledged and used, and the ones that are not yet in your field.
This is a super moon and a good one for visioning, praying, asking for help and committing yourself to better boundaries. Take some time to sort and clear something in your physical environment. It is always a good expression of your internal intentions. Some self-care and alone time should be on your list for today as well. Get inspired about how discernment can support you rather than discouraged about what you might have to give up.
March 9-15: This is a time most important to stay in your own lane, keep to your own process, handle your own business and keep out of other people’s drama. It is a time frame where compassion, forgiveness and neutrality will go a long way to keep you on the path of your own discernment and good boundaries. If you use discipline here to really stay on track, you will be setting yourself up for the equinox and change of seasons that brings with it an opportunity to experience a preview of the freedom possible for us in the future.
Use discernment to eliminate your addiction to suffering and the need to “fix” the suffering in others. This is a tall order but when you jump into another person’s process, you are not helping. You are actually robbing them of the freedom they need to make their own choices and you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to be a point of reference instead of adding to the pattern of dysfunction. There is no power in any of it.
This time frame may come with tests, doubt, confusion and a need to examine your foundation of truth and self-esteem. Ask for help when you need it.
March 16-23:We enter into a time of action and a preview of an inspired innovative energy that will be more available to us at the end of this year. We may get to feel what its like to be free, provided we have used good discernment and have managed to eliminate some of the patterns and beliefs that have kept us imprisoned in our own suffering.
This is a good time to actually take action on some of the choices you have made over the past couple of weeks. Your determination may be challenged but courage and optimism can support you in sticking to your truth. Increase your physical activity during this time but pace yourself in how you move projects and physical tasks along. (A good support for this month is the online course “The Four Steps to Manifesting”)
March 19: The Equinox is Thursday, March 19 at 9:50PM Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) This is a time of planting seeds as well as honoring the harvest (depending on which hemisphere you are in) The planting of seeds represents a seeding of what inspires you. Beginning a new project, starting a new relationship, making a change in your life. Use discernment and don’t fall back on old patterns.
The harvest is a completion of a cycle that brings with it a commitment to a new one. Use this energy to complete something that needs completion in a graceful way.
It is always recommended you take some time for ritual, prayers, ceremony, to do something to honor the change of seasons representing a transition from one state to another.
March 24: New Moon in Pisces is Tuesday, March 24 at 3:28 AM Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) More on this New Moon will be sent as an update to our Power Path email list. (sign up above, at top)
March 24-31: There is a great need for assimilation as well as support to anchor new habits and patterns. We may be like newborns seeing the world for the first time through new eyes and facing every experience with the anticipation that it will be a new and unfamiliar landscape. You can support this process by changing thongs up for yourself, creating a new habit, bringing something new into your life, nurturing a new relationship and taking a risk towards something that feels right intuitively even though you may not yet have any mental confirmation.
It is important to celebrate, to keep your vibration high, to keep your inspiration active, to keep your boundaries strong and to stay in your own lane. Not everyone will experience this time frame positively. You have only to worry about yourself as you cannot bring anyone else with you. Be the light at the end of the tunnel so others find their way. Be the positive point of reference and not a contributor to the cause of suffering.
Have a great month!
Blessings,
Lena
