3 Strategies For Navigating an Eclipse Hangover

If you’re feeling out of sorts from yesterday’s lunar eclipse in Libra, that’s completely normal.

“Eclipse Hangovers” are a real phenomenon that mirror the inner disruptions we often face after unexpected changes.

Eclipses force us to confront how we react to sudden disruption.

How do you respond when the lights go out, when things suddenly aren’t going as planned, when conditions are not as you expected them to be?

• Do you try to exert control and keep things going as planned?
• Do you rail in resistance to forces bigger than you that necessitated the changes?
• Do you adapt and roll with the darkness?

These behavioral patterns are revealed when we experience an eclipse, such as the one that we had yesterday with the full moon eclipse in Libra, or the upcoming total solar eclipse in Aries.

The Eclipse of the Mind

My ADHD brain often feels like the sun or moon during an eclipse. Sometimes it’s on fire, filled with light and insights. And then, suddenly, without warning, it’s as if the energy has shorted out.

The ideas are no longer flowing. Words don’t necessarily flow together with ease.

If you have experience with ADHD, you might know how this feels. But even if you don’t, you might have experienced this in some form.

Sometimes writing an essay or putting together a project takes longer than you planned. You meet unexpected road blocks. A power surge creates disconnection. You get waylaid or distracted.

Does this sound familiar?

Learning From the Cosmos

Actual eclipses can show us the patterns we default to when brain eclipses happen.

Eclipses are disruptions to our routine: a dimming of the light when we expect to have light. They create a power surge to our sources of energy and vitality — both the outer sources, the Sun and Moon, and our inner sources. Like all life forms on Earth, we draw energy from the luminaries.

It’s normal to be wired and tired in the days surrounding an eclipse. It’s natural to feel scattered and drained.

This is the eclipse hangover.

How Do You Respond to Disruption?

When your plans for how you want things to be get disrupted, how do you respond?

• Do you freak out and resign yourself to the belief that the thing you’re working towards will never happen?
• Do you try to control or force a situation that is most likely beyond your control? (How does that work out for you?)
• Or do you remain grounded and resolved, trusting that this is all part of the process?

When my mind shorts out, my typical habit is to try to force the situation. I sometimes think that with enough dedication and focus I can will things to happen in the manner and timeline I desire.

Sometimes I can.

But even when I can force it, it never really serves me. Trying to force things removes us from our natural source of power.

I’ve been working on changing this habit, because I know I do much better when I’m not trying to force things.

3 Strategies for Navigating an Eclipse Hangover

Here are 3 strategies for navigating an eclipse hangover — whether a literal eclipse or an eclipse of your mind.

(1) Lay Low

For centuries, eclipses — and new and full moons in general — have been noted as times for laying low. It’s a necessary part of the process that we have forgotten in hustle culture:

When the light suddenly goes out, we need to feel our way around in the dark. It’s best to stay grounded.

Whether that light is the actual light of the sun or moon or the light of your ideas and insights, staying present and grounded helps in navigating the power surge.

(2) Get Plenty of Rest

A full moon often can make us feel wired, because it brightens the night sky. An lunar eclipse snuffs out this light.

A solar eclipse brings darkness during the day — a time when we expect to have light.

Our biological rhythms — including sleep — can be disrupted by these light changes.

Feeling scattered, unfocused, and fatigued are sure signs that we are out of flow.

Just like with an actual hangover, it’s important to get plenty of rest and recovery.

(3) Trust the Process

When I catch myself in my default pattern, I remind myself that this “shorting” out of my mind is natural part of the process.

I have a mantra for this:

This is part of my process. Trust my process.

This mantra reminds me to find my power in presence, instead of pushing.

Remember: It’s All Temporary

Eclipses are temporary states. So, too, are the disruptions in the flow of ideas.

No matter what type of brain you have, remember:

The light always returns.