Donna Conley - Moon Magic Unlock the Healing Power of the Moon

We see it every night. Sometimes round, sometimes a crescent. But how many of us really pay attention to the moon?   

     Perhaps we ought to. At least that’s the contention of author Donna Conley, author of Wild Moon Healing: Harness the Energy of Lunar Cycles to Awaken Your Inner Truth. As the name implies, the moon gives us the ability to look within ourselves to find answers to our problems or give us other insights we might not be able to access any other way. Donna and I delve into the fascinating world of lunar energy and how it can be a tool for personal growth. Donna reveals:

·      Why the moon has an effect on us

·      The meanings behind the phases of the moon

·      How to use the moon to manifest our desires

·      What moon water is and why you’ll want to use it

·      Her favorite practice for healing

·      Exercises that help promote self-discovery

    The moon’s energy is there for all of us. Learn how to tap into it for your benefit on this jam-packed episode of Dream Power Radio.

     Determined to become an advocate for mental health, Donna S. Conley developed an integrated approach to teach people to discover who they are, what they want, and how to love and accept themselves so they can live their best lives. 

     She began a career as an energy coach, blogger, podcaster, and wrote Wild Moon Healing while working full-time in corporate America. Donna is working toward her goal of transitioning to a full-time career to help remove the stigma of mental health and normalize loving, committing, believing, and respecting yourself.    

     Donna has had a successful career in the human resources field for over twenty years. She earned a master’s degree in her field from UMUC. Human Resources is the business of people, and Donna has professionally helped, supported, and touched the lives of many people during her career. 

     She is a trauma informed energy coach who earned a coaching certification through Duke’s DHWCT program and is a Reiki practitioner. She is also certified in sound healing, breath work, and is a certified meditation teacher. 

     Donna embodies these healing modalities in her coaching. She is currently enrolled at the Elementum Coaching Institute to further her somatic training and fully embody the skills necessary to bring her best self into her coaching programs to help others.    

     She was born and raised in Riva, Maryland, but has always considered Reedy, West Virginia, her home. That is where her mind wanders when she thinks about growing up and the summers she spent at her Nan Nan’s. Donna is the proud mother of a United States Marine. If you can’t find her, she’s most likely in the woods discovering a new trail to hike or simply admiring the moon. 

     From a total wellness perspective and addressing people as a whole, she believes strongly in the spiritual aspects of health in addition to physical and mental health. She deeply believes everyone has their own inner magic and can use it to create their best life and inspire others. Donna is also the author of the bestseller, Wild Moon Healing.  

Website:

Chapters

• 4:36 The new moon
• 5:44 The waxing cycle
• 8:49 The waning cycle
• 12:02 Manifesting and Synchronicities
• 14:24 Moon Energy and Names
• 16:35 Moon Water and Journaling
• 24:27 Timeline Journaling for Self-Reflection
• 25:44 Taking Small Steps for Change

Transcript

Announcer (00:00:04) - This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:00:13) - Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Certified Dream Life coach, Debbie Spector Weisman. This is a place where we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams, and how you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. As you know, one of the things we talk about the most on this program is self-care. I was inspired by my own journey and moving from a woman who was literally afraid of her own shadow to someone who's now confident, loving and fully self-expressed. As you all know, my past transformation was through my dreams and is a journey that continues to this day. It would actually come to a halt if I didn't take the time to honor myself through my daily self-care practices. Without them, there's a good chance that life events would cause me to slip back into those old self-limiting behaviors that were holding me back all those years.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:15) - There are many self-care practices out there, and one that piqued my curiosity is the subject of today's episode. Donna Colley found herself at a low point in her life. Feeling like a victim and using food and alcohol to fill the hole in her heart. But she was able to regain control of herself by using the power of the moon. How? What does that even mean? Well, she writes about it in her book Wild Moon Healing: Harness the Energy of the Lunar Cycles to Awaken Your Inner Truth. So let's hear what she has to say. Welcome to Dream Power Radio, Donna.

Donna Conley (00:01:53) - Oh, hi. Thank you for having me.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:55) - Oh, it is my pleasure. Well, Donna, I have to tell you, I'm not an expert on the moon. I mean, I know that it has power, such as its ability to control the tides. But what is the moon's power that affects healing?

Donna Conley (00:02:10) - Well, the energy of it all. Our human body is made up of predominantly water as well.

Donna Conley (00:02:17) - So as it affects the tides, it affects us each. Zodiac has energy, but there's the energy of a Zodiac season, right? That's your sun sign when you have your birthday. There's also the energy of a zodiac,  when it's a new moon versus a full moon. And we have the Zodiac every month. You know, the moon transits a couple of days in each sign. So if you need to work on your finances, you don't have to wait for to be in a tourist season back in April. So you can do it with an app and say, okay, look, Taurus is going to be here on Thursday, so I'm going to do a ritual for financial abundance on that day and work with certain colors like green and things, green candles. So the moon energy has its vast, but if you want to know, work with the moon. You also need to know about, obviously the sun and other different kind of energies that will amplify what I call moon work.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:03:20) - I am a big proponent of ways to increase our energy level because that is us and it is how we harness the power within us to harness our energy. They also associate the moon with feminine energy. Does this play a role in your method?

Donna Conley (00:03:38) - Yes. If you look at the entire cosmos, it's all about balance. So the moon is feminine energy, the sun is masculine energy, and they help to balance each other out. So that's and people think, well you see a lot of men kind of be like, well, I'm not doing anything feminine. Everybody has emotions. And that's what it's talking about. It's not talking about female traits versus male traits. It's that energy of feminine where you can love yourself, you can show compassion to others. And things like that comes from the energy of the moon.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:04:16) - And you actually break it down because you say it's not just the moon, it's looking at the different phases of the moon because they each have an aspect of energy within them. So let's walk through each phase and talk a little bit about what it means. So let's start with the new moon.

Donna Conley (00:04:36) - The new moon. Well, I guess before you before we even get there, like the whole purpose of Wild Moon healing is to raise your energetic vibration. And to do that, you work with the lunar cycles each month, and you make small goals, and you make progress as you go along. The moon is like a visual, but it doesn't have to be spiritual. It can just be your goals for being in a triathlon. So with the new moon, we plant seeds. The energy is there to plant seeds. Except right now in Virgo, we don't want to really plant seeds. We want to see how far we've come since the spring solstice this month. But typically on a new moon, you plant seeds of intention. You know, if you want to grow something in your life, if you want to transform something in your life, you want to change careers, whatever the intention is, that's what happens at the new moon.

Donna Conley (00:05:32) - So it's what do I want? That's the basic is what do I want? And then as you go during the waxing cycle, you're going after what it is you want.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:05:44) - Like some cycle for people who don't know about the moon phase.

Donna Conley (00:05:49) - So as the moon grows to fruition at the full moon, from the new moon to the full moon, that's called the waxing cycle. So it gets bigger in the sky. And this time you're going after your goals. You know what you want. So maybe you start an education program or this or that. You're trying to get a promotion at work, but you, while you're evaluating and doing, you know, masculine energy, you're going after your goals. You use the feminine energy of the moon to evaluate yourself where you triggered, you know, you have this action list of things to do this month that will help you get closer to your goal, but you haven't done anything yet. So through the waxing cycle, you look at these things, how was I triggered? How did I react? And it's not about the person, place or thing that triggered you.

Donna Conley (00:06:38) - It's you want to go inward, which is tough to do. But in my book, I posed certain questions to help you keep looking inward instead of saying, well, this isn't my fault, it's my coworkers’ fault. You know, we have to accept everything in our life and the energy that we bring to whatever happens. Then when the moon is full. It's a lot of people regard that to lunacy and things. But if you are not in sync with the energy, then it does seem like it because the full moon is the polar opposite in zodiac of the new moon. So these are complete opposite energies, but it's not designed to create havoc. It's designed to balance. So whatever the new moon brought that energy, then this energy of the full moon is here to balance that out. Where we're currently. We just had the last night in tonight. It's going to be beautiful. The next couple of days. We had the blue moon supermoon in the sky and the energy is about how do I bring me, and my secret desires the things I don't want to tell anybody about because maybe they'll laugh at me or maybe I don't think I'm going to be successful.

Donna Conley (00:07:54) - These things that we think that hold us back, now's the time to say, okay, I'm going to be me and how do I bring me into the collective? And I do refer to this me versus we,  because we have to learn to be authentic, but then we have to learn to bring our authentic self into society, right? And then after the full moon, it starts to get smaller and it goes back down to the dark moon, the new moon. And that cycle is called the waning. So when it gets, it shrinks in the sky. And this is the time you really want to show yourself grace. You're still going after your goals. You never stopped doing that. But from a feminine moon energy, you want to show yourself grace, you want to let go of things. Whatever you identified as triggering and reactions and things, this is the time to let those things go and they can be hard to do. That's why it's loving, forgiving.

Donna Conley (00:08:49) - There's so many different ways to let go. The concept is so elusive, but there's so many ways to do it. You can forgive yourself. You can forgive somebody else, you know, just showing compassion. There's just there's so many ways to let go. And that's what the waning cycle is about letting go, loving yourself and showing compassion towards others.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:09:11) - So how strict would a person have to follow this to gain the most what they want out of their life? I mean, like, for instance, if you had an idea to start a new project, would you have to wait till the new moon to start it or could you do it at any other time?

Donna Conley (00:09:30) - There are some times of the year that if you start a project and it has to do with planetary alignments and everything, Mercury's in retrograde and all these things and you sign a contract to do something it might not. You might not be setting yourself up for complete success in the way that you envisioned it, but for just typical life goals, making yourself better, learning, growing, transforming yourself, if you want to start something, you can start it at any time.

Donna Conley (00:09:55) - But when you get into really following the lunar cycles, then it can't be strict because you won't follow it, right? You have to create a daily practice that works for you. I always tell people, I give everyone. Everyone has all these tools in their toolbox, right? Well, when you're triggered into something, it's like having a flashlight, right? Everyone has a flashlight in their junk drawer. So something happens, the lights go out, you go for the flashlight, but it's not there. Maybe it's in the closet. You run upstairs and it's like, you know, the time is on because your phone is about to die. So your flashlight on your phone is going to isn't going to work very much longer. So you find a flashlight upstairs, but there's no batteries. Then you go around looking for batteries. You have every battery size but the one you need. And then it's like, okay, well, let's just light a candle.

Donna Conley (00:10:49) - Well, we diffuse essential oils now. We don't have any candles. So then the lights go out, your phone dies and you're sitting in the dark. This is what happens when we're triggered, and we have all of our tools in the toolbox. You can't just pull meditation out when something happens and try to breathe through something, because if you don't do it regularly, it's not going to work exactly how you expect it to. So that's why I use the term daily practice, and it has to be whatever you will do. If journaling isn't your thing, then I wouldn't try to start a journaling practice. If you know meditation, you can learn to do these things for certain and that could be your intention. But creating a practice that gets you self-centered, looking at yourself, looking at how you're growing. Evolving is as long as you do a little bit every day, it can be so small.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:11:49) - Doesn't it build upon itself? Like the more you do it, the stronger you get, the more it becomes a habit. So you're totally entrained with it and it's becoming a practice. It really becomes you.

Donna Conley (00:12:02) - Yeah. Because as you do these things, it become just secondhand nature for you. Your vibration increases, then you start seeing synchronicities of the universe, you know, coaxing you on, and then you start actually manifesting things. You know, I do a collage every year of all these things I want to manifest. Well, this year I had everything that I wanted, but I didn't put it all together on my vision board yet. And so this summer, when I went to do my vision board, I'm like, I need to put these things on the poster board because, you know, it has to be there. And everything's dated on the back. And I was going through these photos and I'm like, well, I can't put this on there more because it already happened. And I was just like, oh my gosh, look at all this stuff I've already manifested this year. And, you know, it's that's once the more you work with energy, the more you see things happening for your greater good and the greater good of everybody else.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:12:58) - Absolutely. But we're going to be talking more about the moon energy and how it can help us with Donna Conley. But we're going to take a short break now, and we'll be right back. 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:14:24) - Yes. Welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. And we're talking about the energy of the Moon with Donna Conley, both on you spoke a bit before about the super moon, but throughout the year, there are moons that we have that we give them special names such as the wolf moon, the harvest moon, the Hunter moon, just to name a few. Do these play a role in the specific type of energy that the moon? 

Donna Conley (00:14:54) - The names are typically North American, like Native American in nature. That's where they came from, but they're related more to nature. So the Hunter's moon is when back in the day, that's when everyone would be going to hunt. The harvest moon is when everyone is going to be making sure they pull the last bit of the vegetables off before frost comes.

Donna Conley (00:15:18) - The strawberry moon is fruits and season. You're out there picking fruit during that season. So it has to do with the energy of nature more than the energy of the sign that it represents.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:15:33) - I see.

Donna Conley (00:15:34) - But we should follow nature. And once you start following the moon, you realize you're following nature anyway. Like when it gets days get shorter. That's more time to be introspective because we're not supposed to be active and doing all these things and you notice yourself starting to just fall in line with nature.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:15:57) - What about eclipses?

Donna Conley (00:16:03) - Eclipses. They amplify energy, supermoon amplifies energy. So you have whatever moon cycle you're in and all whatever that energy is surrounding that zodiac, those things amplify that energy. So that's the best, easiest way to think of those things. Not to get too complicated with them. It's just, okay, whatever's going on today, it's going to be amplified.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:16:29) - Okay. And one of the things that you talk about is a way to clear ourselves is something called moon water. So can you explain what that is and how to use it?

Donna Conley (00:16:38) - Yes, I need to up my game. I saw some pictures of moon water with flowers and fruit and all kinds of stuff. I just have glass containers and I put water outside. I have different containers for certain things, ones the ones that I'm going to drink. And I typically drink it between the full the full, full moon. When you make moon water and then the next new moon, I use it on my flowers and stuff like that to give them the energy from it. So whenever you make moon water, you can charge your crystals and anything you want amplified with this energy and put it out under the moonlight.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:16) - Yeah. I've just put them outside but not in water. So you say this will just amplify what you get from just putting it out there.

Donna Conley (00:17:26) - Yeah.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:29) - That is quite fascinating. 

Donna Conley (00:17:31) - We're under the blue moon and I'm actually making with the intention of capturing this energy blue moon candles. And I'm using certain herbs and crystals and stuff. I do craft fairs, so it's like when you do something under the full moon, it's using that energy and it's infused into what you're doing.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:49) - One of the things that you talk about, you mentioned it earlier, was the practice of journaling. Why do you think it's important and how does that help in the healing process?

Donna Conley (00:18:00) - No matter what it is you're looking for in life, you know, your purpose, why is this happening to me? You already know the answers, even if you really don't know that your higher self has all the answers you need. So really, whatever it is you're trying to do, you're having trouble doing. You want to create. You already know what's holding you back. You already know even ancestral trauma that you've inherited that you don't even really know about. But you know, your higher self knows all of these things. So once you start journaling, it just starts pulling things out. Sometimes I'll start writing on one topic and it completely changes and turns into something else.

Donna Conley (00:18:44) - And that's my higher self saying this is you're focusing on the wrong thing. And then also you can also get into inner child work. So if you're right-handed, right with your left hand and also noticing how you do that, noticing how you critique yourself, Oh, that's messy. Let me scratch this out and try to write it over, because if you're writing with your non-dominant hand, it's definitely not going to be what you're used to. And so how will we talk to each other or self-talk? And all these things come out through journaling that you wouldn't otherwise have.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:19:16) - Where do you start? Like, do you have any prompts that you would suggest somebody use to get started?

Donna Conley (00:19:26) - If there are journaling, what do you need? You just need paper and a pen. You can get a spiral notebook. You need the intention of figuring out whatever it is, especially like with limiting beliefs. We could probably do an entire podcast on that.

Donna Conley (00:19:43) - But whatever's holding you back, pay attention to certain words. Like if you're saying I have to, I should. That's coming from somebody else telling you what you should do, because if it's coming from you authentically, then you want to do it. Look for words like don't can't. Those are all keys to things that are holding you back.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:20:04) - So it's important after you write it to read it back and just to see where those things are. So you could see, oh, I'm writing, I should do this, and I should do that without realizing it. 

Donna Conley (00:20:17) - That's the same thing with intentions. If you write your intentions down, you should still read them out loud. Put it out there for the universe to hear or universe. Here's energy and it doesn't hear negativity. So if your intention is to not get laid off because your company's going through some big changes, well, what the universe hear is because they don't hear negative, they hear get laid off because my company is going through changes and then you could lose your job.

Donna Conley (00:20:45) - So you have to be very specific with intentions with what you want, watch your wording. And so the same thing with journaling. If you see negative words and your intentions, those are cues, clues to things that you should look at and examine.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:21:02) - Absolutely. And do you recommend an amount of time to spend on it or amount of pages to write?

Donna Conley (00:21:09) - No. Sometimes you might write one word, you might just write, I'm tired and that's all. your body is telling you it's not time to journal right now. Go rest or whatever. And sometimes you might sit there and next thing you know you've written five pages. It'll never be the same each time, especially if you're doing pre-written prompts that are guiding you. If they're written by somebody else and you're trying to get things out of your own head, it just might not be the right question for you at that time.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:21:40) - And then you go back. But and guess another part of that is to is to give yourself permission to just be okay with it. Like if you can only write one word, don't beat yourself up for saying, oh, we only have one thing today and that means there's something wrong with me. 

Donna Conley (00:21:56) - Yep. And all that you do show yourself grace and just know if you're, if you're jittery and something, whatever's going on, you get anxious about something. That's your body's talking to you. Slow down and listen to your body. Do what it says to do.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:22:11) - Another thing that you talk about is the importance of rituals. So explain a bit by what you mean by rituals and maybe give me an example or two.

Donna Conley (00:22:21) - Yeah, well, words matter. So some people might not be comfortable with rituals, and they might say habits or whatever, but they're all the same thing. And it's the, you know, like a morning ritual that most people I don't do this because I'm not a coffee drinker, but most people start their day off with a cup of coffee. You can call that a ritual. You can call it a habit; whatever it is you want to call it.

Donna Conley (00:22:44) - Moon rituals are specific to the Zodiac sign of the moon at that time, and you can pull in all kinds of different energy from colors and certain goddess that is with this moon and things like that. And you're doing something very specific. You could do gridding with crystals, but it's very specific to what it is you're trying to create. It can be as elaborate as doing these things with crystals, or it can just be as simple as a little prayer. It doesn't have to be grand and have flowers and put food and stuff outside for nature for Gaia to absorb. And it doesn't have to be all of this. It can just be okay. I've set the intention that I want to try to start journaling, so I know when I have my coffee, I'm sitting there, and I read the paper. Well, maybe I'll put a notebook by the paper, so maybe I can journal a few things in the morning while I'm having my coffee. That can be a ritual that you're trying to do.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:23:49) - That's one of the things that's very helpful about your book, is that you give a lot of exercises for people to do to help cement these concepts into them and see how they apply to their own daily lives. Could you talk about a couple of them that you think could be very helpful? And let's say let's give the example of someone who is unhappy in her job and trying to figure out what to do.

Donna Conley (00:24:17) - Well, one of the if you're unhappy with anything, the one of my favorite activities is I call it timeline journaling. It's like, okay, I'm here. I don't want to be here. I don't know how I got here. Whatever this is. And you want to create change in your life. Timeline journaling just looks at past events and it's just factual. Okay, I did this, this, this. This happened. It's just a factual list of everything. Whether you want to go back one year, five years, ten years. However, whatever makes sense to you to see why you are where you are at this moment in time.

Donna Conley (00:24:57) - Because with me, when I was diagnosed with depression, I did this timeline journaling and I'm like, wow, if you really look at everything, I've been through in the last 18 months, which came first, the Depression or what caused it, that was depression? Or did these events cause the Depression? But when you really look at your life and just see accomplishments, bad things that happened, it doesn't matter. Just list it all. It really helps to see, okay, that's why this is happening right now, and it helps to give you a focal point of certain things to start changing. Some people will have a list of things to start changing, but just pick one to move forward.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:25:44) - It's important that you say pick one because you don't want to be too overwhelming because then you won't start.

Donna Conley (00:25:50) - Yeah, if you're in that point where it's like, okay, I hate my entire life, you know, you can't just change your entire life overnight because that would be probably the most painful thing I could imagine.

Donna Conley (00:26:03) - But just pick one thing. It all starts with one thing. Just do one thing differently. Do something new, do something you're currently doing, but do it differently. Just pick one thing each month and you'll start to see amazing change in your life.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:26:19) - Donna, how did you get interested in using the power of the moon for healing?

Donna Conley (00:26:23) - Well, I it was just my own journey led me to start sinking in with the moon and the energy. And my friends started noticing they're like, I don't know what you're doing, but tell me about it. So I said, well, I'm manifesting with the moon. And I hadn't told anyone because I thought everyone would look at me like I had two heads or something. And they were like, okay, I don't know what that is, but tell me more. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to teach them. And I started doing these monthly reports talking about the moon energy and all these other things. And I didn't know at the time, but those reports became the rough draft for my book Wild Moon Healing.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:05) - Wonderful. Well, Donna, do you have any final thoughts for our audience?

Donna Conley (00:27:10) - Now, just if you're in a bad place or anything, you just like, what do I do? I always say, look up, let the moon guide you. Just feel the energy. You might be standing there like, I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling, but. Just try to tap into that energy and you'll see a smile come across your face or some tension release in your body. Can always just start with the moon.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:37) - Great. Well, Donna, how can people find out more about you and your book?

Donna Conley (00:27:41) - You can go to my website Wild Moon healers.com. You can find my book on Amazon Wild Moon Healing is the book and I have another book, Wild Moon Healing Revolution that just came out.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:56) - Oh fantastic. We’ll want to talk about that book as well.

Donna Conley (00:28:03) – The first book is following Lunar Cycles. And the second book is, well, if you want to know about the moon, you have to know about all these other things and trying to get a revolution started within you. So that's the premise.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:28:16) - Well, Donna, thank you so much for being on Dream Power Radio today.

Donna Conley (00:28:19) - Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:28:22) - We've been speaking about using the moon cycles for self-care with wild moon healer Donna Conley. Hope you've enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector Weisman saying sweet dreams, everybody.

Announcer (00:28:40) - You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Specter Wiseman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to Dream Power Radio.com. This has been Dream Power Radio.