I was attending a meditation at a local meditation center. The dharma talk was about integrity, a pressing question for our times to be sure, but as the teacher threw out questions, a sort of personal inventory about the areas of our lives where we are in or out of integrity, I grew uncomfortable. I know that we are, I am, already whole and undivided – the definition of integrity -and I came for that experience, the opportunity to sit on the cushion in my whole and undivided Perfection.

Self-analysis can be a perilous path. Instead of leading us toward peace, it can keep us from the same peace and wholeness already within. When the teacher suggested we break into dyads, to scrutinize our lives for integrity or lack thereof (with strangers, ugh!), I knew staying there for one more minute would throw me out of integrity. So I walked out. Because I knew there was nothing wrong with me.

Let me back up. Working on myself in this way used to work. I had taken hundreds of similar moral, shadow and belief inventories, like Cosmo quizzes. I mapped out my life imbalances in spidery looking charts, noticing gaping areas for improvement. I became a self-help project unto myself, someone who thought she wasn’t happy unless she was working on her self.

And, over time, slowly and almost imperceptibly, my constant attempt to fix, right and perfect myself created an identity. Because what you focus on grows, I became someone broken. I judged myself. A lot. As wrong, somehow. I didn’t quite understand exactly how, but I knew something must be wrong because I wasn’t able to participate in the mainstream in the way others do (I’d make you a list…but let’s say “I’m different” because that is a complete statement).

Comparison is a dangerous business. There was, of course, nothing wrong with me. Never has been, never will be. I am Perfect. So are you. But this identity I had unintentionally formed, full of self-doubt, had become so solid that it now turned all my spiritual and energetic efforts to sand. I could believe I was Divine Perfection, but I couldn’t know it, because I wasn’t experiencing it, because thinking you are wrong or broken has a way of taking you out of everything right.

Then, one day, after months of trying to believe I was already perfect no matter what, it hit me like a 2×4: There Is Nothing Wrong With Me. The world is out of whack, I experience that to be sure, and I’m different, I don’t fit the mold, and I’m constantly figuring out how to survive in a world that does not mirror the spiritual reality my soul knows to be true, but… There Is Nothing Wrong With Me. Wow! The sense of liberation was instantly transformative. Then, astonishment: I’d been hoodwinked into believing something was wrong. For so many years! Then sadness, because, so many years.

Then deep acceptance crept in slowly like a wave, ebbing in and then washing over me, robbing me of self-condemnation, criticism, judgment. Thoughts happened, but every time they’d knock on the door, I’d turn them away. I could now see these beliefs and thoughts for what they were; thieves stealing my light, my connection to my inner self, my calm, peace, bliss. Contentment and perfection was rightfully mine, always right here within reach.

This is Pisces. This is the art, and necessity, of periodically allowing a great wave of surrender to wash over us and rob our very self of everything keeping us separate from our Divinity. Pisces asks us to surrender what’s become too solid, too “real”. In fact, every concept, idea, learning or teaching we’ve ever made solid will eventually be surrendered.

Something in your life may not be supporting your essence, peace, bliss, but that doesn’t mean that you are wrong. You need ask only one question at this New Moon: Am I suffering? If so, you need pray only one prayer: I surrender to my own Divine Perfection. Because you are already perfect. You are right here. No drama. Just here.

There comes a point in one’s spiritual evolution where you realize all the wounds, hurts, patterns, “issues” you experience… are bottomless. Never-ending. Like a cursed set of Russian nesting dolls, you heal one thing, and the next day another appears. I had reached that point where I could see the Ego lives to create drama after drama. The Ego is like a two-year old that always wants a cookie- your attention. It’s exhausting. I’d given it my all. But not until I pulled back into my essence with the intention of watching its antics like a compassionate, bemused parent did I experience the peace of my true self.

So: If, after all the internal (and sometimes external) drama we always return to light, connection, perfection- why not go directly there instead?

That’s why I suddenly walked out of the meditation class that day. I was tired of trying, constantly trying to fix myself, believing myself to be imperfect, in need of some elusive… something. I was done with the game of thinking that if I just do this or that thing I’ll be one step closer to perfect, to heaven. How masochistic. How punitive. No. Just no.

The last place I expected to have this lesson reinforced was at a meditation class, a gathering place we typically associate with allowing, just be-ing and peaceful acceptance… but I have some karma with Buddhist dogma, so I suppose its par for the course. With assertive Mars in Aries joined change-maker Uranus and oppose expansive Jupiter at this New Moon, any limits or “shoulds” placed on our freedom and personhood will no longer fly. We may break the rules, or surprise our self with how ready we are to say “buh-bye”. The message of the moment is: You are your own best authority.

Solar Eclipse New Moons are big portals for change. Why not go for the gold, straight to the Source, your Divine Perfection? Enlightenment need not take lifetimes. Pisces is the end of the zodiac, symbolizing the final journey home, the shift in consciousness we experience after death, when we let everything we thought we knew about our self go. That’s why its also the sign of enlightenment. Drop the self-condemnation, shame and self-judgment. Just let it go. There’s nothing wrong with you. Lighten up (it’s called en-LIGHT-enment). Take a deep breath…Drop into your body, sink into your belly, your heart space. Feel. Allow. Accept. Witness. Receive. …Your whole and perfect Divinity.