There’s a special kind of exhaustion that comes from doing work that doesn’t work. It’s not necessarily the workload, but the inefficiency and meaninglessness that sucks the life out of us.
What was supposed to be a short-term band-aid is now the new process that leaks time. The standard that used to motivate you now feels suffocating to try to meet. And the “I’ll deal with it later” pile has become a constant threat running in the background of your days that is starting to hum louder and louder the longer you avoid it.
I’ve been noticing this pattern a lot lately both in conversations with clients and colleagues and in my own work. There’s this nagging feeling of needing to get it right. But who’s version of “right” are we really striving for? What does “right” even look like? And what’s the consequence if we get it “wrong”?
Most of us aren’t perfectionists because we intrinsically love perfection. We’re perfectionists because somewhere along the way we learned that being useful, being capable, or being the one who could handle anything was the safest way for us to exist. Our perfectionism was developed as a survival tool, and we’ve clung to it without ever stopping to ask if it’s still serving us — until now.
In the early hours of Tuesday, March 3rd, a Lunar Eclipse in Virgo arrives — and the week that follows will hold this pattern to the surface for review.
This eclipse is occurring in the sign of the perfectionist, while Virgo’s ruling planet is in a review period of its own. Which means this is a mandatory audit for the collective — resisting the review will only draw out the discomfort. If you’ve been feeling off in ways you can’t quite articulate, you’re not alone. This moment is significant — and will have you stepping into an entirely new identity when you reach the other side of it.
A note on Virgo before we go further, because I think it tends to get a bad rap.
The perfectionsm that Virgo is motivated by is, at its core, an act of service. Virgo wants to express love by finding the most efficient path forward by uncovering what’s actually necessary vs. what’s inherited pressure. Locating one small adjustment that changes everything is never meant to be taken as criticism — it’s meant to be care.
But when Virgo is stressed, it curdles into impossible standards, over-functioning, burnout, and an obsession with fixing everything — even what is not yours to fix. It turns into micromanaging not only yourself but everyone else around as a mechanism of control instead of a benevolant helping hand.
Lunar Eclipses illuminate what we’ve been subconsciously carrying — the emotional undercurrents that have been quietly driving behavior without us fully realizing it. What makes this eclipse worth paying particularly close attention to is that Mercury, Virgo’s ruler, is currently retrograde in Pisces — the sign sitting directly opposite Virgo on the zodiac axis.
In case you missed the full post: Mercury governs how we think, communicate, and make sense of things. In retrograde, it asks us to slow down and look again. And in Pisces, the most internal, impressionistic, boundary dissolving sign, it’s not reviewing your habits and to-do lists, it’s reviewing the beliefs that created them.
So this eclipse is doing double duty.
Virgo is pulling at the outer layer — the systems, routines, standards, and ways you show up and make yourself useful every day. Mercury Rx in Pisces is working in parallel on another plane — surfacing the beliefs beneath the behavior, the feelings you’ve been filing away, and the inner narrative that’s been running everything.
Together, they’re asking the question:
What have you been fixing that was never yours to fix — and what made you feel like it was your responsibility in the first place?
As I’ve been writing this, I’m recognizing how this theme has been showing up at work. The daily conversations I’ve been having with my team lately have centered around recognizing what we can actually do something about vs. where we’ve been overextending to try to fix (save) people and projects that are outside of our control.
Most of the people I know who overextend, who stay too late, who take on things that aren’t there’s to take on are the ones that genuinely care. I’m grateful to work with people who want to help, but caring has started to come at a cost — not just to their own workload, but to their mental and emotional wellbeing. Watching this theme build before my eyes has raised a few big questions.
Why do we believe personal sacrifice is required to show we care?
Why is it so hard to say “this isn’t mine to fix”?
Why is putting our own needs first still, for so many of us, so hard to do?
At its most evolved, Virgo is about efficiency — recognizing what’s necessary and releasing everything else. But the shadow of Virgo is the inability to put things down — the attachment to the belief that if you stop tending to it, it will fall apart. And if it falls apart, it says something about your worth.
The planets are always working in service of our collective growth. And in this moment, Mercury and the Eclipse are doing the heavy lifting for us. What we’re being asked to do is pay attention and be willing to look at what they’re pointing at. The eclipse will close what’s run its course in your outer world. Mercury will resurface what’s ready to be reconsidered in your inner one.
You don’t have to take action. You just have to be honest.
This eclipse will teach us to tell the difference between service that comes from feeling whole and service that comes from feeling like you’re not enough. Those two things can look identical from the outside, the gap is how you feel about inside.
The question up for review right now isn’t whether you’re doing too much. It’s about why you’re doing what you’re doing — are you truly helping or are you managing your anxiety about what happens when things aren’t perfect?
Reflection prompts to use this week:
Where in your work or life are you doing something that’s draining you that no one actually asked you to do?
Is the standard your holding yourself to yours, or one that was inherited and never questioned or examined?
If you released the heaviest thing you’ve been trying to fix or carry, how would that feel? And what comes up for you when you sit with that feeling?
If you don’t know what you’re feeling or what you’re “supposed” to look at, that’s okay. Trust that the clarity will arrive, sometimes in layers, and there is nothing you can do to force it. Notice what’s ready to be released when it’s ready to be released, and commit to one small adjustment that will protect who you are becoming.
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone
If this eclipse/retrograde combo is stirring things that you don’t want to process alone, come join me for a Conscious Retrospective. This (free) group call is a safe community space to reflect and clarify what you’re releasing and how you’ll move differently in the future.
Letting go of something that isn’t yours to carry is a radical act of self love. I’m working on it, too.
See you on the other side,
Marissa