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Feeling held: some thoughts on how astrology has HELPED with my anxiety (inspired by @adinarising‘s excellent thread on doomstrologizing.)
I have a lot of generalized anxiety. I‘ve been in therapy for it for years. This makes it hard to engage with astrology at times because knowing about difficult transits can trigger an intense anxiety reaction, racing heart, sleepless nights and all.
But astrology has also helped with my anxiety. This thread is all about how. But please, if you feel like astrology is making you more anxious than you need to be, it‘s ALWAYS ok to take a day, or a week, or a month off!
First, astrology has helped with my anxiety by making me see the bigger picture. When I get anxious, I often lose myself in endless lists of things that could go wrong. My thoughts spiral, digging themselves deeper and deeper into a hole of doom.
Knowing that my current situation is reflected in the sky by a particular transit makes me see a given situation as a necessary development of a bigger story, and also gives me a time frame for when a difficult situation might end or evolve.
This allows my worry-prone brain to zoom out and put some distance between myself and these overwhelming thoughts that are consuming me in the moment. Just the simple ”yes, this is difficult now, but won‘t last forever“ is incredibly helpful for my anxious brain.
Second, because I KNOW I am going through a difficult transit, can even brace myself for it ahead of time, I find myself better able to be compassionate and patient with myself and allow myself enough time and space to regulate my anxious thoughts/feelings.
It allows me to simply tell myself ”it‘s okay that you are like this right now“ instead of feeling guilty or putting additional pressure on myself because I feel like I should be able to ”function normally“.
Or even worse, compare myself to others and think ”they are able to do this so why can‘t I?“ and proceed to feel terrible about myself on top of feeling anxious. Knowing about my natal chart has given me a map to where I face the biggest struggles.
This validates those struggles, whether they stem from a difficult natal placement or are the result of a transit.
Third, and this is probably the most personal of them all, I feel like by learning about the planets, by engaging with their archetypal forces, I‘ve started to ”know“ them instead of fear them. Even the malefics, in a way, feel like they‘re my friends.
So when I go through a difficult Saturn transit, for example, I feel held & guided by Saturn. I trust him because he‘s playing for my team, so to speak. He‘s taking me on the journey that was promised in my natal chart and I trust that it‘s the right path, even if it may be hard.
I find this knowledge incredibly soothing and it helps me to face uncertainty or change with greater openness.
Much of this boils down to acceptance. Astrology has helped me accept the way I am, weaknesses and all. It helps me accept times of struggle, and it helps me accept inevitable change. All os this helps me calm my nerves, because I know this is how things are supposed to be.
