DISCLAIMER: I want to preface before you read this post that I BELIEVE IN ASTROLOGY. I will always believe in it and it will always be in my life in some way or another, whether it’s honoring the cycles of the moon or celebrating the start of a new Sun season. I am not telling anyone what to do or what to believe in anything you read below. These are just my personal thoughts, opinions, and beliefs based on my own life experiences thus far.

A month ago, I was subscribed to and would frequently listen to astrology podcasts, downloaded and closely tracked all the major astrology apps on my phone, and was following a gazillion astrologer accounts on social media. I knew exactly when the Sun was moving into what sign, what planets were doing what on any given day, when exactly a planet was going into retrograde and into what sign, what was in my whole birth chart and in the birth charts of my closest people (yeah, I know, kinda creepy…but I LOVE HARD OKAY)…you get the idea. I followed astrology like those people you know that intently follow the stock market LOL.

Today, I am no longer subscribed to astrology podcasts, have no astrology apps downloaded, and I follow maybe 1 or 2 accounts on Instagram that touch upon a brief overview of mostly Sun- and Moon-centered astrological transits.

“Nina, are you going through some sort of quarter-life crisis?” Well, maybe. But I am not all of a sudden disbelieving astrology and hanging up my “I believe in astrology” robe.

I have a deep reverence for the Universe and everything in it. Astrology has been around for thousands of years, if not much longer than is accurately and historically recorded. If you read any ancient text out there, there is some mention of the stars, of the planets, and of the Universal Cosmos and/or personified God in some way or another.

Even as a trained scientist, I believe in our relationship with the planets, the stars, and the Universal energy around us. I always will. There have been WAY too many things that have been creepily predicted by astrological transits and have been way too accurate for my comfort.

Hell, at the end of 2019, and when I was following a ton of astrology podcasts, EVERY SINGLE astrologer sensed something really really intense happening in 2020. Like super intense. They didn’t know what exactly “it” was, but they knew that something was coming that was going to shake up the way the world as we knew it was operating. I remember having this heavy feeling in me as if I was preparing to brace for something. And, well, the rest is the rest.

So, why am I having this “redefining talk” with astrology for the time being?

It has nothing to do with astrology, itself, and has everything to do with me. Yes yes, the cliché is happening here: “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Let me also add here that I am speaking from a lens of someone that has been a historically anxious person and is working very hard to not catastrophize the worst case scenario in every situation.

Sometimes my catastrophizing (and occasionally predicting correctly) had led me to think that I was somehow a wizard (where is my Hogswarts letter, yo?) in being able to GUARANTEE certainty in everything as long as I METICULOUSLY PLAN the future: what job I’ll be in next, what home I’ll be living in, who I’ll be married to, what car I’ll have, timing my coffee so I’d pee at the perfect time, etc.

Plan. Plan. Plan. Plannity plan.

But, as you all know, we can’t predict the future no matter how much time we spend planning or forcing outcomes. You can plan a wedding for a year and then have it rain on your wedding day even though you didn’t plan for there being rain. We can only do so much in life with what circumstances are present for us.

Any of you relate to this discomfort with uncertainty? If you’re human (or at least partly human), I imagine you hardcore relate.

To us as humans, we have convinced ourselves (and with the influence of our upbringing, society, genes, trauma, past lives, systemic thought patterns, and more) that certainty equals COMFORT. Predictability. Guaranteed outcomes. An avoidance of pain, suffering, and discomfort.

To many of us, uncertainty = death, endless pain, suffering, and/or discomfort. We doubt our abilities to navigate life when there isn’t a map in front of us.

Unfortunately, we can’t escape pain, suffering, and discomfort. And sometimes we are given a map, only to have it fly away in the wind or getting a different map than we wanted placed in front of us.

Yet, we still convince ourselves that we can “prepare” and guard ourselves against looming uncertainty. An example of this that comes to mind is when I kept hearing this in my teens/20s from myself and others, “I’m going to break up with them before they break up with me!” By taking predetermined action, we think we are “preventing” the repercussions and/or discomfort that is sure to follow any difficult decision or challenging season of life.

But, as we all know, we can’t run away from discomfort, pain, suffering, and uncertainty—it is an ever-present part of being human.

What we can do is learn to be present with what life presents in front of us. We can learn to trust our own strength, our intuition, and our inner warriors within and trust that we CAN and WILL face the challenges that will inevitably come our way.

Ok, so I went off a small tangent there, but let’s come back to how these concepts relate to why I am redefining my relationship with astrology.

I have always been into astrology since I was young—reading daily horoscopes and walking around saying, “What’s your zodiac sign? I’m a Taurus! Yay! La la la la!” I mean, if anyone knows me, ya’ll know I STILL do that to this day!

I’ll never forget the moment I learned about what a birth chart was and read mine for the first time. My immediate thought was, “WHOA!!! It’s okay to be like this! I am not weird and there are others out there like me!” and it made me feel less alone and validated in all my weirdness, complexity, and quirks. This was a beautiful way to start honoring my authentic self more.

But, I then started to catch myself when I would start to have thoughts like, “Ooooh…what is this person’s Moon sign? I wonder if it’s an Earth sign! That means we’ll get along for sure!” or “That guy on this dating app is a [insert Sun sign here], so maybe I should swipe left because there’s no way we’d get along!” This is when I started to notice my relationship with astrology was starting to become less about what brings us all together and, instead, was subconsciously seeing it as something that would separate myself from others.

But we are not separate from one another. We are all made of the same stuff. A lot of stuff.

And over time, I started to also develop an unhealthy dependence on astrology that was diluting the self-trust I was putting a lot of time into cultivating. In the recent times of uncertainty and, in what feels like an all-time extreme of chaos in the world, I found myself leaning on astrology extra hard as a way to delegate the difficult feelings & uncertainty I was facing. Instead of turning towards it as a helpful guide, I was turning towards it as the ultimate source of answers. I was becoming more complacent in my own inner work of sitting with discomfort and instead would brush off my own accountability and put it on the transits.

Let me give you some examples of the kinds of thoughts I’ve had in the most recent years (and keep in mind, I am NOT an astrologer and these might be “roll-your-eyes-worthy” if you are an astrologer, haha!):

“Oh..well [insert event here] is happening, so this discomfort I am feeling will go away as soon as that is over. Phew!”

“Why aren’t things getting better? WHAT THE HELL, URANUS?!?!?!?!”

“Oh, I shouldn’t socialize today, even though I really want to be social, but this transit is moving through my [insert number here] house and it’s better for me to be totally alone today.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t pursue this goal because [insert planet here] is in retrograde and I should wait until a better time arrives even though I am super excited by this opportunity.”

“Oh nooooooo, Venus is Retrograde in [insert sign here] so I absolutely SHOULD NOT date until it’s stationed direct so I don’t date people like my exes (or an ex again) even though I am ready, excited, and have done a lot of inner work to heal past patterns!”

…..and the list goes on.

I would hand over my inner authority and decision-making to the astrological transits instead of having the planets, the stars, and the Universe act as co-creative guides alongside my own inner authority and intuition.

And then, there would be the fatalistic and catastrophic language that I would sometimes read or hear about in astrology reports. And, as an anxious person, this was a recipe for me to spiral into impending doom spiral madness.

I would hear things like:

“Life will not be the same after this transit…”

“Brace yourself because we haven’t seen this transit in [insert number here] years and it’s going to stir things up in a really challenging way….”

“This is going to be an extra challenging [insert number here] years for you because of this transit…”

And BOOM.

Something snapped in me a month ago that made me realize that instead of approaching astrology with a sense of wonder, awe, and curiosity like I used to, it became the defining rule book for all my actions, beliefs, and decisions in life. :::cough::: Saturn in Capricorn baby over here :::cough:::

It was then that I realized I no longer was operating under my own inner authority and intuition, but was giving it away. And the more I gave it away, the less trust I had in myself to be able to navigate through all the uncertainties in life.

I was not being present nor mindful at all. I was CONSTANTLY anticipating what was going to happen in the future. I would even lose sleep over some catastrophic things I would hear on a podcast or on social media.

And this is opposite to the direction I want my life to go in–a direction where I am more present. A direction where I flow with what unfolds in my life. A direction where I am mindful of what is happening right now. A direction where I can soak in the beauty of the now just as it is. A direction where I know I have the strength to overcome what obstacles arise and climb any mountains that are on my path.

And this doesn’t mean I am completely removing astrology from my life, but it means I am transforming and redefining my relationship with it into one that is co-creative and more aligned with my current values.

Here is how I imagine that looking:

• I will continue to set intentions on every New Moon as a practice of mindfulness for honoring the beautiful introspective energy that she is bathing us in.

• I will continue to celebrate what blessings are in my life on every Full Moon and honor the full light that she is shining on us.

• I will continue to celebrate the gifts, lessons, and wisdom of each Sun sign as each new season begins.

• I will be compassionate to my Inner Child and respect her wishes if she feels that we are crossing boundaries with astrology at any given time.

• I will give myself and others the freedom to be more than what a birth chart says and to surprise ourselves (and the Universe) with what different versions we may evolve into.

What I will NO LONGER do is:

• Give my inner authority away, but instead contribute the wisdom of my inner authority in co-creating a safer and more compassionate world with the Universe, the stars, the planets, and all other celestial bodies/beings.

• Scroll through impending doom astrology reports and lose sleep as I spiral into an anxious blob of impending doom at 1 AM based on what “threatening” or “scary” transits are about to happen in the future.

• Label upcoming transits as “good” or “bad” and just allow for what is to be what it is, knowing that I have the strength to deal with what comes even if it is fucking hard.

And you know what? What I experience day-to-day, month-to-month, or year-to-year may very well likely coincide with what is happening with the transits happening around me. But instead of having this mentality of, “Well, I knew this would happen”, I want to leave room for mystery, curiosity, and a sense of of wonder for the amazing synchronicity of us and this beautiful planet.

After all, we are all made of the same stuff. We are not so different from the stars, the planets, and the Universal energy.

In fact, many ancient civilizations may tell you that we ARE Universal energy.

And…I can’t help but wonder if our collective energy on Earth influences the stars & planets just as much as they influence what happens to us on Earth. Maybe we are much more a part of a bidirectional co-creative process than we thought. Some food for thought, I suppose.

Sending so much love to you out there and thanks for reading my nerdy ramblings. Be well!

Nina