I fuckin love astrology. The more I learn about my birth chart, the more I understand my self, my past, my purpose, and my personal challenges & contradictions. My sun is in Libra in the 6th House of Work & Health and my moon is directly opposite of it in Aries in the 12th House of the Subconscious mind. Ever since I was a child I always struggled with my physical, mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual health. Astrology has helped me understand why and how health and healing is at the core of my purpose. You see, your moon sign represents how you experience and process emotions IN your body - so having an Aries moon means I experience emotions intensely and if I don't honor them and release them they bubble up as physical pain or uncomfortable sensations in my body - and having my moon in the 12th House of the Subconscious mind means I carried and experienced a lot more emotions in my subconscious that I wasn't ever aware of.
The fact that my Sun and Moon oppose each other means that I have always struggled with my emotions. The shadow aspect of my Libra sun tends to prioritize other people's needs and comfort and neglects and suppresses whatever I need in order to please others. My Aries moon has instinctual and intense reactions to most things - but as a kid I was socialized to believe my reactions and intense emotions were impolite so I became an expert at repressing and ignoring my emotions and reactions to please others and receive their love and approval. I spent an enormous amount of energy stuffing conscious AND subconscious emotions down. That's decades worth of emotions and experiences left unexpressed and unprocessed - that energy didn't just disappear - it shifted into my physical body as pain, illness, physical "malfunctions."
I was a sickly child catching colds ALL the time and the most common symptom I always dreaded was a sore throat. Looking back now I see how my body was showing me how badly I needed to use my voice and express my emotions - that pain literally was stuck in my throat. When I was in 2nd grade I often complained that I couldn't breathe - I constantly had shortness of breath so my parents took me to the doctor but all the tests came back normal. It's only now that I realize my little body was carrying and trying to process grief. Unprocessed grief, I recently learned, manifests in our lungs. When I was a teen and started my moon cycles I had the most irregular and uncomfortable moon cycles. My mom took me to the doctor and they just put me on meds to “regulate” me. But once again it's only in retrospect that I now know my cycles were irregular because my womb - the sacral chakra - is the energetic center that processes and holds our emotions. I had been carrying repressed and unprocessed conscious and subconscious emotions for 12 years at that point, so of course my womb and sacral chakra was overwhelmed.
There were a lot of layers to the trauma I experienced as a child and it's only now, 20+ years later, that I have the tools, time, psychological bandwith, awareness, and desire to process, heal, and make peace with those wounds. As much as I love and respect my parents and as much as they love and respect me - they both deeply wounded me (unintentionally or not). It is through my healing process that I see how deeply wounded they were and understand why and how they deeply wounded each other and by extension wounded me. And I'm also able to trace their wounds back to colonization, patriarchy, and white supremacy.
Trauma by definition happens when we experience too much of something too suddenly and too intensely before we're able to cope and process. So as a child I had experiences that triggered physiological feelings of terror, fear, despair, anxiety, grief, anger, rage, resentment, and so on. These feelings and bodily sensations happened too intensely, suddenly, and too often for years on end. On top of all that I also energetically picked up on the intense emotions my parents were carrying. My body was not ready or equipped to feel, sit with, make sense of, and transmute these emotions and experiences into something useful. So I lugged these burdens around for the past 26+ years and did my best to cope and distract myself from the pain and discomfort.
The discomfort I struggled with the most was anger and resentment. In my early 20's all I remember feeling towards my dad was disdain and resentment. I remember drinking heavily - often til I blacked out - and that was the only time my spirit felt uninhibited enough to release my pain, anger, and resentment - it was NOT a pretty sight (I meannn imagine a drunk, angry, Aries moon in the 12th house D: yikesss lol) - especially if I had been triggered by my partner.
I was tired of feeling so angry and resentful - I desperately wanted to forgive my dad but didn't know how to access forgiveness emotionally in my body and spirit. So for the past 5 years I've been on an intentional journey to heal my childhood wounds and learn what it means to embody compassion and forgiveness. This journey has required tremendous courage, surrender, and faith. I've had to do a lot of unlearning and re-parenting. I've had to develop a tolerance for and sit with incredibly painful and uncomfortable sensations and emotions in my body. It's true - the only way to heal it is to feel it.
What's beautiful though is how my purpose - to heal my body, mind, and spirit and to assist others in their healing - is clearly expressed in my birth chart. A big part of my healing process is to reclaim and use my voice to share my stories and wounds and how I process and heal through them. My hope is that my stories may resonate with you and ignite your desire to further your healing journey as well.