Is Your Anxiety a Monster or a Message? What Perseus, Psyche, and the Planets Say

Let me be clear: anxiousness isn’t new. It didn’t include TikTok, inflation, or your coworker (let’s name her Karen) who insists on replying-all to each electronic mail. Anxiousness has all the time been a part of the human expertise. It’s older than your therapist, older than Freud, and undoubtedly older than the DSM.

However whereas trendy psychology affords us diagnoses and prescriptions, astrology and mythology hand us one thing even juicier: symbols, tales, and patterns that really imply one thing. As a result of anxiousness, my mates, isn’t only a medical inconvenience. It’s typically a soul-level sign that the unconscious is making an attempt to get a phrase in edgewise.

And after we tune into mythology—these timeless, archetypal dramas that echo via astrology—we start to see our personal struggles mirrored within the lives of gods, mortals, and monsters. In the present day, we’re zooming in on two mythological blockbusters: Perseus and Medusa, and Eros and Psyche. Why? As a result of they aren’t simply bedtime tales for mythology nerds—they’re metaphors for anxiousness in motion. And sure, we’re going to herald the astrology, as a result of I don’t know the best way to inform a narrative with out a planet or ten.

The Fable of Perseus and Medusa: Anxiousness and the Gorgon Inside

Let’s begin with Perseus. He’s your traditional Greek hero: shiny, courageous, mildly clueless, and really, very photogenic. He’s given a suicide mission: decapitate Medusa, the monster with snakes for hair and a gaze that turns males to stone. (You recognize, your typical first date.)

However right here’s the twist: Perseus doesn’t take a look at Medusa immediately. If he does, he turns into a statue. As an alternative, he makes use of a mirrored defend to view her reflection and strike safely.

In psychological astrology, this complete fable is principally a masterclass in dealing with anxiousness as shadow content material.

Medusa isn’t only a monster. She’s an emblem of repressed concern, disgrace, rage, and trauma. She turns folks to stone as a result of she paralyzes them with the depth of what they’re not able to face. Sound acquainted? That’s anxiousness, of us.

And Perseus? He’s the ego making an attempt to do shadow work with out getting annihilated.

The mirrored defend is the place astrology is available in. That is the Moon, the planet of reflection. The Moon doesn’t generate gentle—it displays it. It governs intuition, emotion, and the ever-shifting panorama of the unconscious. Should you’re having an anxiousness assault, chances are high the Moon is doing one thing nasty in your chart. Moon-Pluto sq.? Your internal baby might be screaming. Moon-Neptune opposition? You could be absorbing everybody’s emotional particles like a psychic Roomba.

However like Perseus, the aim isn’t to confront our monsters head-on. It’s to mirror on them, observe them via the symbolic mirror of fable and astrology, and solely then take acutely aware motion. That’s how we make anxiousness manageable—we don’t deny the Gorgon exists. We study to take a look at her via the fitting lens.

Should you’ve bought a chart filled with arduous Mercury facets (Mercury sq. Uranus, Pluto, or Neptune), congratulations. You could be the proud proprietor of an overthinking, overstimulated thoughts that invents new types of dread earlier than breakfast. Your Medusa isn’t within the bushes. She’s in your inbox. However that’s OK. Astrology offers us a mirrored defend: we don’t must turn out to be our anxiousness. We simply must study from it.

Ideas for Working with Perseus-style Anxiousness:

• Use journaling as your mirrored defend. Write out your fears with out judgment.
• Discover when your ideas begin to spiral—that is normally your private Gorgon waking up.
• Work with Moon phases and transits. Full Moons typically convey hidden anxieties to the floor. Don’t panic—observe.
• Visualize your anxiousness as a picture or creature. What does it need you to know?

Eros and Psyche: Love, Belief, and the Concern of Seeing Clearly

If Perseus and Medusa is about dealing with anxiousness, the parable of Eros and Psyche is about intimacy, uncertainty, and the anxiousness of not understanding.

Right here’s the SparkNotes: Psyche is a mortal so stunning it makes Aphrodite insecure (which, actually, seems like a Venus sq. Pluto transit ready to occur). As punishment, Psyche is cursed to fall in love with somebody she will by no means take a look at. That somebody seems to be Eros, the god of erotic love. Each evening, he visits her in the dead of night. They fall in love. However she is forbidden to see his face.

Ultimately, overcome with anxiousness and curiosity (learn: Mercury in Virgo sq. Neptune in Sagittarius), Psyche lights a lamp to get a peek at her thriller lover. The second she sees him, every part falls aside.

Right here, anxiousness exhibits up not as panic or paralysis, however as the stress between belief and concern. Psyche can’t belief what she will’t see. She wants readability. She wants certainty. She must know.

Enter Mercury. Mercury guidelines notion, thought, and the necessity to make sense of issues. When Mercury is tangled in arduous facets with Neptune, Pluto, or the Moon, we frequently see a psyche that may’t relaxation till it figures all of it out. Psyche’s title, by the way in which, actually means “soul” in Greek. So the parable is, fairly actually, the soul experiencing anxiousness about being in the dead of night.

And actually? Who amongst us hasn’t lit a metaphorical lamp to peek at what we weren’t able to see? That 2 a.m. deep dive into an ex’s Instagram? Lighting the lamp. Obsessively checking somebody’s texts for a change in tone? Lighting the lamp.

Psyche loses every part the second she breaks the belief. However right here’s the deeper message: her journey solely actually begins as soon as the anxiousness blows all of it up. She has to undergo trials. She has to descend into the underworld. She has to earn her wholeness. In Jungian phrases, that is the individuation course of: the soul should separate, endure, and wrestle earlier than it may turn out to be totally itself.

So what can we do with this fable? We acknowledge that anxiousness typically exhibits up in the mean time simply earlier than transformation. It’s the nervous system’s manner of claiming, “One thing vital is going on right here. Concentrate.”

Ideas for Working with Psyche-style Anxiousness:

• Follow sitting with the unknown. Not each concern requires instant solutions.
• Use dreamwork to faucet into hidden messages out of your unconscious.
• Should you’re overwhelmed by emotional ambiguity, discover your natal Mercury and Neptune facets—what story are they telling?
• When anxiousness hits, ask your self: Am I making an attempt to pressure readability too quickly?

Astrology as Mythic Mirror

What each myths have in widespread is that this: anxiousness seems as a sign that one thing unconscious is breaking via. Medusa seems when the repressed Shadow will get too huge to comprise. Eros disappears when the soul can now not stay in the dead of night.

And astrology? Astrology offers us the language to decode these moments. It tells us when the Moon is triggering an previous wound, when Neptune is fogging our imaginative and prescient, when Pluto is whispering from the basement, or when Uranus is zapping our nervous system with existential static.

It doesn’t repair anxiousness. Nevertheless it makes it significant. And in my expertise, which means is what makes anxiousness bearable.

As a result of the second you understand your panic assault is a Perseus second—a monster rising that you just’re lastly able to face—or that your nervous breakdown is a Psyche second—a revelation that can finally result in larger love and selfhood—every part shifts.

You cease asking, “What’s unsuitable with me?” and begin asking, “What’s making an attempt to emerge?”

Last Ideas from the Astrologer with Anxiousness

I’ve Mercury conjunct Pluto. I overanalyze, obsess, catastrophize, and sometimes spiral as a result of I haven’t eaten. I’m not penning this from some anxiety-free mountaintop. I’m writing it with a espresso in a single hand, a stress ball within the different, and transiting Neptune oppose my Mercury.

However right here’s what I’ve realized:

Astrology doesn’t rescue you from anxiousness. It fingers you a map. The monsters don’t go away. However they turn out to be acquainted. They turn out to be built-in. And typically, they turn out to be allies.

So the subsequent time your thoughts is racing, your breath is shallow, and your abdomen is filled with dread?

Ask your self: Am I about to fulfill Medusa? Or am I about to gentle the lamp?

Both manner, it’s not the top.

It’s just the start of the story.

And if all else fails, verify your transits. Mercury may simply be in retrograde once more (and it at the moment is). Wherein case, pour some tea and conceal your lamp—for now.

Curse Breakers

I just lately recorded a podcast with Jacki Smith for Curse Breakers on anxiousness, you possibly can take heed to what we now have to say under: