Dear Elsa
I wonder whether a worrying nature shows up in charts, and in particular, a type of worrying I’m subject to. My all-time favorite saying is: “I have been through many terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” I see this as a subset of worrying: imagining something going wrong (when there isn’t any particularly strong likelihood, just a possibility) and then “living” the experience in your imagination as opposed to worrying about real things that are actually happening.
In my case, I have experienced this conjuring up of the possibility of a bad experience and “experiencing it” only in relation to work (never about my health, loved ones, natural disasters or anything else), but it can be debilitating. Endless waking up at 3 a.m. night after night and spending several hours in a literal sweat over imagined possibilities of disaster (in my case, in the form of work mistakes!) While my guess is this is not a transit as this is of long duration in my life, I’d be interested to know if you think this sort of thing is discernible in astrological charts, and if so, if it’s a transit or something natal.
Worried
United States
Dear Worried,
Worry is widely ascribed to Virgo and you have a stellium in the sign. Further, ruler Mercury is conjunct Saturn (FEAR) so double or triple the effect and if you want some icing on that, add in your Pisces imagination and the case becomes overwhelming.
I am not even remotely surprised you become disabled with worry with a chart like this, however just like everything else there are numerous ways the energy can be expressed.
To answer your question, yes it’s natal and yes it’s a transit. The problem exists in your chart… and Saturn in Virgo is begging you to work on it which is what you did when you sent this question. 🙂
Anyone else?
Very interesting. For many years, starting when I was 12 or so, I had completely debilitating bouts of irrational worry and fear, usually about my health. I also have Pluto conjunct Uranus in Virgo, but I know most of my peers do as well so I wonder what else it is in my chart that is responsible.
Okay, I ‘fess up that this poor debilitated worry-wart is me! Thanks for posting my question, Elsa. 😉
If anybody has thoughts on how to work with this energy to lessen its impact, I would sure appreciate reading them. I have made major career decisions that were to my detriment (in terms of conventional success) but were necessary to find relief.
I must admit that the very real issues others on the board are having to deal with make me a little ashamed of my often imaginary worries, but there it is. ;-(
Casseia – did it eventually subside? And if you don’t mind me asking, was there any basis for you having health worries at age 12 or did you just pluck it out of thin air?
I don’t know why the focus of my worries has been on work, except that I had a profession with early success resulting in lots of responsibility thrust on me before I was ready, with no real support, and excessively high expectations (from others and myself,) and I buckled under it.
bew – first advice, search “The Gift Of Fear” on this blog… very good book, ideal for someone like you. You can pick up bits, an overview from this blog.. but the book is well worth buying
Will do, Elsa! And I’ll get it from Amazon, so I can bless my favorite astrologer in the process! 😉
Well that 8th House looks a bt daunting, doesn’t it?
My un-professional 2 bits would be that Sun/Chiron would provoke a feeling that one has to take on the responsibility of everyone’s well-being.
Mercury/Saturn perhaps has you feeling more in control (Saturn) of your thoughts (Mercury) than you currently are. Add Neptune rolling over those two? Well I’m not surprised you’re having trouble sleeping.
I can’t say enough about yoga and meditation. Meditation in particular for quietening a restless mind. Yoga for realizing your body and your mind are connected. And to reiterate my meditation teacher: if you can do meditation for only one minute one day, but two minutes the next you are progressing.
Good luck 🙂
yeah…I meant to say that mercury/saturn has might have you feeling that you OUGHT to be more in control of your feelings than you are, bew?
I have Mercury/Saturn (square) and find this to be one of the lessons these planets can bring to you. Letting go.
What the hell man, I can’t even string a few words together? LOL!
Thanks, bew! 🙂
Thanks, Kashmiri. Will ponder – your comment regarding taking responsibility for everyone is spot on – and fundamental to the profession I did have – where taking responsiblity for another’s problems was fundamental to the job. It nearly drowned me.
I’ve tried meditation for this very issue before but was unable to sustain it (I do think it was helping.) Perhaps it’s time to try again.
Virgo stellium, 3rd house Saturn, Cap rising, etc here.
What helped me was:
1. Meditation/mindfulness training to keep a closer eye on my thoughts.
2. Cultivating gratitude: viz. the idea that worry is “anti-gratitude.”
3. Cultivating more faith in the idea that, ultimately, no matter what happens I’m going to be OK.
4. Realizing that worrying = not actually DOING anything.
5. Generally trying to lighten up in general. 🙂
bew, thanks for asking! No, I completely plucked the fear out of thin air, mostly a fear that I had cancer, once rabies (I know it sounds ridiculous but that one involved full-on panic attacks.) I did also have a period in early adolescence when I was obsessed with the fear of nuclear war, but that was during the Reagan era, so it may not have been completely irrational 😉 (The extent to which I took it, though, was way over the top — spontaneous crying jags, mostly, and nightmares.) By the time I was in my twenties it was all about breast cancer. No family history, I knew no one with it, just random fear.
This may be headed into un-PC territory, but partly I attribute my “remission” to taking Zoloft. When I’m on Zoloft and a thought like this arises, I recognize it and set it aside. When I’ve taken a break from the med, those thoughts have a tar-baby quality — they’re just very sticky and I can’t seem to pry them loose, and pretty soon I’m spiraling downward. The other thing I credit is nursing my daughter for four years — it really changed my relationship to my breasts and they became not something to be afraid of but something I felt proud of. (Pluto transited my natal Mars, smack-dab in the middle of Libra, right when I hit puberty,and I wonder if that had something to do with all of it.)
Hey bew I feel ya. I am Pisces Sun, Virgo moon and rising and I worry way more than anyone should. About 5 years ago I suffered debilitating panic attacks for about sick months. They came out of no where and left just as abruptly. Panic and worry are all about control and the fear of the loss of it. I used to panic that my younger brother was in some kind of dire danger and I would check on him every 10 minutes to assuage that panic. Eventually I think I realized that even if I wasn’t in control, most things were okay in the end.
In my case anyway, this was around the time I was planning on leaving my home for the first time ever. I think I focused in all the uncertainty I felt about that situation into one aspect of my life (my brother). I could (sometimes) control my brother, but I couldn’t really control what would happen to me once I went out into the great unknown. In the end, it was all about something bigger. Breathing and focusing helped me, as well as finding an immediate diversion to stop the worry thought spiral.
I know how much it sucks, it’s not at all a fun way to live. I really hope you can work through it.
“where taking responsiblity for another’s problems was fundamental to the job. It nearly drowned me”
Ah, that sounds extremely Pisces to me. My Partner has South Node in Pisces, my bf is a Pisces Moon, and I have been graced with many a Pisces in my life…and something that arises again and again is the question of how to define boundaries.
I know that meditation can be a really hard slog for some, but don’t forget about active meditation…like swimming 🙂
or even hand-washing your dishes and granting yourself the pleasure of thinking about nothing except the fact you are washing a plate.
Some people (myself included) find active meditation a good transition from anxiety—> so-called “real” meditation.
Oops…I think my (new) comment got eaten in the filter. I just wanted to add that your suggestions were great, Jilly.
Casseia we’re not allowed to worry about being PC on Elsa’s blog.
Right Elsa..? He he 😉
RE: PC, what you do with your mouth (or keyboard) is entirely up to you!!
i feel for you too, bew. i have a “worry and try to save others” kinda chart, and spent about a decade working in the social services. used to say the people who are best at that kinda work often have the hardest time with it. burnout is rampant for that very reason. i remember repeating to myself at times something i’d read: “I didn’t create these problems and I cannot fix them.” ultimately, though, i burned out and jumped ship to a different field.
it’s a lot better for me than it used to be, so i’ll share some of what helped with the hopes it might benefit you. (but i’m not going to WORRY about whether or not it does- har!)
a show i saw on the brain, oddly enough, helped, as they explained that a vividly imagined experience was the same to your brain as actually experiencing something in real life. i thought to myself, “ok, i can worry and basically force myself to repeatedly live out pain that isn’t real and isn’t mine, or i can refuse to suffer for things that aren’t currently in my reality.” it’s not like the worry somehow made me better equipped when soemthing did happen. it didn’t.
the Gift of Fear rocks, by the way. 🙂
when i started reading manifesting stuff, of course i started worrying that the worry itself was making bad stuff more likely to happen. har! but i still read it and it does encourage me now. i just try to move myself to a slightly better place whenever i hit a thought that doesn’t feel good, rinse and repeat. i like the Abraham-Hicks stuff personally.
i also listened/read a fair amount of eastern philosophy, zen, etc. which is very helpful and i still do when i’m having a rough time. meditation is helpful, although i have limited discipline for it. but even a break listening to classical or new age music is helpful.
heck. sitting out on the front porch, drinking coffee, and letting the emotion “blow off” me helps.
i also keep a private journal of letters to my own “higher power,” and release all worries that stick in my head to that persomna when they root. then i like to follow up by taking a nap.
i sometimes “shower off” worries and visualize cutting the energy cords while in the shower that attach me to others, releasing the energy to them to use as they see fit. that gives some relief.
and you know what? there are times when my concerns about people i care about are totally justified. but i still work on letting it go. a few years of experience with a kid who had literally life-threatening issues that i tried very hard to save her from unsuccessfully convinced me that the only choice i really had was for me, and whether or not i was going down for her issues. i opted no.
now, especially where others are concerned, i just have come to the position that my life belongs to me to live as i please, and theirs belongs to them, and i don’t have the moral right to try and save them from themselves. doesn’t mean i don’t ever slip, but i do a lot better than i used to.
hope you find your own zen, bew.
What tremendously helpful ideas from each one of you – thank you for being so generous with what has worked for you. I really appreciate, and intend to use (or at least try out), every single one of the things you’ve mentioned, because as Elsa said, Saturn is begging me to work on it. I’m thinking I’d better listen to him, huh? 😉
What a big, important question and indeed such generous answers from everybody. I’m not sure about the placement of planets as it relates to my life as a worry wart, but am learning that Saturn and Neptune, and my Capricorn moon squared to Scorpio Sun makes my li9fe a tsunami at times. Like many of these posts, worry about health and the condition of others has piled heavily on my plate. About 25 yrs ago I hit a low bottom with anxiety and found the Rooms where the 12-Steps offered me hands and hearts to pull me up. I have no planets in Houses 1-3, so early beginnings the stuff of childhood and neglect lay a pattern of anxiety and abandonment. The Rooms offered me a way through. Yoga and meditation added to my comfort level. I took yoga to the extreme(something that goes with the anxious aunty m.o.) and trained to be a teacher. It worked for awhile, and then I over-did it, and injured myself badly. 14 yrs ago what I had thought was an only in my head anxiety turned out to be, real and multiple chemical sensitivities. The environment and other peoples’ choices WERE AFFECTING me ill. Anxiety and post-traumatic stress is part of that whole package. I am learning to sort the truth from illusion (Saturn challenge Neptune). And connections like Elsa, and other blog families have grounded me in something bigger than fear. One last thing I have recently done for myself and the precious child who had lots of reason to fear, is I had an Akashic Record Reading. A soul reading. This is opening new doors to my whole picture. Fear is not always illusionary. It may be the best internal fire alarm we have, or a memory of a promise made in a life already lived.
It’s a blather, but hope you get the message that a good story takes time, and the story (damn it or bless it) changes. Take care bew.
Throughout my life I have had bouts of fear and anxiety sometimes it is about something, sometimes it is free floating. I too have pluto conjunt uranus in virgo in my 4th house, which is in a yod with my moon in Aquarius and Venus in cancer, sooo……..
I have done a lot I mean A Lot of personal work. I found that after a bit I could become concious of having these crazy thoughts and thought patterns. Once I became aware I was able to distract myself for a bit until the thought crept back in. Over time I have been able to become better at it.
It is still a puzzle to me. I believe it is also genetic, as my mom and brother are similar. It is also possible my worry is a bit learned as well.