We step into Virgo season today and the sun enters Gate 59. Vulnerability in the presence of the ever so critical nature of Virgo is something we are here to master. Of course, Virgo can be equally nurturing and of service, so if we can tap into this side of her, we might make it out ok.
The Barrier
In true Virgo fashion (I'm a Virgo rising), I'm going to compartmentalize this a little bit. How foggy/dirty/filtered is the window with which you see yourself and the world around you? We are going to lean into the energy of transparency and all the ways in which we are sometimes blocked from our truth due to a fear of being vulnerable.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is a barrier between our consciousness and subconscious. The barrier is in place to keep our safety and defense mechanisms operating smoothing, but what happens when those mechanisms no longer serve the path you're on? It's going to be extremely important to peer into the subconscious narrative and be able to discern what's working for you and what isn't.
This requires both an ability to be vulnerable, and transparent with yourself about what it is you're still operating from. Why do you make the decisions you make? Why do you think what you think? Where does that all come from?
We're only here for a few days, directly affected by this energy, but getting to chip away at it is going to make a huge difference no matter how much you're able to grasp. Our only job during this time is to observe ourselves and let the subconscious narrative reveal itself. No pressure, just allow. There are going to be so many belief systems and core operating functions coming up for review, all you need to do is feel into whether they are working for you still or not.
If you'd like to learn more about your subconscious narrative, I have a course for that! Click the image below to explore this option:
Online, Independent Study
The Art of Vulnerability
Start with the self. Which, I know, can sometimes be harder than being open, honest, or transparent with someone else. But this is the key to our expansion.
You will eventually feel comfortable enough to let your true authentic expression free, but letting yourself find safety in the intimacy of leaning into you, will be life changing. Get naked with yourself, the energy is ripe for it. Even though it may bring out the critical nature of your protective ego (or the inner critic that was taught to correct you before someone else could), the energy will make the thoughts that are out of alignment that much more obvious.
Ways in which you can be vulnerable with yourself:
face the ugliest parts of yourself (you were probably taught that they were ugly or undesirable but maybe they aren't)
take responsibility for what's yours and let go of the rest (often we fear taking responsibility for things we've done because we fear rejection or being criminalized)
find different ways to accept yourself, physically, emotionally, mentally
feel into what it feels like to be closed off and what makes you feel closed off (it's a natural defense mechanism when we are feeling unsafe)
take an inventory of all the good and bad you see in yourself and take the time to determine if they are really good or really bad and why? who taught you that they were good and bad things and do those beliefs still hold true with all you've learned?
feel into what it feels like when your heart is open, and lean into what makes you feel this way (incorporate more of this - whatever it is that opens you up - into your life)
Some of these things will be hard to stomach if you're out of practice, but treat yourself like you would a kid learning it's safe to be open and honest for the first time. Just as you would show them it's safe, remind yourself how safe you are to be transparent. It's you with you, you control the narrative here.
A Sense of True External Intimacy
This energy is brilliant in it's ability to break down the barriers between others and open both people up to a form of union or truth.
This doesn't always have to romantic but with Venus in retrograde and the South Node in Libra, you can bet it's breaking down any form of illusion or barrier to the truth in a relationship. It can bring people to a place of undeniable knowing of whether or not a relationship is sustainable or not.
With romantic relationships that are built on false foundations like duty and obligation and expectation and old belief systems, this is about the truth of whether or not they can keep living the way they are. For some it's the falsehoods they have lived with in order to make due that are coming to light. For some it's the illusion of the sexual aspect of their relationship. For all, it's the unavoidable truth and the legitimacy of relationship. You cannot fake it until you make it in this energy. And let's face it, people deserve to know what it's like to be in a healthy, cohesive, equality based relationship. So anything that isn't that needs to come up for clarity. And through this clarity there is an undeniable acceptance, and through the acceptance, a parting.
This energy exposes the mask and the Band-Aid for what it is. And where distractions and manipulations used to have power, they simply don't.
Now if it's a healthy relationship between two people who just have trauma and need to figure their stuff out, this energy lends them the ability to communicate and express in a way that allows them to heal and progress together.
With friendships and family relationships there will be an aspect of recognizing that there are people who are going to evolve with you, and people who aren't. But in this we see the ability to accept people for who they are and where they are at. For some this will mean knowing that maybe you won't want to spend time with those people, but not out of withholding, just out of realizing it's not a healthy thing to keep being in the presence of someone whose energy is at odds with yours. For others, it may bring you closer or relieve any need for either of you to be something you're not in order to co-exist. I see this a lot with family, we hold unrealistic expectations for them because their behavior makes us feel unsafe and truly unable to connect to them in an intimate, genuine way, but when we release the expectation because we've accepted who they are, we let go of the resistance and flow.
Of course, that can't really come full circle until you've learned to fully accept yourself and know that no matter how you're received you're worthy of it.
If you'd like to understand more about how the energy flows between you and the important people in your life, click on the image to explore my relationship sessions:
friends/family/children/romantic
The Victim of Relationships
Let's take a quick dip into the shadow aspects of this energy and how it shows up for us when we fear being vulnerable. Whether you end up emulating this from a place of unconsciousness or witness it in others, I feel it's important to understand so we can shift it and move into a place of compassion.
We learn how to interact with others through our earliest relationships in life. This is family and close family members. So understand how you learned to navigate the social parameters and intimacy of a relationship will all tie back to these pivotal points in your life.
The unserving, unconscious energy is manifest through a form of dishonesty or the need to reject the transparency in oneself or someone else:
(these are all done with the frame of you but can be transferred to something you witness someone doing)
blaming someone else for how you feel
blaming someone else for not feeling safe enough to be honest
needing to lie out of fear of what will happen if someone knows the truth
fearing you'll be rejected for how you feel or for what you say
refusing to be vulnerable because it may open you up to criticism
refusing to be honest with yourself because it may open you up in a way that you'll feel out of control
minimizing your experience because if you feel it too much it will make you weak or it will become a slippery slope you can't get out of
projecting your feelings onto someone else as if they are responsible for how you feel
needing to get involved in someone's business or needing to fix them as a means of avoiding what's going on within you
not respecting someone's boundaries
fixating on other people or someone else as if that is going to make you feel closer to them
experience someone else's rejection because they can't handle intimacy
So what do we do when we experience these things?
We lean into acceptance. We lean into being honest with ourselves. We lean in.
The shadow of this energy comes from a place of rejection, either where we were taught to reject ourselves (because we were rejected for being vulnerable), so the only real way to move beyond this is to stop rejecting yourself. Stop rejecting yourself in the most intimate of ways.
It's not going to be a one size fits all scenario, each and every one of you have a sacred path you're on. And it's not going to be something you master over night.
I've always been extremely self aware (even before I woke up and started my journey of healing (much thanks to my upbringing where I never felt safe to be me and always had to correct to be loved and accepted)) and I'm still moving through the layers of separation within myself. But I noticed that the more I understood about how I work on the inside, the more empowered I felt to do something about it. I shifted from trying to make the external world accept me and started making my internal world work for me. It's the only part of our life we actually have any semblance of control over anyways.
I hope this has helped! Lots and lots of love to you all.
xo Candice