Astrology Is For You! (Managing Fear in Astrology)

When I tell people I'm a psychotherapist and an astrologer, if they like astrology, they usually get excited and ask: "So what's happening in the astrology, what should I watch out for?"

Though this is a popular question, I often find myself caught off-guard because my inner response is, "What do you mean? Why would you 'watch out'?"

Many folks are genuinely curious about astrology but feel they do not know much about it so they do not know what to ask. Even further, my sense is that people ask "What should I watch out for?" because the most common exposure they have to astrology is through forecast podcasts or videos where the message explicitly or implicitly communicates, "Watch out for the astrology this week!" or "The astrology this week is the most intense astrology in 50 years, don’t miss it!"

I understand why astrology has become sensationalized. Psychological studies have consistently found that folks are more inclined to watch, listen, or click something that's sensational and fear-based. However, sensationalism unnecessarily taps into a natural human fear response that works against the therapeutic value of astrology.

From a therapeutic and depth psychological perspective, astrology is for connecting with ourselves, with others, and with the flow of life. In my clinical experience as a psychotherapist and astrologer, I've found that astrology podcasts have the potential to be therapeutic when they are conveyed in a form that is emotionally regulated, trauma-informed, and psychological. We can tell this is happening when after listening/watching, we feel: present, grounded, expansive, relaxed, contemplative, curious, inspired, or any other sensations that are supportive, regulating, and affirming to you. These experiences can literally be healing. Psychotherapist Pete Walker wrote in his book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving that self-help podcasts and websites, can provide "significant relational healing" (p. 2).

Astrology (and any symbolic or healing modality) should be:

• empowering

• inspiring

• vitalizing

• growth inducing & invoke psychological transformation

• help you connect more deeply with yourself and others

• socially and politically informed in an effort to identify and heal conscious and unconscious racism, sexism, transphobia, discrimination & marginalization of all kinds

Astrology is for you! It is a psycho-spiritual technology that we have to help us through this human life. Even in cases of hardship and catastrophe, astrology should bring comfort and support by offering:

• validation

• insight

• awareness of alternate possibilities

• reframe of perspectives

• illumination of how one can shift focus or activities to have greater sense of agency

• ideas for psycho-spiritual remediations such as ritual (symbolic acts intended to ethically shift one’s consciousness and current conditions)

Life involves hardship, suffering, and injustice. Life also involves joy, love, and overcoming injustice. Astrology reflects all these things. It's natural and human to fear the unknown; to fear and defend against harm.

Another aspect of what's happening with fear in astrology is that we literalize the symbols (rather than allow them to be symbolic, archetypal, multifaceted in a variety of expressions such as physical, mental, emotional, relational, spiritual, etc.)

Literalizing astrology looks like this: a transit of Saturn to Mars means frustrations and delays, you may get in fights with authority figures. This is not a time to start new things as they will not go the way you want. From astrolibrary.org: "The transit of Saturn square your natal Mars can bring intense struggles and ego conflicts. It may affect your social life and work, making you feel anxious and afraid. This is a trial period to see if you can continue with your goals. Take care of your health and learn to relax."

What is most striking about literalizing astrology is that it involves the term “making you” do or feel things. Literalizing also tends to tell us what to do, or what not to do. There is a sense of reduction and limitation of one’s agency over their life choices.

Symbolizing astrology looks like this: a transit of Saturn to Mars can often signal a time period of intense focused action. This often looks like a focus on strengthening the longevity of your physical body, advocating for your needs and desires with a renewed vitality, developing and strengthening healthy boundaries, realizing that your passions take time and dedication to achieve. This transit can be challenging as it often involves confronting power dynamics, where one has previously over/under committed to what's truly important, and limitations around physical capacity may become emphasized. However, challenges that arise are often opportunities to tend to what currently needs care or modification in our life (whether that is a relationship dynamic or a lifestyle). This transit may involve one or many of these themes and they may intersect with one another. The experience depends upon your current circumstances and psychological relationship to commitments, responsibilities, authenticity, accomplishment, and patience (Saturn) as well as physical vitality, assertiveness, anger, and desire (Mars).

When we symbolize astrology, there is a sense of possibility and openness. The transit illustrates archetypal energies but the expression depends on your life and how you engage with these themes. In symbolic astrology, there may be prescriptions or recommendations but they tend to be psychological and supportive.

I find that transits involve both the emergence of unexpected phenomena (personal and collective unconscious) and our active participation (personal conscious and ego). For example, we can participate with a Saturn-Mars transit by asking:

• What is important in my life and how am I committed to doing something about it?

• Are my commitments energizing? If not, what needs to change long-term?

• What am I excited to grow and develop in my life?

• How can I bring enthusiasm and dedication?

• What is my relationship to power, authority, and self-agency? What wants to transform?

How do we manage fear in astrology?

1.     Acknowledge that fear is a normal human response to the unknown and anything perceived as omnipotent, mystical, esoteric, or divine. When we name fear it becomes more conscious and we feel less possessed by it.

2.     Invoke a symbolic perspective that allows for multiple experiences (physical, mental, emotional, relational, spiritual, etc.)

3.     Remember that astrology is simply reflecting what is: your psyche (mind-body-soul), the psyche of others, local community, the collective psyche, and all that is. This means that astrology is not "doing" anything to you, because it is you. Astrology reflects archetypal energies that are psychic in nature. This means we are a part of the astrology and the astrology is a part of us. If you are the astrology, you can participate with it and co-create with it.

4.     Reflect on what's emerging from you at this time from a psycho-spiritual archetypal view. Simply imagine what may be possible. Write it, draw it, sing it, play it, do something to express what comes to you.

References:

Walker, P. (2025). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Azure Coyote Publishing