I’m writing this article for myself and I am an astrologer but I’m not always an astrologer. Sometimes I am a writer, sometimes a friend, and sometimes I’m just another person. I guess what I’m trying to say…this article is about falling back in love with your astrological practice but it’s also about falling back in love with writing or making art or music or friendship or just being alive. Because it’s not always a given that you are in love with astrology or art or being alive.
I feel that, in writing this, I am exposing from within myself a tremendous secret. To fall back in love with what I do means that, sometimes, I fall out of love with it.
Of course I do. Of course I fall out of love with astrology sometimes. I even fall out of love with being alive sometimes. And then I find a way back.
Often, the reason we fall out of love with something that we want to do is overwhelm. You see, to do something that you want to do means that you care about it. You care about your clients, about your integrity, and your craft. You care about whether you are a good writer or not despite all attempts to make yourself and other people believe the contrary, knowing that it is much more palatable to be an artist who doesn’t care about the inane sentimentalism of meaning something to other people. You care about whether you are a good astrologer or not when you meet with people despite you knowing that, to really be with someone in that moment, that you must put that away not just for your client’s sake but for your own as well.
I think that this is one of the hardest and most exhausting things about being an astrologer—this debilitating and haunting feeling that you must be a good astrologer if you are to be one. It must haunt artists too and people in general. We must all feel, to some extent, this feeling of wanting to be a good person.
A good person for what and to whom? That is a bit harder to answer, no? A good person to what end? We feel this even when we know and understand that trying desperately to be good will not solve our problems and nor will it make our lives any better. Trying desperately to be a good astrologer will not make a session or our practice better.
I wish it did. This intention, though oftentimes it’s not true intention. Oftentimes this desperate need to be good is a mix of social anxiety, fear of shame, fear of fear, and a remembrance of things that have already passed.
This is the hardest thing about practicing astrology, this need to be good, because it is so vulnerable. It is probably the most vulnerable part about being an artist. You train yourself, doing your counseling trainings to find best practices and understanding so that you are able to confront your own feelings about your practice and then, still, it spooks you when a client communicates that their expectations of you are high. It makes you flounder in your gut when someone praises you or gives you a suggestion. You feel it when your rate is challenged and when you try to figure out how you’re going to make a project monetarily sustainable. You feel it when you share your writing or work online when people enjoy it and when it is ignored.
It’s this question: am I good enough?
That is the exhausting part about doing something you care about, in my opinion. It’s not the tedium of finding your own routine. It’s not the hours of practice. It’s the vulnerability of knowing that other people can see that you are doing something that you want to be good at or through.
Somehow, this question became especially loud as we entered our current pandemic. Somehow, it’s when we enter crisis that we feel we must become super-good. Or, maybe, that’s just me.
Of course, there are ways to confront this. If many of us spend so much time with this debilitating question in our heads, then all of us together have figured out some pretty necessary ways to navigate this question. Sometimes we get louder about what we are confidently good at. Sometimes, we let ourselves stay with the anger that results from feeling this question impact us. Sometimes, we let ourselves tell a client when they have done or said something meaningful to us, registering that the practice is a collaboration of something that astrologer and client builds together. Sometimes, we ask a client if what we’re doing is okay and break out of the stream of the session to do work on the session itself. I’m not always ready for that level of vulnerability. It doesn’t have to do with the client. It has to do with me.
Why am I talking about this question of being good enough or not when I’m talking about falling back in love and out of love with your practice? Because this question of being good enough or not—this is a question that guards us from caring about what we do.
It is a defensive question. It is a question that gives us a reason to not do what we want or care about. It is sometimes a very good question. Am I good enough (practiced enough, experienced enough, invested enough) to do this thing? This is a good question. Sometimes the answer is no and it’s important to understand why when the answer is no.
The question of whether we are good enough for what we do often comes out when we are exhausted by what we do. It’s sometimes also a burnout question. This is because it gives us an end and a no. It allows us to refuse something in a way that feels responsible. “No, I’m not good enough.” Doesn’t that feel responsible and rational? I’m not good enough for this so I won’t do it. I’m not a good enough astrologer yet so I can’t take what I do seriously. I’m not a good enough artist to experiment so I’ll just stick with what I know.
Do you see now why this question of being good enough is often a defensive question?
Sometimes, it’s not useful to answer this question on its terms. Sometimes, it’s more useful for you to peer your head around this question and to ask: “what is making it so necessary for me to feel a sense of defense between myself and my practice right now?”
Of course, the defensive question of needing to be good enough to do something is not the only way a defense might show up. Sometimes, it’s the feeling of wanting to escape yourself. Other times, it’s anger and irritation when you are asked to do something. Many many times, it’s physical tiredness that won’t go away no matter how much you rest. Sleepiness and having bones that are too tired for something is a very valuable defense mechanism.
Sometimes, the reason for the need for defense and distance is because you’re not sure if you can trust your own boundaries. You’re not sure that you can trust your own boundaries between clients, workshop participants, or people who see your art or writing. Sometimes, the reason for the need to defend yourself is because you’re not sure of your impact. You’re not sure whether or not the future is something you’re willing to uplift anymore. You’re not sure whether you mean anything to the world around you, unsure of whether you are powerful. You’re unsure about whether the future will disappoint you. You’re unsure about whether you will disappoint yourself.
Falling back in love with your practice can be about resourcing all of the ways that you love your practice regardless of whether or not you are good enough, whether or not you are angry sometimes, and tired other times. There’s that fascination with people, that beautiful feeling of seeing another person reach epiphany, and there’s the endless curiosity that deepening a relationship with someone makes you feel about that person but also about yourself. There’s learning. There’s the childlike satisfaction of mixing colors, of feeling a gel pen slide on a piece of paper. Often, when I don’t want to write I am called back by nothing but the sensation of a pen moving across paper.
Falling back in love with your practice is about all of these things with the defenses that remind you of your distance from what you care about. It is important to have defenses around what you care about. We know this as traumatized people and as people who survived childhood. Not being sure of whether you are good enough, being worn and being frustrated doesn’t take away the satisfaction of learning and of pens sliding against paper and of red paint being so red. Rather, they can coexist together.
These defenses matter because, without them, you could not truly care. You could not truly care about making art or doing astrology or about your clients if you did not also have some way to also protect yourself from this caring. This caring is very overwhelming, you see. Your body knows it even if you do not need to know it all of the time. That’s why you have defense.
Falling back in love with your practice is something that just happens. It sometimes happens because you put a lot of effort into it, challenging your assumptions about your lack of power and safety. It sometimes happens because you finally give yourself time off. It sometimes happens randomly, someone brings to you a random object or ask that pushes you down a hole of exploration and excitement.
I have learned that this feeling of falling back in love with something is not predictable but also that it will happen when you need it most. This is the spirit that enters you when you think you can’t keep going. It’s the feeling of having too many grocery bags, dreading the walk home, but then noticing that the sky is deep and blue and full of awe just in the middle of that long, hot walk you’re too tired to take.
This spirit that enters you—it exists. It will enter you of its own fancy and, when it does, you will do its bidding. This spirit doesn’t care about whether you are good enough. It doesn’t even care about your anger and your sleepiness. It understands that you may have these things but that your guarding of yourself will never be the thing that keeps you going.
