{"id":22186,"date":"2010-02-05T13:50:12","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T18:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=22186"},"modified":"2010-02-05T17:01:18","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T22:01:18","slug":"sunnessus-what-were-scared-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/sunnessus-what-were-scared-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Sun\/Nessus: What we’re scared of"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mykonos woman. Photo by Eric Francis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today and through the weekend, the Sun is conjunct Nessus, a planet that addresses two themes apropos of sexuality: one is potentially inappropriate sexual contact; and the other is the psychological level of abuse often perpetuated on us by families and society. The two are related and are often one and the same thing.<\/p>\n

This image is striking for its ironic contrast: the idealized woman and the real woman, side by side on a spring afternoon. Few would call this a form of abuse, but we all feel the results: as this odd tension in the air. Women are conditioned to constantly live up to something; then they project this onto men, who in my experience are far more forgiving of women’s supposed imperfections than most women are themselves.<\/p>\n

And they project it onto one another. One result is a highly competitive (catty, is the word) environment among women comparing themselves to advertising and then to one another, in an effort to size up who has the most or the fewest imperfections and who is thus more or less worthy of love.<\/p>\n

This crisis is set in a larger environment of sexual secrecy, and the relationship between feeling inadequate and the need to keep secrets may not be obvious at first — but it’s there.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In my many hours and years of exploring the inner sexual landscape, I have often wondered what it is that we are so afraid of; why it is that we don’t want to be known, and thus why nearly any reference to or experience of sex can be turned to a scandal.<\/p>\n

Part of the answer can be found in how we feel about ourselves. That’s the thing that we don’t want to be known; the thing we’re terrified will get out. It’s less about not feeling perfect and more about judging ourselves for this feeling. Perhaps you would not be amazed, because you know what I’m talking about: but the misgivings people feel about themselves are stunning, and painful. Many, many people run a constant litany of self-judgment and ramped up sense of inadequacy.<\/p>\n

The environment that sustains this would simply not be possible if we learned how to regard ourselves with something besides the same judgment we fear from others, and then created an environment that supported our nascent steps on the path of self-acceptance.<\/p>\n

It’s exhausting to live in an environment of constant fear of judgment. For one thing, those who dare to come out of self-judgment for a moment are often subject to immediate persecution for not adhering to the cultural standard. For another, it is a severe drain on all our emotional resources to be surrounded by people who for the most part invest their psychic energy hating themselves, however subtly, rather approving of themselves and their desire to express and share who they are.<\/p>\n

We often participate in the games that lead to this, without counting the cost; yet it’s time to count the potential of a world in which we gave ourselves and one another some room to feel and to be. It’s going to start with creating a culture of selflove.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today and through the weekend, the Sun is conjunct Nessus, a planet that addresses two themes apropos of sexuality: one is potentially inappropriate sexual contact; and the other is the psychological level of abuse often perpetuated on us by families and society. The two are related and are often one and the same thing. This … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}